Pakistan's Growing Human Capital
- Thread starter RiazHaq
- Start date
Sadly, the murder of 50,000 baby girls every month in India does not bother the rabid "India Shining" brigade:
Some 50,000 female fetuses are aborted every month in India. Baby girls are often killed at birth, either thrown into rivers, or left to die in garbage dumps. Its estimated that one million girls in India disappear every year.
I traveled first to Delhi, where I met a woman who is a member of the privileged, educated class. Her name is Mitu and she is a pediatrician, married to a doctor. When she became pregnant, she said her husbands family pressured her to have an illegal ultrasound to see if her twins were girls or boys. There are clinics everywhere in India, offering ultrasounds. We walked down street after street and saw signs everywhere advertising ultrasound services. There are even technicians who pack portable ultrasounds and travel to villages offering their services. The dirty little secret is that many couples use the ultrasound to find out the sex of their baby. If they find its a girl, hundreds of thousands of mothers-to-be abort the fetus. 50,000 girl fetuses are aborted every month in India. It is a staggering number. And it has created whole villages where there are hardly any women. We went to one such village in the province of Haryana. Everywhere we looked, we saw boys, young men, old men, but very, very few women. It was unsettling, especially because we knew this was not some freak of nature, but a result of the deliberate extermination of girls.
All Those Little Faces: Elizabeth Vargas Explores Indias Gendercide - ABC News
Superfreakonomics authors Steven D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner have argued that if women could choose their birthplace, India might not be a wise choice for any of them to be born. They say that those lucky enough not to be aborted as fetuses face inequality and cruelty at every turn because of the low social status given to Indian women.
The latest UN data proves Levitt and Dubner right. An Indian girl aged 1-5 years is 75% more likely to die than an Indian boy, making India the most deadly place for newborn baby girls, according to data released by the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA). The data for 150 countries over 40 years shows that India and China are the only two countries in the world where female infant mortality is higher than male infant mortality.
In the decade of 2000s, there were 56 male child deaths for every 100 female child deaths in India, compared with 111 in the developing world. This ratio has got progressively worse since the 1970s in India, even as Pakistan (120) and Sri Lanka (125) have improved.
Haq's Musings: UN Finds India Most Deadly For Little Girls
Vinod2070
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What I like about these people is the very simple response system.
I don't want to really elaborate but Pavolvian response is the only way to describe it.
Mr. Pavlov may well have carried out his experiments with similar creatures.
I don't want to really elaborate but Pavolvian response is the only way to describe it.
Mr. Pavlov may well have carried out his experiments with similar creatures.
What I like about these people is the very simple response system.
I don't want to really elaborate but Pavolvian response is the only way to describe it.
Mr. Pavlov may well have carried out his experiments with similar creatures.
We are talking about human capital and the impact of various factors that promote or inhibit its growth.
But after seeing some of the Indian posters' churlish response with references to Pavolv, the question now is which one is Pavolv's dog? Or is there a pack of Pavolv's dogs barking in unison to express anger when shown the mirror?
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Vinod2070
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We are talking about the pathetic obsession with India in a thread that was supposedly about "Pakistan's Growing Human Capital".
And how a too clever by half person interprets the topic.
Of course, we can think of many reasons for this pathetic obsession. Some of which I have outlined and some I will, over the course of time.
And how a too clever by half person interprets the topic.
Of course, we can think of many reasons for this pathetic obsession. Some of which I have outlined and some I will, over the course of time.
Dushmann
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What I like about these people is the very simple response system.
I don't want to really elaborate but Pavolvian response is the only way to describe it.
Mr. Pavlov may well have carried out his experiments with similar creatures.
Deliberate trolling to save face and honor after getting exposed is another way to describe it.
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Pakistan’s High Illiteracy Rate Threatens Its Fragile Democracy
One of the most troubling – and perhaps overlooked – elements of next month’s potentially historic general election in Pakistan is that in a country seeking to transfer from one democratically elected government to another for the first time ever, millions of people cannot read or write.
