An emerging India through Pakistani Eyes - threats and counter strategies

[FalconSlayers]

India’s rise

There was a time when Pakistan’s per capita income was better than in regional countries, including India
Kamran Yousaf
September 11, 2023

The writer is a senior foreign affairs correspondent at The Express Tribune

There was a time when Pakistan’s per capita income was better than in regional countries, including India. It had more clout in major international forums. The Organization of Islamic Countries, though headed by Saudi Arabia, was in reality run by Pakistan. World leaders never dared to ignore Pakistan whenever they undertook visits to South Asia. They would always include Pakistan in their itinerary when they travelled to India. Such was the country’s influence that even when Pakistan was under sanctions in the wake of the 1999 military coup, US President Bill Clinton made a stopover in Islamabad when he visited India in 2000. Clinton might not have shaken hands with a military dictator on camera and stayed there for a few hours but the fact remained he did visit Pakistan.

After the 9/11 attacks, the US used its influence to broker a deal between Pakistan and India on truce along the Line of Control (LoC) in the disputed Kashmir region. The idea behind the move was to make sure Pakistan solely focused on its western frontier to deal with the blowback of the US invasion of Afghanistan. Being the frontline state in the US-led War on Terror, Pakistan continued to receive funding from Washington and its allies. International financial institutions were generous in doling out loans to Pakistan with little or no conditions.

While we developed the habit of surviving on dole-outs from outside, India began correcting its economic fundamentals. Pakistan did not realise that with the rise of China that poses a direct threat to the US hegemony, the world would soon undergo a geostrategic shift. With new geostrategic realities, India has become vitally important for the US and its Western allies. Not only that India’s growing economic footprint at the global stage has compelled the West to do business with New Delhi but Pakistan’s long-term friends in the Arab world also joined hands with New Delhi. The growing Indian clout on the global stage was on full display when it hosted the G20 summit in New Delhi last weekend. It was the first summit of G20 in South Asia since the group was founded to deal with economic challenges.

The G20, which now can be called G21 with the inclusion of the African Union as its full member, represents 86% of the global GDP and two-thirds of the global trade. India has come a long way from being mocked as ‘snake charmers’ to be recognised as one of the global powers. Such was the turn of events that when British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak landed at New Delhi for the G20 summit, BBC presenter aptly put it — Britain is now a junior partner of India. One could argue that despite many achievements under Modi, India has regressed in terms of freedom of religion and human rights issues. There was criticism within India of how the Modi government erected temporary cloth walls in front of many slums to hide them from view and, in some cases, residents had been relocated. Beggars had been evicted from the heart of the city and street dogs were caged.

This may provide some stuff to Pakistani commentators to launch a broadside against India. However, this cannot change the reality that India is on the rise despite all its ills while Pakistan has no way out of the current impasse. With a population of over 240 million, Pakistan is not a small country by any means. The Pakistani delegation would have been sharing the table with G20 delegates in New Delhi had the country followed prudent policies. It’s time for introspection!



Published in The Express Tribune, September 11th, 2023.

India’s rise | The Express Tribune

There was a time when Pakistan’s per capita income was better than in regional countries, including India

tribune.com.pk

 

[FalconSlayers]

India is now a world leader in science and technology
AI is creating the base on which the world would build its economic structures and social systems


Shahid Javed Burki
September 11, 2023

The writer is a former caretaker finance minister and served as vice-president at the World Bank





Artificial intelligence, or AI, is creating the base on which the world would build its economic structures and social systems. This will be done by both public and private sectors by adopting the new technology. The initial corporate excitement about what is called generative AI has been replaced with caution. This software was seen as an exciting new wave of technology but companies in almost all industries are thinking through the economics as well as the dangers it poses to privacy. Widespread use of the new technology could be years into the future before it could boost productive activities and add trillions of dollars to the global economy.

According to Steve Lohr assessing the situation for The New York Times, “the lesson of history, from steam power to the internet, is that there is a lengthy lag between the arrival of a new technology and its broad adoption — which is what transforms industries and helps fuel the economy. In the 1990s, there were confident predictions that the internet and the web would disrupt the retailing, advertising and media industries. Those predictions proved to be true, but that was more than a decade later, well after the dot-com bubble had burst.”

The adoption of the new technology was done relatively quickly by the youth. My personal example is suggestive. My wife and I have lived in the United States now for more than half a century. Our two children were born here. They don’t go to the stores to buy the things they need; practically everything is bought online and delivered at home. Fueling the development was a flood of money. “We are going to see a similar gold rush this time,” says Vijay Sankaran, chief technology officer of Johnson Controls, a large supplier of building equipment, software and services. “We’ll see a lot of learning.” As Sankaran’s name suggests, he is of Indian origin. Those who were educated in India but couldn’t find the jobs they were looking for in their country moved to the United States and are now dominant players in the technology field. People in the United States who are of Pakistani origin have been left far behind. The Pakistani diaspora is fairly large (more than 600,000), but the average income of the group is half that of the Indian-American average. The new President of the World Bank is a Sikh of Indian origin who had made a name for himself by making the MasterCard, into a large and highly automated enterprise.

I will go back into history a bit to indicate why Pakistan has fallen so far behind India. After leaving the presidency in 1969 when he was replaced by another military president, Field Marshall Ayub Khan moved into a house he had built for his retirement in the hills that overlooked the new city of Islamabad. I went to see him there in January 1974. That was a few months before he died of a massive heart attack. I had asked for an interview with him as I was then at Harvard University working on my first book on Pakistan. Much of the writing was done while I was closely associated with the Development Advisory Service (DAS) that Harvard had founded to provide development expertise to the developing world. The DAS had sent a bunch of economists to work in Pakistan’s Planning Commission then located in Karachi and in the two Provincial Planning Departments in Lahore and Dhaka, respectively the capitals of West and East Pakistan. Several of them wrote books detailing their experience in Pakistan, lauding what they called the “Pakistani growth model”. Most notable of these accounts was by Gustav F Papanek whose book, Pakistan’s Development: Social Goals and Private Incentives, along with some other written by his Harvard colleagues, suggested that Pakistan’s development experience should be followed by the states that had been decolonised by European powers and were now searching for ways to build their economies.


