Pakistan's Growing Human Capital

[soccerhero]

Fudging income and poverty numbers
By Ashfak Bokhari


THE budget-making period is often marked by allegations of the fudging of figures particularly about key economic indicators but, as it happens, not all of them are detected and challenged and are rarely rectified.

A former chief economist of the federal government talked of his “struggle” from 2002 to 2006, in an op-ed piece last week in this newspaper, to convince the authorities against manipulating data and how he could not succeed. As a result, final figures on poverty, GDP, unemployment, prices, etc., were “improved upon” although few believed in the achievements that were claimed.

Last month, one saw serious allegations of fudging of GDP growth and poverty figures. The ministry of finance was accused of having fabricated the figure of 2.37 per cent in an attempt to impress the IMF that this year`s GDP growth was almost close to what it had asked for — the target of 2.5 per cent. Provisional GDP estimates for 2008-09 were worked out at Rs5,532.4 billion compared to the previous fiscal year`s Rs5,404.5 billion, resulting in an increase of 2.37 per cent.

However, a day later, on May 19, the finance ministry bosses felt compelled to revise the GDP figure downwards from 2.37 to 2.15 per cent. It was conceded that the figure of 2.37 per cent, worked out by the Federal Bureau of Statistics and endorsed by National Accounts Committee, was flawed.

Shaukat Tarin, the finance chief, also felt uneasy over the episode. He said he had asked the institution concerned to “ensure transparency in figures and present the growth figures as they are.” But he avoided touching the issues such as reducing the base by lowering the GDP growth of last fiscal from 5.78 per cent to 4.1 per cent and the change in methodology in measuring the growth in agriculture and construction sectors, and insisted that all the FBS steps other than excluding the large-scale manufacturing growth till March were justified.

The GDP growth target was originally set at 5.8 per cent. As the year proceeded, it was revised downwards to 3.4 per cent and then again to 2.5 per cent. Last week, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Sardar Assef Ahmad Ali said that the GDP growth rate for this fiscal year would be two per cent. Then the finance ministry came out with the figure of 2.37 per cent. In fact, the National Accounts Committee risked its credibility when it approved without any hesitation the FBS statistics.

Where the FBS went wrong was its decision to exclude the negative growth figures of large-scale manufacturing (LSM) of -7.7 per cent registered during July-March period and to include only the LSM figures of July-February period that stood at -5.7 per cent.

Moreover, the FBS included doubtful figures of major crops in the growth estimates. The rice output in the current fiscal year was estimated at 6.96 million tons against the target of 5.7 million tons; wheat at 23.4 million tons against 24 million tons target, cotton 11.8 million bales against target of 14.1 million bales and sugarcane 50 million tons against the target 56.5 million tons.

The military regimes have been notorious for cooking up figures to cover up bad performance or exaggerating a positive achievement in a bid to earn legitimacy from the public for their illegal rule.

The caretaker government headed by Mohammadmian Soomro last year decided to set up a high-powered committee to ascertain the accuracy of the FBS data after it developed serious doubts about the quality of the figures about GDP growth, crops produce, inflation, poverty and industrial progress worked out by Shaukat Aziz regime.

The committee headed by Deputy Chairman Planning Commission Dr Akram Shiekh decided in its first meeting that industrial data would now be collected by the ministry of industries and not by the Federal Bureau of Statistics because the latter`s data did not match the ground realities. For instance, the FBS figures put food inflation at 14 per cent while, according to independent economists, it was over 20 per cent. Donor agencies also, time and again, in their reviews of Pakistan`s economy, had doubted figures of economic indicators.

The World Bank is also infamous for fudging data particularly about poverty and its health projects in the Third World countries. Last week, it ran into a serious dispute with Pakistan`s Planning Commission over how much poverty has reduced in the country. The bank claims that the number of those living below the poverty line has come down from 22.3 per cent to 17.2 per cent of the total population.

But nobody in the Planning Commission is willing to buy this figure and include it in the Economic Survey 2008-09 for it is obvious that this could not happen at a time when the country`s economy is under severe strain due to high inflation.

The World Bank insists it has used the correct methodology to calculate this figure worked out by the Planning Commission`s subsidiary body called Centre for Poverty Reduction and Social Policy Development (CPRSPD). In stark contrast, PC`s panel of economists had found poverty in the range of 37.5 per cent just a few months back.

