The Global Social Network
Pakistani students have received more EU-funded Erasmus scholarships and US-sponsored Fulbright scholarships this year than students from any other country in the world. These are fully-funded scholarships for recipients to study at universities in the European Union and the United States. Pakistan has also seen a post-pandemic surge of student visas to study in Australia, the US and UK this year. …
Added by Riaz Haq on June 26, 2023 at 2:30pm — 6 Comments
Wall Street Journal's White House Correspondent Sabrina Siddiqui, a Pakistani-American Muslim journalist, got to ask the only question posed by an American journalist to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his recent visit to the White House in Washington, DC. This was the first time in 14 years that Mr. Modi took an unscripted question from any journalist anywhere in the world. In fact, it was his first press conference since taking office as the prime minister of India in…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on June 24, 2023 at 6:00pm — 56 Comments
Responding candidly to a question in the Indian capital New Delhi, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said: "The way this works is we're going to tell you, it's totally hopeless to compete with us on training foundation models you shouldn't try, and it's your job to like try anyway. And I believe both of those things. I think it is pretty hopeless." This occurred at an event organized…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on June 12, 2023 at 5:00pm — 52 Comments
Number of Indian Muslims attending colleges and universities has declined by 8% to 1.9 million in 2020-21, from 2.1 million in 2019-20, according to Indian government data. In the same period, the higher education enrollment in Pakistan has risen about 12%, from 2.7 million to over 3 million. Both India and Pakistan have about the same population of Muslims. …
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on June 5, 2023 at 9:30pm — 12 Comments
Prime Minister Narendra Modi's campaign to show normalcy in the Indian occupied territory of Jammu and Kashmir has backfired. Three member countries of the G20 boycotted the tourism event in Srinagar. The rest of them sent local embassy staff to attend. The event also drew negative worldwide media coverage of the brutality of India's "settler colonialism" in the disputed territory. It elicited strong condemnation from the United Nations. Prior to the event, India’s tourism secretary, Arvind…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on May 24, 2023 at 11:30am — 30 Comments
What good is a currency in global trade if it can not be used to buy products and services from other nations that a country needs? The answer to this question came when Russia said it has accumulated billions of rupees in Indian banks which it can not use. “This is a problem”, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters in India’s Western state of Goa on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization meeting. “We need to use this money. But for this, these rupees must…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on May 17, 2023 at 1:00pm — 4 Comments
The story of the padlocked grave has gone viral, thanks to the mainstream Indian news media ranging from the Times of India to NDTV. The story links the image of a padlocked grave to rising necrophilia cases in Pakistan, with the claim that the image is an example of how parents lock their daughters’ graves in Pakistan in order to prevent rape. Alt News, a fact-check site run by…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on April 30, 2023 at 5:00pm — 4 Comments
Top Chinese officials have committed to “further deepen and expand” ties with Pakistan at meetings at the highest levels between the military and civilian leaderships of the two nations. Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang assured Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif of his country's support for Pakistan's "financial stability". Also in the news this week is a Chinese government commission report recommending the construction of a 3,000 kilometer long …
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on April 28, 2023 at 7:00pm — 38 Comments
When US Ambassador Richard Holbrooke suffered a massive heart attack in 2010, the doctors who responded to this emergency were both foreign: one from India and the other from Pakistan. Dr. Farzad Najam, a graduate of King Edward Medical College in Lahore, was the chief heart surgeon at George Washington University Hospital at the time. Dr. Monica Mukherjee, a junior cardiologist at the hospital, assisted Dr. Najam in the operating theater. This episode illustrates the high profile presence…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on April 15, 2023 at 8:30am — 8 Comments
India occupies 126th position among 137 nations ranked in the World Happiness Report 2023 released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. In South Asia, Pakistan (score 4.555) ranks 108, Sri Lanka 112, Bangladesh (4.282) 118 and India 126 (4.036). Only Taliban-ruled Afghanistan ranks worse at 137. Finland is the happiest nation in the world, followed by Denmark and Iceland in 2nd and 3rd…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on March 22, 2023 at 12:00pm — 17 Comments
Indian mainstream media headlines suggest that Pakistan's current troubles are becoming a cause for celebration and smugness across the border. Hindu Nationalists, in particular, are singing the praises of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and some Pakistani analysts have joined this chorus. This display of triumphalism and effusive praise of India beg the following questions: Why are Indians so obsessed with Pakistan? Why do Indians choose to compare themselves with much smaller Pakistan…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on March 19, 2023 at 5:30pm — 70 Comments