Ayub Khan was waiting for me in the pleasantly warm January sun reading from a book. He greeted me warmly and questioned me about the line I was taking in the book he knew I was then working on. “How have you covered my eleven-year period as the head of the Pakistani state?” he asked. I told him that I was treating his period as the golden period of Pakistan’s then 27-year-old history. “But Zulfi doesn’t think so,” he said, referring to the statements Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was then making after leaving Ayub Khan’s government. He had served in two cabinet positions in the Ayub Khan government — first in charge of Commerce and then of Foreign Affairs. I said that after assuming the presidency in December 1971 after the emergence of East Pakistan as the independent state of Bangladesh, he had destroyed most of the good Ayub Khan had done to the country’s economy. I then asked him what, in his view, was his contribution to the Pakistani growth model which the world development experts at that time were so excited about. His answer surprised me:

“I was not a dictator. I did what I was advised to do by experts working in the fields about which I knew little. I needed good and sound advice and for that I built the Planning Commission. But Pakistan didn’t have well-trained and experienced economists to work in the Commission and in the Planning Departments of the two provinces. President John Kennedy sent a team of experts that first visited me in Karachi and then went on to New Delhi to meet with the Indian Prime Minister Nehru. The Americans were keen to help the two countries develop their economies to counter the model the Soviet Union then was selling the world. My request was to strengthen the planning apparatus by positioning American economists in Karachi, Lahore and Dhaka. Nehru asked for the Americans to set up institutions of science and technology patterned after the famed Massachusetts of Institute of Technology, the MIT. I wish I had asked for that as well. It doesn’t take long to train economists, but technology institutions are more difficult to develop.”

It was apparent even then for Ayub Khan to see that India was laying the foundation for becoming one of the leaders in the world in science and technology. That has happened. A recent example of India’s technological advance is the robot it landed on the Moon.



Published in The Express Tribune, September 11th, 2023.

India is now a world leader in science and technology | The Express Tribune

AI is creating the base on which the world would build its economic structures and social systems

tribune.com.pk

 

[FalconSlayers]

India on the global stage
By S Qaisar Shareef
September 14, 2023
Fresh from the success of the moon landing, India hosted world leaders at the G20 summit in its capital Delhi on September 9-10. Meticulously prepared and lavishly hosted by the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it was an important event in what will effectively serve as an important milestone in his reelection campaign.

While there have been many accolades as well as criticisms of the high-profile event, it has placed India in a prominent role as a global leader in an important relationship with the US and the West. And, he has achieved this without compromising his ties with Russia, whose leader Vladimir Putin continues to be reviled in the West for his invasion of Ukraine, where attacks against civilians and military targets continue unabated.

Domestically, Mr Modi continues to be one of the most popular leaders anywhere in the world with an approval rating among his compatriots close to 75 per cent. Just as he has deftly played his cards in cultivating a strong relationship with the US – positioning India as a bulwark against China’s rise – he has shown to Mr Putin that he can deflect the sharpest criticism of Russia that could have come out of such a gathering of global leaders.

Even US President Biden was forced to accept watered down language in the final G20 communique avoiding calling the invasion of Ukraine, for what it is, an invasion of a sovereign country. Instead, the communique referred to it as “the war in Ukraine”, ending with platitudes and hopes for peace.

Through it all Mr Modi has managed to avoid giving any concessions that may support US goals in Ukraine. India continues to be a large buyer of Russian oil, and its defense collaboration with Russia continues. One can only wonder how the US taxpayer who is supporting Ukraine to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars may feel about its government’s coziness with a regime that continues to support Russia through trade.

Another achievement of Mr Modi has been to ensure India’s treatment of its religious and ethnic minorities was not a topic of discussion among Western powers. Nor has the muzzling of independent media in India been brought up at the G20 summit.

Arundhati Roy and Rana Ayyub are two courageous Indian journalists who have spoken out about such atrocities. In the words of Ms Roy, posted on the Aljazeera network, “The state of India is precarious, the constitution set aside. The beauty of India is being reduced to something small, snarly and violent.” Ms Ayyub for her part has done much to shine a light on the atrocities being committed against the 200-million-strong Muslim minority in India. For her brave reporting the National Press Club in Washington awarded Ms Ayyub the John Aubuchon Award for Press Freedom.

In addition to placing India in a close relationship with the US, Mr Modi has also managed to position himself as the de facto leader of the ‘Global South’. The inclusion of the African Union in the G20 is being credited to efforts by Mr Modi, a major achievement for any leader of a developing country.

Joe Biden’s Asia coordinator Kurt Campbell has called the US-India relationship “the most important relationship on the planet”. With these rapidly evolving alliances, one can start to see shades of geopolitics that existed during the US-Soviet cold war of the 70s and 80s when undemocratic regimes were supported or at least tolerated by the US as they were seen as a bulwark against communism.

There were also agenda items in the G20 gathering that were explicitly designed to counter inroads by China through their Belt and Road Initiative. The proposed energy and transport link between India and Europe, including the Gulf States, Saudi Arabia, Israel and others at least at first blush appears to be an awkward attempt to counter infrastructure projects supported by China. While the BRI programme has received mixed reviews, we will have to wait, perhaps for years, to see exactly how the newly announced energy and transport link materializes.

In conclusion one must say India under the leadership of Mr Modi has managed to reshuffle the deck of global relationships. He has placed himself and his country in a prominent global role, while avoiding any criticism of its most egregious anti-democratic excesses.

The writer is a freelance contributor based in Washington DC. Website: www.sqshareef.com/blogs

India on the global stage

Fresh from the success of the moon landing, India hosted world leaders at the G20 summit in its capital Delhi on September 9-10. Meticulously prepared and lavishly hosted by the Indian Prime...

www.thenews.com.pk

 

[Indx TechStyle]

"We wuz kingz" background is being written for 2040s LOL.

Pakistan had more clout in major international forums.

The Organization of Islamic Countries, though headed by Saudi Arabia, was in reality run by Pakistan.

World leaders never dared to ignore Pakistan whenever they undertook visits to South Asia.

Pakistan in their itinerary when they travelled to India. Such was the country’s influence that even when Pakistan was under sanctions

Blaming their former bread-butter providers as usuals.

After the 9/11 attacks, the US used its influence to broker a deal between Pakistan and India on truce along the Line of Control (LoC) in the disputed Kashmir region. The idea behind the move was to make sure Pakistan solely focused on its western frontier to deal with the blowback of the US invasion of Afghanistan.

