Emerging Pakistan - Part I - Views on the future of the country

[TechLahore]

I thought many of you might be interested in reading the following article I am in the process of writing. I completed the first part earlier today and will be working on the second installment soon. Here is an extract and link:

Pakistan Emerging – Part I | TechLahore

Extract below:

What really is the nature of the Pakistan that is emerging early in the 21st Century? What trends and developments are shaping our future and what do we have to look forward to? These are obviously vast topics, but I’ll try to give you a glimpse of how I see things...

Some sections covered in the article:

1. The Afghan Situation: If at first you fail, enable the Pakistanis and let them handle it
2. Dealing with India: Undoing the overdo
3. China: Partnering with a Dragon that is beginning to soar
4. Energy: Capitalizing on location
5. Turkey: A trusted ally and an emerging European power

More at: Pakistan Emerging – Part I | TechLahore

 

[FreekiN]

Dont forget education.

 

[pak-yes]

Unless Pakistan gets economically strong there is no future of Pakistan in the 21st century.

Today Wars are fought on economic and cultural front.

 

[TechLahore]

Dont forget education.

You are right. In a previous article, titled "Postmodern Pakistan", I did address this. Here is an extract, but you might also like to take a look at the link below:

50% of the population in Pakistan is under 18. And according to UNICEF, 80% of children in Pakistan aged 5-9 years are enrolled in school. So, what does that mean for us just 10 years hence? The rate of literacy in Pakistan will grow tremendously. Since no literate parent keeps his/her children illiterate, what will it mean for us just 15-18 years hence? We will be nearing 100% literacy, and at least 100% of our school-age children will be enrolled. By the way, we can do this a lot quicker! There are excellent NGOs, government programs (e.g. Parha Likha Punjab) and other public/private efforts to accelerate this greatly. I have a lot of hope we’ll get to 100% in under 15 years. We are not doing badly.

Postmodern Pakistan | TechLahore

 

[MilesTogo]

What about extremism?

 

[TechLahore]

What about extremism?

I have addressed that in the article titled Postmodern Pakistan - the link has already been given above.

If you're inside Pakistan watching the 7-star Centaurus go up, or the beautiful new cities being built outside Islamabad, in Gwadar on the periphery of Lahore, or the $5B Khalifa refinery being constructed, or the massive Ring road in Lahore being built, or the $75M LUMS School of Science and Engineering come up, or the Aga Khan Science University in Karachi being developed, then "extremism" doesn't seem to be as significant of an issue as when you're leafing through some nonsense propaganda in a newspaper.

If this was as big of a challenge as it was being made out to be a year ago (the X miles from Islamabad crap), how did the PA clean these foreign funded ba$tards out from Swat and SWA in operations spanning just a few short months.

 

[Jackdaws]

"Undoing the overdo" - Ahem - fascinating. Excellent effort and you have shown great sincerity.

However I must point out a few flaws -


"Pakistan... has downplayed and not vociferously raised in international fora the presence of terrorists and extremists within the Indian Army – such as Col. Purohit – who have blown up trains and killed dozens of Pakistani citizens on Indian soil, and has even attempted to address key issues such as India’s violation of the Indus Water Treaty in an understated and diplomatic way"

Trains??? One train was blown up by Purohit and he in jail. He is not roaming around extolling war like a certain Hafiz Saeed. The allegation has against neither Purohit nor Saeed been proved but the former rots in gaol.

Violation of Indus Water Treaty???? When? Have you read the text of the Treaty? The Treaty forbids creation of a barrage for irrigation and not for navigation. And India has not built it yet and all disputes on the Treaty are mediated upon by neutral commission. How much has then West Pakistan's population grown to? Would that not contribute to less water per capita?

 

[Storm Force]

Dealing with India: Undoing the overdo

For me this is Pakistans biggest Challenge for many reasons.

Firstly the indians re a massive Shadow over South Asia SO BIG that Pakistan is often drowned out on the international circuit.

1. How to deal with India,s massive economic advantage 8-1 i think in GDP.. AND GROWING RAPIDLY over this next 10 years.

2. India massive military spending spree $100 billion over next 10 years

3. India increasingly strong relationship with USA WITH very strong indian lobby supported by jewish lobby in the usa gov,t circles.

4. REALISTIC solution Re Kashmir. (not the usual total unaccepted demands of we will get Kashmir by force or negotiation)_ INDIA will never allow this happen. Let be real about this.