According to Unesco, only about 56 percent of Pakistani adults are literate -- in contrast, South Asian neighbors India and Sri Lanka boast literacy rates of 74 percent and 97 percent, respectively.
Literacy rates in Pakistan are even lower for the rural poor and for women. Unesco estimates that some 70 percent of Pakistan’s rural population is illiterate, with even higher rates for women.
While the illiterate cannot be barred from voting, Saadat Ali Khan, a research associate at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, warned in Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper that illiteracy plays into the hands of corrupt politicians who try to win votes on the basis of religious, tribal or ethnic affiliations, rather than on their contributions to the nation.
“Lessons are to be learned from history,” Khan wrote.
“During the Dark Ages of Europe, the church purposely kept the people uneducated so as to continue its influence without facing any accountability. One dreads that the pattern in Pakistan is similar, where the ruling elite keeps the people uneducated in order to exploit them for their selfish motives.”
Indeed, in Pakistan’s rural hinterlands, voters (most of whom are illiterate) often vote for candidates who have paid them off with money or food or promised favors.
“Illiteracy undermines the very foundations of … democracy,” warned Unesco in its report on Pakistan.
“Illiterate citizens inevitably lack in awareness and reasoning skills. How can we expect a voter to make an informed decision when he/she is unable to even read a newspaper? Illiterate voters are easily misled.”
With the elections looming in Pakistan, Saadat Khan highlighted the importance of the media’s role.
“Considering the fact that [much] of our population is uneducated, the votes cast will be largely influenced by the mass media,” he said.
“It is imperative that the media portrays an unbiased opinion through print and television programs so that the public can make an informed decision.”
Pakistan faces many obstacles in educating its people as its school infrastructure is in a shambles.
According to Dr. Azeem Ibrahim, a strategic policy adviser to cricket star and presidential candidate Imran Khan, the average number of years that a Pakistani spends in school is just under four years -- versus 5.1 in India, 6.8 in Malaysia and 12 in the United States.
“Pakistan’s schools need a radical rebuilding and modernization program as 59 percent of schools do not have electricity, 33 percent do not have drinking water and 40 percent do not even have desks,” he wrote of the dire underfunding and underdevelopment of the education sector.
Pakistan, if it holds any faint hopes of solidifying its fragile democracy, will also have to overcome deep-seated cultural values in order to educate all of its people.
“Education is one of the key priority areas of the government of Pakistan, but to increase the overall literacy rate of the country, it is essential to change the mindset of the communities, especially in this patriarchal society,” said the United Nations resident coordinator in Pakistan, Timo Pakkala.
Not surprisingly, political parties have promised to tackle the high illiteracy rates in Pakistan –the incumbent Pakistan People’s Party has promised to more than double the country’s education budget to 4.5 percent of GDP from 2.2 percent; and to raise the literacy rate to 85 percent.
Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party seeks to raise the literacy rate to 80 percent, while Amir Syed Munawar Hassan, the leader of Pakistan’s biggest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, has promised 100 percent literacy within five years.
These would appear to be overly optimistic targets in a country wracked by endemic political instability, official corruption, power shortages and seemingly endless sectarian violence.
Pakistan
One of the most troubling – and perhaps overlooked – elements of next month’s potentially historic general election in Pakistan is that in a country seeking to transfer from one democratically elected government to another for the first time ever, millions of people cannot read or write.
According to Unesco, only about 56 percent of Pakistani adults are literate -- in contrast, South Asian neighbors India and Sri Lanka boast literacy rates of 74 percent and 97 percent, respectively.
Literacy rates in Pakistan are even lower for the rural poor and for women. Unesco estimates that some 70 percent of Pakistan’s rural population is illiterate, with even higher rates for women.
While the illiterate cannot be barred from voting, Saadat Ali Khan, a research associate at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, warned in Pakistan’s Express Tribune newspaper that illiteracy plays into the hands of corrupt politicians who try to win votes on the basis of religious, tribal or ethnic affiliations, rather than on their contributions to the nation.