It was the first summit of G20 in South Asia since the group was founded to deal with economic challenges.

As usual larps and coping of "India is growing since west is helping it against China"

While there have been many accolades as well as criticisms of the high-profile event, it has placed India in a prominent role as a global leader in an important relationship with the US and the West.

Another achievement of Mr Modi has been to ensure India’s treatment of its religious and ethnic minorities was not a topic of discussion among Western powers. Nor has the muzzling of independent media in India been brought up at the G20 summit.

Arundhati Roy and Rana Ayyub are two courageous Indian journalists who have spoken out about such atrocities.

 

[The Juggernaut]

Arundhati Roy and Rana Ayyub are two courageous Indian journalists who have spoken out about such atrocities.

 

[Indx TechStyle]

What’s in a name?

The writer is an author.
PAKISTAN holds an unusual pack of cards. It has no kings. They have been either deposed, exiled, assassinated, or hanged. It has no queens. One potential qualifier Miss Fatima Jinnah was defeated by an armed dictator using rigged polls in 1965, and the second Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was murdered on another’s watch in 2007.

It has no jacks. They have either lost heart, swipe clubs against their opponents, or use spades to dig each other’s graves. None sparkle like diamonds. All that Pakistan has left is a full deck of jokers.

Each day, we Pakistanis wake up to a false dawn, hoping that each new today will have forgotten yesterday. Each night, we sleep and dream of a utopia where gas and electricity flow like milk and honey.

Were astrologers right when they advised Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to celebrate independence on Aug 15 rather than the unlucky 14th? Why did Nehru prefer the name India to the archaic Bharat or emotive Hindustan?

Each day, we wake up to a false dawn.

Those who wrote the Indian constitution gave their countrymen both the anglicised India and Sanskritised Bharat. Nehru preferred the former, and not because it could increase the sales of his book The Discovery of India.

His feel for the flow of history was too strong. He saw the vast subcontinent — from the top of the northern Himalayas to the southern tip of Cape Comorin — as a contiguous cultural, ethnic, spiritual whole. Not, as the British had done, as a colony consisting of princely states marooned in a sea of vanquished territories. Nor, as his successor PM Modi sees their country, through saffron-tinted lenses.

PM Modi has already demonstrated his electoral authority by redefining borders, revoking Article 370 and appropriating the contested area of Jammu & Kashmir. He now wants Nehru’s secular India to convert into BJP’s Hindutva Bharat, and Gandhi’s charkha or spinning wheel to be replaced by Shiva’s trishul or trident.

PM Modi’s timing could not have been better. He had an audience of world leaders in New Delhi at the G20 summit. Two leaders to whom this change of name will make no difference are deliberate absentees from the G20 conclave: China’s Xi Jinping and Russia’s Vladimir Putin. To them, India by any other name still smells of regional hegemony.

Once before New Delhi was propelled into such prominence. In 1982, Mrs Indira Gandhi hosted the Asian Games. She commissioned a talented young designer called Rajeev Sethi to refurbish the tired city. He began with the airport where he hung cylindrical cloth tubes stamped with vivid colours drawn from a Rajasthani palette. India’s welcome swung gaily above the heads of arriving visitors.

Outside, they were surprised to drive along four-lane highways rather than having to compete, as ambassador J.K. Galbraith put it, with 5,000 years of transport.

Seventy-six years later, while India/ Bharat is oscillating between names, we in Pakistan are still trying to achieve a cohesive identity and secure our place in the comity of nations.

We stood on the doorstep of BRICS and watched Ethiopia slip past us through the door. We peered over the fence like some inquisitive neighbour while New Delhi celebrated its success at the G20 summit by admitting the 55 member states of the African Union (including Ethiopia) into its fold.

If we are honest with ourselves, we would accept that no one is genuinely fond of us. Who would befriend an importuning beggar whose survival depends on handouts?

Applying the maxim ‘jam yesterday, jam tomorrow, but no jam today’, yesterday, the Saudis, the UAE and China shored up our forex reserves with billions of dollars as deposits that cannot be spent and will have to be returned. We are assured that tomorrow, friendly Arab countries will commit $100 billion to revivify our economy. Meanwhile today, an insecure interim government tries to convince lenders that we are still a bankable bet.

Without wishing to dilute the nation’s optimism, would any country (however cash-heavy) be prepared to lend endlessly to an impecunious bankrupt, whose problems are painfully short-term and their solutions even more painfully long-term, but refuses to tackle either?

Political parties demand elections, whenever. The PPP is ready and wants them within 90 days. Others prefer a longer gestation period. How can they assure voters, though, that the next parliament will be better than its predecessors? Or will it be the same rancid water poured in new bottles?

Thousands of our educated and skilled citizens are not waiting for the next elections to cast their votes. They are voting with their feet, by migrating to whichever country will admit them — even Ethiopia.

Our bankruptcy is not only fiscal. It is intellectual. We have ‘an expenditure of words without an income of ideas’.

 

[Hari Sud]

What’s in a name?

The writer is an author.
PAKISTAN holds an unusual pack of cards. It has no kings. They have been either deposed, exiled, assassinated, or hanged. It has no queens. One potential qualifier Miss Fatima Jinnah was defeated by an armed dictator using rigged polls in 1965, and the second Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto was murdered on another’s watch in 2007.
[/QUOTE

Thank you for a lesson on Pakistan’s very existence. It is sad that a country with best possible land resources, plenty of water from 5 rivers is so low economically, mentally, and intellectually etc. Blame it on the Army, who consumes bulk of the resources in the name of Kashmir and confronting India. Well confronting India is getting more and more of a dream for them. Atom bombs are self destructive. The return salvo will send Pakistan back to Stone Age. Hence, impractical.

What is practical is to drop the Kashmir propaganda, reduce the Army to a reasonable size and get on the task of economic progress.

 

[The Juggernaut]

Were astrologers right when they advised Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru to celebrate independence on Aug 15 rather than the unlucky 14th? Why did Nehru prefer the name India to the archaic Bharat or emotive Hindustan?

They are cursing the time they were made.

 

[Swesh]

Why Pakistan fails in space

That India succeeds while Pakistan fails in space owes to the different quality of their education.

www.dawn.com

THANKS to a legion of excellent scientists and engineers trained in Indian universities, India is shooting for the stars.