Get the India part right and open potentially huge 1 billion ++ market for exports right on the door step.

Fact

Indo China TRADE is worth $30 billion a year will rise to $80 billion in 10 years.

INDO PAK TRADE $400 MILLION.

Some one has goofed up big time !!!!!!!!!1

 

[TechLahore]

"Undoing the overdo" - Ahem - fascinating. Excellent effort and you have shown great sincerity.

Thank you.

One train was blown up by Purohit and he in jail. He is not roaming around extolling war like a certain Hafiz Saeed. The allegation has against neither Purohit nor Saeed been proved but the former rots in gaol.

The parallel of Purohit is not with Hafiz Saeed, but with Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi. Both are the alleged masterminds of the respective incidents. Lakhvi is ******* in Adiala jail and is being tried.

In camera trial of Lakhvi, Zarar Shah begins at Pakistans Adiala jail

The parallel of Hafiz Saeed would be with the leadership of Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal or someone like Modi. And by the way, Hafiz Saeed *was* arrested but had to be released after India could not provide evidence against him. If Pakistan was biased or did not want to pursue the people responsible, why did we even bother to arrest Lakhvi? We would have let him go too...

Violation of Indus Water Treaty???? When? Have you read the text of the Treaty? The Treaty forbids creation of a barrage for irrigation and not for navigation. And India has not built it yet and all disputes on the Treaty are mediated upon by neutral commission.

Actually, not only have I read the treaty, I am currently working with a Pakistani academic whose Ph.D is focused on Indo-Pak water issues.

Under the treaty, Pakistan has exclusive rights to the flow of the rivers Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. These waters are now being dammed and that too by the construction of dams in disputed territory. As per the Indus Treaty, India is entitled to construct an ‘incidental storage capacity’ as long as the design has been approved by Pakistan on one hand and the storage capacity of does not exceed 0.1 MAF of water on the other. The "technical" objections India claims Pakistan has made are due to the height of Baglihar and the fact that it stores water behind the gated spillways, depriving Pakistan of 8000 cusecs a DAY.

India tried this earlier with Wullar Barrage which was 30 times the storage capacity allowed under the IWT (3MAF). Pakistan decided to move the WB because this was a clear violation, India backed off at that time and decided not to build Wullar, causing Pakistan to cease the arbitration initiative.

And, for your information, Pakistan has indicated that it will invoke the arbitration clause and involve the World Bank as the arbitrator on the Baglihar issue. Indian newspapers have in turn reported that Pakistan's Indus Commissioner, Jamaat Ali Shah, has only raised "technical" concerns, as if to belittle these... Yeah, right. "Technical concerns", like the height of the structure and the amount of water it is depriving Pakistan of in violation of the IWT, for instance?!

India invites Pakistan for talks on Kishenganga project - India - The Times of India

How much has then West Pakistan's population grown to? Would that not contribute to less water per capita?

Nice try. But no one is talking about per capita water availability. India's violation of the Indus water accord is depriving Pakistan of 8000 cusecs a DAY. There is no per-capita discussion here.

IPRI :: Islamabad Policy Research Institute

 

[TechLahore]

Dealing with India: Undoing the overdo

For me this is Pakistans biggest Challenge for many reasons.

Firstly the indians re a massive Shadow over South Asia SO BIG that Pakistan is often drowned out on the international circuit.

Yeah, right. This is why you keep campaigning with Uncle Sam to stop military exports to Pakistan, which continue to flow. And why you're so worried about the aftermath of the Afghanistan summit, where according to your own newspapers, India was stunned, disappointed and blindsided.

Here, read:

"LONDON MOVE STUNS INDIA
The Afghanistan conference in London last week was a shocker for Indian mandarins who had hoped to muscle in and get a larger say in Afghan policy given the money and effort New Delhi has put into the reconstruction efforts. But what happened was that India got blindsided by the British swallowing the Pakistani line that Islamabad could deliver peace by negotiating a deal with the Taliban. Shivshankar Menon, the new national security adviser, along with foreign secretary Nirupama Rao, is leading a massive review of India's own ****** policy, which will determine not just India's approach to Afghanistan, but also craft out a new policy of engagement with Pakistan. The announcement on Thursday of resumption of foreign secretary-level talks between New Delhi and Islamabad is a movement in that direction. "

Is India's neighbourhood set to get even more dangerous? - South Asia - World - The Times of India

2. India massive military spending spree $100 billion over next 10 years

What will you do with $100B of weapons? Attack Pakistan? Try it please. You will emerge with not even 50c of your $100B left. Both countries will be destroyed, so please don't try to impress us here with $100B. What we invest in our defence is sufficient for a deterrent that will prevent a wide ranging conflict, or will assure mutual destruction. That's all we need.

