Pakistan's Growing Human Capital

[soccerhero]

Sinking like a rock: Slim chances of recovery for Pakistan’s directionless economy, says ADB
By Shahbaz Rana / Creative: Anam Haleem
Published: April 10, 2013
ISLAMABAD:

Amid deep-rooted concerns over a “directionless” economy due to failure of the previous government and inability of the caretaker setup to take immediate meaningful steps, the Asian Development Bank has warned that Pakistan’s current growth model is unsustainable that also undermines future prospects.

In its Asian Development Outlook, the Manila-based lending agency has painted an extremely bleak picture of Pakistan’s economy that is “directionless” and immediate recovery chances are almost nil amid a worsening balance of payments position.

“A difficult political situation stalled effective policy response to macroeconomic and structural problems, especially regarding energy, and the end of the government’s 5-year term in mid-March limited political scope for major policy or structural reforms,” it said.

The economic developments in this fiscal year are unfolding along broadly similar lines as previous year, but with “deepening concerns about sustainability and the adequacy of forex reserves”.

A missing link in the ADB’s analysis of political failures is the role of bureaucrats in running the affairs of the government who often do not disclose actual extent of problems to the leadership.

The ADB’s fears about policy inaction are becoming true as caretaker Prime Minister Mir Hazar Khan Khoso has not been able to appoint a finance minister and no concrete measures have been taken on the economic front.

How much the government is sincere about addressing sluggish growth prospects, as highlighted by the ADB, can be gauged from the fact that so far three briefings on the economy have been given to the premier and the Planning Commission deputy chairman was missing in all meetings. “PM’s Principal Secretary Seerat Asgar is not giving him an appointment despite repeated attempts,” said a PC official.

Highlighting flaws in the growth model, the ADB said private consumption expenditure expanded by 11.6% in the last fiscal year that provided nearly all GDP growth. The consumption benefited from rising remittances and government salary increases.

The shift to consumption-based growth was because of a constant fall in fixed investment that fell for the fourth year in a row to 10.9% of GDP, the lowest since 1974 and the lowest among major Asian countries, the ADB said.

“The steady decline in investment, coupled with reliance on consumption for growth, is unsustainable and undermines future growth prospects,” the lending agency warned. In just one year, the declining investment shaved off 1.4 percentage points from growth.

According to the ADB, last year was the fifth consecutive year of low growth, falling investment, excessive fiscal deficits, high inflation and a deteriorating external position that weighed heavily on the economy.

The analysis seems a report card on the economic performance of the previous government, which completed its tenure on March 16 and changed five finance ministers during its rule.

On the back of low capital inflows and heavy debt repayments, the ADB assessed significant downside risks to future outlook. Low foreign reserves, which covered less than two months of imports in February this year, spark concern over sustainability of the external sector.

“Pressure on reserves is expected to continue, with an additional $1.7 billion due to the IMF before the end of fiscal year 2013 and $3.2 billion payments during the next fiscal year 2014,” the ADB said. The exchange rate will remain under pressure also in the next fiscal year.

The agency projected 3.6% growth for the current year, but said without energy sector reforms, Pakistan will not be able to achieve 7% growth, required to accommodate bulk of the youth looking for jobs. The Planning Commission’s Framework for Economic Growth also talks about 7% growth rate, but it has remained unimplemented.

On expectation that there will be no substantive improvement in the country’s fiscal and energy imbalances in FY14, inflation is expected to edge up to 9.5% and this year’s budget deficit will be at 7.5% excluding electricity arrears.

When the ADB was painting a gloomy picture of Pakistan’s economy, at the same time it found Asian economies returning to healthy growth.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 10th, 2013.

Sinking like a rock: Slim chances of recovery for Pakistan

 

[soccerhero]

Internet Hindus????? What are you Riaz?? Are you not an Internet warrior yourself???? Come on stop kidding us.

 

[RiazHaq]

Coming back to the human capital, here's what's happening with the ugly rape situation in "Shining India":

Most of the cases of rape of women and girls in India's Bihar state occur when they go out to defecate in the open, police and social activists say.

Some 85% of the rural households in the state, one of India's poorest, have no access to a toilet, a study says.

The police reported more than 870 cases of rape in Bihar last year.

More than half-a-billion Indians lack access to basic sanitation. Many do not have access to flush toilets or other latrines.

The issue of sexual violence against women and girls in India has been under intense scrutiny since the gang rape and murder of a student on a Delhi bus in December led to widespread protests.

In March, India passed a new bill containing harsher punishments, including the death penalty, for rapists.

