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Mumbai: Bhim Jee Mohan, an attendant at the fitness centre in Karachi’s Sheraton Hotel, has never been to India. But like many Pakistanis, he has a link with India. A cousin lives in Andheri, a suburb of Mumbai, and Mohan hopes to visit India soon.
He has already applied for a visa to visit his family in India.
“I am hoping that I can visit Mumbai soon but getting a visa is tough. God willing, things will improve between the two countries, helping common people like me in the process,” Mohan said.
A tourist visa for a Pakistani to travel to India or an Indian to go to Pakistan normally takes a minimum of 45 days to process. The application has to be vetted and approved by the foreign office, home ministry and intelligence agencies before a visitor gets his passport stamped with a visa.
In Pakistan’s two biggest cities, Karachi and Lahore, many people have relatives across the border or at least have memories of India.
So is the case with the Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain, who fondly recalls his childhood days spent in Agra.
“When we left (India) I was 9 years old. But many years later, in 1981, when I visited the Taj Mahal in Agra I recall memories flooding back. My grandfather used to take me for an evening stroll near the Taj every day and hence when I visited the place it was as if I had been there before,” Hussain told visiting Indian journalists recently.
A group of journalists who are members of the Mumbai Press Club were on a goodwill visit to Pakistan at the invitation of the Karachi Press Club in the last week of November.
Sitcoms, Bollywood
Pakistanis are known for their fondness of Bollywood movies and stars. President Hussain admitted he admired actor Aamir Khan for his “socially relevant” films.
“The issues that Aamir Khan’s film 3 Idiots raised were so real. I am a big fan of his and then of course Amitabh Bachchan, who is an actor par excellence,” Hussain said.
Pakistanis also have a strong liking for Indian sitcoms, so much so that there were protests in 2010 when the country’s Supreme Court directed the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to stop channels, mostly Indian, that do not have landing rights in the country. Pakistan-based channels are authorized to air only 10% foreign content by law, only 60% of which can be from India.
Shams Keerio, a Karachi-based journalist working with the television channel ARY News, said he does not miss a single episode of the daily sitcom Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah (TMKOC). “Since I cannot catch the episode in the evening, I wait till 2 am to watch the repeat episode,” Keerio said. TMKOC is shown between Monday and Friday at 8:30 pm on SAB TV.
But although Indian sitcoms have made their way to Pakistani television sets, newspapers and news channels from both countries are not allowed to be aired across the border. Each country has two nominated seats of foreign correspondents in the other. India for example has a Press Trust of India (PTI) correspondent and a reporter from The Hindu based in Islamabad.
Both countries do not allow each other’s journalists to travel outside of their capital cities. Journalists from both are demanding that the ceiling on the number of journalists should be abolished and travel restrictions removed.
“All mainline publications and TV and other digital media should be allowed (to have) representatives to be stationed in both New Delhi and Islamabad. The severe travel restrictions imposed on journalists has made comprehensive and truthful reporting impossible, and journalists of both sides should be allowed unrestricted access to all parts of the two countries as long as it is in pursuit of media coverage,” a joint statement by the Karachi and Mumbai press clubs said.
Trade opportunity
India’s economic rise has attracted the attention of Pakistan’s businessmen like never before. Traders are now calling for more access to the Indian market, especially in areas like textiles, Pakistan’s main export.
Out of the $26 billion of annual exports from Pakistan, $13.5 billion is made up of textile exports, according to Muhammad Yasin Siddik, chairman of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), which is pitching for greater trade between the two neighbours.
“Importance of regional trade is growing and Pakistan’s population is also not small to be neglected. India only allows two to three ports to import goods from Pakistan, which means some markets are simply too far for our traders. Besides, there are also many non-tariff barriers which prevent our traders from exporting to India,” Siddik said.
Pakistani businessmen talk about harassment by Indian customs authorities; too many questions are asked and consignments from Pakistan held up for flimsy reasons, they say.
“In one case, my counter-party in India got fed up with the numerous questions and documents asked by the customs in India because of which I had to recall the consignment,” said Amin Hashwani, executive director at Karachi-based Hashwani Group of Companies.
Boosting trade is very much on the agenda, at least on the Pakistani side. Pakistani foreign secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani pointed out that trade between India and Pakistan has “shot up” from a mere $250-300 million in 2003 to more than $2 billion today.
“We expect it to increase further to $5 billion in the next six to seven years because there is a degree of maturity between the two countries as there is a realization that war is not an option and we have to give a better life to our people,” Jilani said.