“Lessons are to be learned from history,” Khan wrote.
“During the Dark Ages of Europe, the church purposely kept the people uneducated so as to continue its influence without facing any accountability. One dreads that the pattern in Pakistan is similar, where the ruling elite keeps the people uneducated in order to exploit them for their selfish motives.”
Indeed, in Pakistan’s rural hinterlands, voters (most of whom are illiterate) often vote for candidates who have paid them off with money or food or promised favors.
“Illiteracy undermines the very foundations of … democracy,” warned Unesco in its report on Pakistan.
“Illiterate citizens inevitably lack in awareness and reasoning skills. How can we expect a voter to make an informed decision when he/she is unable to even read a newspaper? Illiterate voters are easily misled.”
With the elections looming in Pakistan, Saadat Khan highlighted the importance of the media’s role.
“Considering the fact that [much] of our population is uneducated, the votes cast will be largely influenced by the mass media,” he said.
“It is imperative that the media portrays an unbiased opinion through print and television programs so that the public can make an informed decision.”
Pakistan faces many obstacles in educating its people as its school infrastructure is in a shambles.
According to Dr. Azeem Ibrahim, a strategic policy adviser to cricket star and presidential candidate Imran Khan, the average number of years that a Pakistani spends in school is just under four years -- versus 5.1 in India, 6.8 in Malaysia and 12 in the United States.
“Pakistan’s schools need a radical rebuilding and modernization program as 59 percent of schools do not have electricity, 33 percent do not have drinking water and 40 percent do not even have desks,” he wrote of the dire underfunding and underdevelopment of the education sector.
Pakistan, if it holds any faint hopes of solidifying its fragile democracy, will also have to overcome deep-seated cultural values in order to educate all of its people.
“Education is one of the key priority areas of the government of Pakistan, but to increase the overall literacy rate of the country, it is essential to change the mindset of the communities, especially in this patriarchal society,” said the United Nations resident coordinator in Pakistan, Timo Pakkala.
Not surprisingly, political parties have promised to tackle the high illiteracy rates in Pakistan –the incumbent Pakistan People’s Party has promised to more than double the country’s education budget to 4.5 percent of GDP from 2.2 percent; and to raise the literacy rate to 85 percent.
Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party seeks to raise the literacy rate to 80 percent, while Amir Syed Munawar Hassan, the leader of Pakistan’s biggest Islamist party, Jamaat-e-Islami, has promised 100 percent literacy within five years.
These would appear to be overly optimistic targets in a country wracked by endemic political instability, official corruption, power shortages and seemingly endless sectarian violence.
Pakistan
Beyond basic necessities like food and shelter, few things matter more than education — which begins with achieving literacy. However, in many parts of the world, literacy disparities between the genders have devastating consequences not just for the equality of the sexes, but also for women's economic prospects. We wonder: Which of the following major countries or regions has the largest gap between the literacy rates of adult men and women?
ANSWER
A. Latin America
B. Arab states
C. Sub-Saharan Africa
D. India
A.
Latin America is not correct.
In Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole, literacy — defined as the ability to read and write a simple statement on one's daily life — is high, averaging 91 percent. The region has also accomplished considerable gender equality, with the literacy rate for men only 1 percentage point above that for women. Brazil, Latin America's most populous country, also has a high adult literacy rate, at 90 percent — and Argentina's is even higher, at 98 percent.
B.
Arab states is not correct.
With an overall literacy rate of just 71 percent, literacy in Arab states significantly lags that in Latin America. In addition, men in that region are significantly more likely to be literate than women, with a male literacy rate of 80 percent and that of females at just 62 percent. The literacy gap is especially large in Yemen, at 37 percentage points. In comparison, the gap stands at 17 percentage points in Egypt and 10 points in Saudi Arabia.
C.
Sub-Saharan Africa is not correct.