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Here ‘stars’ is a metaphor for much else: astrophysics, computers, chemical technology, pharmaceuticals, heavy engineering, process management, etc. On this side, led by blind men, Pakistan is heading for the caves. Its space programme from the 1960s has folded up; there’s not even a plan for the future.


Our universities are a disgrace. These cesspools of intrigue and corruption breed flies, not thinking minds. That every Pakistani institution has been corrupted isn’t breaking news but for sheer depravity, unethicality and incompetence our senior academics — meaning vice chancellors, deans, chairpersons, and professors — take the cake.

I sincerely apologise to the 10 per cent who are honourable persons; this article is not directed towards them. But the rest outdo our politicians, generals, judges, shopkeepers and milkmen.

Is the system so truly broken, so hopelessly dystopic? Let the reader decide after seeing the everyday, real-life examples below. Each has been verified for authenticity. I have mercilessly trashed many which were brought to my attention within the last one year because, though possibly genuine, my informants did not include enough detailed evidence.

One: X and Y are brothers. X became ‘Dr X’ after submitting a shoddy piece of research to the department of chemistry of a local university. Some years later, the younger Y wangled a scholarship and applied to a cow college in the American Midwest. There, no foreign applicant with two legs is ever rejected — nor is any thesis — for those who can pay.

That India succeeds while Pakistan fails in space owes to the different quality of their education.

Fortunately for Y, having Big Brother X’s thesis in hand spared him the sweat and toil of research. Changing the title page, shuffling subtitles, throwing in a dash from here and a smidgen from there, by the grace of God Y became ‘Dr Y’ with a doctorate in materials science and engineering. The story gets even better: today both brothers are vice chancellors of public universities under HEC’s jurisdiction. Maybe, one of them will someday rise to HEC chairman.

Two: Z was mediocre during school days and couldn’t make it to engineering or medical college. Like many other less successful students, he is a Bachelor’s in physics and eventually became ‘Dr Z’. Thereafter he became assistant professor at a university in Lahore. In due course, he applied for promotion to the next higher grade for which he had to submit his teaching portfolio, including course examination papers, to some committee.

I chanced upon the final exam paper set by Dr Z for his introductory physics class. It
left me perplexed. Downloaded from the internet, some questions were beyond wrong — they were bizarre. Example: Why is cross price elasticity of demand important? This PhD in physics did not know the question actually belongs to economics! He had set new standards of idiocy but the assessment committee, as always, was generous. Dr Z now flaunts his new credentials as ‘HEC tenured associate Prof Z’.

Three: W hails from a certain mountainous area where scholarship is little known or admired but power and guns are highly respected. In time W became Dr W and then Prof W. He rose yet further to dean and VC of a university in the area. This entitled him to what every Pakistani VC cherishes most — an official Land Cruiser and armed security staff.

Then along came a problem: the university’s faculty accused the VC of kickbacks and corruption in awarding building contracts, making spurious appointments to various faculty and staff positions, etc. In a fit of anger, the VC, accompanied by his armed guards, strode into a group of protesters and hurled vile abuse.

Thereafter 80 teachers signed a petition to the province’s chief minister stating he had threatened to shoot them and added a supportive video. They asked for his removal but no action followed and he completed his tenure. He is presently shortlisted by HEC for the post of VC for other universities.

Four: Dr X and Dr Y are husband and wife in different academic fields but teach in the same city. To fulfil HEC criteria for annual increments and promotion, both need to publish a certain number of research papers yearly. Of course, even junk papers need effort and so normally one university professor scours the internet and copy-pastes, perhaps cooks up suitable data, finds references, and then puts it all together. Co-authorship can be sold for a price but is gratis for friends and when there’s a happy conjugal relationship.

How can persons from very different fields report research in a single paper that bears as many as 10 names? Rarely is the question asked but this time around was an exception. When X, from engineering, was asked what Y, from psychology, had contributed, his reply was straightforward: she gave me peace of mind. Committee members chuckled and accepted his explanation. This pair, among many others, will enjoy upward movement along their career paths year after year.

Higher education in Pakistan is a joke — there’s nothing “higher” in it except high pay for professors and VCs. To the garbage pile more junk is constantly added. Just before leaving office, PM Shehbaz Sharif gave the nation a parting kick by ramming through a bill authorising 24 new universities. Why? Could it be because of sudden thirst for knowledge?

Fact: in Pakistan’s murky business environment the only industry that thrives is real estate and construction of buildings and roads. Another 24 new campuses is a super bonanza for contractors. This is also why on Mr Sharif’s orders Quaid-i-Azam University’s once-beautiful campus was cruelly vivisectioned by constructing a highway running right through it. Thank you, Mr Sharif, posterity will never forget or forgive you.

Pakistan’s failure in space is symptomatic of a much broader and wider decades-old systemic failure that extends into industry, governance, foreign relations, and education. The men who run Pakistan are clueless about how to fix what they broke.

Lacking imagination and moral strength, they keep doing over and over the only things in their playbook. Is there a solution? Possibly. But not while such men hold the reins of power.

The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist and author.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2023

 

[The Juggernaut]

This is good.

 

[FalconSlayers]

This is good.

Only real homies remember how this chutiya Fuckeeqat TV used to abuse India daily as some irrelevant weakling and has now become fulltime Youthia .

 

[Cheran]

Okay okay we err-ed, but it's human to err, we might be redeemable, we are all not that bad, some people have to change onlee, then everything will be okay.

NowStartTradeAndGibUsYourMonies

 

[The Juggernaut]

Only real homies remember how this chutiya Fuckeeqat TV used to abuse India daily as some irrelevant weakling and has now become fulltime Youthia .

Imran khan best PM.

 

[FalconSlayers]

How far ahead of Pakistan is India?—I
Syed Shabbar Zaidi Published September 19, 2023

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The G20 Summit in New Delhi on September 9-10 should have been an eye-opener for Pakistan. However, it does not seem so.

We are complacent as usual. There is a glaring absence of a serious debate in the print and electronic media on the economic fallout that Pakistan will face on account of realignment of elements, including one of our main sources of cash as a last resort.

In one of his articles of five-part ‘Learning From Others’ series carried by this newspaper earlier this year, this writer drew comparisons between the of economies of Pakistan and India in 2002 and 2023.
On a personal note, it was iterated that when this writer was in 2008 the President of South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA), which has its headquarters in India’s capital, there were frequent visits to this city as well as country’s economic and financial hub Mumbai.