Pakistani analyst Uzair Younus has recorded personal impressions of his recent India visit on his YouTube channel, as well as in an interview on another YouTube channel called "Pakistan Experience". Indian media have gleefully jumped on it with headlines like "Visiting India Was Like Stepping Into The Future" and a "Pakistani analyst" talking of India's "communal harmony". It has helped Younus' channel draw its highest ever views, and inundated it with Indian trolls' comments praising Hindu…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on March 11, 2023 at 6:00pm — 10 Comments
Famous Indian writer and poet Javed Akhtar told his audience at a conference in Mumbai that he saw "no visible poverty" in Lahore during his multiple visits to Pakistan over the last three decades. Responding to Indian novelist Chetan Bhagat's query about Pakistan's economic crisis at ABP's "Ideas of India Summit 2023" in Mumbai, Akhtar said: "Unlike what you see in Delhi and Mumbai, I did not see…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on February 28, 2023 at 9:00pm — 12 Comments
"It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal" Henry Kissinger
India is emerging as the biggest beneficiary of the Ukraine War and the US efforts to check China's rise. Indian businesses are busting US sanctions to take advantage of the vacuum left in Russia by the exit of western businesses since the start of the Ukraine War. At the same time, the US is rewarding India by promoting it as an alternative to China in the global supply chain. …
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on February 20, 2023 at 5:00pm — 60 Comments
Pakistan is in the middle of multiple serious crises. But the vast majority of Pakistanis feel that they have better lives than their parents did, and they think their children will have even better lives than theirs, according to a Gallup International Poll of 64 countries conducted from August to October last year. The poll asked two questions: 1) Do you feel your life is better, worse or roughly similar to that of your parents? and 2) Do you think your children will have a better, worse…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on February 1, 2023 at 1:30pm — 9 Comments
Yogi Adityanath, the radical Hindu Chief Minister of the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, canceled his plans to lead a delegation to the 2023 World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland. The cancellation came after a criminal complaint was filed against the Hindu Nationalist leader who is widely seen as Prime Minister Modi's successor. …
Added by Riaz Haq on January 29, 2023 at 9:00am — 12 Comments
Pakistan is currently facing major economic and political crises. These are partly of its own making but mostly the result of external shocks in terms of commodity prices that have exacerbated the nation's balance of payments. The Pakistani military's unnecessary meddling in politics and resulting political instability have not helped either. The unprecedented floods in the country have further…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on January 23, 2023 at 4:30pm — 42 Comments
The Pakistan Air Force's Retired Air Vice Marshal Shahzad Chaudhry has recently penned an op-ed for The Express Tribune newspaper calling on his country to make peace with India. He argues that "India is relevant to the world", implying that Pakistan is not. Chaudhry believes that the "gap between Pakistan and India is now unbridgeable". Chaudhry concludes his piece with the following…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on January 17, 2023 at 4:30pm — 28 Comments
Pakistan is often portrayed in the international media, particularly the western media, as a highly tradition-bound conservative society dominated by Taliban sympathizers. Fatima Bhutto, a granddaughter of former Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, offers evidence to suggest otherwise. …
Added by Riaz Haq on December 27, 2022 at 4:30pm — 20 Comments
“If the FM (foreign minister) of India (Jaishankar) was being honest, then he knows as well as I, that the RSS (India's militant Hindu organization) does not believe in Gandhi, in his ideology. They do not see this individual as the founder of India, they hero-worship the terrorist that assassinated Gandhi", said Pakistan's Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari at a press conference at the United Nations Headquarters in New York City. "Osama Bin Laden is dead but the butcher of Gujarat…
ContinueAdded by Riaz Haq on December 16, 2022 at 5:26pm — 30 Comments
2024
2023
2022
2021
2020
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
2009
2008
2007
South Asia Investor Review
Investor Information Blog
Haq's Musings
Riaz Haq's Current Affairs Blog
Pakistani student enrollment in America's institutions of higher learning rose 16% last year, outpacing the record 12% growth in the number of international students hosted by the country. This puts Pakistan among eight sources in the top 20 countries with the largest increases in US enrollment. India saw the biggest increase at 35%, followed by Ghana 32%, Bangladesh and…
ContinuePosted by Riaz Haq on April 1, 2024 at 5:00pm
Pakistan's agriculture sector GDP grew at a rate of 5.2% in the October-December 2023 quarter, according to the government figures. This is a rare bright spot in the overall national economy that showed just 1% growth during the quarter. Strong performance of the farm sector gives the much needed boost for about …
ContinuePosted by Riaz Haq on March 29, 2024 at 8:00pm
© 2024 Created by Riaz Haq. Powered by