To be sure, Pakistan has not reciprocated India’s move to grant most favoured nation (MFN) status to that country. MFN status makes a nation eligible for the same advantages that are enjoyed by other trading partners of the country that accords the status.
Pakistani businessmen point to the trade deficit their country has with India. Data from Bloomberg show that Pakistan had a trade deficit of $1.35 billion with India in calendar year 2012. Trade between the two countries was $2.5 billion; for perspective, compare that with India’s $71.22 billion trade with China.
Pakistan’s former Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government came close to granting India MFN status in December 2012, but that move was aborted following protests by Pakistani businessmen who feared an increase in imports from India.
Hashwani said the opposition has now died down, noting the benefits of higher trade with India. “There are already 5,600 products that can come into India. Granting MFN is only a formality now, it’s a matter for the Pakistani government to put stamp to paper which we think will happen soon,” Hashwani said.
Siddik from APTMA says free access to both markets can mean cheaper clothes and commodities for the people of both countries. “For example, Pakistani farmers harvest cotton in June, while in India the harvest month is November. India can easily import cotton from us in the middle of the year while we can do the same at a much cheaper cost during our lean season at the end of the year when we buy 3 to 3.5 billion bales from abroad,” Siddik said.
India’s deputy high commissioner to Pakistan, Gopal Baglay, said the Indian side had made some suggestions to Pakistan on ways to improve trade and is still waiting for Pakistan’s response.
“There has been a serious dialogue with them on customs procedure and trade grievances but we have not heard from them yet,” Baglay said in an interaction with the Mumbai journalists.
Visa restrictions
People who have family on either side of the border face an uphill task in applying for a visa. There are travel restrictions; visitors from both countries are required to report to a local police station 24 hours after they land at their destination and 24 hours before they leave each city in case the visa is a multi-city permit.
Moreover, cities like Karachi, Rawalpindi and Lahore in Pakistan and Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai in India do not have consulates of the other country, meaning applicants have to travel to their respective capitals to apply for a visa.
Recently, however there has been an increase in travel between both countries, particularly for medical reasons. Many Pakistanis travel to India to get access to healthcare facilities which are not available in their country and are cheaper compared to the West.
Baglay said the Indian high commission in Islamabad issues visas in 24 hours in case of medical cases provided the patient has a local doctor’s recommendation for the treatment and an invite from the doctor in India.
“We are very liberal with medical visas. About 6,000 people from Pakistan have visited India through this route, up from 4,000 not long ago. There has been a 20% annual growth in these visas for the last couple of years,” Baglay said.
India’s role in South Asia
Amin Hashwani from The Hashwani Group of Companies said there is an acknowledgment in Pakistan that India can play a “pivotal” role in the eight-member South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) because of its economic size.
“But India has so far failed to play that role,” Hashwani said. “I think there are two schools of thought in India regarding trade. One is that 67 countries including the US and the European Union are opening doors to trade with India so its does not need to trade with the smaller SAARC nations. The other is that after the Mumbai attacks, India realizes that it needs a stable region to grow and hence trade between neighbours is important.”
Ten gunmen who had set sail from Karachi subjected Mumbai to 60 hours of mayhem starting on the night of 26 November 2008. The attacks, which drove a new wedge in relations between India and Pakistan, left 166 people dead. Nine of the gunmen were killed, and the lone captured terrorist was hanged last year.
The Indian government has set action against the masterminds of the act as a pre-condition for resumption of dialogue. Pakistan initially denied any knowledge of the perpetrators of the attack. It was only in March 2009 that Pakistan admitted that the attackers had set sail for Mumbai from Karachi. Seven people were tried for their role in planning and providing logistics support for the attacks, but there have been no convictions in the case.
Jilani said the delay was because “the judicial process was cumbersome on both sides”.
“But now the Pakistan judicial committee has come back from a second trip to Mumbai in September which was very fruitful. We can assure that there will be a fair trial in our courts, the case is still proceeding and justice will be done,” Jilani said.
The future
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been emphasizing the need for better relations between the two countries, calling for visa restrictions between the two neighbours to be removed.
“We want peace with India,” The Nation newspaper quoted him as saying in a speech to the fourth International Literary and Cultural Conference near Lahore last month.
Sharif was elected a few months ago after a campaign in which he sought better ties with India. Last month, Sharif sent Sartaj Aziz, his adviser on foreign affairs and Pakistan’s national security adviser, to India in an attempt to re-start the dialogue process. However, both sides made little headway.
General elections in India in a few months’ time also mean that talks may have to wait for the new government to take charge. Until then, it will be business as usual.
