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Pakistan's Gas Reserves

Reports of new gas reserves of 40 trillion cubic feet (upped to 105 TCF in 2013 by US EIA) are specially welcome at this moment in Pakistan when it is facing a very serious and growing energy crisis. The…

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Added by Riaz Haq on May 15, 2011 at 10:30am — 25 Comments

Youth-Led Social Media Revolution in Pakistan

Live tweets of the Abbottabad raid have brought instant fame to Pakistani blogger Sohaib Athar, and shined new light on the role of Facebook, Twitter and other social media in the country.



Dramatic expansion of the nation's middle class in the last decade has spawned… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 9, 2011 at 9:08am — 7 Comments

Origins and History of Pakistani Music

I recently gave a keynote at an event organized by Pakistani-American Cultural Center in Silicon Valley, CA, USA.

The subject was Pakistani culture and music.



Here are some of the salient points of the presentation:



Importance of Music and Culture:



-Music Helps Define Each Nation’s Culture and Identity



-Culture Helps Project Soft Power and Softer Image of a Nation





-Soft Power is Often More Effective Than Hard Power...It's easier… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 4, 2011 at 11:00pm — 9 Comments

Pakistan Rolling Out High Speed Broadband Access Service

Pakistan is working on a major roll-out of bonded VDSL2 to deliver 50 Mbps, five times the top speed of the nation's highest level of service today, at a construction cost of just $200-300 per home passed.







Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), the nation’s state-controlled phone company, is deploying VDSL2 Bonding technology to… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 1, 2011 at 7:30pm — 13 Comments

Gallup Poll: Resilient Pakistan Happier Than India and China

You wouldn't know from the headlines what… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 24, 2011 at 9:17am — 3 Comments

HEC Must Retain Central Role to Help Build Pakistan's Human Capital

Those who cite the 1986 World Bank study to argue that the social rates of return for h

igher education are 13 percent lower than return on basic education must remember the following: Hundreds of millions of lives in Asia were saved as a result of the success of the Green Revolution that was enabled by a combination of US aid, and the capacity of the recipient nations to absorb it by virtue of the availability of local college graduates in agriculture and engineering.



The…

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Added by Riaz Haq on April 19, 2011 at 2:00pm — 6 Comments

Geo Super Ban Hurts Pakistan's Youth

The reason most frequently cited for Pakistan's poor performance at international sporting events is the lack of funding, especially when compared with nations where the state or private sector sponsors spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on their athletes and sports teams.



For example, the Johnson-Ali model which was developed by the duo to predict participating nations' Olympics success,… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 16, 2011 at 10:39pm — 12 Comments

US Policy Contradictions on Social Media Versus Wikileaks

Why does the US government love social media and hate Wikileaks?



The answer is simple: Unlike Wikileaks that reveals unflattering information about its inner workings, the US government sees a treasure trove of detailed data on Facebook, twitter, blogs and other social media...particularly in Urdu and Arabic in light… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 11, 2011 at 10:09pm — 1 Comment

Pakistan Renames Sesame Street Sim Sim Humara

SimSim Humara ("Ours"), the new Pakistani edition of the original American TV classic Sesame Street, is expected to be launched this year for Pakistan's pre-school children, according to the Guardian newspaper.…

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Added by Riaz Haq on April 8, 2011 at 11:00pm — 7 Comments

British Aid For Education in Pakistan

A new British aid package for Pakistan, announced by Prime Minister David Cameron in Islamabad, is worth $1,055 million over four years. The money will fund education for up to 4 million students, train 9,000 teachers, purchase 6 million new text books and build 8,000 schools by 2015, according to various media reports.



Announcing new aid, Cameron said, “I struggle to find a… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 5, 2011 at 7:00pm — 5 Comments

Why Pakistan ? - Commemorating 23rd March



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Added by Munib on April 3, 2011 at 6:00am — No Comments

A movie about Late Farooq Nadeem (NED Elect-74) left us in Air Blue crash on 28 July 2010

Watch on YouTube

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_tpLbc7hcA

 

Added by Sadiq Farooqi on March 24, 2011 at 4:12am — No Comments

Teach For Pakistan Offers Hope

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… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on March 4, 2011 at 5:30pm — 1 Comment

Iqbal and Love of Prophet Mohammad (Salae Allah Aleha Wsalam)

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Added by Ameer Alam on February 23, 2011 at 1:00pm — No Comments

Rising Incomes in Agriculture Sector Boost Pakistan's Rural Economy

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… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on January 23, 2011 at 6:00pm — 48 Comments

Gold, Copper and Rare Earths at Pakistan's Reko Diq Could Exceed $500 Billion



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 — 54 Comments

Celebrating the Life of a Genuine Pakistani-American Hero

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… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on January 13, 2011 at 10:00pm — No Comments

Pakistani-American's 3D Sensor Technology Wows Xbox Gamers

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… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on January 6, 2011 at 2:40pm — No Comments

Pakistan's Other Story: Explosion in Arts and Literature in 2010

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… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on January 1, 2011 at 9:47am — 23 Comments

Is Saudi Arabia Ready For Reform?

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… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on December 14, 2010 at 4:46pm — 5 Comments

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    Blog Posts

    Pakistan Needs to Address Its Significant Data Quality Challenges

    Policy-makers need data to formulate good policies. Good data produced by government agencies can be expected to lead to good policies and desirable outcomes. But data collection and statistical analyses require adequate methodologies and resources. Unfortunately, Pakistan's data quality gets a "C" grade by international agencies like the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Clearly the country faces significant data quality challenges.  These challenges range from estimation of the size…

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    Posted by Riaz Haq on July 7, 2026 at 9:30am — 8 Comments

    Pakistan Electricity Consumption Up 21% in Just Two Years

    Pakistan is experiencing soaring demand for electricity across all of the sectors of its economy. The new demand is being met by rapidly growing deployment of distributed solar, estimated at 38 GW as of June, 2025. In 2025, 44% of solar deployment was residential, followed by industry (26%), agriculture (21%) and commercial users (9%). The expansion of distributed solar has enhanced electrification across the economy, lifting Pakistan's electrification rate to 21.7%…

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    Posted by Riaz Haq on June 30, 2026 at 1:30pm — 7 Comments

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