Riaz Haq's Page

"It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues" is a quote often attributed to Abraham Lincoln, also known as Honest Abe. I do not entirely agree with Honest Abe, but what does it mean in Pakistan's context, given the extraordinary and often hypocritical incessant demands for honesty by the nation's TV talking heads? Is competence not as big or bigger virtue than honesty? Is it not Utopia to expect angels to rise to leadership positions in a nation that generally… Continue

Cash poor and energy-starved Pakistan should consider tapping into the London-based global carbon trading market to fund its renewable energy projects. The carbon market is about $6 billion now, and it is projected to exceed 50 billion dollars after the US joins carbon trading. Here is how I understand it:… Continue

A pilot program in Pakistan has demonstrated the effectiveness of pushing mass literacy through the use of cell phone text messaging capability. The five-month experiment, initiated by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), targeted 250 females aged 15 to 24 years old in th… Continue

I have just published on my blog, Haq's Musings, a guest post by Colonel Pavan Nair, a retired Indian Army officer, a detailed analysis of the Indian defense spending in the context of the nation's growing needs for social spending on food, education and health care. Col Nair prefaces his analysis by lamenting that "defense economics has not been a subject for serious stu… Continue

Hagler Bailly, a global management consulting firm with an office in Islamabad, warned in a 2006 study that Pakistan is going to witness gas shortage starting in 2007, and the imbalance will grow every year to cripple the economy by 2025, when shortage will be 11,092 MMCFD (Million standard cubic feet per day) against total 13,259 MMCFD production. The Hagler Bailly r… Continue