'Worrisome trend'
There have been a number of recent cases where women and girls have been raped in Bihar after they stepped out of their homes to defecate:

On 5 May, an 11-year-old girl was raped in Mai village in Jehanabad district when she was going to the field at night
On 28 April, a young girl was abducted and raped when she had gone out to defecate in an open field in Kalapur village in Naubatpur, 35km (21 miles) from the state capital, Patna
On 24 April, another girl was raped in similar circumstances on a farm in Chaunniya village in Sheikhpura district. She told the police that two villagers had followed and raped her. One of them has been arrested.
Senior police official Arvind Pandey told the BBC that such cases happen every month in Bihar.

"They take place when women step out to defecate early in the morning and late evening. It is a very worrisome trend."

Mr Pandey said that about 400 women would have "escaped" rape last year if they had toilets in their homes.

A recent study by global health organisation Population Service International (PSI) and Monitor Delloitte, done in collaboration with Water for People, said that Bihar had India's poorest sanitation indicators with 85% rural households having no access to toilets.

The report added that 49% of the households that did not have a toilet wanted one for "safety and security".

Some 45% wanted a toilet for "convenience", while 4% wanted one for "privacy".

"Surprisingly, only 1% indicated health as a motivator for having a toilet," the report said.

The Bihar government says it plans to provide toilets to more than 10 million households in the state by 2022 under a federal scheme.

A law making toilets mandatory has been introduced in several states as part of the "sanitation for all" drive by the Indian government.

Special funds are made available for people to construct toilets to promote hygiene and eradicate the practice of faeces collection - or scavenging - which is mainly carried out by low-caste people.

BBC News - India Bihar rapes 'caused by lack of toilets'

 

[Menace2Society]

Sounds like one big toilet with rapists in it. I think I will miss this location out of the places to visit before I die.

 

[Vinod2070]

Here is a well known Internet Hindu, banned multiply times but always comes back for more.

Try coming to an Indian or even neutral forum.

The "academic" will be shown up pretty quick there.

Wait...

PS: No more angry videos of your laughing soldiers?

 

[Vinod2070]

Internet Hindus????? What are you Riaz?? Are you not an Internet warrior yourself???? Come on stop kidding us.

Don't expect original thinking.

It is biddat.

 

[soccerhero]

Double-counting: GDP overestimated, may be slashed by 10%
By Shahbaz Rana

Pakistan’s economy was reported to stand at Rs21 trillion this year – except, it may not have been.

The size of the country’s economy will shrink by up to Rs2.5 trillion, or roughly 10%, after reports surfaced that the value of some goods and services were counted twice in calculation of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) for the last several years.

The ‘correction’ has major implications, and places a question mark on authenticity of key economic indicators.

Major ‘correction’

The ‘double-counting’ surfaced after Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) rebased the economy, shifting the base year for calculations from fiscal 1999-00 to 2005-06.

The rebasing has reduced the size of the economy, earlier assessed to be Rs21 trillion, to less than Rs19 trillion, said an official of the finance ministry.

Last year’s GDP has also shrunk by up to Rs1.5 trillion, the official added.

While a top official of National Accounts called it a “mistake that has been corrected,” the error has sent the government’s economic managers back to the drawing board to rework all economic indicators not just for the next year, but for the last seven years at least.

The disclosure may also delay the announcement of next year’s budget as national accounts figures are used in the Economic Survey of Pakistan and the Annual Plan for the next fiscal.

The governing council of the PBS is meeting next week, chaired by the finance minister, to revisit the national accounts, according to Secretary Statistics Sohail Ahmad.

Impact of the error

How does this correction torpedo calculations for the current and projections for the next fiscal?

The budget deficit for the current fiscal, initially estimated to be around 6.5% of GDP, will soar to around 9% after the correction, said an official from the finance ministry.

Last year’s deficit, calculated to be 6.6%, will increase to about 7.2, the official said. The debt-to-GDP ratio for the current fiscal, estimated close to 60% of GDP, will rise to about 70% after the rebasing, he added.

Defending the ‘correction’

An official of National Accounts said the department “will not hide mistakes anymore just to appease the finance ministry.”

Some of the goods and services were counted twice, and that has been addressed, he said, citing the example of water supply which was listed under two separate heads.

“It is better to accept readjusted size with an implication of a couple of trillions instead of letting the GDP artificially increase for many more years,” he added.

Neither officials from the National Accounts, that works under the Statistics Division, nor the finance minister or secretary were available for comments, despite repeated attempt. Finance Minister Dr Hafeez Shaikh has already asked the Statistics Division to place its work for ‘review’ in front of the governing council of the PBS.

