Reform Agenda for Powerful Democracy- By Haseeb Keyani

A Pakistani Perspective of PAKISTAN: Consumption Conundrum in Pakistan

Sakib Sherani

Dawn

“Instead of statistics and charts, let me try to put a few facts in layman’s language.

Out of a total population of 190 million, the rural population of Pakistan is about 64%. They have never had it so good than the amount of money they have made in the last few years due to high increase in food prices locally & internationally. Pakistan is the fifth largest producer of milk in the world. Nestle took the lead & now big Pakistani tycoons are coming into this business in a big way which would improve the quality substantially to world standards on a huge scale. Nestle is looking at exporting milk internationally in the next 5 years from Pakistan.

Returning to a “people-centred” ideology

Cross post from PakTea House

By Saad Hafiz:

It can be argued that Pakistan in its early years pursued Mr. Jinnah’s pragmatic approach to cope with its survival as a newly-formed state. Mr. Jinnah advocated an inclusive society based on shared values such as equality, justice and fair play. This common sense approach built on the broad principles of pragmatism served to stabilize a young nation. Many of Pakistan’s problems stem from the inability to sustain a shared socio-political vision of what ‘the nation’ stands for, as various leaders after Mr. Jinnah used all means of political and social engineering to emphasize a narrow partisan Islamic ideology and orientation for the country.

Are we wrong about Pakistan?

Daily Telegraph

When Peter Oborne first arrived in Pakistan, he expected a ‘savage’ backwater scarred by terrorism.

Years later, he describes the Pakistan that is barely documented – and that he came to fall in love with

It was my first evening in Pakistan. My hosts, a Lahore banker and his charming wife, wanted to show me the sights, so they took me to a restaurant on the roof of a town house in the Old City.

Sharmeen Obaid wins Oscar for film on acid attack victims

Daniel Junge and Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy accept the Oscar for the Best Documentary Short Subject for their film “Saving Face” at the 84th Academy Awards in Hollywood, California. – Reuters

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani filmmaker and first-time Oscar nominee Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy won an Academy Award on Monday for her documentary about acid attack victims, a first for a Pakistani director.

Violence: Dripping with blood

The Economist

Too many disagreements in Pakistan are fatal

 

ON DECEMBER 29TH Syed Baqir Shah, a police surgeon, was gunned down in Quetta, the capital of the province of Balochistan. A few days later the police said that some 50 suspects had been arrested but there had been no “major breakthrough”. Few were surprised. Among the prime suspects were the police themselves and the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary outfit that in theory reports to the provincial government but takes orders from the army.

The economy: Lights off

The Economist

Shortages of electricity and credit are bad for growth

KAMRAN, A TAILOR in Rawalpindi, is enjoying a little boom. He and his staff—two men perched on a platform above the counter in his tiny shop—have increased production fivefold this year, to five or six suits a day. They charge 300 rupees (about $3.30) each, with the customers supplying the material. The secret of their success is simple. They have access to credit, in the form of a 15,000-rupee loan from Tameer Bank, a microcredit lender, and, thanks to that, to a reliable supply of electricity. They have invested the money in a battery that enables them to keep sewing through the power cuts that bedevil Rawalpindi, and indeed most of Pakistan, for much of the day and night.

Religion: In the shadow of the mosque

The Economist

Religion is becoming less tolerant, and more central to Pakistan

 

Visibly more pious

THE CLEAN-SHAVEN, middle-aged academic in Lahore is under fire from his wife and his bushy-bearded 20-year-old son, a student. Last year he completed the haj, the pilgrimage to Mecca that every Muslim is expected to make at least once. Now, after a lifetime of weekly attendance at the mosque, on Fridays, he is told by his family that he should make the half-hour trip there to say his prayers five times a day. “Pakistan”, he says, “has become very religious-minded and anti-West.”

Foreign policy: State of vulnerability

The Economist

Threatened by India, betrayed by America, Pakistan casts a lovelorn eye at China

VIEWED FROM ISLAMABAD, the history of relations between America and Pakistan has been a saga of serial American betrayals. In the 1950s the two countries were close friends. Yet when Pakistan went to war with India in 1965, America stayed neutral. Nor was Richard Nixon much help when East Pakistan seceded to become Bangladesh in 1971, despite Pakistan’s role in facilitating his opening to China. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, close co-operation in the 1980s over arming and training the mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan soon turned into sanctions against Pakistan’s nuclear programme.

Too close for comfort

The Economist

In the war in Afghanistan it is not always obvious which side Pakistan is on

PAKISTAN REACTS WITH understandable resentment to criticism of its role in Afghanistan. During the long war there it has provided sanctuary to millions of refugees. It has lost far more troops fighting terrorists than has ISAF. After September 11th 2001 it swiftly repudiated the Taliban and threw in its lot with America and its “war on terror”. In 2004 it was named a “major non-NATO ally” by America. Its territory has provided ISAF with vital supply routes and bases for attacks on suspected terrorists by unmanned drone aircraft. Many of its civilians have also died in those and other attacks. It has provided intelligence that has led to the capture of a succession of al-Qaeda leaders. And the “American” war in Afghanistan has fuelled the rise of violent Islamist extremists in Pakistan itself, the “Pakistani Taliban”, bent on overthrowing the government.

Perilous journey

This article is the first one from the series about Pakistan published in The Economist as a Special Report. The series includes the articles about foreign policy, Poverty, Economy, religion and violence in Pakistan. This report on Pakistan points out the unfortunate fact of the leaders neglecting the long term needs of the country thus making it vulnerable to the disasters and downfalls. But along with highlighting these problems it also bring into light the positive points which are the signs of the hope.

The Economist

Pakistan has a lot going for it, but optimism about its future is nevertheless hard to sustain, says Simon Long

 

EARLY LAST YEAR the Pakistan Business Council, a lobby group of local conglomerates and multinationals, drew up a “national economic agenda”, setting out some desperately needed reforms. It took out newspaper advertisements to press its case and made presentations to the four biggest parties in parliament. Rather to everyone’s surprise it achieved a consensus, which was to be announced on a television chat show on May 2nd. But that morning it was revealed that American commandos had killed Osama bin Laden in a town not far from Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. Television had other priorities, and the moment passed.

Waiting to receive pieces of daughter’s dead body

Shakeel Anjum
Tuesday, January 10, 2012

She was bitterly crying on phone begging for her life in the captivity, as she had seen her 16-year-old brother on a CD being slaughtered by kidnappers and pieces of his dead body were sent to her father by them some six years back.