Sub-Saharan Africa's overall literacy rate is 62 percent, with women's literacy (54 percent) lagging that of men (71 percent) by 17 percentage points — an indicator of considerable discrimination in providing access to primary education. Too often, when family resources to pay for education are scarce, the choice is made to send boys to school — and few, if any, girls. In the region's largest country, Nigeria, overall performance stands at 72 percent — considerably better than that of sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. And yet, with men's literacy 16 percentage points higher than women's, it also discriminates against women in this respect.
D.
India is correct.
Despite India's high-tech successes, the country lags in providing all its citizens with basic education. With an overall adult literacy rate of only 66 percent, India lags significantly behind China (93 percent), according to data from UNESCO. In addition, at 77 percent, men in India have a literacy rate that is 22 percentage points higher than that of women (55 percent). India's literacy gender gap is thus worse than the average gap of 18 percentage points in the world's least-developed countries.
Source: San Jose Mercury News
Haq's Musings: Female Literacy Lags Far Behind in India and Pakistan
ANSWER
A. Latin America
B. Arab states
C. Sub-Saharan Africa
D. India
A.
Latin America is not correct.
In Latin America and the Caribbean as a whole, literacy — defined as the ability to read and write a simple statement on one's daily life — is high, averaging 91 percent. The region has also accomplished considerable gender equality, with the literacy rate for men only 1 percentage point above that for women. Brazil, Latin America's most populous country, also has a high adult literacy rate, at 90 percent — and Argentina's is even higher, at 98 percent.
B.
Arab states is not correct.
With an overall literacy rate of just 71 percent, literacy in Arab states significantly lags that in Latin America. In addition, men in that region are significantly more likely to be literate than women, with a male literacy rate of 80 percent and that of females at just 62 percent. The literacy gap is especially large in Yemen, at 37 percentage points. In comparison, the gap stands at 17 percentage points in Egypt and 10 points in Saudi Arabia.
C.
Sub-Saharan Africa is not correct.
Sub-Saharan Africa's overall literacy rate is 62 percent, with women's literacy (54 percent) lagging that of men (71 percent) by 17 percentage points — an indicator of considerable discrimination in providing access to primary education. Too often, when family resources to pay for education are scarce, the choice is made to send boys to school — and few, if any, girls. In the region's largest country, Nigeria, overall performance stands at 72 percent — considerably better than that of sub-Saharan Africa as a whole. And yet, with men's literacy 16 percentage points higher than women's, it also discriminates against women in this respect.
D.
India is correct.
Despite India's high-tech successes, the country lags in providing all its citizens with basic education. With an overall adult literacy rate of only 66 percent, India lags significantly behind China (93 percent), according to data from UNESCO. In addition, at 77 percent, men in India have a literacy rate that is 22 percentage points higher than that of women (55 percent). India's literacy gender gap is thus worse than the average gap of 18 percentage points in the world's least-developed countries.
Source: San Jose Mercury News
Haq's Musings: Female Literacy Lags Far Behind in India and Pakistan
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
TheFlyingPretzel
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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
Weapons in the hands of idiots? Now that's a worrying observation.
"India is superpoor, not superpower"
Sashi Tharoor
“It is still 80 percent nation and 50 percent democracy”
Ramachandra Guha
Haq's Musings: Can Superpoor India Become a Superpower?
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Is Pakistan sinking?
April 11, 2013 by Khurram Husain
THE question of Pakistan’s viability as a state is at least as old as the country itself. Recently a sobering article written by a former American ambassador to Pakistan has reignited the question and left many wondering whether Pakistan’s “long-term trajectory is toward failure”.
The ambassador belongs to the camp that sees Pakistan as moving inexorably towards failure, and urges the world community and regional neighbours to start “thinking about the political and strategic implications of an accelerated decline toward state failure” in the nuclear-armed country.
The next day, on the same pages of the same newspaper, there appeared another article on the same theme. This one written by Michael Krepon, cofounder of the Stimson Centre, focused more specifically on Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal.