Possible ramifications

The error may invoke penalties from International Monetary Fund (IMF) since all key economic indicators – like the debt-to-GDP ratio, the budget deficit and economic growth – were reported on an inflated GDP size for at least ten years.

The country entered into three programmes with the IMF during that period. Though there is no official confirmation, Pakistan is also negotiating a fresh programme with the Fund.

Double-counting: GDP overestimated, may be slashed by 10% – The Express Tribune

 

[soccerhero]

Is Pakistan a Failing State?
By Gustav Ranis

On May 11 Pakistanis are expected to go to the polls and celebrate transition in what's been a rare five-year civilian rule. The election may or may not usher in another period of civilian rule. Fundamental reform is required of the political system that functions under the shadow of military power and religious extremism. Otherwise, Pakistan is destined to drift as a failing state.

I first entered Pakistan in September 1958, two weeks before the civilian government of Iskander Mirza gave way to Muhammad Ayub Khan who turned out to be a benevolent dictator - until he went astray by encouraging war with India in 1965. Indeed, Pakistan has had 40 years of military rule out of 65 years since independence.

The coming election will put to test the Pakistan People's Party leadership of Asif Ali Zardari, who succeeded his murdered wife, Benazir Bhutto. Polls indicate that Nawaz Sharif of Punjab's Muslim League is likely to take over, though the uncertainty over the return of previous dictator Pervez Musharraf and the efforts of Imran Khan, the cricket legend, cast doubt on the outcome. The reception for Musharraf on his return from self-imposed exile abroad was underwhelming, and he was has been arrested on a court order on a charge of violating the constitution. But his ego remains intact. Khan had a tumultuous rally in Lahore recently, but even though the military may be supporting him, questions about the sustainability of his appeal are being raised.

Regardless of who takes over, Pakistan continues to teeter on non-governability. Its own version of the Taliban with ties to the Afghan Taliban, are complicated by the strong mysterious influence of the ISI, the country's intelligence service. Any prognosis of the political economy future of the system is hazardous. Karachi, Pakistan's largest city, seems to be virtually in the hands of the local Taliban, and northern Waziristan, at the border with Afghanistan, is but one target under frequent attacks by militants. The Pakistan military continues to carry a big stick, but seems not particularly anxious to intervene in the election, partly out of concern about losing US aid, which could be automatically cut off in the case of a military coup. The strength of the Supreme Court, which has repeatedly and successfully challenged the executive branch, leading to dismissal of a prime minister, contributes to the signs of a failing state.

It should be noted that in the late 1950s and 1960s Pakistan was generally admired as a development paradigm and attracted the attention of development economists, in contrast to India which then lagged behind. But after 1990 when India's reforms began to take hold, the situation completely reversed, with India en route to middle-income status and Pakistan, in the absence of reform, exhibiting an economy which continues to be creaky and in the doldrums.

For decades, Pakistan has refused to tax its feudal landlords, leading to a 12 percent tax/GDP ratio and a high dependency on foreign donors, with 99 percent of the population reporting attendant corruption. Only 860,000 of the 183 million population pay tax. Amnesty offered in December 2012 to the richest tax evaders to pay a 40,000-rupee penalty on undervalued income and on assets of as much as 5 million rupees has had little response. The current account has turned to deficit with higher prices for imported oil accompanied by lower prices for exported cotton. Foreign-exchange reserves are consequently currently under $13 billion, below 2 months of import requirements, and the rupee has depreciated by more than 40 percent since 2007.

Pakistan's education lags behind Bangladesh's. Only 0.7 percent of the Pakistani GDP is spent on health. The literacy rate is at 53 percent and poverty at 24 percent, with a Gini ratio of .41, a measure of income disparity, with zero indicating no disparity. Population growth, though declining since the late 1980s, is still at the highest level in the subcontinent. Budget deficits are at 7.5 percent of GDP, above the government's target of 4.7 percent. Infrastructure is lagging, especially power, short by 4000 megawatts if blackouts lasting as long as 18 hours a day are to be avoided. Indeed, energy shortages are estimated to cut growth by 4 percent , bringing it down to an average of 3 percent from 2008 to 2012.

The neglected agricultural sector provides 23 percent of the GDP and 44 percent of the country's labor force, and non-agricultural activity in the rural areas has been lagging. Textiles and apparel provide 16 percent of the country's exports, and 40 percent of its employed labor force, with small and medium enterprises comprising 80 percent of the total non-agricultural employment. The official unemployment rate, as reported by the International Labor Organization is 6 percent, but this does not take into account the large percentage of the underemployed in both agriculture and the large urban informal sector.

