Pakistan – Page 5

Zardari: We don’t need no Education

November 20, 2008 by KO

Atanu Dey has been writing about the “importance of education in the third world”:http://www.deeshaa.org/category/education/ – it’s basically the only way to to rise out of poverty, a point which “Nicholas Kristof made recently”:http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/13/opinion/13kristof.html?_r=1&ref=opinion&oref=slogin:

bq.. Quick, what’s the source of America’s greatness?

Is it a tradition of market-friendly capitalism? The diligence of its people? The cornucopia of natural resources? Great presidents?

No, a fair amount of evidence suggests that the crucial factor is our school system — which, for most of our history, was the best in the world but has foundered over the last few decades.

p. Pakistan just turned it’s back on this whole education thing by appointing Senator Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani as Minister for Education. This is someone for who an arrest warrant was issued by the Supreme court of Pakistan, for ordering a family to _hand over five minor girls for marriage to a family to compensate for a murder in Jacobabad._

The great Pakistani stock broker bailout

October 27, 2008 by KO

The Karachi stock exchange crashed all the way from “16000 to 9000”:http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/fds/hi/business/market_data/stockmarket/11745/twelve_month.stm – and in the process bankrupted a lot of stockbrokers and other large players. Taking note of this severe crisis, the govt. rushed in to save the day, for stock brokers don’t loose money in this country! First, the govt. changed the rules of the game – not once, not twice but thrice!

In Pakistan, stock brokers make money by borrowing from banks and using that borrowed money to play with the stock market. By law, they have to return that money along with interest in X days, while retaining all the profit. This being Pakistan, now that the value of the stocks bought on borrowed money has fallen below the amount of their loans, the stock brokers have conveniently changed the time they need to pay it back to a full year – and arm twisted the govt. to throw money at the stock market by buying shares at higher than market prices so the stock brokers can cash out and let the govt. bear the losses.

Depending on how you add up the various billions the govt. has already thrown at the stockbrokers, the total amount has already reached 150 to 200 billion rupees. The law changes alone are worth many billions – without them the entire stockbroker industry was effectively bankrupt.

In a surprise twist to the tale, a few govt. organizations have grown a backbone, and refused to just hand over govt. money over:

bq.. Four of the federal organizations have expressed their reservations on provision of a fund amounting to Rs20 billion to Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) for pulling the share market out of the prevailing crisis.

According to sources, the Federal Government directed the State Life, National Bank, National Investment Trust and Employees Old Age Benefit Institution to extend Rs20 billion to KSE.

*The federal bodies are of the view that the fund created with the money of the poor, pensioners, insurance holders and others should not be provided to KSE.*

These bodies have already extended Rs5 billion to KSE in a bid to support the market.

p. Kudos to the above for resisting this blatant transfer of money. In the long run, the stocks might even make money, but pension money should never be gambled, even if there is a good chance of winning.

Information poverty

October 18, 2008 by KO

“Google: The right information at the right time in the hands of people has enormous power.”:http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/information-poverty.html

bq.. Despite hundreds of millions of dollars spent each year on providing basic public services like primary education, health, water, and sanitation to poor communities, poverty in much of Sub-Saharan Africa persists. *Where does this money go, who gets it, and what are the results of the resources invested?* That’s where we find a big black hole of information and a lack of basic accountability. *How do inputs (dollars spent) turn into outputs (schools, clinics, and wells), and, more importantly, how do outputs translate into results (literate and healthy children, clean water, etc.)?*

We simply don’t know the answers to most of these basic questions. But what if we could? What if a mother could find out how much money was budgeted for her daughter’s school each year and how much of it was received? What if she and other parents could report how often teachers are absent from school or whether health clinics have the medicines they are supposed to carry? What if citizens could access and report on basic information to determine value for money as tax payers?

The work of The Social Development Network (SODNET) in Kenya is illustrative. They are developing a simple budget-tracking tool that allows citizens to track the allocation, use, and ultimate result of government funds earmarked for infrastructure projects in their districts. *The tool is intended to create transparency in the use of tax revenues and answer the simple question: Are resources reaching their intended beneficiaries?* Using tools like maps, they are able to overlay information that begins to tell a compelling story.

While the rest of the world is poised on a cliff, the Pakistan economy has already fallen off

October 10, 2008 by KO

Rumors stalk the crumbling land, each one trying to lay claim to a bigger piece of the explanation as to what’s happening in the country.

From the rumors it looks like the country has had it. Shaukat Tareen and the State bank governor has flown off to foreign lands to beg for money, a govt. spokesman is on TV claiming that Pakistan is not bankrupt – meaning it is, striking fear left right and center. Some of the -rumors- stories floating around:

* The country is bankrupt. This is not a rumor, as the govt. has confirmed it.

* The rupee is over valued, and despite crashing, the govt. says it’s still overvalued.