The World Bank, according to a newspaper report, had concluded that poverty declined from 22.3 per cent in 2005-06 to 17.2 per cent this year on the basis of the data collected in 2007-08 under the Household Income Expenditure Survey.

According to the survey, poverty in the urban areas stood at 10.10 per cent and in the rural areas at 20.60 per cent. The poverty is often calculated on the basis of the CPI-based inflation statistics.

There is an impression that the bright performance of the economy and high GDP growth rates claimed by the Musharraf-Shaukat regime were mostly fudged and not based on ground realities.

In 2004, Dr Akmal Hussain, a noted economist, had disputed the then finance minister`s claim that the percentage of population below the poverty line has declined by 4.2 percentage points as compared to the level in the year 2000. He claimed there was a fudge in the figure and argued that the composition of growth is contrary to the official claim of poverty reduction.

What had happened was that the agriculture sector where the majority of the poor subsist had shown a sharp decline in growth from 4.1 per cent previous year to 2.6 per cent. Even in the large-scale manufacturing sector with a growth rate of 17.1 per cent, the growth was predicated on a relatively small group of industries, namely consumer durables, automobiles, textiles and cement. These are hardly the industries whose growth could be expected to reduce poverty so quickly.

The World Bank had also been fudging figures of poverty in India. In 2004, Indian Planning Commission member N.K. Singh had accused the World Bank of inflating poverty figures to maintain its own relevance. “If the World Bank starts giving real figures, it will lose its raison d`etre.” The actual level of poverty, he said, was much lower than what was being projected by the World Bank.

The bank has also been accused of tampering with figures relating to malaria project and its success in India. Writing in the prestigious medical Journal “Lancet” in 2006, a group of experts charged the bank for falsifying financial and statistical accounts and also medical malpractices in Malaria treatment, mostly in India and Brazil. About the Malaria Booster Programme launched in April 2005 in India, the experts said that the bank `reneged on funding and created a smokescreen of misleading figures`.

Fudging income and poverty numbers | Latest news, Breaking news, Pakistan News, World news, business, sport and multimedia | DAWN.COM

 

[Roybot]

Scathing criticism of Pakistan's education system by UNESCO.

http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/EDUCATION_IN_PAKISTAN__A_FACT_SHEET.pdf

 

[Vinod2070]

Scathing criticism of Pakistan's education system by UNESCO.

http://www.unesco.org/new/fileadmin/MULTIMEDIA/HQ/ED/pdf/EDUCATION_IN_PAKISTAN__A_FACT_SHEET.pdf

Being a "security state", Pakistan neglected the welfare of it's people.

Using the terrorist proxies for it's foreign policy goals by over ambitious generals resulted in a blow back that has taken the country to the brink.

They need our help.

Only a matter of time before we need to extend the help to help them survive. They are in deep trouble and being conscientious people, we should help ones in deep distress and shyt.

Also, we happen to need them as a buffer from lawless people and regions.

 

[jaibi]

Let quit comparing ourselves with India - we wish the Indians the best - our focus should on comparing ourselves with France and Germany and Sweden and others - we have much to learn from India but we also have much to learn from others - if we can have done this without the govt, keep in mind what we could have and still can do with a govt of competent patriots - lets keep our focus, aim for Germany, for France, for Japan, for Korea

Million THANKS!!!

 

[RiazHaq]

Being a "security state", Pakistan neglected the welfare of it's people.

Using the terrorist proxies for it's foreign policy goals by over ambitious generals resulted in a blow back that has taken the country to the brink.

They need our help.

Only a matter of time before we need to extend the help to help them survive. They are in deep trouble and being conscientious people, we should help ones in deep distress and shyt.

Also, we happen to need them as a buffer from lawless people and regions.

Talking about welfare of people, India is "condemning another generation to brain damage, poor education and early death by failing to meet its targets for tackling the malnutrition that affects almost half of its children", according to a study backed by the British Government.

Haq's Musings: Is India a Nutritional Weakling?

