India seeks Pak passageway for freight train service

[rubyjackass]

I see this rail link as a first step for integration of Asia, at least South Asia in the short term into an EU kind of union. A rail link now, may be an 8-laneagree highway later parallel to this... who knows, may be a few years down the line we can form a bike group or backpackig group in our forum and explore all the natural beauty around. Wait!! was I dreaming too much?

For now, in spite of the presence of people like Omar and Jana who would rather loose their bucks than let the other guy get his bucks and who would want to prove that India cannot do without Pakistan, I am hopeful for the good relations between our countries. This freight corridor is a starter. Lets see how far it goes.

 

[TopCat]

Do I need to remind you again that Pakistan is not the only route to central asia. Though this may be the only root.

In economics if the size of business grows then the transportation costs becomes comparably small. For example hiring a big ship is far cheaper then hiring a small one or with small space within a ship. So with the growth of the Indian oversea market Pakistan cannot totally cut off India though what max it can do is to make the cost of Indian products bit high. But with the market value for the Indian products which are already existent in the market that can be negotiated.

In terms of European market if you will study you will the trends are different in comparison to Indian and Pakistani market. The equations of cheaper always sells is not applicable to the European market. People prefer brands over costs.

How much India export? 160 billion - 40 billion (IT), which is around 120 billion!!!! Not much even less than Thailand. So instead of bragging lets work together all of us for the betterment of whole south asia. This route will significantly increase indias access to central asia and middle east. I hope we Bangladeshi too could find some market for our products in central asia through this.

 

[Omar1984]

I see this rail link as a first step for integration of Asia, at least South Asia in the short term into an EU kind of union. A rail link now, may be an 8-laneagree highway later parallel to this... who knows, may be a few years down the line we can form a bike group or backpackig group in our forum and explore all the natural beauty around. Wait!! was I dreaming too much?

For now, in spite of the presence of people like Omar and Jana who would rather loose their bucks than let the other guy get his bucks and who would want to prove that India cannot do without Pakistan, I am hopeful for the good relations between our countries. This freight corridor is a starter. Lets see how far it goes.

Notice its always Indians who dream about a EU like union with Pakistan and not the other way around.

Theres way too many disputes and too much mistrust between Pakistan and India to have a EU like union. If anything bad happens in India within 5 minutes they point the finger at Pakistan, and then they tell other countries to put pressure on Pakistan.

If Pakistan has a EU like union with any country its ECO states. ECO was established in 1985 by Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey and the ECO states includes Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. (Notice all these countries are Muslim majority countries).

The ultimate aim of this railway is to start a regular passenger train service between ECO member states and provide a link to Europe and Central Asia which means soon Afghanistan will also be linked to Pakistan through railway. India has been asking for transit route to Afghanistan for too long, and Pakistan has denied their request so what makes you think that Pakistan will approve this request when relations with India is at all time low.

 

[EjazR]

^^^

Kazakhstan is not muslim majority (47%)

Moreover without Pakistan, India and Bangladeshi muslim population would be more than all the other ECO states combined.

Also, Urdu/Punjabi is spoken by Muslims, hindus and Sikhs in India, not in the ECO countries. So for the lay trader and the "aam admi" its defnitely going to be easier to trade with India/Bangladesh than other ECO states.

 

[Omar1984]

^^^

Kazakhstan is not muslim majority (47&#37

Moreover without Pakistan, India and Bangladeshi muslim population would be more than all the other ECO states combined.

Also, Urdu/Punjabi is spoken by Muslims, hindus and Sikhs in India, not in the ECO countries. So for the lay trader and the "aam admi" its defnitely going to be easier to trade with India/Bangladesh than other ECO states.

Kazakhstan has a 73.8% Muslim population. India is more than 80% Hindu. Less than 14% of India's population is Muslim there is no denying that India has majority Hindu population.

