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Pakistan GDP Driven By Consumption, Not Exports and Investments

Gross domestic product (GDP) is calculated by adding up public and private consumption, investments and exports. Some of the major world economies, most notably Germany and China, are led by exports, while others, such as United States, United Kingdom, India and Pakistan, are primarily domestic consumption driven.



With almost 80% of its GDP from consumption, Pakistan has particularly heavy reliance on domestic… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on September 17, 2010 at 8:48pm — 6 Comments

How Can Overseas Pakistanis Help in Post-Floods Reconstruction?

Members of Pakistani diaspora must remember their compatriots in distress as we celebrate Eid today.



While there have been high-profile recent efforts by overseas Pakistanis to raise millions of dollars to fund rescue and relief efforts after the recent devastating floods, it is now time to begin to shift focus on to the much longer term and significantly more expensive reconstruction phase that… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on September 11, 2010 at 11:00am — 2 Comments

Silicon Valley's NED Alumni Lead Fundraising Efforts For Flood Relief in Pakistan

For every Pakistani hit by floods, there are eight who are still standing and ready to help. That was the theme that guided the recent Silicon Valley Iftar and Fundraiser organized by Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs (OPEN Silicon Valley) at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View,… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on September 2, 2010 at 9:30am — No Comments

Expanded Pakistani Middle Class Helping Flood Victims

A pre-requisite for a responsive and accountable democracy is a substantial middle class population.



An Asian Development Bank report on Asia's rising middle class released today confirms that Pakistan's middle class now is 40% of the population, significantly larger than the Indian middle class of about 25% of its population.



The other significant news reported by… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on August 19, 2010 at 4:58pm — No Comments

Pakistan's Glass is Half Full on its 63rd Independence Day

The devastating floods in Pakistan have dampened the spirits of its people on its 63rd independence day this Aug 14, 2010. All official events marking the day have been canceled as the nation mourns the death of at least 1700 of its citizens and finds itself overwhelmed by the monumental relief and rescue efforts aimed at tens of millions of people across three provinces.



As the scope and scale of… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on August 14, 2010 at 9:48am — No Comments

Pakistan Defeat Australia 2-0 in T20 Series

Former T20 World Champ Pakistan have finally reclaimed some of their lost honor by beating Australia in two T20 matches on consecutive days at Edgbaston, England. These convincing 2020 match wins brought an end a long losing streak for Pakistan which was comprehensively beaten by the Aussies in all formats in 12 consecutive matches played in Australia and West Indies.



Although the T20 matches were… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on July 9, 2010 at 6:33pm — No Comments

Globalization or Exploitation of "Cyber Coolies" in India's IT Sweatshops?

India's IT sector business is essentially driven by low-cost call centers, first-line tech support, simple repetitive code writing, and execution of pre-defined test suites. A typical Indian IT worker is increasingly being called a "cyber coolie" or sometimes a "code coolie", the former term having been coined by an astute Indian columnist Praful Bidwai back in… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on July 3, 2010 at 12:36pm — 8 Comments

Mass Communications Boom in Pakistan

With the planned September launch of its Pakistan edition, Newsweek magazine is the latest publication to join Pakistan's media revolution, according to MediaBistro.com. Newsweek Pakistan will be the first licensed international news magazine for the country and the eighth local edition under the Washington Post Co.-owned Newsweek brand. Other country editions published by… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on June 24, 2010 at 11:13am — 6 Comments

TEDx Karachi Draws 500 Pakistanis

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) is a U.S. based private non-profit foundation that is best known for its conferences, now held in Europe and Asia as well as the U.S., devoted to what it calls "ideas worth spreading." Its lectures, called TED Talks distributed through the Internet, are subject to an eighteen-minute time limit. Speakers are an eclectic mix of people with ideas representing a wide cross section of humanity.



TED is run by Chris Anderson, a Pakistani-born… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on June 22, 2010 at 1:53pm — 3 Comments

OPEN Forum 2010 in Silicon Valley

OPEN Forum 2010 in Silicon Valley, California attracted nearly 600 people, including entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, engineers, lawyers, physicians and others on June 5, 2010. It was an all day conference organized by the Organization of Pakistani Entrepreneurs (OPEN) in Silicon Valley featuring 5 plenary sessions, and over a dozen break-out sessions addressed by 58 speakers and panelists on special topics of interest to various groups of… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on June 9, 2010 at 6:14pm — 1 Comment

Radio Reports From Historic GT Road in India, Pakistan

America's popular public radio network, the National Public Radio or NPR, sent several correspondents last month to India and Pakistan to travel along the Grand Trunk Road and report on the contemporary life along the ancient route in the South Asian subcontinent.



