Pakistan Day: The Other 99% of the Pakistan Story
As Pakistanis celebrate the 78th anniversary of the Lahore Resolution of 1940 on March 23 this year, it's time to ask the following questions: How is Pakistan doing? What is the reality? How is it perceived?
The worst 1% of the Pakistan story gets 99% of the media coverage, says Lahore-based Pakistani entrepreneur Monis Rahman. In the same vein, former US President Bill Clinton has said this about the media coverage of the continent of Africa: "Follow the trend lines, not the headlines".
So what is the other 99% of the Pakistan story that gets little or no media attention? What are the trend lines that are missed by those just relying on the headlines? Let's try and enumerate these:
1. Pakistan's economy has crossed the trillion dollar mark in terms of purchasing power, according to the IMF. It is among the world's top 25 largest economies. It is also the world's third fastest growing among the trillion dollar plus economies.
2. Pakistanis have consistently ranked higher than their neighbors on the United Nations World Happiness Index since it began producing annual reports in 2011. Pakistan rose from 80th place in 2017 to 75th place this year while all of its neighbors slid from last year's happiness rankings. Bangladesh dropped 5 spots to 115 while India slid 11 places to 133 among 156 nations ranked. China (86), Bhutan (97), Iran (106), Bangladesh (115), and Sri Lanka (116), India (133) and Afghanistan (145) all fared worse than Pakistan (75).
3. The share of national income of Pakistan's poorest 20% of households has increased from 8.1% to 9.6% since 1990 , according to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (NESCAP) Statistical Yearbook for 2015. It's the highest share of income for the bottom income quintile in the region.
4. Pakistan is the world's fastest growing steel producer. Steel production in Pakistan jumped 39.3% to 5 million tons last year, according to World Steel Association. Earlier, Pakistan steel industry ramped up its output from 2.9 million tons in 2015 to 3.6 million tons in 2016. Steel demand in Pakistan is currently about 10 million tons a year and growing at 25-30% a year. Half of it was met by local production while the rest was imported in 2017. Pakistani production capacity is growing at 40%, faster than 25-30% growth in demand.
5. Pakistan's public spending on education has more than doubled since 2010 to reach $8.6 billion a year in 2017, rivaling defense spending of $8.7 billion. Private spending on education by parents is even higher than the public spending with the total adding up to nearly 6% of GDP. Pakistan has 1.7 million teachers, nearly three times the number of soldiers currently serving in the country's armed forces.
6. There are over 3 million students enrolled in grades 13 through 16 in Pakistan's 1,086 degree colleges and 161 universities, according to Pakistan Higher Education Commission report for 2013-14. The 3 million enrollment is 15% of the 20 million Pakistanis in the eligible age group of 18-24 years. In addition, there are over 255,000 Pakistanis enrolled in vocational training schools, according to Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA).
The worst 1% of the Pakistan story gets 99% of the media coverage, says Lahore-based Pakistani entrepreneur Monis Rahman. In the same vein, former US President Bill Clinton has said this about the media coverage of the continent of Africa: "Follow the trend lines, not the headlines".
1. Pakistan's economy has crossed the trillion dollar mark in terms of purchasing power, according to the IMF. It is among the world's top 25 largest economies. It is also the world's third fastest growing among the trillion dollar plus economies.
2. Pakistanis have consistently ranked higher than their neighbors on the United Nations World Happiness Index since it began producing annual reports in 2011. Pakistan rose from 80th place in 2017 to 75th place this year while all of its neighbors slid from last year's happiness rankings. Bangladesh dropped 5 spots to 115 while India slid 11 places to 133 among 156 nations ranked. China (86), Bhutan (97), Iran (106), Bangladesh (115), and Sri Lanka (116), India (133) and Afghanistan (145) all fared worse than Pakistan (75).
3. The share of national income of Pakistan's poorest 20% of households has increased from 8.1% to 9.6% since 1990 , according to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific (NESCAP) Statistical Yearbook for 2015. It's the highest share of income for the bottom income quintile in the region.
4. Pakistan is the world's fastest growing steel producer. Steel production in Pakistan jumped 39.3% to 5 million tons last year, according to World Steel Association. Earlier, Pakistan steel industry ramped up its output from 2.9 million tons in 2015 to 3.6 million tons in 2016. Steel demand in Pakistan is currently about 10 million tons a year and growing at 25-30% a year. Half of it was met by local production while the rest was imported in 2017. Pakistani production capacity is growing at 40%, faster than 25-30% growth in demand.
