This year's Nobel Prize winning economist Angus Deaton of Princeton University considers foreign aid to developing nations a curse like the oft-mentioned resource curse of energy and mineral-rich nations of Africa and the Middle East.

Deaton has studied poverty in India and Africa and spent many decades working at the World Bank whose…

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…

"The Pakistani establishment, as we saw in 1998 with the nuclear test, does not view assistance -- even sizable assistance to their own entities -- as a trade-off for national security vis-a-vis India". US Ambassador Anne Patterson, September 23, 2009…

"If you (India) want to run with the big dogs, you have to stop pissing with the puppies".

 Robert Blackwill, Ex US Ambassador to India…

President Barack H. Obama finally asked the questions that many American Muslim victims of Islamophobia have been asking for a long time: How many Americans have been killed through terrorist attacks over the last decade?  And how many Americans have died in gun violence.

Here's the exact quote from…

Pakistan will soon be starting its first professional sports league along the lines of for-profit sports leagues like Major League Baseball (MLB) or National Football League (NFL) in the United States.

 India's …

"The 21st century belongs to India', declared Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to thousands of his adoring fans at SAP Center in San Jose, California. As he spoke inside the Arena, protestors carrying anti-Modi posters condemned the presence in Silicon Valley of the person they choose to describe as the "Butcher of Gujarat".

My Invitation and Ticket:

I had received an invitation and a ticket to attend Prime Minister Modi's reception at SAP Center. I…

My friend Khan is in Makkah for Hajj yet again. He says he was in Mina for Ramy al-Jamarat (Ritual Stoning of the Devil) when a tragic stampede claimed nearly a thousand lives this year. Besides those killed, more than 800 were reported injured. It was the deadliest day for the Hajj since more than 1,400 pilgrims suffocated in a crowded tunnel near Mecca in 1990, also on the…

There have been serious questions raised about India's secularism since its independence in 1947. Such questions have gained new urgency with the rapid rise of Hindu Nationalists and the election of BJP leader Narendra Modi in 2014.

Serious doubts…

Pakistani power regulators have approved a regulatory framework for solar and wind energy for both commercial and residential installations. The framework includes feed-in tariffs for commercial power producers and net metering for …

Over 600 NEDians and their families from all over North America and other parts of the world converged on Toronto to attend the Karachi-based engineering university's 11th international alumni convention for the year 2015.  It was organized by the NED Alumni Association of Canada over the Labor Day weekend (September 4-6, 2015) at the Mississauga Hilton.  Last year, the NED Alumni convention was held in …

Leading South Asia experts at US universities have warned top tech firms to be cautious in doing business with India as India's Hindu Nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi prepares to visit Silicon Valley to promote "Digital India" in September 2015.…

33-year-old Qasar Younis, a Lala Moosa born Harvard-educated Pakistani-American, is the new Chief Operating Officer of Y-Combinator, a spawning ground for emerging tech giants Dropbox, Airbnb, and Stripe in Silicon Valley, according to Fortune Magazine.…

Joseph Mark Mobius of Templeton Emerging Markets Group sees "many reasons for a brighter future for Pakistan".  Mobius, armed with B.A. and M.S. degrees in Communications from Boston University, and a Ph.D in economics from MIT,  is a top global fund manager with a good track record of investing in emerging markets.

In a blog post titled …

A full-page Indian Army advertisement published in major Hindi national dailies recently says that the Indian forces responded to the Pakistan attack with fear (darkar muqabala kiya). It was later clarified as a typographical error which changed "datkar muqabla kiya" to "darkar muqabla kiya".…

Is it time to sell India short and go long on Pakistan?

Indian shares are highly overvalued while Pakistan and Hong Kong shares are trading at very attractive valuations, according to latest data published by Bloomberg. The Indian shares listed in Mumbai are trading at nearly 22 times earnings, more than twice the price-earnings multiples of Karachi…

India's Congress Party leaders expected Pakistan to fold soon after partition, says Nisid Hajari, the author of recently published "Midnight's Furies: The Deadly Legacy of Indian Partition". "The indian leaders hoped Pakistan wouldn't survive at first. They hoped in…

Silicon Valley tech giant Google has named Indian-born IIT-educated Sundar Pichai to head its search, ads, maps, Play Store, YouTube, and Android businesses as part of a major reorganization announced by the company. Current Google CEOs Larry Page and Sergei Brin have kicked themselves upstairs to lead Alphabet, a new holding company which will include Google as well as affiliated companies like the life-extension project Calico and a drone delivery venture called Wing, according to …