“A nuclear arsenal built on very weak economic foundations is inherently unstable,” wrote Mr Krepon, arguing that strengthening Pakistan’s economy is inherently in India’s interest, and the best way to accomplish this is through increasing bilateral trade and investment between the two neighbours.
The concerns expressed by both authors are old, but not outdated. If anything, both articles are reminders that amidst the chaos and flux of a rapidly evolving moment, amidst the heady excitement of the first truly democratic transfer of power that Pakistan is undergoing, old concerns regarding the eventual viability of the state not only continue to linger, but are growing in urgency.
Connected to the question of long-term viability is the matter of Pakistan’s enduring resilience. Another way of asking the same question, therefore, is not “how will Pakistan survive?” but rather “how has Pakistan survived?” The two questions are intimately linked.
Pakistan has survived due to its rich natural endowments. These include water and gas. Allow me to explain.
Pakistan is built around a river system, a hydraulic society so to speak. The rich water endowment means a flourishing agriculture forms the base not just of the economy, but the entire system of livelihoods that holds the country together.
Contrary to what the ambassador says in a small parenthetical comment in his piece, Pakistan is not “glued by the army” but it is held together by its agriculture.
Having seen Pakistan’s economy up close for many years now, I’m struck by how large a role agriculture plays. Every year, the land throws up its rich harvest on two occasions: the cotton crop which starts coming in during August, and the wheat crop which is harvested from April onwards.
Both these crops are big enough to make the country a player in global markets. Both employ a labour force so massive that during their harvesting, industry leaders complain that the cities get emptied out and labour becomes a scarcity.
Both crops have large and significant industries built upon them, whether transport and storage, or processing. In the case of cotton, Pakistan’s largest employer — the textile industry — grows atop the bountiful harvest.
Both crops are huge players in the country’s credit markets, whether formal or informal. The size of the commodity operations that support the wheat procurement drive compares favourably with other enormous heads in the government’s budget, like power subsidies. And the textile sector, which is an extension of the cotton crop, is the country’s largest private sector consumer of bank credit.
The size of the commodity chains that are built around each crop, from the upstream fertiliser and pesticides sector to tractors and tube wells, to the marketing and distribution infrastructure and the labour force requirements in not only the harvest itself but the transport and marketing and distribution, are so huge that they form the backbone of the country and its economy.
The scale of the activity that gets under way every year when the harvest comes in is large enough to employ a labour force estimated to be more than 55 million people.
Couple this with the natural gas reserves that have fuelled our industry, and fired our stoves and ovens and geysers and served as feedstock in our fertiliser industry.
Today Pakistan is shielded from the full impact of hundred dollar oil because domestic gas accounts for almost half of the country’s primary energy consumption. The only sector that has had to largely absorb the costs of hundred dollar oil is the power sector, and the circular debt is testament to the enormous destruction that high oil prices have brought with them.
Pakistan is built on nature’s bounties, far more than anything else. Here lies the secret of the country’s ‘resilience’, its capacity to bounce back, to muddle through.
No matter what the provocation — earthquake, floods, war, sanctions, recession — the arrival of the harvest twice a year gets the wheels moving, money starts to circulate, and an army of farmers and day labourers and brokers and stockists and middlemen and moneylenders and truck drivers begins to articulate itself, imperfectly mediated by another army of petty officialdom, and often gorged upon by large landowners and their connections in high levels of government.
Having seen all this with my own eyes, I must confess I’m not as troubled by the growth of the militancy and the bombings as I am by watching this natural endowment begin to erode away.
Pakistan’s natural gas is running out, and our food security — the backbone of the country’s resilience — is now in question, driven by growing water scarcities and deep dysfunctions in the agrarian economy.
The militancy and the extremism can be swept aside once their lifeline of support from within the state itself is cut off, and once the forces of mainstream economy
and politics begin to assert themselves.