In the range of DALYs/1000 capita from 13 (lowest) to 289 (highest), WHO's latest data indicates that India is at 65 while Pakistan is slightly better at 58. In terms of total number of deaths per year from disease, India stands at 2.7 million deaths while Pakistani death toll is 318, 400 people. Among other South Asian nations, Afghanistan's DALYs/1000 is 255, Bangladesh 64 and Sri Lanka 61. By contrast, the DALYs/1000 figures are 14 for Singapore and 32 for China.

Recent research shows that there are potentially far reaching negative consequences for nations carrying high levels of disease burdens causing lower average intelligence among their current and future generations.

Published by the University of New Mexico and reported by Newsweek, new research shows that there is a link between lower IQs and prevalence of infectious diseases. Comparing data on national “disease burdens” (life years lost due to infectious diseases or DALYs) with average intelligence scores, the authors found a striking inverse correlation—around 67 percent. They also found that the cognitive ability is rising in some countries than in others, and IQ scores have risen as nations develop—a phenomenon known as the “Flynn effect.”

ttp://www.riazhaq.com/2010/10/indians-and-pakistanis-suffer-heavy.html

 

[RiazHaq]

Being a "security state", Pakistan neglected the welfare of it's people.

Using the terrorist proxies for it's foreign policy goals by over ambitious generals resulted in a blow back that has taken the country to the brink.

They need our help.

Only a matter of time before we need to extend the help to help them survive. They are in deep trouble and being conscientious people, we should help ones in deep distress and shyt.

Also, we happen to need them as a buffer from lawless people and regions.

Talking about a "security state", India has the dubious distinction of being among the top ten on two very different lists: It ranks at the top of the nations of the world with its 270 million illiterate adults, the largest in the world, as detailed by a just released UNESCO report on education; India also shows up at number four in military spending in terms of purchasing power parity, behind United States, China and Russia.

Haq's Musings: India Tops in Illiteracy and Defense Spending

 

[Vinod2070]

India has more literate people than the entire population of Pakistan. Many times over.

India's GDP in PPP terms is US$ 4,711 billion in 2012 compared to just US$ 515 billion for Pakistan.

An order of magnitude higher!

India's middle class is higher than the whole population of Pakistan. Several times.

Pakistan never had land reforms and has remained a feudal society, something that was deliberate, to provide a constant stream of Islamist foot soldiers for the Islamic Jihad that has been the state policy since the very birth of the country and gained even more strength since Zia's time.

Taliban has been exploiting this class rift and the same foot soldiers. Several areas of Pakistan have fallen to them, with state complicity. Others are at grave danger of falling. Many elements of security forces are suspected of having sympathy with these elements. There was the bizarre specter of PA soldiers surrendering to a few teenage Taliban boys that reinforced this perception.

Newyork times ran a piece about this danger to the Pakistani state.

Taliban Exploit Class Rifts in Pakistan

Around 3,000 people gathered for a rally in the Swat Valley of Pakistan on April 10 in support of the bill paving way for the implementation of Islamic law there.

By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
Published: April 16, 2009

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The Taliban have advanced deeper into Pakistan by engineering a class revolt that exploits profound fissures between a small group of wealthy landlords and their landless tenants, according to government officials and analysts here.

The strategy cleared a path to power for the Taliban in the Swat Valley, where the government allowed Islamic law to be imposed this week, and it carries broad dangers for the rest of Pakistan, particularly the militants’ main goal, the populous heartland of Punjab Province.

In Swat, accounts from those who have fled now make clear that the Taliban seized control by pushing out about four dozen landlords who held the most power.

To do so, the militants organized peasants into armed gangs that became their shock troops, the residents, government officials and analysts said.

The approach allowed the Taliban to offer economic spoils to people frustrated with lax and corrupt government even as the militants imposed a strict form of Islam through terror and intimidation.

“This was a bloody revolution in Swat,” said a senior Pakistani official who oversees Swat, speaking on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation by the Taliban. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it sweeps the established order of Pakistan.”

The Taliban’s ability to exploit class divisions adds a new dimension to the insurgency and is raising alarm about the risks to Pakistan, which remains largely feudal.

Unlike India after independence in 1947, Pakistan maintained a narrow landed upper class that kept its vast holdings while its workers remained subservient, the officials and analysts said. Successive Pakistani governments have since failed to provide land reform and even the most basic forms of education and health care. Avenues to advancement for the vast majority of rural poor do not exist.