To add to the problem, several provinces are restive and the overall system lacks what economist Simon Kuznets called organic nationalism, pulling together groups separated by language and culture. Fiscal decentralization with grants from the center is based on population size, favoring the large provinces and ignoring differential poverty and revenue-generating capacity.

The only favorable features are the size of remittances by Pakistani workers in the Gulf and elsewhere, currently at $13 billion, and the large number of NGOs, up to 12,ooo in all. Remittances end up in the hands of the rural population, allocated to consumption and housing, thus avoiding government controls. And NGOs, which do the bidding of wealthy international donors, pursue different goals, offer varying and at times contradicting advice, and tend to get in one another's way.

While foreign aid remains plentiful, there is a growing uncertainty of its usefulness in generating growth. Pakistan ranks third among recipients of US foreign aid, with more than $2 billion, and two-thirds of that goes to the military, not very productive.

On the economic front, the relationship with the US, still the major donor, is sufficiently frayed that the ideal arrangement - leaving decisions more in the hands of the recipient under self-conditionality rules - is unattainable. Instead, aid spending is inefficient, moving up and down with foreign-policy objectives of the donor, the importation of inappropriate technology, distorting income distribution and encouraging corruption in official elite circles. In 2012 foreign aid was $2.5 billion out of $240 billion nominal GDP or approximately 1 percent.

Pakistan's obsession with India has meant military resources deployed along the border and budgets heavily skewed towards a possible confrontation with India over Kashmir. Indeed, Pakistan's economy is on a presumptive war footing which renders it difficult to pursue liberalization and diversification in the globalization context. Ironically, though, Pakistan has been more welcoming to business than its more successful neighbors. The World Bank's "Ease of Doing Business" ranks Pakistan in 85th place, above China's in 89th place and India in 133rd place. But insecurity and misgovernance nullify the impact of that welcoming mat.

China remains a close ally and provides aid without visible strings attached. There is a marked contrast with India, which mainly plays the traditional aid game with traditional Western OECD donors.

In the absence of fundamental change, political as well as economic, unlikely under present circumstances, there is little hope Pakistan can emerge from the category as failing state.

Gustav Ranis is the Frank Altschul Professor Emeritus of International Economics at Yale University. © 2013 Yale Center for the Study of Globalization

RealClearWorld - Is Pakistan a Failing State?

 

[soccerhero]

Pakistan’s real image
By Saroop Ijaz
Published: March 16, 2013

The local police told the inhabitants of Joseph Colony, Badami Bagh, to evacuate their houses as they were going to be attacked the next day. This is shocking incompetence or perhaps complicity, even by our standards. However, if one absorbs the full implication of this warning, it seems to point to the major crisis we face. There is no “State” in Pakistan. It has withered away, and not in the Marxist sense but in the Weberian one. The monopoly over violence has been lost; violence has been privatised and has been sold cheap. The failure to honour Salmaan Taseer, the forgetting of Shaheed Shahbaz Bhatti, the intent to surrender to the TTP, the failure to crackdown on sectarian murderous outfits and now this. To be told officially that you are on your own.

Joseph Colony was not in Pakistan to begin with. A “Christian” housing society, separate housing communities, fenced and isolated, like Hazara town in Quetta, ghettos, perhaps in some way also like DHA on the other side of town. The Christians in Joseph Colony still love Pakistan. Why they do beats me, because this country surely does not love them back. It is not enough that they live in abject poverty in separate settlements. The faithful citizens of Pakistan proper have also the liberty to set fire to their houses and lives when fragile sentiments are hurt. The sentiments in front of which no other or no one else’s sentiments have any value — churches, crosses and Bibles will be burnt. How arrogant a person or a group has to be to believe that their sentiments triumph everyone else’s, also law and common decency. The minorities in Pakistan are guilty unless proven innocent, and then guilty still.

There will be multiple inquiries and findings, just like Shantinagar, like Gojra and then we will wait for the next incident and then another round of inquiries. It will happen again, because the Blasphemy Law provisions will remain on the books and we will keep on talking gibberish about correct interpretations and applications, silent peace-loving majority, etc. Does no one realise that all religions stand naturally and unequivocally in blasphemy to all other religions? There can hardly be sacrilege to a thing that you, in the first place, do not believe exists or is true. When the Ahmadi places of worship were attacked in Lahore, condemnation was hard to find; everyone in power wanted to change the topic. If the Muslims were required to sign a statement similar to the Ahmadi declaration on the passport in any part of the world, what do you think the reaction would be? Thermonuclear war, perhaps. Similar to this is the case of the members of the Tableeghi Jamaat. They attempt to save the infidels by inviting them to the truth but at the same time believe that once in if you want out, you are to be killed. They just do not notice the minor contradiction in their sales pitch.