Without under the table support from certain sections of the state itself, militancy and extremism will suffocate in this environment, and the ballot box will assign them their true place in our society, like it always has.
But getting the forces of mainstream economy and politics to articulate themselves properly, especially in the face of the growing scarcities that are coming our way, is the real challenge.
Is Pakistan sinking? | Opinion | DAWN.COM
April 11, 2013 by Khurram Husain
THE question of Pakistan’s viability as a state is at least as old as the country itself. Recently a sobering article written by a former American ambassador to Pakistan has reignited the question and left many wondering whether Pakistan’s “long-term trajectory is toward failure”.
The ambassador belongs to the camp that sees Pakistan as moving inexorably towards failure, and urges the world community and regional neighbours to start “thinking about the political and strategic implications of an accelerated decline toward state failure” in the nuclear-armed country.
The next day, on the same pages of the same newspaper, there appeared another article on the same theme. This one written by Michael Krepon, cofounder of the Stimson Centre, focused more specifically on Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal.
“A nuclear arsenal built on very weak economic foundations is inherently unstable,” wrote Mr Krepon, arguing that strengthening Pakistan’s economy is inherently in India’s interest, and the best way to accomplish this is through increasing bilateral trade and investment between the two neighbours.
The concerns expressed by both authors are old, but not outdated. If anything, both articles are reminders that amidst the chaos and flux of a rapidly evolving moment, amidst the heady excitement of the first truly democratic transfer of power that Pakistan is undergoing, old concerns regarding the eventual viability of the state not only continue to linger, but are growing in urgency.
Connected to the question of long-term viability is the matter of Pakistan’s enduring resilience. Another way of asking the same question, therefore, is not “how will Pakistan survive?” but rather “how has Pakistan survived?” The two questions are intimately linked.
Pakistan has survived due to its rich natural endowments. These include water and gas. Allow me to explain.
Pakistan is built around a river system, a hydraulic society so to speak. The rich water endowment means a flourishing agriculture forms the base not just of the economy, but the entire system of livelihoods that holds the country together.
Contrary to what the ambassador says in a small parenthetical comment in his piece, Pakistan is not “glued by the army” but it is held together by its agriculture.
Having seen Pakistan’s economy up close for many years now, I’m struck by how large a role agriculture plays. Every year, the land throws up its rich harvest on two occasions: the cotton crop which starts coming in during August, and the wheat crop which is harvested from April onwards.
Both these crops are big enough to make the country a player in global markets. Both employ a labour force so massive that during their harvesting, industry leaders complain that the cities get emptied out and labour becomes a scarcity.
Both crops have large and significant industries built upon them, whether transport and storage, or processing. In the case of cotton, Pakistan’s largest employer — the textile industry — grows atop the bountiful harvest.
Both crops are huge players in the country’s credit markets, whether formal or informal. The size of the commodity operations that support the wheat procurement drive compares favourably with other enormous heads in the government’s budget, like power subsidies. And the textile sector, which is an extension of the cotton crop, is the country’s largest private sector consumer of bank credit.
The size of the commodity chains that are built around each crop, from the upstream fertiliser and pesticides sector to tractors and tube wells, to the marketing and distribution infrastructure and the labour force requirements in not only the harvest itself but the transport and marketing and distribution, are so huge that they form the backbone of the country and its economy.
The scale of the activity that gets under way every year when the harvest comes in is large enough to employ a labour force estimated to be more than 55 million people.
Couple this with the natural gas reserves that have fuelled our industry, and fired our stoves and ovens and geysers and served as feedstock in our fertiliser industry.
Today Pakistan is shielded from the full impact of hundred dollar oil because domestic gas accounts for almost half of the country’s primary energy consumption. The only sector that has had to largely absorb the costs of hundred dollar oil is the power sector, and the circular debt is testament to the enormous destruction that high oil prices have brought with them.
Pakistan is built on nature’s bounties, far more than anything else. Here lies the secret of the country’s ‘resilience’, its capacity to bounce back, to muddle through.
