Added by Sadiq Farooqi on March 24, 2011 at 4:12am —
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Guest Post by Rakesh Mani
With all the depressing news coming out of Pakistan in the last few months, there is one major development that has me
hopeful and excited. Last month saw the launch of the
Teach For Pakistan movement, which aims to expand the urban poor’s access to quality education by recruiting highly qualified young Pakistanis to teach in…
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Added by Riaz Haq on March 4, 2011 at 5:30pm —
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Added by Ameer Alam on February 23, 2011 at 1:00pm —
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Since taking the reins of power almost
three years ago, the coalition government in Islamabad, which is led by the Pakistan Peoples' Party, has been increasing the support prices of wheat and other agricultural commodities every year. This policy has had the following effects:
1. It is transfering the additional new income of about Rs. 300 billion in the current fiscal year alone to the ruling…
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Added by Riaz Haq on January 23, 2011 at 6:00pm —
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The sale of Reko Diq mining rights is currently being reviewed by Pakistan Supreme Court in response to allegations of lack of transprarency. The entire discussion in the courtroom is primarily centered on valuations and estimates…
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Added by Riaz Haq on January 14, 2011 at 10:00pm —
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My friend Tariq Khanzada died in a tragic accident in the early morning hours of Wednesday, January 12, 2011. He is survived by his wife Ruby, two sons and a daughter.
I knew Tariq to be a genuinely friendly and helpful individual. I will always remember his beautiful smile. His death is a real shock to me and the rest of the Pakistani-American…
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Added by Riaz Haq on January 13, 2011 at 10:00pm —
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Walking into the local Fry's stores in Silicon Valley during Christmas shopping season, I was fascinated by the latest Xbox 360 demo complete with excited kids dancing in front of a big screen wth a 3D sensor mounted on top of it.
Upon closer examination, I learned that Microsoft Xbox 360 has acquired a few new game-changing tricks thanks to the use of the amazing 3D gensture recognition technology from
Canesta, a company co-founded in 2002 by my…
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Added by Riaz Haq on January 6, 2011 at 2:40pm —
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Have you ever wondered if Pakistan is really as one-dimensional a country as stereotyped by the negative torrent of international media coverage that dominated the news headlines in 2010?
Have you ever thought that Pakistanis engage in any pursuits other than as perpetrators or victims of terror that the journalists find the most newsworthy about the world's sixth most populous South Asian nation?
Well, an Indian-American producer Madhlika Sikka on NPR's Talk of the Nation…
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Added by Riaz Haq on January 1, 2011 at 9:47am —
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Saudi society has long been dominated by the overzealous religious police, known as mutawa or mutaween, who strictly enforce the
Saudi version of the Islamic Sharia Laws. The most visible manifestations of such enforcement include the almost total gender segregation, conservative dress code in public, and interruption of business for prayers five times a day.
There are some recent signs that the…
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Added by Riaz Haq on December 14, 2010 at 4:46pm —
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The FBI has intensified its pursuit of "home-grown" terrorists, allegedly foiling scores of plots around the United States since 9/11 terrorist attacks in America. The question now being increasingly asked is: Would there be many such terror plots to foil without government informants used to create them?
It is believed that foreign-born nationals are easy to recruit as FBI's confidential informats (CIs). If they get reported for any reason by any one and found to have any…
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Added by Riaz Haq on December 8, 2010 at 8:30am —
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Dr. Pervez Hoodbhoy has continued his animus toward Dr. Ata through a piece in Dawn titled
"A Case of Bogus Science". In this piece, Hoodbhoy accuses Ata-u-Rehman of engaging in "bogus science" by asking in his recent paper on
HAARP: “Is the HAARP then, a harmless research tool — or a weapon of mass destruction far more lethal than nuclear weapons? We may never know.”
I think Dr. Ata is well within the realm of science in speculating…
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Added by Riaz Haq on November 18, 2010 at 11:00pm —
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A recent Pew Global Attitudes survey shows that 85% of Indians are satisfied with their government's performance, particularly its handling of the economy. Only the Chinese and Brazilians are more satisfied with their economic situation among the 22 countries included in the survey.
India, a nation which has the dubious distinction of being home to the world's largest population of
poor, hungry,… Continue
Added by Riaz Haq on November 12, 2010 at 11:00pm —
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About 60% of India's workforce is in agriculture. Textile industry is the second biggest employer, accounting for a fifth of India’s exports, and employs almost 10 percent of India’s workforce, or some 35 million people, and has the potential to add another 12 million new jobs --dwarfing the 1-2 million jobs created by the much-heralded IT and BPO sector, according to a…
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Added by Riaz Haq on October 30, 2010 at 8:30am —
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Poverty, hunger,
unsanitary or unsafe conditions and inadequate health care in South Asia's developing nations are exposing their citizens to high risk of a
variety of diseases which may impact their intelligence. Every year, World Health…
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Added by Riaz Haq on October 25, 2010 at 9:28am —
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Poverty and hunger often go together. The affordability of food is usually a bigger issue than its availability in most poor nations, according to research published by Indian-born economist and Nobel Laureate
Dr. Amartya Sen. With few exceptions, rising incomes and reductions in poverty rates are known to lead to lower hunger levels.
Pakistan experienced significant declines in…
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Added by Riaz Haq on October 17, 2010 at 10:08am —
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Here are some excerpts from a
Friday Times Op Ed by University of Wisconsin's Dr Howard Schweber who
taught students at a private university in Lahore, Pakistan and found them bright, resourceful and highly confused. He particularly singles out lack of general education and consequent lack of critical thinking skills as problems:
My first impression of Pakistani students was that they are, well, just that – college students. How… Continue
Added by Riaz Haq on October 16, 2010 at 8:00am —
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Is there a correlation between a nation's economic performance and its success at international sports competitions? Has India's economic resurgence contributed to its achieving remarkable second place status on the medals table at the Commonwealth Games 2010 that just concluded in New Delhi?
Economics professor Daniel Johnson and his student…
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Added by Riaz Haq on October 14, 2010 at 5:00pm —
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Pakistani economy grew at a fairly impressive rate of 6 percent per year through the first four decades of the nation's existence. In spite of rapid population growth during this period, per capita incomes doubled, inflation remained low and poverty declined from 46% down to 18% by late 1980s, according to eminent Pakistani economist
Dr. Ishrat Husain. This healthy economic performance was maintained through several wars and successive…
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Added by Riaz Haq on September 27, 2010 at 6:30pm —
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In year 2000, leaders of rich and poor nations pledged to build a better world by 2015. Among their key goals now called Millennium Development Goals: halving extreme poverty and hunger from 1990 levels, reducing by two-thirds the child-mortality rate and slashing maternal mortality by three-quarters and achieving universal primary education.
The good news is that the share of people living on less than $1.25 a day seems on track to meet the goal of halving the extreme poverty rate.…
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Added by Riaz Haq on September 24, 2010 at 11:00pm —
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Over the last two decades, Pakistan has continued to offer much greater upward economic and
social mobility to its citizens than…
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Added by Riaz Haq on September 18, 2010 at 12:00pm —
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