We tried a union with Bangladesh, it didnt work mainly because it was thousands of miles away from us and India was between us literally. Bangladesh is closer to India than Pakistan, many Indians also speak Bengali hardly any Pakistani speaks Bengali and even Bangladesh doesnt want to have a union with India.

Union with India cant happen because theres too much distrust and too many disputes, if we wanted a union with India then partition wouldn't have happened.

Languages between ECO member states is not a big deal, ECO is improving and with this railway it will bring the nations more closer. Turkey and Iran dont speak the same language and they are working just fine through ECO as well as other countries in ECO.

We Muslims know eventually all Muslim majority regions will unite, you being Indian Muslim should know that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_by_country

Its great that now Pakistan is looking more towards the western regions than the east..our eastern neighbor (india) has done nothing good for us.

And we will always keep our best friendship with our neighbor to the North, China.

 

[Major Dad]

the economic structure of india is not that much different from that of pakistan(mainly base on agricultural econ income), unlike china exports most of the daily necessities to the world as world factory, freight carriage fee can mean a lot to the fate of dragon..
india is able to compete with china in term of exports, opportunity cost for carriage fee can hardly be reduced for india because that means it is the india that should be in the position to beg pakistan to let it have access to a cheaper alternative freight route rather than shipping on sea which cannot travel straight link like the train on the land...and of course it is a test for indian to learn humble for peacefully developing ties and strategies...

Fully agree with moneymaker. The request should be totally and bluntly ignored. India should look back at her track record and if the Indians are so forgetful then I must remind them just two incidents. First when in 1971 the Fokker plane ‘Ganga’ drama was staged just before invading East Pakistan and on that plea the Western Pakistan’s flights were barred from flying over India. That event played main role in the fall of East Pakistan. Second is when the idea of IPI (Iran, Pakistan, India) gas pipeline was conceived. Primarily the project was to fulfill the energy needs of India but the Indians on the plea of security hazard refused its routing through Pakistan.
I just wanted to draw the Indian attention towards this bitter reality that through the kind courtesy of them the security and law & order situation of Pakistan is far more deplorable then what it was at the time of IPI Gas Pipeline project’s initiation. On which ground the Indians are now requesting Pakistan to allow them a passage. I hope they know that the security situation is even worst.
Seeing the Indian track record, they should have been ruthlessly refused at the very outset. India should learn to live with its neighbours and then expect the favours from them

 

[Omar1984]

Fully agree with moneymaker. The request should be totally and bluntly ignored. India should look back at her track record and if the Indians are so forgetful then I must remind them just two incidents. First when in 1971 the Fokker plane ‘Ganga’ drama was staged just before invading East Pakistan and on that plea the Western Pakistan’s flights were barred from flying over India. That event played main role in the fall of East Pakistan. Second is when the idea of IPI (Iran, Pakistan, India) gas pipeline was conceived. Primarily the project was to fulfill the energy needs of India but the Indians on the plea of security hazard refused its routing through Pakistan.
I just wanted to draw the Indian attention towards this bitter reality that through the kind courtesy of them the security and law & order situation of Pakistan is far more deplorable then what it was at the time of IPI Gas Pipeline project’s initiation. On which ground the Indians are now requesting Pakistan to allow them a passage. I hope they know that the security situation is even worst.
Seeing the Indian track record, they should have been ruthlessly refused at the very outset. India should learn to live with its neighbours and then expect the favours from them

Thats another reason why I think India sent this request to cause delay in this project like she did for IPI.

The regular rail service is expected to begin in 2010, the trial operation of cargo rail service between Islamabad and Istanbul via Tehran was already successful and eventually this rail service will connect all ECO member states.

India wants to cause delay and play around like it did with IPI, she cant stand it if anything good happens to Pakistan.

 

[EjazR]

@Omar

Kazakhstan is 47% Muslim as per CIA factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/kz.html

I tried going to the link provided in wikipedia but its a broken link. Looks like a wrong source. The factbook is more reliable than wikipedia.


People in India speak Punjabi and Urdu/Hindi to a great extent. And that would cover 80% of Pakistan in my opinion. Bengali is as different to the average Pakistani as Russian or Turkish.

