South Asia Investor Review

Pakistan is the second least expensive country in the world. Pakistan's GDP is $788 billion as of 2011 based on purchasing power parity (PPP), according to International Comparisons Program (ICP) findings 2011 released yesterday by the World Bank. World Bank's International Comparison Program (ICP) does a detailed study of a list of around 800 household and nonhousehold products to compare real purchasing power for trans-national income comparison program (ICP). The latest ICP findings conclude that Pakistan's per capita income is US$4,450.00, just slightly below India's US$4,735.00 ICP Based GDP Per Capita. Source: World Bank At US$4,450 per capita, Pakistan's PPP GDP works out to US$788 billion for 2011, and more than a trillion US dollars now. The results of an earlier ICP program for 2005 and 2006 released by Asian Development Bank in 2009 concluded that Pakistan's per capita income was HK$ 13,528.  It reported India’s per capita as HK $12,09...

Organization of Pakistani-American Entrepreneurs ( OPEN ) Silicon Valley has just announced a panel discussion featuring Pakistan's former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and former attorney general Munir Malik. Pakistan's Ex-Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry This discussion is titled "The Pakistani Legal Code And How It Impacts Investors And Entrepreneurs". It is scheduled  for 10:15 AM at "OPEN Forum 2014", the organization's annual conference on Saturday, May 10, 2014, at the Santa Clara Marriott in Silicon Valley If I were asked to moderate this panel, I would not treat it as an abstract discussion of how rule of law impacts investors and entrepreneurs anywhere in general. Instead, I would focus on how Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry conducted himself and how his conduct affected the investment climate and the economy in Pakistan during his tenure as Chief Justice of Pakistan. Foreign Direct Investment in Pakistan: World Bank's data...

Pakistan (score 21.9) at 28 ranks below Iran (score 61.6) at 2 and India (score 25.6) at 19 on world misery index rankings for 2013 compiled by Washington's Cato Institute. Other nations worse off than Pakistan on the list include Serbia, Argentina, Jamaica, Egypt, Spain, South Africa, Brazil, Greece, Macedonia, Palestine, Turkey, Cyprus, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Georgia, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Jordan, Ukraine, Peru, Uruguay, Portugal and Barbados. Indonesia (score 21.6) at 29 is only slightly better off than Pakistan. What is Misery Index? Back in 1960s, distinguished American economist Arthur Okun defined misery index as sum of inflation and unemployment rates. America's high misery index was cited by candidate Jimmy Carter as a reason to elect him president in his 1976 presidential race against President Gerald R. Ford. The Cato Institute has now revived it by adding interest rates to the sum of inflation and unemployment rates and subtracting per capita ...

Dr. Asad Qamar, a graduate of Lahore's King Edwards Medical College, received $18.2 million in payments from US Medicare program in 2012, making him the second highest billing doctor in America. Dr. Qamar is a member of APPNA, Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent in North America. He was a candidate for the presidency of APPNA in 2013 . Asad Qamar M.D. Dr. Qamar, a Pakistani-American cardiologist, and his family have given at least $300,000 to politicians and political causes in the 2012 election cycle and in 2013, according to contribution disclosure records reported by Reuters . Dr. Asish Pal, a Florida-based Indian-American, is the second highest billing cardiologist in America. Dr. Pal was paid $4.5 million by Medicare. Dr. Qamar has been subjected to lengthy reviews of his billing practices by US Department of Health and Human Services. He has complained to President Obama and other officials that the contractors conducting the reviews for the HHS were slo...

Umar Saif was invited by Organization of Pakistani-American Entrepreneurs (OPEN) to an event yesterday at the Palo Alto offices of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman Law Firm  in Silicon Valley to talk about the state of technology in Pakistan. The event was appropriately titled: "Presenting Umar-The Force Behind Plan 09- Pakistan's Leading Incubator For Startups" Umar Saif is just 35 years old and his name is already synonymous with technology in Pakistan. He was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2010, selected as one of top 35 young innovators in the world by MIT Technology Review in 2011 and received a Google faculty research award in 2011. Saif got his PhD in computer science from England's University of Cambridge at 22. Then he joined Massachusetts Institute of Technology to do post-doctoral research. He worked at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory where he was part of the core team that developed system t...

“This guy’s a really good programmer, so that makes him arrogant, because of his skills in a very specific world. And then I take that arrogance and apply it to every other aspect of his life that he’s not good at. So I think that guy’s funny ’cause he’s arrogant — about everything, about how he thinks he is with the ladies. He’s not good with the ladies. You know, all that stuff. He thinks he’s cool. He’s not cool. He’s only good at programming.” Kumail Nanjiani on his role in HBO's "Silicon Valley" Kumail Nanjiani, born in Karachi, Pakistan, has found success as a stand-up comedian in the United States. After completing high school in Pakistan, he attended Grinnell College in Iowa where he graduated in 2001. His comedy has been featured on a number of popular television shows including the Late Show with David Letterman, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, and Conan. He has written for and acted on "Michael & Michael Have Issues" and has appeared on The Col...