3. India increasingly strong relationship with USA WITH very strong indian lobby supported by jewish lobby in the usa gov,t circles.

Again, is that why Uncle Sam is committing billions of $$ to Pakistan's military, supporting a scenario in Afghanistan where India's position will be completely weakened and inviting China to help stabilize Afghanistan? The situation on the ground does not support your thinking.

4. REALISTIC solution Re Kashmir. (not the usual total unaccepted demands of we will get Kashmir by force or negotiation)_ INDIA will never allow this happen. Let be real about this.

Yes, Pakistan has been saying since 1947 that Kashmir needs to be resolved. We agree. So let's resolve it... and let's not back out at the 11th hour like what happened when President Musharraf had reached a settlement with Vajpayee and suddenly Advani and co prevailed in the back room.

Get the India part right and open potentially huge 1 billion ++ market for exports right on the door step.

We really don't need this... our exports can easily be consumed, 100% by countries friendly to us, whether that is China, the 50+ OIC countries, UAE, Saudi Arabia, US, Europe etc. Why would we bother so much about exporting to India? We need to be concerned about increasing our industrial capacity which has experienced double digit growth in recent years, and produce more goods to ship out. As an example, we've been supplying a fair percentage of UAE's cement over the past many years and they can't get enough of it... the cement sector in Pakistan can double or treble just fulfilling demand in the ME.

There are far larger markets with a much higher per-capita income for Pakistan to export to. I don't think trade with India is of great interest.

 

[Materialistic]

What about extremism?

Extremism is not a big issue it is just over hyped by media worldwide. The Terrorists are only a 4500 to 5000 (as per reports & these are the figures before the offenses) against a nation of 180Million (180000000) and among the majority comes from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan while rest form a portion of Arabs and Pakistanis, and this problem can be solved by social and economic reforms.

One the other hand if we see that India is having a very high level of extremism 20 states are under maoist control more than 2200 police and army officials are killed by them and Indian army is starting an offense against them with an army of 70,000. Also shiv sena is coming up every next day by propaganda against Pakistan or between Marathis and Non-Marathis from hitting a Minister in Assembly to accussing Sharukh as a traitor, warning International cricket teams (Australia & Pakistan) from playing in India,poverty is at the highest level there,these are a few examples to name.

But still when ever the word extremism is said Pakistan appears next to it.

In India nuclear scientists are missing and number is increasing basically, some nuclear warhead was recovered from locals which was actually stolen but still the world is concerned about Pakistan's nuclear assets.

What i mean is not that India is on verge or about to collapse, its still going on so does every other country its all about fake media Hype, thats it.

It took 6000 yrs to Greece to recover from the fall of The Great Ancient Empire and rise back as todays developed country.

Nations face both good and bad times and they are not measured in days but decades or even sometime centuries, its just part of a cycle.

 

[MilesTogo]

I wasn't talking about terrorism. I was talking about religious extremism.

Extremism is not a big issue it is just over hyped by media worldwide. The Terrorists are only a 4500 to 5000 (as per reports & these are the figures before the offenses) against a nation of 180Million (180000000) and among the majority comes from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan while rest form a portion of Arabs and Pakistanis, and this problem can be solved by social and economic reforms.

One the other hand if we see that India is having a very high level of extremism 20 states are under maoist control more than 2200 police and army officials are killed by them and Indian army is starting an offense against them with an army of 70,000. Also shiv sena is coming up every next day by propaganda against Pakistan or between Marathis and Non-Marathis from hitting a Minister in Assembly to accussing Sharukh as a traitor, warning International cricket teams (Australia & Pakistan) from playing in India,poverty is at the highest level there,these are a few examples to name.

But still when ever the word extremism is said Pakistan appears next to it.

In India nuclear scientists are missing and number is increasing basically, some nuclear warhead was recovered from locals which was actually stolen but still the world is concerned about Pakistan's nuclear assets.

