Whether it was the bloody Civil War to abolish slavery in America or the Meiji Restoration that transformed feudal Japan into an industrial giant, history tells us that violent conflict has been an integral part of the process of social change.  Pakistan, too, is experiencing a similar violent social revolution. It started well before the terrorist attacks  of 911 and the subsequent US invasions of…

Eclipse of Feudalism in Pakistan

By Arif Hasan

Mechanisation and middlemen: A customised tractor with a trailer full of harvested sugarcane, in Pakistan.…

A 2012 study of 22 nations conducted by Prof Miles Corak for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and

Development (OECD) has found income

heritability to be greater in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, China and 5 other countries than in Pakistan.



The study's findings, presented by the author in testimony to the US Senate Finance Committee on July 6, 2012, rely on the…

Even with the run-up (in KSE-100), Andrew Brudenell, manager of the HSBC Frontier

Markets fund (HSFAX) in London, says Pakistan is one of the cheapest

markets he follows, at about seven times earnings. He notes that

earnings growth has kept pace with the market. The firms, he adds, are

typically cash-rich, boast strong return on…

Renewed construction boom in Pakistan has helped the nation's cement producers significantly increase their sales and profits. Year-over-year, income at Lucky Cement, Pakistan's largest producer of building materials,  is up 33% while DG Khan Cement, second largest…

"We will rid the country of corruption within the first 90 days in office...I condemned the attack on Malala within 48 hours and was the first to visit her in the hospital...Taliban have killed hundreds of ANP workers...If I condemn the Taliban, they'll kill my workers too." PTI Chief Imran Khan in San Jose, CA. Oct 28, 2012

 …

Media coverage of Pakistan's brisk Eid-ul-Azha livestock sales are a reminder that the nation is among the world's top ten consumers of goat meat and beef based on USDA data.…

Pakistan ranks 16th among 151 countries of the world on the Happy Planet Index (HPI) 2012, slightly behind Bangladesh in 11th place but well ahead of India in 32nd spot.

US is providing $80 million to create multiple VC and PE funds in Pakistan. These funds will be run by professional fund managers who will be required to manage and raise additional money from other sources to start multiple funds. US Embassy in Islamabad told Express Tribune that they expect that "there will be substantial interest from local, regional and international investors”.



Polish Model:…

Negative stereotyping of Prophet Mohammad has been the preoccupation of generations of Western writers from the time of the Crusades to the

present day. Among those who have engaged in highly offensive portrayal of Islam's prophet are Italian poet-philosopher Dante Aligheri (1265-1321), Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos (1325-1450) and European "Enlightenment" leader François-Marie Arouet Voltaire (1694-1778).

More recently, there have been attempts by Salman Rushdie…

US venture investor Tim Draper, Swiss food giant Nestle, and American beverage titan Coca Cola are investing heavily in Pakistan's agribusiness.



Silicon Valley private equity investor Tim Draper, a well-known international venture capitalist, is quietly investing in Pakistan's agribusiness, the largest provider of food commodities in the Middle East, according to San Francisco Examiner.



The…

 "...a major battle the

west of the Beas would end in the destruction of the Indian Army and

thereafter allow the enemy (Pakistani) forces to push to the gates of

Delhi without much resistance." 1965 WAR-The Inside Story by R.D. Pradhan                                    

As Pakistanis honor the memory of  their 1965 war heroes on Defense of Pakistan Day today, let us review some snippets of how the war looked from the…

A spate of incidents targeting various minorities including Christians and Hindus as well as members of the Muslim Shia community have raised serious concerns in Pakistan.…

A team headed by Professor Sohail Khan, a British Pakistani researcher at Loughborough

University, won $60,000 second place prize for developing a

toilet that converts human waste into biological charcoal, which

can be burned, and clean water. The prize was announced on August 14, Pakistan's…

Indus Motor Company earned Rs. 4.3 billion in net income on sales of Rs. 75 billion in 2011-12, representing an increase 57% in net income and 25% in total revenue over previous year. The company that is 37.5% owned by Japan’s Toyota Motors sold over 55,000 cars during the financial year that ended on June 30, 2012, its highest ever for a single year. Both revenues and profits were the highest in the company’s history in Pakistan, according to…

Several prominent Indian journalists and writers have visited Pakistan in recent years for the first time in their lives.  I am sharing with my readers selected excerpts of the reports from Mahanth Joishy (USIndiaMonitor.com), Panakaj Mishra (Bloomberg), Hindol Sengupta (The Hindu), Madhulika Sikka (NPR) and Yoginder Sikand (Countercurrents) of what they saw and how they felt in the neighbor's home. My hope is that their stories will help foster close ties between the two estranged South…

As the West frets about population growth in the developing world on World Population Day today,  it's also important to understand the impact of growing obesity on the planet.



Asia has 61 per cent of the world's population but only 13 per cent of the world's weight. In contrast, Americans make up only five per cent of the world's population but account for a third of the world's weight due to obesity, according to a…