How would it feel to lose everything and then hear that the real tragedy is that the image of this country has been tarnished? Your suffering and loss do not matter; you are just a marketing prop. You should, perhaps, be ashamed for having your houses burnt and bringing embarrassment to the Fatherland. Pakistan does not have an “image” problem. The gap in the conveyed image and reality is there, but it is the other way around. Pakistan should be thankful that most of the world does not read or hear the Urdu press, the local Friday Khutba, banners on Hall Road, Lahore, or pamphlets in the Civil Courts. Pakistan has an image that is softer than it deserves.

Most of this happening in Mian Shahbaz Sharif’s tenure should not come as a surprise. It was, after all, his political mentor Ziaul Haq who brought us most of these gifts. The elder Mian tried to become the “Amir-ul-Momineen”. The younger Mian is just keeping the torch blazing, in Shantinagar, Gojra and Joseph Colony. Zia made the “Objective Resolution” an operative part of the Constitution as Article 2A. Hence, very early in the Constitution all non-Muslims are told this country thinks that their beliefs are false and will be treated with little regard. Mr Bhutto had already extended the non-Muslim category in his attempt to appease the religious element; the appeasement did not work, and nevertheless, we were left with discriminatory laws. The non-Muslim category has for all practical purposes seen another increment; this time, the Shias are moving from the green to the white. Despite new entrants, the white portion seems to be diminishing in size and will soon disappear at the present rate. It will be painted red in the meantime.

Pakistan is hostile to all non-Muslims. That is a simple, cold truth. The laws are discriminatory and the pious population does not like the non-believers either. The size of the processions in favour of the killer Qadri as compared to the vigils for Salmaan Taseer was enough evidence of the violent majority. It is not only madrassa-trained jihadis either. Mumtaz Qadri was garlanded by lawyers and is represented by a former chief justice; the mastermind of the attack on Ahmadis in Lahore apparently is a doctor.

There has never been much of an argument for blasphemy laws. Yet, a lazy one was that it was there so that people do not take the “law” into their own hands when religious sensibilities are hurt. The suspect, Savan Masih, was already under custody when Joseph Colony was assaulted. That is all there is to this argument.

The scenes of Joseph Colony are the real “image” of Pakistan. That image is Pakistan going to hell on a metro bus. The rest, the cultural and literary festivals, the song and dance it seems are diversions, marketing ploys. The Blasphemy Law and Objectives Resolutions will have to be repealed, not amended or implementation ensured, etc; Repealed. Religion will have to be taken out of all public life and statutes books before we can legitimately complain about our “image”. That day will not be tomorrow, or the day after, or next year or perhaps decade. Till that day, if it ever comes, the least we can do is to be honest as we remain bystanders to slaughter and await our turn. Honestly, Pakistan does not welcome the non-Muslims or the “wrong” Muslims and encourages their murder and pillage.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 17th, 2013.

Pakistan

 

[soccerhero]

Family's 20 kids highlight Pakistan's population explosion

(CNN) -- Islam Mohmand and his two wives have so many children that he sometimes gets confused and needs help to remember all of their names.

They have 20 kids in all but would be happy to bring even more into their small family house.

But population experts in Pakistan, where the Mohmands are from, say families like theirs are fueling a population explosion that is fast becoming the country's most dangerous crisis.

Pakistan's population has grown from around 33 million in 1947 to more than 180 million people in 2012, making it the sixth most populous country in the world. It is also one of the world's poorest, with 60% of Pakistanis living on just $2 per day, according to the World Bank. The majority of the population -- 70%, according to the United Nations -- is largely illiterate and resides in rural areas lacking the most basic services.

With only one in five Pakistani women using modern birth control, the United Nations estimates Pakistan will become the world's third most populous country after China and India by 2050.

"I consider the population problem the biggest problem of this country," said Akbar Laghari of Pakistan's Department of Population Welfare. "The future is bleak because of this."

He admitted the government has to share the blame as not enough is done to offer effective family planning services and teach people about birth control.

"We don't have that much mobility, we don't have the resources," he said.

"Because of the political upheavals in the country and frequent changes in government ... they [the government] are not giving it top priority."

With widespread poverty, an energy crisis, woeful public services, and a bloody, resource-draining insurgency, Pakistan can ill afford to see this rapid growth continue.

"Naturally there will be epidemics, there will be wars -- there will be fights for food, water and everything," Laghari warned.

"It's a huge concern that we're growing at one of the fastest rates in Asia," said Zeba Sathar, Pakistan country director for the Population Council, a non-profit organization that specializes in public health research in developing countries.