At that time, Lahore and Karachi airports were much better than the airports of these two very important Indian cities. Their airports were filthy and not at all customer friendly. However, a decade later, this writer observed that New Delhi’s new airport was better than even Heathrow in London or the JFK in New York.
How did this profound transformation take place in a matter of one decade or so? Pakistanis have to learn the manner in which infrastructure in India underwent such a huge transformation. Now almost all the major cities of India have mass transit programs whereas Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan, does not possess any such system. At present, we are at least 50 years behind India.

Despite these apparent shortcomings even our mainstream media peddles an outrageous narrative that conveys, albeit unsuccessfully, a belief that a time will come when Pakistan will ultimately conquer India. The purpose of this series of articles is to identify the primary reasons for these differences in growth and economic gap between the two almost identical societies that were part of one country just over 75 years ago. The following are differentiating factors:

Lack of rigidity
History has proved that Indians are not rigid in their decision-making processes. At the time of Partition of the subcontinent the status of India was as under:

The Union of India was consequently established from 6 former Indian provinces/presidencies (East Punjab, United Provinces, Central Provinces, Madras, Bombay, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal and Assam) and 562 former princely states.

At present, there are twenty eight (28) provinces and eight (8) union territories of India. All the provinces have been created on the basis of ethnic, cultural and linguistic homogeneity. For example, Haryana is originally a Hindi-speaking state which was carved out of the former state of East Punjab.
Karnataka is Kannada-speaking southwestern state of India whereas Tamil-speaking modern Tamil Nadu state emerged from the Madras Presidency of British Administration.

The differences of views in India were as strong as those were witnessed in Pakistan. India was facing the prospect of secession of Tamil Nadu from the Union at the time of linguistic determination under the Constitution. However, their politicians were mature enough to overcome those crises and all such matters were ultimately settled.

On the other hand, in Pakistan, we are in the habit of consolidating various governing units based on myopic political considerations and ill-conceived expediencies such as One Unit in 1954 and the 1956 and 1962 Constitutions. Despite an almost 100 percent increase in population after the arrival of the 1973 constitution, no new province was carved out.

Any such endeavor is viewed with suspicion. The lingering demand for the creation of a ‘Seraiki province’ is a strong case in point.

All the political parties promise the establishment of a ‘Seraiki province’ before every general election, but do not act in this regard after elections.

The absurdity can be gauged from the fact that there is hardly any cultural or linguistic affinity between a person living in Hub, which is almost a part of Karachi although it’s a part of Balochistan province, and a person living in Loralai, a town of the same province but at a distance of almost 1,000 kilometers from the former.

The seat of government in Balochistan is Quetta, which is over 700 kilometers from Hub. This rigidity is the biggest cause of stagnation of economic development in the country. Pakistanis are strangely placed insofar as their approach to the subjects of governance and devolution is concerned.

Homegrown finance ministers

The list of Finance Ministers of India from 1947 to 2023 in comparison to those in Pakistan during the same period reflects the reason behind the growing gulf between economic policies and the implementation. Morarji Desai, Indira Gandhi, Dr Manmohan Singh and V P Singh, for example, served as Finance Ministers before they became country’s Prime Ministers. The list does not include any imported person of Indian origin to head the government. All were genuine political workers and except Indira Gandhi, Dr Manmohan Singh and P. Chidambaram, no one was foreign educated.

This writer penned an article about the Finance Ministers of Pakistan sometime ago. He started with unelected Malik Ghulam Muhammad to bureaucratic supremo Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
The present Finance Minister of India is Nirmala Sitharaman. She obtained a degree in economics from the Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, which is affiliated to Bharathidasan University, in 1980, Master of Arts in economics and M Phil degrees from JNU in New Delhi in 1984.
Unfortunately, however, people without foreign degrees are not treated with much respect in Pakistan. The results are obvious.

Economics relates to the common man in particular circumstances. Our rulers from 1947 onwards remained disconnected from the masses due to absence of general elections and in 1957/1958 we ended up under a Martial Law administration with a strong military presence.
As such, the Ministry of Finance has never been able to relate itself to the common man of Pakistan. ‘Q’ Block of Pakistan Secretariat (Ministry of Finance) in Islamabad is divorced from Pakistan.
(To be continued on Wednesday)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023

How far ahead of Pakistan is India?—I

The G20 Summit in New Delhi on September 9-10 should have been an eye-opener for Pakistan. However, it does not seem...

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[NutCracker]

Why Pakistan fails in space

That India succeeds while Pakistan fails in space owes to the different quality of their education.

www.dawn.com

THANKS to a legion of excellent scientists and engineers trained in Indian universities, India is shooting for the stars.

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Here ‘stars’ is a metaphor for much else: astrophysics, computers, chemical technology, pharmaceuticals, heavy engineering, process management, etc. On this side, led by blind men, Pakistan is heading for the caves. Its space programme from the 1960s has folded up; there’s not even a plan for the future.


Our universities are a disgrace. These cesspools of intrigue and corruption breed flies, not thinking minds. That every Pakistani institution has been corrupted isn’t breaking news but for sheer depravity, unethicality and incompetence our senior academics — meaning vice chancellors, deans, chairpersons, and professors — take the cake.

I sincerely apologise to the 10 per cent who are honourable persons; this article is not directed towards them. But the rest outdo our politicians, generals, judges, shopkeepers and milkmen.

Is the system so truly broken, so hopelessly dystopic? Let the reader decide after seeing the everyday, real-life examples below. Each has been verified for authenticity. I have mercilessly trashed many which were brought to my attention within the last one year because, though possibly genuine, my informants did not include enough detailed evidence.

One: X and Y are brothers. X became ‘Dr X’ after submitting a shoddy piece of research to the department of chemistry of a local university. Some years later, the younger Y wangled a scholarship and applied to a cow college in the American Midwest. There, no foreign applicant with two legs is ever rejected — nor is any thesis — for those who can pay.

That India succeeds while Pakistan fails in space owes to the different quality of their education.

Fortunately for Y, having Big Brother X’s thesis in hand spared him the sweat and toil of research. Changing the title page, shuffling subtitles, throwing in a dash from here and a smidgen from there, by the grace of God Y became ‘Dr Y’ with a doctorate in materials science and engineering. The story gets even better: today both brothers are vice chancellors of public universities under HEC’s jurisdiction. Maybe, one of them will someday rise to HEC chairman.