5. Pakistan's public spending on education has more than doubled since 2010 to reach $8.6 billion a year in 2017, rivaling defense spending of $8.7 billion. Private spending on education by parents is even higher than the public spending with the total adding up to nearly 6% of GDP. Pakistan has 1.7 million teachers, nearly three times the number of soldiers currently serving in the country's armed forces.
6. There are over 3 million students enrolled in grades 13 through 16 in Pakistan's 1,086 degree colleges and 161 universities, according to Pakistan Higher Education Commission report for 2013-14. The 3 million enrollment is 15% of the 20 million Pakistanis in the eligible age group of 18-24 years. In addition, there are over 255,000 Pakistanis enrolled in vocational training schools, according to Technical Education and Vocational Training Authority (TEVTA).
7. Pakistan has emerged as the country with the highest percentage of Highly Cited Papers compared with the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) in the last 10 years, according to Thomson Reuters. Pakistan has done so despite the fact that its "R&D environment faced substantial economic challenges".
8. In 2014, Pakistan became the first Asian country and only the third in the world after Turkey and Serbia to be honored with CERN's associate membership. The status of associate member is a step before full membership. As an associate member, Pakistan is entitled to attend open and restricted sessions of the organization.
9. Rising numbers of working women are bringing about a silent social revolution in Pakistan. World Economic Forum's gender parity program is led by Saadia Zahidi from Pakistan. In her book "50 Million Rising", Saadia talks about her father being the first in his family to go to university. He believed in girls' education and career opportunities. She recalls him suggesting that "my sister could become a pilot because the Pakistan Air Force had just starting to train women. Another time he speculated that I could become a news anchor because Pakistan Television, the state-owned television network, had started recruiting more women".
10. China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) related projects are transforming the least developed regions of Pakistan. Energy and infrastructure projects are changing the face of vast regions of Balochistan, rural Sindh, Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Gigit-Baltistan (GB) and Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KPK).
11. Pakistan's labor force expansion is the 3rd biggest in the world after India and Nigeria, according to UN World Population Prospects 2017. Rising working age population and growing workforce participation of both men and women in developing nations like Pakistan will boost domestic savings and investment, according to Global Development Horizons (GDH) report. Escaping the low savings low investment trap will help accelerate the lagging GDP growth rate in Pakistan, as will increased foreign investment such as the Chinese investment in China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
11. Pakistan's labor force expansion is the 3rd biggest in the world after India and Nigeria, according to UN World Population Prospects 2017. Rising working age population and growing workforce participation of both men and women in developing nations like Pakistan will boost domestic savings and investment, according to Global Development Horizons (GDH) report. Escaping the low savings low investment trap will help accelerate the lagging GDP growth rate in Pakistan, as will increased foreign investment such as the Chinese investment in China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.
12. Rising incomes of Pakistanis are reflected in the retail sales growth which is ranked the fastest in the world. The market is forecast to expand 8.2% a year through 2016-2021 as disposable income has doubled since 2010, according to research group Euromonitor International as reported by Bloomberg News. The size of the middle class is estimated to surpass that of the U.K. and Italy in the forecast period, it said.
13. Pakistan is the 5th largest motorcycle market in the world after China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam. With 7,500 new motorcycles being sold everyday, Pakistan is also the among the world's fastest growing two-wheeler markets. Passenger car and motorcycle sales in Pakistan are both soaring at rates of over 20% a year.
14. There are over 50 million broadband subscribers in Pakistan. Over a million new subscribers are being added every month, putting Pakistan among the biggest and fastest growing mobile broadband markets in the world.
14. There are over 50 million broadband subscribers in Pakistan. Over a million new subscribers are being added every month, putting Pakistan among the biggest and fastest growing mobile broadband markets in the world.
15. Pakistan's tourism industry, currently estimated at $20 billion (6.9% of GDP in 2016), is booming, according to data available from multiple reliable sources. World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) forecasts it to grow to over $36 billion within a decade. Significantly improved security situation has helped boost annual tourist arrivals in Pakistan by 300% since 2013 to 1.75 million in 2016, while domestic travelers increased 30% to 38.3 million, according to the state-owned Pakistan Tourism Development Corp. Hotel bookings increased 80 percent in 2016, according to Jovago, Pakistan’s biggest hotel booking website.
