South Asia Investor Review

President Donald Trump has imposed 50% tariffs on India's exports to the United States. This is far higher than most countries facing US tariffs. Explaining the punitive India tariffs, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said: "India came to the table early. They’ve been slow rolling things. So I think that the president, the whole trade team has been frustrated with them. And also, you know, India, India has been a large buyer of sanctioned Russian oil that they then resell as refined products. So, you know, they have not been a great global actor".  Indian Cartoonist Satish Acharya on Trump-Modi Dialog. Source: Satish Acharya Since taking office in January 2025, President Trump has been signaling his intent to apply tariffs on India's exports repeatedly. Trump has been singling out India as a country with the highest tariffs it applies on exports from the US.  Indian cartoonist Satish Acharya published a caricature of Modi-Trump conversation portraying Modi's i...

The United Nations World Food Program has ranked Pakistan fourth among donor countries and sixth overall in 2024.  Among the largest 15 donors worldwide, the United States topped the list with $4.45 billion, followed by Germany ($995 million), the United Kingdom ($610 million), European Union ($593 million), private donors ($335 million), Pakistan ($228 million), South Korea ($203 million), France ($196 million), Sweden ($183 million), Canada ($166 million), Norway ($158 million), Japan ($155 million), UN Central Emergency Fund ($135 million), other UN agencies ($120 million) and Switzerland ($88 million), according to the  World Food Program .  Top Donors to World Food Program in 2024. Source: WFP The  World Food Program  says that 319 million people in 67 countries are facing acute hunger, and the scale of the current global hunger and malnutrition crisis is massive. "A total of 1.9 million people are in the grips of catastrophic hunger – primarily in Gaza and...

Pakistani civilian and military leaders have recently met with top leaders from China and the US. While Pakistani Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar has met with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Chinese President Xi Jinping, Pakistan's military chief Field Marshal Asim Munir has had lunch with President Donald Trump and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi during July, 2025.   “Our foreign policy is not a zero-sum game,” Dar said at a presentation to the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington DC. “We hope to see friendly relations between the US and China and do not wish to embroil in bloc politics.”  Pakistan's close ties to both the US and China go back to the 1960s at the height of the Cold War. It was Pakistan which helped arrange the first China-US dialogue in July 1971 when the US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger flew from Pakistan to China to hold the first face-to-face meeting with Chinese leaders.  With increasing US-China rivalry on the world stage today...

Most countries in the world today borrow money from various sources to finance their budget deficits. So do India and Pakistan. So why is it that only Pakistan's borrowing money gets labeled "begging"? Is it not begging when India borrows a lot more money than does Pakistan? Or is it that only borrowing money from the IMF qualifies as "begging"? Let's look into this double standard.  Currently, India's public debt to GDP ratio is 80% while Pakistan's is about 74%. India's private debt to GDP ratio is 17%, twice that of Pakistan. Do these figures mean that India is a bigger beggar than Pakistan?  Debt-to-GDP Ratios Around the World. Source: Visual Capitalist India is consistently among the largest borrowers from International Financial Institutions (IFIs), particularly the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB). It has been the top debtor to the World Bank for several years and a major borrower from the ADB.  India’s outstanding loan bala...

Recent data shows that there are nearly 10,000 Pakistani students attending colleges and universities in Germany. This figure is second only to the United Kingdom which issued over 35,000 student visas to Pakistanis in 2024. The second most popular destination for Pakistani students is Australia which is hosting nearly 24,000 students from Pakistan as of 2023, according to the  ICEF Monitor .  Top Countries of Origin For International Students in Germany 2024. Source: Study in Germany Here's a list of the top 15 countries of origin of foreign students in Germany in 2024:  India 49,008 China 38,687 Turkey 18,084 Austria 15,379 Iran 15,159 Syria 13,379 Russia 10,593 Italy 10,154 Ukraine 9,914 Pakistan 9,873 Egypt 8,060 Morocco 7,398 Tunisia 6,852 Cameroon 6,789 France 6,759 This year, Pakistani students won 114 Erasmus Mundus EU Scholarships, the highest number in the world. This makes Pakistan the top country receiving these scholarships for t...

While the Israeli weapons supplied by the "civilized" West are destroying the lives and limbs of thousands of Gaza's innocent children, a Pakistani  startup  is trying to provide them with free custom-made prostheses, according to media reports. The Karachi-based startup Bioniks was founded in 2016 and has sold prosthetics that use AI and 3D scanning for custom designs.  Gaza's Child Amputee Sidra Al Bordini with Bioniks CEO Anaz Niaz. Source: Instagram Bioniks has recently delivered its first prosthetics made for Gaza's children using remote imaging to design custom arms at low cost.  The demand for such prosthetics is high because, according to the United Nations, Gaza has 4500 new amputees since October 7, 2023 Hamas attack which triggered Israel's brutal response and started the ongoing  genocide  in Gaza.  A recent Reuters story cites the examples of two girls,  three-year-old Habebat Alla and 8 year-old Sidra Al Bordini, who recently receive...