No matter what the provocation — earthquake, floods, war, sanctions, recession — the arrival of the harvest twice a year gets the wheels moving, money starts to circulate, and an army of farmers and day labourers and brokers and stockists and middlemen and moneylenders and truck drivers begins to articulate itself, imperfectly mediated by another army of petty officialdom, and often gorged upon by large landowners and their connections in high levels of government.
Having seen all this with my own eyes, I must confess I’m not as troubled by the growth of the militancy and the bombings as I am by watching this natural endowment begin to erode away.
Pakistan’s natural gas is running out, and our food security — the backbone of the country’s resilience — is now in question, driven by growing water scarcities and deep dysfunctions in the agrarian economy.
The militancy and the extremism can be swept aside once their lifeline of support from within the state itself is cut off, and once the forces of mainstream economy
and politics begin to assert themselves.
Without under the table support from certain sections of the state itself, militancy and extremism will suffocate in this environment, and the ballot box will assign them their true place in our society, like it always has.
But getting the forces of mainstream economy and politics to articulate themselves properly, especially in the face of the growing scarcities that are coming our way, is the real challenge.
Is Pakistan sinking? | Opinion | DAWN.COM
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Here is a well known Internet Hindu, banned multiply times but always comes back for more.
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Viewpoint: Pakistan's economic woes are being overlooked
By Bruce Stokes Pew Research Center
Pakistan is a country beset with political difficulties, but they could be of secondary importance to its economic woes.
While much attention has been devoted to the dramatic Supreme Court move to order the arrest of Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on charges of corruption and recent large-scale protests led by populist cleric Tahirul Qadri to demand the resignation of the government ahead of elections due in May, the country's financial difficulties have been overlooked.
Likewise recent deadly militant bombings have also distracted attention, as have skirmishes with India on the Line of Control (LoC) that divides the disputed Kashmir region.
These headline-grabbing events have not only served to obscure the profound economic challenges facing Pakistani society but in many cases have also nurtured and aggravated them.
'Deteriorating economy'
The truth is that the Pakistani people are deeply troubled by the plight of their economy and their own economic prospects.
With the government likely to ask the International Monetary Fund this year for a new aid package, the nation's economic plight may soon become topic number one in the global discussion about Pakistan's future.
"Deep seated structural problems and weak macroeconomic policies have continued to sap the [Pakistani] economy's vigour," the IMF's executive board concluded in late November.
Economic growth over the past four years, after adjustment for inflation, averaged 2.9% annually, and is projected to be only 3.2% in 2012-13.
That, says the IMF, is not sufficient to achieve significant improvement in living standards and to absorb the rising labour force.
All this at a time when prices are rising about 11% per year.
Moreover, the government deficit was 8.5% in the last fiscal year and press reports suggest it may miss its budget deficit target this year by a significant amount.
The IMF expects foreign reserves this fiscal year to be half what they were just two years ago, a sign of waning investor confidence and a deteriorating international economic situation.
Hardly surprising then that the Pakistani people are extremely downbeat.
'Personal pain'
Roughly nine out of 10 say the economy is bad, including a majority (64%) who think that it is very bad, according to the 2012 Pew Global Attitudes survey.
Just 9% rate the economy positively.
There has in fact been a sharp decline in economic ratings in Pakistan since the beginning of the global economic recession.
In 2007, 59% said the economy was doing well; by 2008, this percentage had dropped to 41% and has continued to fall since then.
A plurality (43%) believes the economy will only worsen. For many of them, this pain will be felt personally.
Their assessment of their own personal economic situation is down 19 percentage points since 2008, one of the largest fall-offs among the 15 countries for which the Pew Research Centre has comparable data.
Only 38% say they are better off than their parents.
More than half (57%) say they are worse off than five years ago. And 65% say it will be very difficult for their children to advance economically.
Unemployment is one of the public's major concerns.
Nine out of 10 people say that the lack of jobs is a very big problem, a more important issue to them than concern about corrupt political leaders or unrest in Kashmir.