"I think it's an ignored problem. We're brushing it away and I'm afraid we're losing time."

Sathar says many people are unable to make informed decisions because support services such as family planning are lacking. "The poor end up with many children because they don't have access to right kind of information," she said.

"We're doing a lot of research where women say 'we didn't want that many children,' or they wanted to have them later but they just didn't find the services.

"The philosophy is we're not into controlling the number of children. If you can bring up a healthy family with 20 children, kudos to you. It's a question of running out of resources. It's when the 15th one suffers."

But the Mohmand children are already paying the price -- the family can only afford to send four of their offspring to school, the rest have to work to support the family.

A lack of education is not the only challenge. Pakistan is a deeply conservative country, where some view birth control as un-Islamic.

"None of these methods is allowed in Islam," said Maulana Tanveer Alvi, a Muslim cleric. "Whatever is born in the world -- animals, humans, anything living -- God is responsible for their care.

"The process of reproduction will go on until God stops it. Why should a Muslim worry about the increase in population when God has taken responsibility for everyone's care?"

Culturally, many women are often confined to the marital home and deprived of the right to make important decisions such as whether to have a child.

"Women don't always get to choose ... they require permission from their husband or even their mother-in-law," said Laghari.

However, other Muslim countries with similar problems to Pakistan, including Bangladesh and Iran, have introduced measures to curb their growing populations.

Experts say those countries started with the political will to do something and spent a lot of time and resources on family planning efforts.

The World Health Organization (WHO) says government field workers and satellite clinics are the two crucial elements in the campaign in Bangladesh -- which saw its population grow from 75 million when it gained independence in 1971, to more than 142 million currently.

It said thousands of Health and Family Welfare centers have been upgraded nationwide, while Family Welfare Assistants provide door-to-door visits giving millions of couples family planning support and sexual health education.

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/06/14/world/asia/pakistan-population-explosion

 

[RiazHaq]

Not unlike North Korea, India is engaged in a massive arms buildup while almost half of its children are near starvation. A nation-state like India that fails to take care of 46% its children's basic nutrition needs has to be a failed state. In fact, George Friedman of Strafor raises serious doubts about India's viability as a modern nation-state, and dismisses the talk of its emergence as one of the great powers of the 21st century. Friedman does not accept that any of the four BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China) will achieve great world power status in this century. Instead, he believes that Turkey, Poland and Japan will join the United States as the most important world powers in the next 50 years.

Here are some shocking statistics shedding light on India's failures:

Pakistan is in the midst of a bloody insurgency by the Taliban and their affiliated groups. Last year was one of the bloodiest in Pakistan's history, claiming about 3000 lives in tragic violence by terrorists. Putting it perspective, India loses 3000 children every day to hunger and malnutrition, according to UNICEF.

One out of every three illiterate adults in the world is an Indian, according to UNESCO.

One out of very two hungry persons in the world is an Indian, according to World Food Program.

Almost one out of two Indians lives below the poverty line of $1.25 per day.

And yet, India spends $30 billion on defense, and just increased the defense budget by 32% this year.

On sanitation, a UNICEF report said Indians make up 58% of the world population which still practices open defection. India (638m) is followed by Indonesia (58m), China (50m), Ethiopia (49m), Pakistan (48m), Nigeria (33m) and Sudan (17m). In terms of percentage of each country's population resorting to the unhygienic practice, Ethiopia tops the list with 60%, followed by India 54%, Nepal 50%, Pakistan 28%, Indonesia 26%, and China 4%.


Do any serious analysts challenge the poverty and hunger figures for India, or the strength and scope of the Maoists insurgency? Absolutely not! Even Indian officials, including Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, agree with the data on hunger, poverty and malnutrition, as well the Maoists threat assessment.

In terms of the challenges to the writ of the state, India is host to some of the fiercest conflicts in the world. Since 1989 more than 80,000 have died in insurgencies in Kashmir and the northeastern states. About 25% of the Indian territory is outside the control of Indian authority.

Manmohan Singh himself has called the Maoist insurgency the biggest internal security threat to India since independence. The Maoists, however, are confined to rural areas; their bold tactics haven't rattled Indian middle-class confidence. In fact, the Maoists in India, led by the left-wing intellectuals with many urban sympathizers, have a greater chance of success in India than the poor, rural Pakistani Taliban, or other Islamic radicals in Pakistan, whose heavy handed tactics in Swat, and suicide bombings in Pakistani cities have destroyed whatever sympathies they had among the urban middle class.

Talking about failure to deliver minimum assistance to India's people, Indian Planning Commission member Syeda Hameed acknowledged in 2008 that India is worse than Bangladesh and Pakistan when it comes to nourishment and is showing little improvement.