Summary:
As Pakistanis celebrate 78th anniversary of the Lahore Resolution passed on March 23, 1940, the key trend lines for their country continue to be very positive. Resilient people of Pakistan are overcoming multiple challenges stemming from the continuing war in Afghanistan and India's abiding hostility. Pakistanis are defying all the prophecies of doom and gloom and thriving against all odds. Pakistan's trillion dollar economy is among the top 25 largest in the world. Rising disposable incomes are reflected in Pakistan being the world's fastest growing retail market. The increasing share of income of the bottom 20% of households puts Pakistan among the less unequal countries in the world. Pakistan is indeed rising.
Here's a video titled "Pakistan Rising or Falling? Myth vs Reality"
https://youtu.be/XDima7JSxKs
Related Links:
Pakistan Broadband Market
Pakistani-American Astrophysicist Dr. Nergis Mavalvala in Silicon Valley
Pakistani Woman Leads World Economic Forum's Gender Parity Program
Malala Inspires School Enrollment Surge in Pakistan
Hindu Dalit Woman Elected to Pakistan Senate
Pakistani-American Astrophysicist Dr. Nergis Mavalvala in Silicon Valley
Pakistani Woman Leads World Economic Forum's Gender Parity Program
Malala Inspires School Enrollment Surge in Pakistan
Hindu Dalit Woman Elected to Pakistan Senate
Comments
http://www.gulf-times.com/story/585484/Pakistan-s-FDI-jumps-15-6-on-massive-Chinese-inflo
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, a flagship project of China’s prestigious One Belt One Road, links its restive Xinjiang region with Balochistan province. Pakistan’s foreign direct investment inflows from China reached $1.281bn, an increase of 139%, in the July-February period of the financial year 2018.
Pakistan’s foreign direct investment (FDI) surged 15.6% in the eight months of current fiscal year largely drawing strength from massive Chinese inflows under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor projects, data released by State Bank of Pakistan showed yesterday.
The FDI in the July-February period of FY18 increased to $1.941bn from $1.678bn a year earlier. In February alone, the FDI inflows were recorded at $340.8mn, compared to $146.7mn in the corresponding month of last fiscal year.
During period under review, the FDI inflows from China reached $1.281bn, an increase of 139% over the same period of the last fiscal.
On the other hand, investments from the United Kingdom rose to $205.5mn against $139.9mn last year, whereas inflows from Malaysian firms increased to $121.3mn from $16.7mn year ago. Most of the investment went into power, construction and financial sectors.
Analysts expect foreign direct investment to be around $3bn-$3.5bn during the current fiscal year, reflecting surging Chinese investments under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – a part of Beijing’s “One Belt, One Road” initiative to develop trade and transport infrastructure in Asia.
“Our flow of foreign investment has reduced to one country that’s China. For a country like Pakistan, foreign investment should be broad-based. We shouldn’t put all the eggs in one basket,” said Dr Ashfaque H Khan, renowned economist and dean at NUST School of Social Sciences.
“Since Pakistan-China relations are very deep-rooted and strategic in nature that’s why the flow of FDI is rising, but our traditional foreign investors appear to have shied away from Pakistan which is not a good sign,” Khan added.
It must be noted that foreign direct investment for fiscal year 2017 stood at $2.218bn. The FDI data came after the International Monetary Fund’s (IMF) Extended Fund Facility post-programme monitoring report showed the external sector imbalances were likely to elevate further this fiscal year owing to widening current account deficit.
“Despite continued recovery of exports and some moderation of import growth, the current account deficit is expected to widen to $15.7bn (4.8% of GDP) this year,” the IMF said in the report.
“On current policies, and based on the authorities’ ambitious external financing plans, gross international reserves are expected to further weaken to $12.1bn (2.2 months of imports) this year, with risks skewed to the downside,” the IMF report said.
The FDI from China under economic corridor could help improve depleting foreign exchange reserves as the country’s account remained negative. However, the CPEC investments are increasing debt risks for Pakistan.
“While some of the gap in the current account (CPEC-related) is being funded by increased foreign direct investment – mainly from China a large portion is being funded by debt.
This has led to a rise in Pakistan’s overall external debt to 27.3% of GDP in December 2017 from 24.8% in December 2015 which we believe will increase further,” a report released by Standard Chartered Bank last week said.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1663001/2-cpec-pakistans-latest-shot-industrialisation-needs-homework/
The new phase of industrialisation – this time powered by the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) – will not be possible without joint ventures between Chinese and Pakistani businesses, said Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Sartaj Aziz.
