niaz
PDF THINK TANK: CONSULTANT
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I thank Hon Muse for starting this thread. There is little doubt that paradigm shift is needed in our security thinking.
Anyone not blinded by the poison of bigotry will realize that India is leaving Pakistan far behind in everything; be it education, health, law and order, economy or general standard of living. Pakistan has lower literacy rate than Bangla Desh and Sri Lanka.
I for one do not believe that Quaid e Azam and other leaders of Muslim League fought for independence to turn Pakistan into a dark age Islamic Khilafat or Emirate. Quaid and our founding fathers wanted a progressive and modern Pakistan. To achieve this end our top priority should be education (not fake degrees), health and improvement of standard of living of the ordinary Pakistanis. For this we need to give economic improvement our top most priority.
To fund this gigantic effort we need:
A. To raise the income. This can only be done thru taxation of everyone including the land mafia and agriculture.
B. To cut national expenditure this includes cutting the size of the armed forces even if it results in lowering nuclear threshold.
We need a mean and lean Army, Navy and Airforce. Stress should be on quality of hardware, quality of training and quality of leadership. This can only be done if armed threat from our Eastern border is minimized. This means we defuse Kashmir situation.
This most important objective will never be achieved unless it is realized by everyone that we cannot snatch IOK from the jaws of India thru military force. This realization needs to be hammered into the bigoted minds of all the Jihadi and khilafat followers. Equally important, the fact that we cannot win Kashmir by force of arms does not mean that we give up on Kashmir. Kashmir ultimately belongs neither to Pakistan nor to India but to the Kashmiris. Therefore we need to think outside the box and try to achieve what Kashmiris want. This can only be resolved thru a tripartite agreement as suggested by Hon Muse even if it means progress at snail’s pace. Nothing has been done for the last 60 years, what difference would another ten or twenty years make?
Need of the times is to setup 'Think Tanks' free of political and military interference. Their task should be to come up with ideas and devise ways to double our national income every ten years. That is, to achieve a growth rate of about 8% every year for the next generation.
Any economy that grows continuously at about 8% each year will need very large number of skilled manpower and high quality education. This could even require a reverse brain drain that is already happening in India now. There is no other way can we provide jobs and housing for the burgeoning population.
However none of this can be achieved unless we totally rid ourselves of the jihadi and Taliban cancer. We have had thousands of Madrasahs for the last twenty years, look what they have produced? Suicide bombers! Imagine if the same schools instead imparted technical skills, how much more useful their graduates could have been to the society?
I am however not hopeful. Taliban and their direct or indirect supporters and sympathizers will not go away. Resulting law and order situation will ensure that Pakistan continues as she has done for the last 5 years. Our Armed forces will continue to eat up 50% of the resources at the expense of education, health and infra-structure and most of the populace will continue dreaming and living on the supposedly glorious past that Muslims enjoyed until the 17th century and to hell with the future.
Anyone not blinded by the poison of bigotry will realize that India is leaving Pakistan far behind in everything; be it education, health, law and order, economy or general standard of living. Pakistan has lower literacy rate than Bangla Desh and Sri Lanka.
I for one do not believe that Quaid e Azam and other leaders of Muslim League fought for independence to turn Pakistan into a dark age Islamic Khilafat or Emirate. Quaid and our founding fathers wanted a progressive and modern Pakistan. To achieve this end our top priority should be education (not fake degrees), health and improvement of standard of living of the ordinary Pakistanis. For this we need to give economic improvement our top most priority.
To fund this gigantic effort we need:
A. To raise the income. This can only be done thru taxation of everyone including the land mafia and agriculture.
B. To cut national expenditure this includes cutting the size of the armed forces even if it results in lowering nuclear threshold.
We need a mean and lean Army, Navy and Airforce. Stress should be on quality of hardware, quality of training and quality of leadership. This can only be done if armed threat from our Eastern border is minimized. This means we defuse Kashmir situation.
This most important objective will never be achieved unless it is realized by everyone that we cannot snatch IOK from the jaws of India thru military force. This realization needs to be hammered into the bigoted minds of all the Jihadi and khilafat followers. Equally important, the fact that we cannot win Kashmir by force of arms does not mean that we give up on Kashmir. Kashmir ultimately belongs neither to Pakistan nor to India but to the Kashmiris. Therefore we need to think outside the box and try to achieve what Kashmiris want. This can only be resolved thru a tripartite agreement as suggested by Hon Muse even if it means progress at snail’s pace. Nothing has been done for the last 60 years, what difference would another ten or twenty years make?
Need of the times is to setup 'Think Tanks' free of political and military interference. Their task should be to come up with ideas and devise ways to double our national income every ten years. That is, to achieve a growth rate of about 8% every year for the next generation.
Any economy that grows continuously at about 8% each year will need very large number of skilled manpower and high quality education. This could even require a reverse brain drain that is already happening in India now. There is no other way can we provide jobs and housing for the burgeoning population.
However none of this can be achieved unless we totally rid ourselves of the jihadi and Taliban cancer. We have had thousands of Madrasahs for the last twenty years, look what they have produced? Suicide bombers! Imagine if the same schools instead imparted technical skills, how much more useful their graduates could have been to the society?
I am however not hopeful. Taliban and their direct or indirect supporters and sympathizers will not go away. Resulting law and order situation will ensure that Pakistan continues as she has done for the last 5 years. Our Armed forces will continue to eat up 50% of the resources at the expense of education, health and infra-structure and most of the populace will continue dreaming and living on the supposedly glorious past that Muslims enjoyed until the 17th century and to hell with the future.