Pakistan’s businessmen seek strong trade ties with India - Livemint
He has already applied for a visa to visit his family in India.
“I am hoping that I can visit Mumbai soon but getting a visa is tough. God willing, things will improve between the two countries, helping common people like me in the process,” Mohan said.
A tourist visa for a Pakistani to travel to India or an Indian to go to Pakistan normally takes a minimum of 45 days to process. The application has to be vetted and approved by the foreign office, home ministry and intelligence agencies before a visitor gets his passport stamped with a visa.
In Pakistan’s two biggest cities, Karachi and Lahore, many people have relatives across the border or at least have memories of India.
So is the case with the Pakistan President Mamnoon Hussain, who fondly recalls his childhood days spent in Agra.
“When we left (India) I was 9 years old. But many years later, in 1981, when I visited the Taj Mahal in Agra I recall memories flooding back. My grandfather used to take me for an evening stroll near the Taj every day and hence when I visited the place it was as if I had been there before,” Hussain told visiting Indian journalists recently.
A group of journalists who are members of the Mumbai Press Club were on a goodwill visit to Pakistan at the invitation of the Karachi Press Club in the last week of November.
Sitcoms, Bollywood
Pakistanis are known for their fondness of Bollywood movies and stars. President Hussain admitted he admired actor Aamir Khan for his “socially relevant” films.
“The issues that Aamir Khan’s film 3 Idiots raised were so real. I am a big fan of his and then of course Amitabh Bachchan, who is an actor par excellence,” Hussain said.
Pakistanis also have a strong liking for Indian sitcoms, so much so that there were protests in 2010 when the country’s Supreme Court directed the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) to stop channels, mostly Indian, that do not have landing rights in the country. Pakistan-based channels are authorized to air only 10% foreign content by law, only 60% of which can be from India.
Shams Keerio, a Karachi-based journalist working with the television channel ARY News, said he does not miss a single episode of the daily sitcom Taarak Mehta Ka Ooltah Chashmah (TMKOC). “Since I cannot catch the episode in the evening, I wait till 2 am to watch the repeat episode,” Keerio said. TMKOC is shown between Monday and Friday at 8:30 pm on SAB TV.
But although Indian sitcoms have made their way to Pakistani television sets, newspapers and news channels from both countries are not allowed to be aired across the border. Each country has two nominated seats of foreign correspondents in the other. India for example has a Press Trust of India (PTI) correspondent and a reporter from The Hindu based in Islamabad.
Both countries do not allow each other’s journalists to travel outside of their capital cities. Journalists from both are demanding that the ceiling on the number of journalists should be abolished and travel restrictions removed.
“All mainline publications and TV and other digital media should be allowed (to have) representatives to be stationed in both New Delhi and Islamabad. The severe travel restrictions imposed on journalists has made comprehensive and truthful reporting impossible, and journalists of both sides should be allowed unrestricted access to all parts of the two countries as long as it is in pursuit of media coverage,” a joint statement by the Karachi and Mumbai press clubs said.
Trade opportunity
India’s economic rise has attracted the attention of Pakistan’s businessmen like never before. Traders are now calling for more access to the Indian market, especially in areas like textiles, Pakistan’s main export.
Out of the $26 billion of annual exports from Pakistan, $13.5 billion is made up of textile exports, according to Muhammad Yasin Siddik, chairman of the All Pakistan Textile Mills Association (APTMA), which is pitching for greater trade between the two neighbours.
“Importance of regional trade is growing and Pakistan’s population is also not small to be neglected. India only allows two to three ports to import goods from Pakistan, which means some markets are simply too far for our traders. Besides, there are also many non-tariff barriers which prevent our traders from exporting to India,” Siddik said.
Pakistani businessmen talk about harassment by Indian customs authorities; too many questions are asked and consignments from Pakistan held up for flimsy reasons, they say.
“In one case, my counter-party in India got fed up with the numerous questions and documents asked by the customs in India because of which I had to recall the consignment,” said Amin Hashwani, executive director at Karachi-based Hashwani Group of Companies.
Boosting trade is very much on the agenda, at least on the Pakistani side. Pakistani foreign secretary Jalil Abbas Jilani pointed out that trade between India and Pakistan has “shot up” from a mere $250-300 million in 2003 to more than $2 billion today.
“We expect it to increase further to $5 billion in the next six to seven years because there is a degree of maturity between the two countries as there is a realization that war is not an option and we have to give a better life to our people,” Jilani said.
To be sure, Pakistan has not reciprocated India’s move to grant most favoured nation (MFN) status to that country. MFN status makes a nation eligible for the same advantages that are enjoyed by other trading partners of the country that accords the status.