Analysts and other government officials warn that the strategy executed in Swat is easily transferable to Punjab, saying that the province, where militant groups are already showing strength, is ripe for the same social upheavals that have convulsed Swat and the tribal areas.

Mahboob Mahmood, a Pakistani-American lawyer and former classmate of President Obama’s, said, “The people of Pakistan are psychologically ready for a revolution.”

Sunni militancy is taking advantage of deep class divisions that have long festered in Pakistan, he said. “The militants, for their part, are promising more than just proscriptions on music and schooling,” he said. “They are also promising Islamic justice, effective government and economic redistribution.”

The Taliban strategy in Swat, an area of 1.3 million people with fertile orchards, vast plots of timber and valuable emerald mines, unfolded in stages over five years, analysts said.

The momentum of the insurgency built in the past two years, when the Taliban, reinforced by seasoned fighters from the tribal areas with links to Al Qaeda, fought the Pakistani Army to a standstill, said a Pakistani intelligence agent who works in the Swat region.

The insurgents struck at any competing point of power: landlords and elected leaders — who were usually the same people — and an underpaid and unmotivated police force, said Khadim Hussain, a linguistics and communications professor at Bahria University in Islamabad, the capital.

At the same time, the Taliban exploited the resentments of the landless tenants, particularly the fact that they had many unresolved cases against their bosses in a slow-moving and corrupt justice system, Mr. Hussain and residents who fled the area said.

Their grievances were stoked by a young militant, Maulana Fazlullah, who set up an FM radio station in 2004 to appeal to the disenfranchised. The broadcasts featured easy-to-understand examples using goats, cows, milk and grass. By 2006, Mr. Fazlullah had formed a ragtag force of landless peasants armed by the Taliban, said Mr. Hussain and former residents of Swat.

At first, the pressure on the landlords was subtle. One landowner was pressed to take his son out of an English-speaking school offensive to the Taliban. Others were forced to make donations to the Taliban.

Then, in late 2007, Shujaat Ali Khan, the richest of the landowners, his brothers and his son, Jamal Nasir, the mayor of Swat, became targets.

After Shujaat Ali Khan, a senior politician in the Pakistan Muslim League-Q, narrowly missed being killed by a roadside bomb, he fled to London. A brother, Fateh Ali Mohammed, a former senator, left, too, and now lives in Islamabad. Mr. Nasir also fled.

Later, the Taliban published a “most wanted” list of 43 prominent names, said Muhammad Sher Khan, a landlord who is a politician with the Pakistan Peoples Party, and whose name was on the list. All those named were ordered to present themselves to the Taliban courts or risk being killed, he said. “When you know that they will hang and kill you, how will you dare go back there?” Mr. Khan, hiding in Punjab, said in a telephone interview. “Being on the list meant ‘Don’t come back to Swat.’ ”

One of the main enforcers of the new order was Ibn-e-Amin, a Taliban commander from the same area as the landowners, called Matta. The fact that Mr. Amin came from Matta, and knew who was who there, put even more pressure on the landowners, Mr. Hussain said.

According to Pakistani news reports, Mr. Amin was arrested in August 2004 on suspicion of having links to Al Qaeda and was released in November 2006. Another Pakistani intelligence agent said Mr. Amin often visited a madrasa in North Waziristan, the stronghold of Al Qaeda in the tribal areas, where he apparently received guidance.

Each time the landlords fled, their tenants were rewarded. They were encouraged to cut down the orchard trees and sell the wood for their own profit, the former residents said. Or they were told to pay the rent to the Taliban instead of their now absentee bosses.

Two dormant emerald mines have reopened under Taliban control. The militants have announced that they will receive one-third of the revenues.

Since the Taliban fought the military to a truce in Swat in February, the militants have deepened their approach and made clear who is in charge.

When provincial bureaucrats visit Mingora, Swat’s capital, they must now follow the Taliban’s orders and sit on the floor, surrounded by Taliban bearing weapons, and in some cases wearing suicide bomber vests, the senior provincial official said.

In many areas of Swat the Taliban have demanded that each family give up one son for training as a Taliban fighter, said Mohammad Amad, executive director of a nongovernmental group, the Initiative for Development and Empowerment Axis.

A landlord who fled with his family last year said he received a chilling message last week. His tenants called him in Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province, which includes Swat, to tell him his huge house was being demolished, he said in an interview here.