* A number of large corporate groups are near bankruptcy

* A few of the large stockbrokers are bankrupt

* Exports are falling, and thus unemployment is increasing

* Foreign capital is flying out of Pakistan

* You can’t remit money officially from Pakistan

* Mutual funds aren’t letting investors take out money

What’s going to happen? Will the usual bailout show up in time? Of course it will, but in the meantime the country is just about economically dead.

You know your country is fucked when….

September 30, 2008 by KO

The BBC reports that “Pakistanis flee into Afghanistan”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7642015.stm:

bq.. The UN says 20,000 people have fled Pakistan’s tribal area of Bajaur for Afghanistan amid fighting between troops and militants in recent months.

The UN’s refugee agency says almost 4,000 families have crossed north-west into Afghanistan’s Kunar province.

The army began a sustained campaign against militants in Bajaur nearly two months ago.

Some 300,000 others have fled east within Pakistan in recent weeks with many of them living in temporary camps.

Why Pakistan Will Implode

September 28, 2008 by KO

An article emailed to me by an American friend who spent a couple of years in Karachi. Written before the fall of Musharraf, it’s posted in it’s entirety below, a non-journalistic, bleak look at Pakistan:

Pakistani Senator says burying alive three teenage girls and two women is part of “our tribal custom”

August 30, 2008 by KO

Today’s doom and gloom newspaper report on Pakistan reminded me of General Napier’s famous quote on the subcontinental custom of burning widows alive with their husband’s body, back when the British banned it:

bq. You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours.

The ban on burning women alive, often against their will, was challenged in both Indian and British courts, and I think General Napeir’s quote best sums up what came of that.

A important legal aspect of the Sati law: *The law now makes no distinction between passive observers to the act, and active promoters of the event; all are supposed to be held equally culpable.*

Senator Sardar Israrullah Zehri, along with many other Senators are liable for murder – Sati was abolished in Pakistan back in 1829 under British colonial rule. Burying is not that much different from burning… the Sati laws is still on the books, since we inherited all the old colonial laws, and the Senator should be tried under it.

News of the day: Asif Ali Zardari ‘suffering from severe mental problems’

August 26, 2008 by KO

The UK paper “Telegraph reports”:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/2622123/Pakistan-presidential-candidate-Asif-Ali-Zardari-suffering-from-severe-mental-problems.html:

bq.. Mr Zardari, co-chair of the Pakistan People’s Party, was diagnosed with a range of psychiatric illnesses, including dementia, major depressive disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The illnesses were said to be linked to the fact that he has spent 11 of the past 20 years in Pakistani prisons fighting charges of corruption. He claims to have been tortured during his incarceration.

In March 2007 New York psychiatrist Philip Saltiel found that Mr Zardari’s time in detention left him with severe “emotional instability”, memory loss and concentration problems, according to court documents seen by the Financial Times.

“I do not see any improvement in these issues for at least a year,” he wrote.

p. Neither do we, here in Pakistan. Now the “whole world knows”:http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&nolr=1&q=zardari+mental&btnG=Search what we here in Pakistan have known since the 80’s – that Zardari is insane, and by marriage so was Bhutto.

M. Asghar Khan: We’ve learnt nothing from history

August 26, 2008 by KO

!http://ko.offroadpakistan.com/images/2008/asgharkhan.jpg! A first hand account of Pakistan’s history – Asghar Khan has lived through it all, and has been involved with all the major political and army leaders throughout Pakistan’s history. If not for Bhutto’s rigging and Zial Huq’s coup, Asghar Khan would now be written in the history books. It’s a testament to the threat he posed to the powers that be that despite the impact he had on Pakistani politics, he’s been written out of the official histories of Pakistan, both by Zia and than by Bhutto, who both disliked him intensely – Bhutto tried to kill him, while Zia put him in jail for years.

The book is highly readable and very interesting – Asghar Khan speaks of personalities and behind the scenes details which the official histories leave out. Asghar Khan is one of the few honest politicians in Pakistan, and now approaching 90 he doesn’t have much to fear from anyone – the book is a honest overview of how he lived through politics, starting from Partition and ending midway through Musharraf’s reign

From Baghdad to London: Lessons from one thousand years of urbanisation in Europe and the Arab world

August 13, 2008 by KO

Interesting article on “historical urbanization and the difference b/w European and Arabic cities:”:http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/1282

bq.. _Baghdad was a wonder of the world in the year 800 while London was an economic backwater. By 1800, London was the largest city in the world while Arab cities languished. Recent research attributes this ‘trading places’ to institutional differences: Arab cities were tied to the fate of the state while European cities were independent growth poles._

Why did the Industrial Revolution begin in northwestern Europe? At the turning of the first millennium, Europe was a backward part of the world economy with low levels of urbanisation and income. But between 1000 and 1800, Europe surged from a backwater of the world economy to its most dynamic region. Understanding this development is a major challenge for economists and economic historians.