Two: Z was mediocre during school days and couldn’t make it to engineering or medical college. Like many other less successful students, he is a Bachelor’s in physics and eventually became ‘Dr Z’. Thereafter he became assistant professor at a university in Lahore. In due course, he applied for promotion to the next higher grade for which he had to submit his teaching portfolio, including course examination papers, to some committee.

I chanced upon the final exam paper set by Dr Z for his introductory physics class. It
left me perplexed. Downloaded from the internet, some questions were beyond wrong — they were bizarre. Example: Why is cross price elasticity of demand important? This PhD in physics did not know the question actually belongs to economics! He had set new standards of idiocy but the assessment committee, as always, was generous. Dr Z now flaunts his new credentials as ‘HEC tenured associate Prof Z’.

Three: W hails from a certain mountainous area where scholarship is little known or admired but power and guns are highly respected. In time W became Dr W and then Prof W. He rose yet further to dean and VC of a university in the area. This entitled him to what every Pakistani VC cherishes most — an official Land Cruiser and armed security staff.

Then along came a problem: the university’s faculty accused the VC of kickbacks and corruption in awarding building contracts, making spurious appointments to various faculty and staff positions, etc. In a fit of anger, the VC, accompanied by his armed guards, strode into a group of protesters and hurled vile abuse.

Thereafter 80 teachers signed a petition to the province’s chief minister stating he had threatened to shoot them and added a supportive video. They asked for his removal but no action followed and he completed his tenure. He is presently shortlisted by HEC for the post of VC for other universities.

Four: Dr X and Dr Y are husband and wife in different academic fields but teach in the same city. To fulfil HEC criteria for annual increments and promotion, both need to publish a certain number of research papers yearly. Of course, even junk papers need effort and so normally one university professor scours the internet and copy-pastes, perhaps cooks up suitable data, finds references, and then puts it all together. Co-authorship can be sold for a price but is gratis for friends and when there’s a happy conjugal relationship.

How can persons from very different fields report research in a single paper that bears as many as 10 names? Rarely is the question asked but this time around was an exception. When X, from engineering, was asked what Y, from psychology, had contributed, his reply was straightforward: she gave me peace of mind. Committee members chuckled and accepted his explanation. This pair, among many others, will enjoy upward movement along their career paths year after year.

Higher education in Pakistan is a joke — there’s nothing “higher” in it except high pay for professors and VCs. To the garbage pile more junk is constantly added. Just before leaving office, PM Shehbaz Sharif gave the nation a parting kick by ramming through a bill authorising 24 new universities. Why? Could it be because of sudden thirst for knowledge?

Fact: in Pakistan’s murky business environment the only industry that thrives is real estate and construction of buildings and roads. Another 24 new campuses is a super bonanza for contractors. This is also why on Mr Sharif’s orders Quaid-i-Azam University’s once-beautiful campus was cruelly vivisectioned by constructing a highway running right through it. Thank you, Mr Sharif, posterity will never forget or forgive you.

Pakistan’s failure in space is symptomatic of a much broader and wider decades-old systemic failure that extends into industry, governance, foreign relations, and education. The men who run Pakistan are clueless about how to fix what they broke.

Lacking imagination and moral strength, they keep doing over and over the only things in their playbook. Is there a solution? Possibly. But not while such men hold the reins of power.

The writer is an Islamabad-based physicist and author.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2023

Article 1-
Our universities are a disgrace. These cesspools of intrigue and corruption breed flies, not thinking minds. That every Pakistani institution has been corrupted isn’t breaking news but for sheer depravity, unethicality and incompetence our senior academics — meaning vice chancellors, deans, chairpersons, and professors — take the cake.

How far ahead of Pakistan is India?—I
Syed Shabbar Zaidi Published September 19, 2023
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The G20 Summit in New Delhi on September 9-10 should have been an eye-opener for Pakistan. However, it does not seem so.

We are complacent as usual. There is a glaring absence of a serious debate in the print and electronic media on the economic fallout that Pakistan will face on account of realignment of elements, including one of our main sources of cash as a last resort.

In one of his articles of five-part ‘Learning From Others’ series carried by this newspaper earlier this year, this writer drew comparisons between the of economies of Pakistan and India in 2002 and 2023.
On a personal note, it was iterated that when this writer was in 2008 the President of South Asian Federation of Accountants (SAFA), which has its headquarters in India’s capital, there were frequent visits to this city as well as country’s economic and financial hub Mumbai.

At that time, Lahore and Karachi airports were much better than the airports of these two very important Indian cities. Their airports were filthy and not at all customer friendly. However, a decade later, this writer observed that New Delhi’s new airport was better than even Heathrow in London or the JFK in New York.
How did this profound transformation take place in a matter of one decade or so? Pakistanis have to learn the manner in which infrastructure in India underwent such a huge transformation. Now almost all the major cities of India have mass transit programs whereas Karachi, the largest city in Pakistan, does not possess any such system. At present, we are at least 50 years behind India.

Despite these apparent shortcomings even our mainstream media peddles an outrageous narrative that conveys, albeit unsuccessfully, a belief that a time will come when Pakistan will ultimately conquer India. The purpose of this series of articles is to identify the primary reasons for these differences in growth and economic gap between the two almost identical societies that were part of one country just over 75 years ago. The following are differentiating factors:

Lack of rigidity
History has proved that Indians are not rigid in their decision-making processes. At the time of Partition of the subcontinent the status of India was as under:

The Union of India was consequently established from 6 former Indian provinces/presidencies (East Punjab, United Provinces, Central Provinces, Madras, Bombay, Bihar, Orissa, West Bengal and Assam) and 562 former princely states.

At present, there are twenty eight (28) provinces and eight (8) union territories of India. All the provinces have been created on the basis of ethnic, cultural and linguistic homogeneity. For example, Haryana is originally a Hindi-speaking state which was carved out of the former state of East Punjab.
Karnataka is Kannada-speaking southwestern state of India whereas Tamil-speaking modern Tamil Nadu state emerged from the Madras Presidency of British Administration.

The differences of views in India were as strong as those were witnessed in Pakistan. India was facing the prospect of secession of Tamil Nadu from the Union at the time of linguistic determination under the Constitution. However, their politicians were mature enough to overcome those crises and all such matters were ultimately settled.