Also India has denied backing out from the IPI deal. I'm sure you would understand that any one would be a little hesitant to invest heavily in Pakistan until the security situation improves as it has been in the past few months.

No one is talking about unions, we are just discussing doing trade. China and America are hostile and do trade, India and China are hostile and do trade. These two countries do a lot more trade than Pakistan, even though it has better political relations with Pakistan.

So trade that benefits the common should be separated from politics.

 

[Omar1984]

@Omar

Kazakhstan is 47% Muslim as per CIA factbook https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/kz.html

I tried going to the link provided in wikipedia but its a broken link. Looks like a wrong source. The factbook is more reliable than wikipedia.


People in India speak Punjabi and Urdu/Hindi to a great extent. And that would cover 80% of Pakistan in my opinion. Bengali is as different to the average Pakistani as Russian or Turkish.

Also India has denied backing out from the IPI deal. I'm sure you would understand that any one would be a little hesitant to invest heavily in Pakistan until the security situation improves as it has been in the past few months.

No one is talking about unions, we are just discussing doing trade. China and America are hostile and do trade, India and China are hostile and do trade. These two countries do a lot more trade than Pakistan, even though it has better political relations with Pakistan.

So trade that benefits the common should be separated from politics.

47% is still a large population. Still Muslims are not minority in Kazakhstan, they make up the largest religious group.

India cant pick and chose what it wants from Pakistan. We have figured out all of India's tricks, why does India not want to invest in IPI? because of security risks? give me a break! then why does India want to be part of this project, this train will also run through Pakistan, isn't India afraid that the train will blow up on its way to Central Asia?

As I said before, its best to leave India out of this, she will do the same drama as IPI fiasco.

As for languages most of the ECO states have different national languages from one another and we are working just fine so are European Union states and only 3% of India's population is Punjabi speaking and most people in India dont speak Urdu. Language is not as important as trust.

 

[gogbot]

LOL
Its funny to see how this thread was snowballed into a political and religious spat.

While the railway is just purely a economic issue. you people have made it into a sort of poster child for your claims.

I have heard everything from "Pakistan shouldn't deal with India, till we ge our way with Kashmir".
"India cant stand it when something good is happening to Pakistan"

Thats another reason why I think India sent this request to cause delay in this project like she did for IPI.

The regular rail service is expected to begin in 2010, the trial operation of cargo rail service between Islamabad and Istanbul via Tehran was already successful and eventually this rail service will connect all ECO member states.

India wants to cause delay and play around like it did with IPI, she cant stand it if anything good happens to Pakistan.

And this one takes home the prize

We tried a union with Bangladesh, it didnt work mainly because it was thousands of miles away from us and India was between us literally. Bangladesh is closer to India than Pakistan, many Indians also speak Bengali hardly any Pakistani speaks Bengali and even Bangladesh doesnt want to have a union with India.

Union with India cant happen because theres too much distrust and too many disputes, if we wanted a union with India then partition wouldn't have happened.

Languages between ECO member states is not a big deal, ECO is improving and with this railway it will bring the nations more closer. Turkey and Iran dont speak the same language and they are working just fine through ECO as well as other countries in ECO.

We Muslims know eventually all Muslim majority regions will unite, you being Indian Muslim should know that.

Islam by country - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Its great that now Pakistan is looking more towards the western regions than the east..our eastern neighbor (india) has done nothing good for us.

And we will always keep our best friendship with our neighbor to the North, China.

"We Muslims know eventually all Muslim majority regions will unite, you being Indian Muslim should know that."

Yup that could happen
if this was like the 16th century.

To be fair, i am an atheist so my viewpoint is rather biased.

But seriously In the 21st century
Politics on the basis of religion is to put bluntly.
"epic fail" It just doesn't work anymore.

All over the world this is the case.
Even In India, the BJP was badly hurt and lost many of its seats.
Traditional caste parties have been pushed to obscurity, only surviving by due the old guard.