Stretching 2500 kilometers from Kolkata in… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on June 4, 2010 at 7:00pm — No Comments

Strong Growth Forecast For Pakistan's Media and Telecom Sectors

Pakistan's media and telecom revolution that began during the Musharaf years is continuing unabated.



According to Daily Times, Chairman Mushtaq Malik of the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) has said that the cable television sector “is the fast growing segment among the electronic media ventures”. In the… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 28, 2010 at 6:26pm — 37 Comments

Is Television a Powerful Agent for Positive Social Change for South Asian Women?

Freakonomics is a series of books by authors Steven D Levitt and Stephen J Dubner who find data points, patterns, correlations and trends that are often missed by mainstream economists and researchers. For example, the authors see how legalization of abortion may have caused significant crime rates decline in the United States in recent decades. They argue with various statistics to reject other possible explanations like gun control, strong economy, three-strikes laws etc. Authors say that the… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 24, 2010 at 5:00pm — 26 Comments

Urban Middle Class Surge in Pakistan

The simplest definition of the middle class is a group of people in a society who are neither rich nor poor. The middle class has always been considered vital to a country's stability and growth. The rich and the poor simply distrust each other too much to let the other govern. Nations with large middle class populations find it easier to sustain good, democratic governance.



Unfortunately for Pakistan, the size of the middle class was very small when it came into existence, and the… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 10, 2010 at 5:49pm — 2 Comments

India's "Indigenous" Weapons of Mass Destruction

A Times of India report last year claimed that "Pakistan has surged well ahead of India in the missile arena". It also lamented that "the only nuclear-capable ballistic missile in India's arsenal which can be said to be 100% operational as of now is the short-range Prithvi missile".



Along with raising the alarm, the Indian report offered the usual excuse for the… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 27, 2010 at 5:50pm — 1 Comment

Is BRIC All Hype, No Substance?

India's rapid economic growth has brought it enormous positive attention of the world media, billions of dollars in foreign investments, and new-found status on the international diplomatic scene. Goldman Sachs has promoted it by coining the term "BRIC" which groups India with other major emerging markets like Brazil, China and Russia as an investment destination. Inclusion in G20 has put the Indian leaders alongside the world's richest G7 nations. Indian business leaders in partnership with… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 25, 2010 at 9:06pm — 4 Comments

Cheap Thar Coal to End Load Shedding in Pakistan

Coal is the cheapest and the most common fuel used directly or indirectly to produce electricity and heat in the world today. Global coal consumption was about 6.7 billion tons in 2006 and is expected to increase 48% to 9.98 billion tons by 2030, according to the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). China produced 2.38 billion tons in 2006. India produced about 447.3 million tons and Pakistan mined only about 8 million tons in 2006.… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 20, 2010 at 6:42pm — 43 Comments

Turning Trash Into Electricity Kills Two Birds With One Stone

Among other things during a visit to Pakistan last year, the frequent power outages, commonly called "load shedding", and piles of garbage in the streets made a distinct impression on my family and I. Since our return to the United States, I have been wondering if it is possible to solve both problems at once? Clean up the streets by collecting garbage, and burn the collected trash to generate more electricity? It… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 14, 2010 at 11:18am — 2 Comments

India, Pakistan Hackers Waging Cyber Warfare

Last year at the World Economic Forum, U.S.-based security software firm McAfee's CEO Dave Walt reportedly told some attendees that China, the United States, Russia, Israel and France are among 20 countries locked in a cyberspace arms race and gearing up for possible Internet hostilities. He further said that the traditional defensive stance of government computer infrastructures has shifted in recent years to a… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 8, 2010 at 5:13pm — 6 Comments

Pakistan's Murree Brewery Shares Join KSE-100 Index

Murree Brewery Company (KAR-MURE), a publicly listed beer maker founded in 1861, has now been added to the Karachi Stock Exchange's KSE-100 index, according to media reports from Pakistan's financial capital Karachi. The Murree Brewery is one of the oldest public companies of the… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 4, 2010 at 10:00am — 9 Comments

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