On the other hand, in Pakistan, we are in the habit of consolidating various governing units based on myopic political considerations and ill-conceived expediencies such as One Unit in 1954 and the 1956 and 1962 Constitutions. Despite an almost 100 percent increase in population after the arrival of the 1973 constitution, no new province was carved out.

Any such endeavor is viewed with suspicion. The lingering demand for the creation of a ‘Seraiki province’ is a strong case in point.

All the political parties promise the establishment of a ‘Seraiki province’ before every general election, but do not act in this regard after elections.

The absurdity can be gauged from the fact that there is hardly any cultural or linguistic affinity between a person living in Hub, which is almost a part of Karachi although it’s a part of Balochistan province, and a person living in Loralai, a town of the same province but at a distance of almost 1,000 kilometers from the former.

The seat of government in Balochistan is Quetta, which is over 700 kilometers from Hub. This rigidity is the biggest cause of stagnation of economic development in the country. Pakistanis are strangely placed insofar as their approach to the subjects of governance and devolution is concerned.

Homegrown finance ministers

This writer penned an article about the Finance Ministers of Pakistan sometime ago. He started with unelected Malik Ghulam Muhammad to bureaucratic supremo Ghulam Ishaq Khan.
The present Finance Minister of India is Nirmala Sitharaman. She obtained a degree in economics from the Seethalakshmi Ramaswami College, Tiruchirappalli, Tamil Nadu, which is affiliated to Bharathidasan University, in 1980, Master of Arts in economics and M Phil degrees from JNU in New Delhi in 1984.
Unfortunately, however, people without foreign degrees are not treated with much respect in Pakistan. The results are obvious.

Economics relates to the common man in particular circumstances. Our rulers from 1947 onwards remained disconnected from the masses due to absence of general elections and in 1957/1958 we ended up under a Martial Law administration with a strong military presence.
As such, the Ministry of Finance has never been able to relate itself to the common man of Pakistan. ‘Q’ Block of Pakistan Secretariat (Ministry of Finance) in Islamabad is divorced from Pakistan.
(To be continued on Wednesday)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023

How far ahead of Pakistan is India?—I

The G20 Summit in New Delhi on September 9-10 should have been an eye-opener for Pakistan. However, it does not seem...

www.brecorder.com

Article2-
Unfortunately, however, people without foreign degrees are not treated with much respect in Pakistan. The results are obvious.


Xaidi should receive a copy of Article 1.

 

[The Juggernaut]

How far ahead of Pakistan is India?—I
Syed Shabbar Zaidi Published September 19, 2023
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(To be continued on Wednesday)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023

How far ahead of Pakistan is India?—I

The G20 Summit in New Delhi on September 9-10 should have been an eye-opener for Pakistan. However, it does not seem...

www.brecorder.com

How far ahead of Pakistan is India?—II
Syed Shabbar Zaidi Published September 23, 2023


The Indian diaspora is quite highly placed in developed economies where a number of Indians are also part of advisory structures, but when the time comes in India to select a Finance Minister preference is given to an elected person with domestic experience.
In Pakistan, however, we have had Prime Ministers and Finance Ministers who never spent an hour in public life in Pakistan. They went back to their stations or ‘bases’ abroad as soon as they were out of power.
Competition & comparative studies
Unlike Pakistan, India has always benchmarked itself against China, which is a much a bigger player. Pakistan, however, was never able to bracket itself with any reasonable competitor owing to its myopic view of the world. Pakistan should have benchmarked itself against India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia.
How far ahead of Pakistan is India?—I
However, over time, especially after 1971, we are constantly downgrading our benchmarks. We deeply admire the cultural settings of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. On account of lack of social and commercial relations with India and Bangladesh, our generation born after the 1980s is not able to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of societies of India and Bangladesh, which are comparable to our own society.
As a result of which, our youths believe that their society is much inferior to those of the USA and Canada. Ironically, they start admiring the monarchies of sheikdoms of the Arab world. This means we haven’t set any proper benchmark in our quest for development.
Therefore, we are now being bracketed with Afghanistan, Nigeria and Somalia. One of the biggest losses that we have incurred by not having social and commercial relations with India is that we have lost the idea of competitiveness.
Our common man erroneously believes that India is a society where there is constant aggression against Muslims without realizing the fact that there are areas in Mumbai such as Mohammad Ali Road and Crawford Market where millions of Muslims observe their religious obligations in more peaceful manner than in some parts of Pakistan.
The author is a witness to Friday congregations that take place on roads in Mumbai downtown due to shortage of space. No security arrangement is required as there is no history of any event in the last 30 years. This, however, does not mean that everything is ideal for Muslims in India.
To illustrate the difference, a case study of comparison between two enterprises engaged in almost the same business originating from the same area. This is the story of the ‘Sohrab’ bicycle of Pakistan and the ‘Hero’ bicycle of India.
Sohrab in Pakistan:
The company began in 1952 as a collaborative effort of group of traders in Lahore, following a foreign exchange crisis which severely restricted imports in Pakistan. The traders saw an opportunity to domestically produce and sell bicycles, and consequently founded Sohrab on 8 September 1953 under Section 9 of the Co-operative Societies Act II of 1912. It initially had 22 members and produced 5 bicycles a day. It now has 228 members and produces approximately 2,000 bicycles a day.
The following is the story of Hero in India:
Hero Cycles was established in 1956 in Ludhiana, Punjab, manufacturing bicycle components. Today, Hero Cycles is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of bicycles, producing 18,390 cycles per day. Hero Cycles Ltd. is part of Hero Motors Company. In 2016 Hero Cycles exported to over 70 countries world-wide.
The founder of Hero has the following history:
Om Prakash Munjal was born in Kamalia (the present-day Faisalabad District). In 1944, his family moved to Amritsar to start a bicycle spare parts business with his three brothers, Brijmohan Lall Munjal, Dayanand Munjal and Satyanand Munjal.
The business flourished, however, within a few years, the Partition of India occurred and severely affected the business environment in Amritsar. The brothers moved the base of their operations to Ludhiana.
In 1956, they moved from component manufacturing to complete bicycle manufacturing with the brand name Hero, the first bicycle manufacturing unit in India, producing 639 bicycles in the first year. Munjal died on 13 August 2015.
The author is aware of the fact that Pakistani enterprise is not exploring its full potential and some of the members of the cooperative are interested in selling the factory, which is now located within Greater Lahore where its land’s value has appreciated enormously.
They are not interested in diversifying operations to increase output with a view to boosting export of this product by exploring new markets abroad. Unless and until we place these practical examples before our people our arrogance will not go away.
It is about time we learnt with humility and accepted our mistakes. The author is aware that a USA President came all the way to Ludhiana to visit the Hero bicycle plant in the 1960s. We had Batala Engineering Company Limited (BECO) producing looms in the 1970s.
Now it is in no more as the factory is almost shut for many decades. It is also about time our nation wrote a history of the mistakes it has committed in the field of economic policymaking since its birth over 75 years ago.
Narrative