The most crushing news was about his finances. He had sold his fruit crop in advance, though at a quarter of last year’s price. But even that smaller yield would not be his, his tenants said, relaying the Taliban message. The buyer had been ordered to give the money to the Taliban instead.

 

[Vinod2070]

This is key.

Unlike India after independence in 1947, Pakistan maintained a narrow landed upper class that kept its vast holdings while its workers remained subservient, the officials and analysts said. Successive Pakistani governments have since failed to provide land reform and even the most basic forms of education and health care. Avenues to advancement for the vast majority of rural poor do not exist.

Zia explicitly mentioned that the Islamic foot soldiers will come from this underclass. That has been happening with unnerving regularity.

There are ~1000 documented cases of LET recruits, mainly from Sounthern Punjab (that has become the sanctuary of sectarian and other forms of Islamic terror) who have been killed at an average age of just 16.95 years!

Many of them are referred by their own family or friends, in a startling display of the roots militancy and terrorism have taken in the Pakistani society, where Osama Bin Laden was hiding for a decade before being killed in a US raid and is still a hero for many.

This was after completion of their training and after completing their terror operations in the field. Most of them died in Indian Kashmir (so much for indigenous freedom fighters!).

There have been about 40,000 Pakistanis killed due to this blowack from terrorists who were raised and supported by official policy and are suspected of still having substantial support from some official quarters.

http://www.defence.pk/forums/indian...w-let-military-might-cannot-wipe-out-let.html

 

[Vinod2070]

Some excerpts on the ****** nexus of Pakistani society and institutions that has taken it to the very brink of failure, raising alarms in India and elsewhere.

ISLAMABAD: In an astonishingly candid admission - a first by any Pakistani head of state - president Asif Ali Zardari has admitted militants and terrorists were wilfully created by past Pakistani governments and nurtured as a policy to achieve tactical objectives.

``Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralized but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve short-term tactical objectives. Let's be truthful and make a candid admission of the reality,'' he said at a gathering of civil servants in Islamabad on Tuesday night.

This is what the former army chief Mirza Aslam Beg says.

No doubt, the Muslims have faced brutal assault by the non-Muslims states, during the last three decades, which awakened the “Spirit of Jihad” and defeated the oppressors of the world, determining the new contours of the global order. This ideological force of the Muslims, against tyranny has rightly been called by M.J. Akbar, as “Shadow armies led by committed believers, which have defeated the mightiest of the mighty” is the new phenomenon -- the resistance by the Muslim world defamed as terrorism by the West. The resistance is called “the asymmetric war” which has humbled two superpowers and two regional powers, in a short period of thirty years. Allah be praised.

Surprisingly the Muslim countries have had no role in defeating the aggression by the non-Muslims. On the contrary, the countries like Pakistan joined the Americans in their fight against the Afghan freedom fighters and both the aggressors, now stand shamed and defeated.

Parvez Hoodbhoy has this to say:

What happened, tragically, was very different. Under General Zia-ul-Haq, with full support from Islamic parties, ideologically charged individuals hijacked the Curriculum Wing. Over the years, they steadily converted Pakistani schools into zealot factories. Children were taught that heinous conspiracies explain the plight of Islam and Pakistan today, told to hate Hindus and non-Muslims, and have the desperation of the besieged. The curriculum required students to “collect pictures of policemen, soldiers, and National Guards”, explained to them that the exercise of democracy was why East Pakistan had separated from West Pakistan, and gave them the notion that the “Ideology of Pakistan” stood for zero tolerance of dissent and diversity.

In contrast with the relatively open-minded education during Pakistan’s earlier years, schools bred ignorance and violence. Militant jihad became part of the culture on college and university campuses. Armed groups flourished, set up offices throughout the country, collected funds after Friday prayers, and declared a war without borders.

Also the typical duplicity that you can see again and again:

In summer 2001, while visiting the University of Maryland, I went to hear Qazi Husain Ahmad, emir of the Jamaat-i-Islami, lecture at the Brookings Institute in Washington DC. He spoke on Islam, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. What I heard both surprised and impressed me. Much of what Qazi Husain said was more or less along expected lines – Islam being misunderstood in the West, unfair US embargoes upon Pakistan after the nuclear tests, the unwarranted hostility towards the Taliban (although he disagreed with their rejection of education of girls), etc. But the rest was refreshingly new and remarkably enlightened.