Pakistani businessmen point to the trade deficit their country has with India. Data from Bloomberg show that Pakistan had a trade deficit of $1.35 billion with India in calendar year 2012. Trade between the two countries was $2.5 billion; for perspective, compare that with India’s $71.22 billion trade with China.
Pakistan’s former Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) government came close to granting India MFN status in December 2012, but that move was aborted following protests by Pakistani businessmen who feared an increase in imports from India.
Hashwani said the opposition has now died down, noting the benefits of higher trade with India. “There are already 5,600 products that can come into India. Granting MFN is only a formality now, it’s a matter for the Pakistani government to put stamp to paper which we think will happen soon,” Hashwani said.
Siddik from APTMA says free access to both markets can mean cheaper clothes and commodities for the people of both countries. “For example, Pakistani farmers harvest cotton in June, while in India the harvest month is November. India can easily import cotton from us in the middle of the year while we can do the same at a much cheaper cost during our lean season at the end of the year when we buy 3 to 3.5 billion bales from abroad,” Siddik said.
India’s deputy high commissioner to Pakistan, Gopal Baglay, said the Indian side had made some suggestions to Pakistan on ways to improve trade and is still waiting for Pakistan’s response.
“There has been a serious dialogue with them on customs procedure and trade grievances but we have not heard from them yet,” Baglay said in an interaction with the Mumbai journalists.
Visa restrictions
People who have family on either side of the border face an uphill task in applying for a visa. There are travel restrictions; visitors from both countries are required to report to a local police station 24 hours after they land at their destination and 24 hours before they leave each city in case the visa is a multi-city permit.
Moreover, cities like Karachi, Rawalpindi and Lahore in Pakistan and Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai in India do not have consulates of the other country, meaning applicants have to travel to their respective capitals to apply for a visa.
Recently, however there has been an increase in travel between both countries, particularly for medical reasons. Many Pakistanis travel to India to get access to healthcare facilities which are not available in their country and are cheaper compared to the West.
Baglay said the Indian high commission in Islamabad issues visas in 24 hours in case of medical cases provided the patient has a local doctor’s recommendation for the treatment and an invite from the doctor in India.
“We are very liberal with medical visas. About 6,000 people from Pakistan have visited India through this route, up from 4,000 not long ago. There has been a 20% annual growth in these visas for the last couple of years,” Baglay said.
India’s role in South Asia
Amin Hashwani from The Hashwani Group of Companies said there is an acknowledgment in Pakistan that India can play a “pivotal” role in the eight-member South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) because of its economic size.
“But India has so far failed to play that role,” Hashwani said. “I think there are two schools of thought in India regarding trade. One is that 67 countries including the US and the European Union are opening doors to trade with India so its does not need to trade with the smaller SAARC nations. The other is that after the Mumbai attacks, India realizes that it needs a stable region to grow and hence trade between neighbours is important.”
Ten gunmen who had set sail from Karachi subjected Mumbai to 60 hours of mayhem starting on the night of 26 November 2008. The attacks, which drove a new wedge in relations between India and Pakistan, left 166 people dead. Nine of the gunmen were killed, and the lone captured terrorist was hanged last year.
The Indian government has set action against the masterminds of the act as a pre-condition for resumption of dialogue. Pakistan initially denied any knowledge of the perpetrators of the attack. It was only in March 2009 that Pakistan admitted that the attackers had set sail for Mumbai from Karachi. Seven people were tried for their role in planning and providing logistics support for the attacks, but there have been no convictions in the case.
Jilani said the delay was because “the judicial process was cumbersome on both sides”.
“But now the Pakistan judicial committee has come back from a second trip to Mumbai in September which was very fruitful. We can assure that there will be a fair trial in our courts, the case is still proceeding and justice will be done,” Jilani said.
The future
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has been emphasizing the need for better relations between the two countries, calling for visa restrictions between the two neighbours to be removed.
“We want peace with India,” The Nation newspaper quoted him as saying in a speech to the fourth International Literary and Cultural Conference near Lahore last month.
Sharif was elected a few months ago after a campaign in which he sought better ties with India. Last month, Sharif sent Sartaj Aziz, his adviser on foreign affairs and Pakistan’s national security adviser, to India in an attempt to re-start the dialogue process. However, both sides made little headway.
General elections in India in a few months’ time also mean that talks may have to wait for the new government to take charge. Until then, it will be business as usual.
Pakistan’s businessmen seek strong trade ties with India - Livemint