Haq's Musings: Are India and Pakistan Failed States?

M. Ali Kemal and Ahmed Waqar Qasim, economists at Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), have published their research on estimates of the size of Pakistan's informal or underground economy.

Kemal and Qasim explore several published different approaches for sizing Pakistan's underground economy and settle on a combination of PSLM (Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement) consumption data and mis-invoicing of exports and imports to conclude that the country's "informal economy was 91% of the formal economy in 2007-08". Here are the figures offered by the authors for 2007-8:


1) Formal Economy: Rs. 10,242 billion= $170 billion (using Rs.60 to a US dollar)
2) Informal Economy: Rs. 9,365 billion = $156 billion
3) Total Economy (Sum of 1 & 2): Rs. 19,608 billion = $326 billion

Assuming that the ratio of formal and informal economy remained the same in 2011-12, here are the figures for Pakistan's total economy as of the end of last fiscal year which ended in June, 2012 :

1) Formal Economy: $210 billion
2) Informal Economy: $191 billion
3) Total Economy: $401 billion


Naween Mangi of Businessweek in her piece titled "The Secret Strength of Pakistan's Economy" described how Pakistan's informal cash-based economy evades government's radar, illustrating it with the story of a tire repair shop owner Muhammad Nasir. Nasir steals water and electricity from utility companies, receives cash from his customers in return for his services and issues no receipts, pays cash for his cable TV connection, and pays off corrupt police and utility officials and local politicians instead of paying utility bills and taxes.

http://www.riazhaq.com/2012/11/pakistans-gdp-grossly-underestimated.html

 

[soccerhero]

^^ Lol informal economy---- great, no one can quantify it and you pull these numbers out of ..........It doesnt help building a country even if it is as high as you claim. Same goes for India too. Lot of informal/ black economy and hence the wrong poverty estimates. But it is nothing to be proud of.


ALso we dont want to give more hits to your blog so can you plz back up your claims with original links rather than linking to your blog???

 

[Vinod2070]

^^ Lol informal economy---- great, no one can quantify it and you pull these numbers out of ..........It doesnt help building a country even if it is as high as you claim. Same goes for India too. Lot of informal/ black economy and hence the wrong poverty estimates. But it is nothing to be proud of.


ALso we dont want to give more hits to your blog so can you plz back up your claims with original links rather than linking to your blog???

I know that it may be too much to expect some people to know things like percentages and ratios, I though they can figure out basic arithmetical operations like A>B.

Seems even that was too much to expect.

Pakistan being a security state where the ambitions of the generals exceed the capacity of the state, has the worst social indicators, tops the list of failed states in South Asia, has the worst literacy rates, the worst gender gaps, the worst violence against minorities, women even Islamic sects...

And spends the most on military when it can't protect them even against domestic insurgents who brazenly attack the PA and ISI installations when they want.

But facts are not something that get through what Parvez Hoodbhoy called "Pakistani weltanschauung — the mental makeup which selects and filters facts before they reach the conscious brain"!

Why do they pick on us Pakistanis? – The Express Tribune

Read the excellent article. Tells exactly what is going on with people like we see here.

 

[Vinod2070]

Muslims do not treat women right. According to the Global Gender Gap (GGG) report, the planet's ten-worst offenders are: Yemen, Chad, Pakistan, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Benin, Morocco, Turkey, Egypt and Oman. Of the ten, nine are Muslim-majority states. At the other end of the spectrum, the planet's best countries for women to live in are: Sweden, Norway, Finland, Ireland, New Zealand, Philippines, Germany, Denmark, Ireland and Spain. Not even one of the top-ten is a Muslim-majority state.

By Dr Farrukh Saleem
THE NEWS
Sunday January 14, 2007


" Azra Jabeen "

Kia aurat 'naqisul aqal' hoti hai? (Are women mentally deficient?) Azra Jabeen is for real, and so is her story. Born in Bangalore to Muslim parents living in a Hindu-majority dirty mohalla. In the midst of India's Silicon Valley, Azra's father, a small shopkeeper, brings home a paltry five thousand rupees a month but insists that raising half a dozen children would make him a better Muslim. Azra, third in line with five siblings, grew up always being told "aurat naqisul aqal hoti hai" (women are mentally deficient).

Munira, Azra's much brighter older sister, was married off at the age of 16. Azra was sent to school just because all the Hindu girls her age in the neighbourhood went to school. Abdul Bari High School, run by Maulvi Abdul Bari, charged Rs15 a month. Between the school and Azra's house was a library. Azra's mother and her grandmother thought books were a waste but Azra somehow developed a secret love affair with books. "I was 10 when I read 'Zorba the Greek' and the novel more than anything transformed my life," recalls Azra. After school, Azra memorised half of the Holy Quran.