In his opening remarks Qazi Husain praised the US for being a “pluralist” society where he could go to a mosque and freely proselytize, pointed proudly to his shalwar-kameez and declared he could dress as he pleased, and remarked that those of his family members who had migrated to the US felt quite at home. I had never heard him speak publicly in English earlier, nor had I expected such a sound appreciation from him of “pluralism” (a word that he repeated at least twice). In essence he had anticipated General Musharraf’s celebrated “enlightened moderation” by three years. His acceptance of the fact that different groups within a society could accept a plurality of beliefs and philosophies, and still live in harmony, was welcomed by all. I left with a new respect for his values and skills, as did many others in the audience.

It therefore saddened me to read Qazi Husain’s article in Dawn (10 June) wherein he espouses values that stand diametrically opposed to those he declared at Brookings. This article apparently negates his former stand on pluralism and tolerance. Instead, he now adopts a menacing tone towards Ismailis, referring to them thrice as a “religious minority” without conceding that they are a Muslim sect. He darkly hints that they may meet the fate of the Ahmadis in Pakistan, and claims that there are deep conspiracies to undermine Pakistan by attempting to change the school curriculum “by taking over the country’s education boards”.

You would see the same duplicity on this forum by people who try to become big champions of "liberal democracy", only to make unceasing and ever increasing demands on the host societies.

And now president Musharraf:

SPIEGEL: Even attacks on Taliban chief Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden or influential Haqqani?

Musharraf: Certainly. The only thing I was concerned about was apprehending Osama bin Laden and putting him on trial within Pakistan. You need to understand the sensitivities in our country.

This is a country that has been at war with itself since the very birth.

What needs to be done. As of yesterday!

Grow up, and smell the coffee | Latest news, Breaking news, Pakistan News, World news, business, sport and multimedia | DAWN.COM

 

[Vinod2070]

M J Akbar in his new book "TINDERBOX : THE PAST AND FUTURE OF PAKISTAN" mentions the possibility that Pakistan is in danger of turning into a toxic "jelly state", a quivering country that will neither collapse nor stabilize.

Maulana Azad made these predictions about Pakistan, many of which have come true.

I feel that right from its inception, Pakistan will face some very serious problems:

1. The incompetent political leadership will pave the way for military dictatorship as it has happened in many Muslim countries.

2. The heavy burden of foreign debt.

3. Absence of friendly relationship with neighbours and the possibility of armed conflict.

4. Internal unrest and regional conflicts.

5. The loot of national wealth by the neo-rich and industrialists of Pakistan.

6. The apprehension of class war as a result of exploitation by the neo-rich.

7. The dissatisfaction and alienation of the youth from religion and the collapse of the theory of Pakistan.

8. The conspiracies of the international powers to control Pakistan.


Parvez Hoodbhoy paints a scary scenario for Pakistan.

One could imagine that Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is overthrown in a coup by radical Islamist officers who seize control of the country's nuclear weapons, making intervention by outside forces impossible. Jihad for liberating Kashmir is subsequently declared as Pakistan's highest priority and earlier policies for crossing the Line of Control are revived; Shias are expelled into Iran, and Hindus are forced into India; ethnic and religious minorities in the Northern Areas flee Pashtun invaders; anti-Taliban forces such as the ethnic Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Baluch nationalists are decisively crushed by Islamists; and sharia is declared across the country. Fortunately, this seems improbable--as long as the army stays together.

What can the United States, which is still the world's preeminent power, do to turn the situation around? Amazingly little.

In spite of being on the U.S. dole, Pakistan is probably the most anti-American country in the world.

 

[RiazHaq]

Recently released independent film "Peepli Live" highlights the problem of farmers' suicides in India--some 200,000 of them have taken their own lives in the last ten years. But it does more than just satirize this unfolding tragedy; it also demolishes the carefully crafted image of "Peaceful, Stable and Prosperous India" that has been widely promoted in the Western media by the likes of the CNN show host Fareed Zakaria through his TV show and his book "The Post-American World".

Haq's Musings: "Peepli Live" Destroys Indian Myths

 

[Dushmann]

Riaz haq sahab, how is peepli live movie related to 'Pakistan's growing human capital'?