New and younger generations dont want religion to get involved in politics and divert attention from actual issues.

But enough about that, I dont want to be anti religious.

i wanted to provide some truths.

India cant pick and chose what it wants from Pakistan. We have figured out all of India's tricks, why does India not want to invest in IPI? because of security risks? give me a break! then why does India want to be part of this project, this train will also run through Pakistan, isn't India afraid that the train will blow up on its way to Central Asia?

As I said before, its best to leave India out of this, she will do the same drama as IPI fiasco.

As for languages most of the ECO states have different national languages from one another and we are working just fine so are European Union states and only 3% of India's population is Punjabi speaking and most people in India dont speak Urdu. Language is not as important as trust.

lol
"waiter, India would like cordial relations with Pakistan without the terrorist infiltrators for the main course, a side dish of economic cooperation, and as for a drink we would like a stable Jammu and Kashmir"

"India cant pick and choose what it wants with Pakistan, you get what we give you'

We dam well can pick and choose what we want.
what is Pakistan going to do to India, It cant do anything, except attack or send terrorists. You have no leverage over India, none

India needs Pakistan, As if
We haven't needed you since the last century.
If it wasn't for the terrorists, PAk would have vanished into obscurity
for many young Indians.

what does India need Pakistan for ?
a passageway to Eurasia. What is Pakistan a gate man

Indian companies will use the sea. to circumvent Pakistan.
It will be slower but, volume will be just the same.

What is India's loss if Pak say's no.
Some company some where looses a business opportunity for cheaper transport. and that company could also be Pakistani.

What is India's gain if Pak says yes
Very little, a new trade route through Pakistan opens up. some outflow and inflow of trade increases. Company's can cut transport costs.

major benefactor will be Pakistan, You can gain access to the Indian market.

And the EOC, when was the last time they did something that is notable, when did it ever do anything that actually has lasting effects on the region.
when Did the EOC ever act as a singular voice to achieve something
It is an economic forum, for issues relating to trade.

India may not be shinning like the Foolish BJP claim.
but, its certainly being polished and is well on its way. a long way to go however

You can continue to live in the past or look at the here and now and try to take advantage of new opportunities.

and dignity's sake, please dont say China will do this and that for Pak sake.

China is not your parent that you go crying of to whenever you get upset.

They are just your ally. and their interests are always ahead of your own.

Chill out and see this issue as it really is , economic and nothing else

 

[Beskar]

Omar1984:

If you can't counter the argument, Don't try to derail the thread.

 

[r3alist]

India would earn billions of dollars from trade with Central Asia, Middle East, and Europe through Pakistani soil and gain influence into these very important regions. India would then use those billions of dollars to expand their defence budget and buy even more weapons and some members here are saying Pakistan should allow India access through Pakistan for a couple of million dollars even if relations with India are horrible and there have been no improvement in talks over disputes with India

Also India might do some drama baazi on the train then blame Pakistan for it that would harm Pakistan's relations with Iran and Turkey. This train is one good thing that happened to Pakistan recently, we dont need to ruin it for Pakistan its best to keep India out of this.

this is a good point, people should take note.


to allow india to have easy access to central asia and other nations is a huge economic, political and social decision.


if india increases its ties and influence in central asia it would be a big big blow for china and pakistan.

personally i feel it should take one hell of a concession to allow india this route, as omar said, this will boost india immensely and could leave us more vulnerable onhte political front.

 

[EjazR]

FYI, India has more Urdu speakers as native tongue than Pakistan. This is URdu alone.

If you add Hindi into the mix, which is quite similar but script is different, you might safely say that majority of Indians speak Urdu/Hindi/Punjabi.

Im not saying you should pick and choose between ECO and India/Bangladesh. I'm saying Pakistan should take benefit from both markets to get a double boost. Simultaneously help India and Bangladesh and ECO countries as well.

