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Happy 64th Birthday, Pakistan!

“You tend to hear the worst 5% of the Pakistan story 95% of the time.”


The above is a quote attributed to Pakistani Entrepreneur Monis Rahman in Aug 8, 2011 Forbes Magazine story titled “Want to Start a Company in the World's Sixth-Most Populous Country? Time to Move to Pakistan”.



On Pakistan's 64th birthday today, there is a lot of coverage by the traditional media focused on "the worst 5% of the Pakistan story". To help my readers piece… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on August 14, 2011 at 2:00pm — 2 Comments

Pakistani Jazz Album Tops American and British Music Charts

Pakistan's Sachal Studios Orchestra, named after Sindhi Sufi Saint Sachal Sarmast (1739–1829), has topped iTunes jazz charts in America and Britain with its interpretation of Dave Brubeck's Take Five that blends classical violins with sitars, tablas and other South Asian instruments, according to British media… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on August 9, 2011 at 8:20pm — 14 Comments

Powerful Oligarchs of South Asia

India is the world's third biggest and the fastest rising oligarchy with 17.2% of its GDP amassed by its 55 billionaires. India's system of governance has some of the worst of features of democracy and oligarchy in which the democratically elected politicians are bought off by the richest Indians, and both groups further enrich themselves at the expense of the vast majority of ordinary Indians. The biggest Indian… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on August 6, 2011 at 9:00am — 10 Comments

Production and Sales of Cars and Televisions Rose in Pakistan in 2010-11

First 9 months of fiscal 2010-2011 saw production of television sets jump 28.6% and automobile production increase by 14.6%, according to Economic Survey of Pakistan 2010-2011. From July 2010 to March 2011, production of cars, light commercial vehicles and two and three wheelers grew by 16.4%, 20.5% and 12.6% respectively. These figures… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on August 2, 2011 at 8:58am — 26 Comments

Rise of Oligarchy in India and Pakistan

Is India an oligarchy controlled by its 55 recently-minted billionaires whose wealth equals one-sixth of their country's GDP?



The answer to this question came when, as part of India's 2G scandal revelations, the Billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani was quoted as… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on July 27, 2011 at 10:11pm — 5 Comments

Pakistan Empowers Rural Women Through Government Land Grants

The PPP-led Sindh government is granting over 212,864 acres of government-owned agriculture land to landless peasants in the province.



Over half of the farm land being given is prime nehri (land irrigated by canals) farm land. About 70 percent of the … Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on July 8, 2011 at 10:54pm — No Comments

Pakistan Ahead of India in Innovation Efficiency

While Pakistan fares badly, ranking 103 on a list of 125 nations, on CII-INSEAD Global Index of Innovation for 2011, it is included among the top 10 countries for the Innovation Efficiency sub-Index. These countries are Côte d’Ivoire, Nigeria, China, Pakistan, Moldova, Sweden, Brazil, Argentina, India, and Bangladesh.







This places Pakistan in 4th place on… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on July 3, 2011 at 11:00am — 1 Comment

Impact of Declining Muhajir Birth Rates on Pakistan's Demographics and Politics

Why did the Muttahida Qaumi Movement(MQM) react so strongly to the PPP's aggressive stance in the recent Azad Kashmir elections that it decided to pull out of the ruling coalition? Why has the MQM leadership replaced "Mohajir" with "Muttahida" in its name? Why is the MQM so eager to expand its base from the exclusively Urdu-speaking urban Sindh to other provinces and regions?…



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Added by Riaz Haq on July 2, 2011 at 9:59am — 2 Comments

Huma Abedin Weiner in Twitter Photo Scandal

New York's Jewish-American Congressman Anthony Weiner's scandal has brought unwanted attention to his wife Huma Abedin, a 34 year-old Michigan-born Muslim-American woman with an Indian-American father and a Pakistani-American mother. The Congressman is alleged to have sent a lewd photo of his crotch from his Twitter account to a 21-year-old female student in Seattle, Washington.…



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Added by Riaz Haq on June 2, 2011 at 9:00pm — 3 Comments

Hookah Smoking Health Risks Worry Americans

Since the hookah (shisha or water pipe) made its debut in North America a few decades ago among immigrant communities, it has continued to gain in popularity and now found its way to hundreds of college campuses all over the continent.



Most of the hookah tobacco used in the United States is imported from the UAE, Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia; as a way of catering to Western tastes, tobacco manufacturers are introducing flavors like kiwi, watermelon and blackberry. Handcrafted pipes… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 31, 2011 at 11:34pm — No Comments

Is There a Culture of Corruption in Pakistan?

Rampant corruption is believed to be a major factor impeding economic development in Pakistan and many other developing nations.



Is this corruption and lawlessness rooted in the absence of adequate law enforcement, or the lack of independent judges? Or is it a national culture of corruption that ranks such nations among the most corrupt in the world on… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 30, 2011 at 9:00am — 13 Comments

Pakistan's NADRA Excels in IT Services

All the hype about Indian IT sector makes it hard to believe that it is Pakistan, not India, which has widely deployed biometric identification technology to issue multi-purpose national ID cards and e-passports to its citizens. Is this just another case of the proverbial shoemaker's children going barefoot?







In fact, Pakistan is among the first few countries… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 26, 2011 at 4:19pm — 27 Comments

World Bank Finds Indians Poorer Than Pakistanis

A new multi-dimensional measure of poverty confirms that there is grinding poverty in resurgent India. It highlights the fact that just eight Indian states account for more poor people than the 26 poorest African countries combined, according to media reports. The Indian states, including Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh , Orissa, Rajasthan,…

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Added by Riaz Haq on May 20, 2011 at 5:00pm — 2 Comments

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

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    Blog Posts

    Pakistanis' Insatiable Appetite For Smartphones

    Samsung is seeing strong demand for its locally assembled Galaxy S24 smartphones and tablets in Pakistan, according to Bloomberg. The company said it is struggling to meet demand. Pakistan’s mobile phone industry produced 21 million handsets while its smartphone imports surged over 100% in the last fiscal year, according to …

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    Posted by Riaz Haq on April 26, 2024 at 7:09pm

    Pakistani Student Enrollment in US Universities Hits All Time High

    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…

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    Posted by Riaz Haq on April 1, 2024 at 5:00pm

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