 

[RiazHaq]

Riaz haq sahab, how is peepli live movie related to 'Pakistan's growing human capital'?

To understand it, read the posts before mine about the "wonders" of land reform in India which is said to have helped the poor farmers. Peepli Live shows the state of the Indian farmers committing suicides at an unprecedented rate in poor, hungry and illiterate India where the vast majority of people still defecate in the open.

Haq's Musings: 63 Years After Independence, India Remains Home to World's Largest Population of Poor, Hungry and Illiterates

 

[RiazHaq]

M J Akbar in his new book "TINDERBOX : THE PAST AND FUTURE OF PAKISTAN" mentions the possibility that Pakistan is in danger of turning into a toxic "jelly state", a quivering country that will neither collapse nor stabilize.

Maulana Azad made these predictions about Pakistan, many of which have come true.

I feel that right from its inception, Pakistan will face some very serious problems:

1. The incompetent political leadership will pave the way for military dictatorship as it has happened in many Muslim countries.

2. The heavy burden of foreign debt.

3. Absence of friendly relationship with neighbours and the possibility of armed conflict.

4. Internal unrest and regional conflicts.

5. The loot of national wealth by the neo-rich and industrialists of Pakistan.

6. The apprehension of class war as a result of exploitation by the neo-rich.

7. The dissatisfaction and alienation of the youth from religion and the collapse of the theory of Pakistan.

8. The conspiracies of the international powers to control Pakistan.


Parvez Hoodbhoy paints a scary scenario for Pakistan.

What Maulana failed to see is that Muslims will be worse off than the untouchables in Hindu India.

1. Muslims, the New Untouchables in India:

While India maintains its facade of religious tolerance, democracy and secularism through a few high-profile Muslim tokens among its high officials and celebrities, the ground reality for the vast majority of ordinary Muslims is much harsher.

An Indian government commission headed by former Indian Chief Justice Rajendar Sachar confirms that Muslims are the new untouchables in caste-ridden and communal India. Indian Muslims suffer heavy discrimination in almost every field from education and housing to jobs. Their incarceration rates are also much higher than their Hindu counterparts.

According to Sachar Commission report, Muslims are now worse off than the Dalit caste, or those called untouchables. Some 52% of Muslim men are unemployed, compared with 47% of Dalit men. Among Muslim women, 91% are unemployed, compared with 77% of Dalit women. Almost half of Muslims over the age of 46 ca not read or write. While making up 11% of the population, Muslims account for 40% of India’s prison population. Meanwhile, they hold less than 5% of government jobs.

2. Upward Economic Mobility in Pakistan:

In spite of all of its problems, Pakistan has continued to offer higher upward economic and social mobility to its citizens over the last two decades than India. Since 1990, Pakistan's middle class had expanded by 36.5% and India's by only 12.8%, according to an ADB report titled "Asia's Emerging Middle Class: Past, Present And Future".

Miles Corak of University of Ottawa calculates that the intergenerational earnings elasticity in Pakistan is 0.46, the same as in Switzerland. It means that a difference of 100% between the incomes of a rich father and a poor father is reduced to 46% difference between their sons' incomes. Among the 22 countries studied, Peru, China and Brazil have the lowest economic mobility with inter-generational elasticity of 0.67, 0.60 and 0.58 respectively. The highest economic mobility is offered by Denmark (0.15), Norway (0.17) and Finland (0.18).


The author also looked at Gini coefficient of each country and found reasonably good correlation between Gini and intergenerational income elasticity.

More evidence of upward mobility is offered by recent Euromonitor market research indicating that Pakistanis are seeing rising disposable incomes. It says that there were 1.8 million Pakistani households (7.55% of all households) and 7.9 million Indian households (3.61% of all households) in 2009 with disposable incomes of $10,001 or more. This translates into 282% increase (vs 232% in India) from 1995-2009 in households with disposable incomes of $10,001 or more. Consumer spending in Pakistan has increased at a 26 percent average pace the past three years, compared with 7.7 percent for Asia, according to Bloomberg.

Haq's Musings: Pakistan Day: Looking at the 1940 Lahore Resolution in Hindsight

 

[Yeti]

Both our countries youth population is our greatest assets if they are educated and can get jobs if not they will be a burden.