Also like I mentioned before, IPI is still not denied by India, and is on the table, but after mumbai and the TTP situation, it is understandable if things have cooled down.

 

[Omar1984]

And this one takes home the prize



"We Muslims know eventually all Muslim majority regions will unite, you being Indian Muslim should know that."

Yup that could happen
if this was like the 16th century.

To be fair, i am an atheist so my viewpoint is rather biased.

But seriously In the 21st century
Politics on the basis of religion is to put bluntly.
"epic fail" It just doesn't work anymore.

All over the world this is the case.
Even In India, the BJP was badly hurt and lost many of its seats.
Traditional caste parties have been pushed to obscurity, only surviving by due the old guard.

New and younger generations dont want religion to get involved in politics and divert attention from actual issues.

But enough about that, I dont want to be anti religious.

i wanted to provide some truths.

Pakistan is a Muslim country, 96% of Pakistan's population is Muslim, we believe all Muslims will unite so are you laughing at what Indian Muslims believe in too?

lol
"waiter, India would like cordial relations with Pakistan without the terrorist infiltrators for the main course, a side dish of economic cooperation, and as for a drink we would like a stable Jammu and Kashmir"

That will only happen when Indian troops stop murdering and raping Kashmiri civilians.

"India cant pick and choose what it wants with Pakistan, you get what we give you'
We dam well can pick and choose what we want.
what is Pakistan going to do to India, It cant do anything, except attack or send terrorists. You have no leverage over India, none

Pakistan can deny India's request to be linked to this railway like we denied India transit route to Afghanistan in the past.

"India needs Pakistan, As if
We haven't needed you since the last century.
If it wasn't for the terrorists, PAk would have vanished into obscurity
for many young Indians.

Pakistan doesnt need India either, if it wasnt for India's occupation of Kashmir India wouldve vanished into obscurity for many young Pakistanis.

"what does India need Pakistan for ?
a passageway to Eurasia. What is Pakistan a gate man

Yes Pakistan is a gateway to Eurasia for India.

Have you ever looked at the map? And that gateway is not going to come easy for India.

Indian companies will use the sea. to circumvent Pakistan.
It will be slower but, volume will be just the same.

Transit route through Pakistan is the easiest and least expensive way to reach Eurasia.

major benefactor will be Pakistan, You can gain access to the Indian market.

Chinese and European market is much more attractive.

And the EOC, when was the last time they did something that is notable, when did it ever do anything that actually has lasting effects on the region.
when Did the EOC ever act as a singular voice to achieve something
It is an economic forum, for issues relating to trade.

ECO started the Pakistan-Iran-Turkey railway. The trial train just reached Turkey from Pakistan last month.

Trade between ECO member states are improving and will improve more once we start a regular train service next year.

You can continue to live in the past or look at the here and now and try to take advantage of new opportunities.

Pakistan will do just fine being connected to ECO member states and China.

Its India whose living in the past and didnt take advantage of new oppurtunities like IPI.

and dignity's sake, please dont say China will do this and that for Pak sake.
China is not your parent that you go crying of to whenever you get upset.
They are just your ally. and their interests are always ahead of your own.
Chill out and see this issue as it really is , economic and nothing else

Agreements have been made, signed, and sealed between Pakistan and China to build a rail link connecting Pakistan to China.

We always looked for mutual interest and mutual respect.

We dont cry to China as much as India cries to US whenever it gets upset.

Pakistan will do more than fine with Chinese, Central Asian, Middle Eastern, and European markets.

 

[r3alist]

FYI, India has more Urdu speakers as native tongue than Pakistan. This is URdu alone.

If you add Hindi into the mix, which is quite similar but script is different, you might safely say that majority of Indians speak Urdu/Hindi/Punjabi.

Im not saying you should pick and choose between ECO and India/Bangladesh. I'm saying Pakistan should take benefit from both markets to get a double boost. Simultaneously help India and Bangladesh and ECO countries as well.

with your worst enemy such decisions are never just about economics, simple fact, please understand, there are many factors to consider