Azra, severely asthmatic, wearing thick glasses, was never good marriage material. Marriage proposals came but from families that were even worse off than Azra's. "Sending Muslim girls to college was like giving up your daughter to prostitution," remembers Azra. Good luck and bad asthma kept Azra from getting married while thick glasses got her through college. "All through college years my entire wardrobe contained two sets of cotton shalwar-kameez and a single three-meter duppata," remembers Azra.

After a B.A. in Economics, Azra somehow made a good impression on an old Brahmin gentleman who gave Azra a job at the British Airways office. Azra wanted more. The old Brahmin made British Airways reimburse Azra for GMAT (Graduate Management Admission Test) and TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) fees. In GMAT, Azra came in the top two percentile.

Santa Clara University, a Jesuit-affiliated university, in California not only accepted her for admission but gave her a tuition scholarship as well. The State Bank of India loaned her enough to buy a ticket plus $200. She had $200 in her purse and parents who refused to see her face. Once in California, an MBA plus a nine-month internship, Compaq became her first real employer. Azra is now the G & A Controller at Symantec Corporation, a $20 billion, California-based, Nasdaq-100 company. At Symantec, Azra now manages a $2 billion budget, five managers report to her and she reports directly to a VP (hoping to be a VP in two years). Her colleagues at Symantec look at her as a rising eastern star.

Azra found her life partner over the Internet; a scientist with a Ph.D. from Bowling Green State University. He is Shia, she is Sunni. She is religious, he is not. So far, she has had multiple miscarriages (perhaps, because of the medications she has been taking for her asthma). It's her husband who keeps on trying to "undo three decades of self doubts and indoctrinated inadequacies".

Azra now wears thousand-dollar Channel suits and tells me that she feels guilty walking into her wardrobe. Last week, she told me: "When I look at Munira I look at lost opportunities. She was much smarter than I ever was. When I look at my house in California and my bank accounts I wonder if it's a dream. Sometimes I pinch myself to see if it's all real." Two others issues that continue to agitate Azra's mind are: One, "I always wondered why on aqeeqa one goat was sacrificed for a girl and two for a boy". Two, "why my testimony was less than my brothers".

Azra is working on computerising Abdul Bari High School. Her dream is to save up some $5 million and then return to India, become a full-time social activist and "work on my fellow Muslim women, disconnect them from their chains".

Unfortunately, this year Muslim parents around the globe will give birth to some 20 million Azras and then tell them that "aurat naqisul aqal hoti hai". Is this why our Muslim Ummah is unable to compete with non-Muslim societies? Is this why we are failing in each and every aspect of human endeavour?

 

[RiazHaq]

Here are some highlights from "Superfreakonomics" book about India:

1. If women could choose their birthplace, India might not be a wise choice of a place for any of them to be born.

2. In spite of recent economic success and euphoria about India, the people of India remain excruciatingly poor.

3. Literacy is low, and corruption is high in India.

4. Only half the Indian households have electricity, and fewer have running water.

5. Only one in 4 Indian homes has a toilet.

6. 40% of families with girls want to have more children, but families with boys do not want a baby girl.

7. It's especially unlucky to be born female, baby boy is like a 401 K retirement plan, baby girl requires a dowry fund.

8. Smile Train in Chennai did cleft repair surgery at no cost for poor children. A man was asked how many children he had. He said he had 1, a boy. It turned out that he also had 5 daughters which he did not mention.

9. Indian midwives in Tamil Nadu are paid $2.50 to kill girls with cleft deformity.

10. Girls are highly undervalued, there are 35 million fewer females than males, presumed dead, killed by midwife or parent or starved to death. Unltrasound are used mainly to find and destroy female fetuses. Ultrasound and abortion are available even in the smallest villages with no electricity or clean water.

11. If lucky enough not to be aborted, girls face inequality and cruelty at every turn because of low social status of Indian women.

12. 51% of Indian men say wife beating is justified, 54% women agree, especially when dinner is burned or they leave home without husband's permission.

13. High number of unwanted pregnancies, STDs, HIV infections happen to Indian women when 15% of the condoms fail. Indian Council of Medical Research found that 60% of Indian men's genitalia are too small to fit the condoms manufactured to international standard sizes.

14. Indian laws to protect women are widely ignored. The government has tried monetary rewards to keep baby girls and supported microfinance for women. NGO programs, smaller condoms, and other projects have had limited success.

Haq's Musings: Superfreakonomics on Status of Indian Women