What i mean is not that India is on verge or about to collapse, its still going on so does every other country its all about fake media Hype, thats it.

It took 6000 yrs to Greece to recover from the fall of The Great Ancient Empire and rise back as todays developed country.

Nations face both good and bad times and they are not measured in days but decades or even sometime centuries, its just part of a cycle.

 

[TechLahore]

I wasn't talking about terrorism. I was talking about religious extremism.

But in general, Pakistan is a very moderate society. There are fewer religious extremists in Pakistan than India... setting aside individual (non-mass) incidents which happen in every country - USA, India, Pakistan etc. - in terms of large riots motivated by extremists, there have been no outbreaks of violence against non-muslims in Pakistan as large or as deadly as say the shahadat of the Babri masjid by a party that was then voted for by the majority of Indians, the Gujarat riots that were supported by a man who was re-elected Chief minister in a major state or the recent Church burning episodes in South India.

In Pakistan the religous right-wing party has never come to power in the center. In India, it has... which country has the more extreme population then?

 

[Hutchroy]

Thank you.

Actually, not only have I read the treaty, I am currently working with a Pakistani academic whose Ph.D is focused on Indo-Pak water issues.

Under the treaty, Pakistan has exclusive rights to the flow of the rivers Indus, Jhelum and Chenab. These waters are now being dammed and that too by the construction of dams in disputed territory. As per the Indus Treaty, India is entitled to construct an ‘incidental storage capacity’ as long as the design has been approved by Pakistan on one hand and the storage capacity of does not exceed 0.1 MAF of water on the other. The "technical" objections India claims Pakistan has made are due to the height of Baglihar and the fact that it stores water behind the gated spillways, depriving Pakistan of 8000 cusecs a DAY.

India tried this earlier with Wullar Barrage which was 30 times the storage capacity allowed under the IWT (3MAF). Pakistan decided to move the WB because this was a clear violation, India backed off at that time and decided not to build Wullar, causing Pakistan to cease the arbitration initiative.

And, for your information, Pakistan has indicated that it will invoke the arbitration clause and involve the World Bank as the arbitrator on the Baglihar issue. Indian newspapers have in turn reported that Pakistan's Indus Commissioner, Jamaat Ali Shah, has only raised "technical" concerns, as if to belittle these... Yeah, right. "Technical concerns", like the height of the structure and the amount of water it is depriving Pakistan of in violation of the IWT, for instance?!

I must say that Pakistan is fighting a very principled battle for the Indus Water – or is Pakistan? Really!

Please read the following Article :

'Running on empty'

I quote two points :

At the time of Partition, Pakistan's water resources worked out to about 5,000 cubic meters of water per capita. Now, it is less than 1,500 cubic meters per capita, and this figure is expected to drop, as early as 2020, to less than 1,000 cubic meters per capita, making Pakistan a "water-scarce" nation.

So Pakistan’s per capita water availability has gone down by a third. However Pakistan’s Population in the corresponding period has gone by Five to Six Times.

I am sure you don’t need to be a Rocket Scientist to realize that there is no basis in the Pakistani Allegation that India is stealing Pakistan’s Share of the River Waters under the IWT as you will ind that Pakistan’s River Water share has gone up and not down.

CONSERVATION : Most of Pakistan's water, nearly 90 percent, is consumed in irrigation and other agricultural needs. One expects a high figure in a predominantly agricultural economy. But water losses, caused by an inefficient canal system and theft and water-logging and salinity caused by poor farming practices, means that nearly 40 percent of the water used in irrigation is wasted and vast tracts of farmland has been rendered infertile.

I am sure that you would like to blame India for the 40% of the water used in Irrigation in Pakistan wasted due to water losses, caused by an inefficient canal system and theft and water-logging and salinity caused by poor farming practices, with the result that vast tracts of farmland has been rendered infertile, but you will find that the fault lies at the door of the Pakistani Government Leadership in not allocating funds for Development but but spending these precious funds for buying Toys for the Generals - Land, Sea and Air!

BTW : Please read the full Article.

TIA

 

[Hutchroy]

,poverty is at the highest level there,these are a few examples to name.

Really!

Do let me know as to the Billions upon Billions of US Dollars India is begging the USA by way of a Marshall Aid Plan or from the Friends of India or for that matter from the Friends of Democratic India.

Then we will discuss further about India's poverty.