You wouldn't know from the headlines what…
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Added by Riaz Haq on April 24, 2011 at 9:17am —
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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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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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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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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…
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Added by Riaz Haq on July 3, 2010 at 12:36pm —
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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…
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Added by Riaz Haq on June 4, 2010 at 7:00pm —
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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…
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Added by Riaz Haq on April 27, 2010 at 5:50pm —
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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…
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Added by Riaz Haq on April 25, 2010 at 9:06pm —
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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…
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Added by Riaz Haq on April 8, 2010 at 5:13pm —
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Although it's a subject I have often written about, this particular post about
fighting child malnutrition is inspired by a recent email from Col. Pavan Nair, an Army officer turned social activist, and a patriotic Indian with a deep sense of service to those in the greatest need in his country and its neighborhood.…
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Added by Riaz Haq on March 15, 2010 at 11:09pm —
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I have just published on
my blog, Haq's Musings, a guest post by Colonel Pavan Nair, a retired Indian Army officer, a detailed
analysis of the Indian defense spending in the context of the nation's growing needs for social spending on food, education and health care. Col Nair prefaces his analysis by lamenting that "defense economics has not been a subject for serious…
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Added by Riaz Haq on January 23, 2010 at 9:30am —
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Making predictions is hazardous business. After all, who would have forecast with any accuracy the
Soviet defeat in Afghanistan and the fall of the Berlin wall in late 1980s, or the terrorists attacks of September 11, 2001, or the near-collapse of the US financial markets in 2008, the kind of events that fundamentally changed the world. This new decade of 2010-2020 could also bring long-lasting but hard to…
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Added by Riaz Haq on January 7, 2010 at 7:00pm —
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Pakistan and India have had two sports encounters this year at major international events in cricket and field hockey. Pakistan have won on both occasions to go on to the the final or semifinal. In September this year, Pakistan beat India in the
ICC T20 Champions Trophy group match in South Africa to qualify for the semifinal. And today, Pakistan beat India 6-3 in a Champions Challenge hockey tournament…
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Added by Riaz Haq on December 13, 2009 at 9:23pm —
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Guest Post by Dost_Mittar
A simple solution to a disgusting problem
"The toilet is a part of the history of human hygiene which is critical chapter in the growth of civilization."
[
Dr. Bindeshwar Pathak]
Anyone who has seen the blockbuster film
“Slumdog Millionaire” would remember one…
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Added by Riaz Haq on October 28, 2009 at 11:00pm —
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There is nothing more basic in terms of human necessities than the adequate availability of
roti, kapra aur makaan. Going beyond these bare essentials of food, clothing and housing, one can add sanitation, health care and education. Let's examine how the two biggest nations in South Asia are coping with such fundamental necessities of their population:…
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Added by Riaz Haq on October 12, 2009 at 10:04pm —
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The latest edition of the world's top universities from The Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) has few surprises in 2009. The top 10 Universities are: Harvard (US), Cambridge (UK), Yale(US), UCL, London (UK), Imperial College, London and Oxford (both UK, joint 5), Chicago (US), Princeton (US), MIT, Massachusetts (US) and California Institute of Technology (US). As always, the top of the list is dominated by American and British Universities this year, together making up about 40% of the…
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Added by Riaz Haq on October 9, 2009 at 10:00pm —
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In spite of the fact that Pakistan's Human Development Index (HDI) has risen by 1.30 percent per year from 0.402 to 0.572 during 1980-2007 period, and it has accelerated to 1.9% increase since 2000
when it was reported to be 0.499, its progress is not yet sufficient to improve the nation's ranking relative to other countries in regions like East Asia, which have been moving considerably faster. Pakistan's index…
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Added by Riaz Haq on October 8, 2009 at 10:30am —
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A recent
Chowk.com article titled "Indian Technical Recession", written by Sharad Chandra, asks the following basic question about the quality of engineering education in India:
"So why Indian engineering education system is not capable of producing quality engineers for the country?"
Then the author goes on to answer his own question as follows:
"One of the… Continue
Added by Riaz Haq on September 19, 2009 at 11:00pm —
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