It is an undisputed fact that the Kashmir dispute has dominated India-Pakistan relations ever since the Partition. Pakistan should never budge an inch from its principled stand on Kashmir. However, this lingering dispute cannot be allowed to provide sustenance to an illusionary and completely flawed narrative that advocates a no-trade-with-India policy. China, too, has a border dispute with India, but these two neighbors trade with each other. This writer strongly believes that economics is a by-product of a politico-social environment. Unless that environment is corrected there cannot be any societal stability for sustainable economic growth.

(To be continued)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023

 

[Srinivas_K]

How far ahead of Pakistan is India?—II
Syed Shabbar Zaidi Published September 23, 2023


The Indian diaspora is quite highly placed in developed economies where a number of Indians are also part of advisory structures, but when the time comes in India to select a Finance Minister preference is given to an elected person with domestic experience.
In Pakistan, however, we have had Prime Ministers and Finance Ministers who never spent an hour in public life in Pakistan. They went back to their stations or ‘bases’ abroad as soon as they were out of power.
Competition & comparative studies
Unlike Pakistan, India has always benchmarked itself against China, which is a much a bigger player. Pakistan, however, was never able to bracket itself with any reasonable competitor owing to its myopic view of the world. Pakistan should have benchmarked itself against India, Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia.
How far ahead of Pakistan is India?—I
However, over time, especially after 1971, we are constantly downgrading our benchmarks. We deeply admire the cultural settings of the UAE and Saudi Arabia. On account of lack of social and commercial relations with India and Bangladesh, our generation born after the 1980s is not able to appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of societies of India and Bangladesh, which are comparable to our own society.
As a result of which, our youths believe that their society is much inferior to those of the USA and Canada. Ironically, they start admiring the monarchies of sheikdoms of the Arab world. This means we haven’t set any proper benchmark in our quest for development.
Therefore, we are now being bracketed with Afghanistan, Nigeria and Somalia. One of the biggest losses that we have incurred by not having social and commercial relations with India is that we have lost the idea of competitiveness.
Our common man erroneously believes that India is a society where there is constant aggression against Muslims without realizing the fact that there are areas in Mumbai such as Mohammad Ali Road and Crawford Market where millions of Muslims observe their religious obligations in more peaceful manner than in some parts of Pakistan.
The author is a witness to Friday congregations that take place on roads in Mumbai downtown due to shortage of space. No security arrangement is required as there is no history of any event in the last 30 years. This, however, does not mean that everything is ideal for Muslims in India.
To illustrate the difference, a case study of comparison between two enterprises engaged in almost the same business originating from the same area. This is the story of the ‘Sohrab’ bicycle of Pakistan and the ‘Hero’ bicycle of India.
Sohrab in Pakistan:
The company began in 1952 as a collaborative effort of group of traders in Lahore, following a foreign exchange crisis which severely restricted imports in Pakistan. The traders saw an opportunity to domestically produce and sell bicycles, and consequently founded Sohrab on 8 September 1953 under Section 9 of the Co-operative Societies Act II of 1912. It initially had 22 members and produced 5 bicycles a day. It now has 228 members and produces approximately 2,000 bicycles a day.
The following is the story of Hero in India:
Hero Cycles was established in 1956 in Ludhiana, Punjab, manufacturing bicycle components. Today, Hero Cycles is one of the world’s largest manufacturers of bicycles, producing 18,390 cycles per day. Hero Cycles Ltd. is part of Hero Motors Company. In 2016 Hero Cycles exported to over 70 countries world-wide.
The founder of Hero has the following history:
Om Prakash Munjal was born in Kamalia (the present-day Faisalabad District). In 1944, his family moved to Amritsar to start a bicycle spare parts business with his three brothers, Brijmohan Lall Munjal, Dayanand Munjal and Satyanand Munjal.
The business flourished, however, within a few years, the Partition of India occurred and severely affected the business environment in Amritsar. The brothers moved the base of their operations to Ludhiana.
In 1956, they moved from component manufacturing to complete bicycle manufacturing with the brand name Hero, the first bicycle manufacturing unit in India, producing 639 bicycles in the first year. Munjal died on 13 August 2015.
The author is aware of the fact that Pakistani enterprise is not exploring its full potential and some of the members of the cooperative are interested in selling the factory, which is now located within Greater Lahore where its land’s value has appreciated enormously.
They are not interested in diversifying operations to increase output with a view to boosting export of this product by exploring new markets abroad. Unless and until we place these practical examples before our people our arrogance will not go away.
It is about time we learnt with humility and accepted our mistakes. The author is aware that a USA President came all the way to Ludhiana to visit the Hero bicycle plant in the 1960s. We had Batala Engineering Company Limited (BECO) producing looms in the 1970s.
Now it is in no more as the factory is almost shut for many decades. It is also about time our nation wrote a history of the mistakes it has committed in the field of economic policymaking since its birth over 75 years ago.
Narrative

(To be continued)
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023

Most of the Pakistanis prefer Urdu to English, less than 5% prefer English.

 

[Love Charger]

Only real homies remember how this chutiya Fuckeeqat TV used to abuse India daily as some irrelevant weakling and has now become fulltime Youthia .

Iam one of those real homies kek
I initially thought it was some other guy with same channel name .

 

[Indx TechStyle]

Most of the Pakistanis prefer Urdu to English, less than 5% prefer English.

None of Pakistanis prefer either of Urdu or English. Mere 7% speak Urdu that too for formal purposes only.

It's Pashto and Punjabi which are spoken languages in Pak. Pakistan is a country with a national language spoken by almost no people in country.

 

[FalconSlayers]

Devil is in the details

Devil is in the details

It seems that India and China have much to learn from each other.

www.dawn.com