However because the survey was conducted in the spring of 2012, it could be that concern about Kashmir has risen more recently because of flare-ups in January along the LoC.
While it is true that issues of life and death and war and peace will always trump economic news, the dire nature of Pakistan's economic problems could ultimately feed political and social unrest as the regional and global discussion about Pakistan's future moves to centre stage.
Polling suggests that the people of Pakistan may say this refocusing is long overdue.
Bruce Stokes is the director of global economic attitudes at the Pew Research Centre.
BBC News - Viewpoint: Pakistan's economic woes are being overlooked
Lol think about the percentage of Pakistani illiterates before commenting.
By Bruce Stokes Pew Research Center
Pakistan is a country beset with political difficulties, but they could be of secondary importance to its economic woes.
While much attention has been devoted to the dramatic Supreme Court move to order the arrest of Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on charges of corruption and recent large-scale protests led by populist cleric Tahirul Qadri to demand the resignation of the government ahead of elections due in May, the country's financial difficulties have been overlooked.
Likewise recent deadly militant bombings have also distracted attention, as have skirmishes with India on the Line of Control (LoC) that divides the disputed Kashmir region.
These headline-grabbing events have not only served to obscure the profound economic challenges facing Pakistani society but in many cases have also nurtured and aggravated them.
'Deteriorating economy'
The truth is that the Pakistani people are deeply troubled by the plight of their economy and their own economic prospects.
With the government likely to ask the International Monetary Fund this year for a new aid package, the nation's economic plight may soon become topic number one in the global discussion about Pakistan's future.
"Deep seated structural problems and weak macroeconomic policies have continued to sap the [Pakistani] economy's vigour," the IMF's executive board concluded in late November.
Economic growth over the past four years, after adjustment for inflation, averaged 2.9% annually, and is projected to be only 3.2% in 2012-13.
That, says the IMF, is not sufficient to achieve significant improvement in living standards and to absorb the rising labour force.
All this at a time when prices are rising about 11% per year.
Moreover, the government deficit was 8.5% in the last fiscal year and press reports suggest it may miss its budget deficit target this year by a significant amount.
The IMF expects foreign reserves this fiscal year to be half what they were just two years ago, a sign of waning investor confidence and a deteriorating international economic situation.
Hardly surprising then that the Pakistani people are extremely downbeat.
'Personal pain'
Roughly nine out of 10 say the economy is bad, including a majority (64%) who think that it is very bad, according to the 2012 Pew Global Attitudes survey.
Just 9% rate the economy positively.
There has in fact been a sharp decline in economic ratings in Pakistan since the beginning of the global economic recession.
In 2007, 59% said the economy was doing well; by 2008, this percentage had dropped to 41% and has continued to fall since then.
A plurality (43%) believes the economy will only worsen. For many of them, this pain will be felt personally.
Their assessment of their own personal economic situation is down 19 percentage points since 2008, one of the largest fall-offs among the 15 countries for which the Pew Research Centre has comparable data.
Only 38% say they are better off than their parents.
More than half (57%) say they are worse off than five years ago. And 65% say it will be very difficult for their children to advance economically.
Unemployment is one of the public's major concerns.
Nine out of 10 people say that the lack of jobs is a very big problem, a more important issue to them than concern about corrupt political leaders or unrest in Kashmir.
However because the survey was conducted in the spring of 2012, it could be that concern about Kashmir has risen more recently because of flare-ups in January along the LoC.
While it is true that issues of life and death and war and peace will always trump economic news, the dire nature of Pakistan's economic problems could ultimately feed political and social unrest as the regional and global discussion about Pakistan's future moves to centre stage.
Polling suggests that the people of Pakistan may say this refocusing is long overdue.
Bruce Stokes is the director of global economic attitudes at the Pew Research Centre.
BBC News - Viewpoint: Pakistan's economic woes are being overlooked
Lol think about the percentage of Pakistani illiterates before commenting.
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