The industrial cooperation under CPEC offers great opportunities and Chinese were considering shifting their industries to prioritised Special Economic Zones (SEZs) of CPEC, said the deputy chairman, a veteran economist.
But full benefits of the SEZs cannot be reaped until Pakistani businessmen enter into joint ventures with Chinese partners, said Aziz. He said that his feeling was that the Pakistani entrepreneurs have not done their homework.
Under the second phase of CPEC, Pakistan and China plan to set up at least nine special zones across the country, although the local authorities have yet to resolve issues that could hamper Chinese investment.
Pakistan sees investment in SEZs as its second phase of industrialisation, which would not only increase per capita income but add hundreds of thousands of jobs.
Aziz said that Pakistan’s economy was also dependent on global economic growth prospects but the countries have started looking inwards, which is detrimental to global growth. In such a scenario, the exports prospects are not very bright but CPEC provides the balancing factor to Pakistan, said the deputy chairman.
A recent report of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has projected double digit growth in exports for fiscal year 2018-19, starting from July. For the next two years, IMF projections also show growth in exports in the same league, which is double the projected growth in imports.
Aziz said that the $60-billion CPEC bonanza is a big opportunity for Pakistan’s economy. During first eight months of the fiscal year, the Chinese foreign direct investment was equal to 60% of the total foreign investment in Pakistan.
Aziz also underlined the need to project a soft image of Pakistan in Davos at the World Economic Forum (WEF) meet-up. The deputy chairman said that Pakistan’s economy was at a turning point and this was the best opportunity to showcase it to the global elites.
https://tribune.com.pk/story/1664314/2-unilever-announces-fresh-120-million-investment-pakistan/
Pakistan’s fast-moving consumer goods segment is set to see fresh investment after Unilever Plc – a Dutch consumer goods giant – announced foreign direct investment (FDI) of $120 million (Rs11 billion) for expansion of its operations in the country over the next two years.
The announcement comes as a welcome sign for Pakistan that has suffered from low levels of FDI in recent years.
“A majority of the investment will be made to enhance manufacturing operations across Unilever’s four factories in Pakistan over the next two years,” a statement quoted the company as saying on Monday.
The company manufactures about 30 brands in the areas of home care, personal care, foods, beverages and ice cream in Pakistan.
“Unilever is aiming to make it (Unilever Pakistan) a billion-euro firm next year (by December 2019) from 800-810 million euros (in revenues) at present,” company’s Senior Manager Corporate Affairs Hussain Ali Talib told The Express Tribune.
“In 2013, Unilever Overseas Holdings, which is a majority shareholder in Unilever Pakistan Limited, invested over €400 million ($530 million) in Pakistan, which is the single largest foreign direct investment in the recent history of Pakistan,” the statement said.
It called Unilever’s operations in Pakistan amongst the best performing business units within Unilever’s global operations. “The new investment reaffirmed Unilever’s strong commitment to local operations and to Pakistan’s economic potential,” it said.
The announcement about the investment was made by a delegation of Unilever Pakistan in a meeting with Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance Miftah Ismail.
“The investment is indeed an acknowledgement of the country’s growth potential and the macroeconomic stability it has gained over the last four years,” the statement quoted Ismail as saying.
The planned investment supports Pakistan’s narration of being a growing economy with over 70 million middle-class population out of a total of over 200 million.
Pakistan has been on the radar of foreign investors over the past couple of years. FDI increased 15.6% to $1.94 billion in the first eight months (July 2017 to February 2018) of the current fiscal year from $1.68 billion in the same period of previous year, according to the State Bank of Pakistan.
Overseas Investors Chamber of Commerce and Industry Secretary General M Abdul Aleem recently said many European investors in the auto, infrastructure and liquefied natural gas (LNG) import terminal sectors would make major investment decisions for Pakistan in the near future.
Some of them were waiting for regulatory approvals to initiate the investment process in Pakistan, he said.
Stability in Pakistan integral to China’s development, reiterates Chineseambassador
“Pakistan carries a huge potential to grow. Investment climate will be much better in the post-election period,” he emphasised, adding “FDI may total around $3 billion this fiscal year.”
In the previous fiscal year 2016-17, the country had received $2.73 billion in FDI.
Unilever Pakistan CEO Shazia Syed said “we have been part of Pakistan’s growth for nearly 70 years, during which time we have seen our business grow to over 30 brands…we take pride that over 95% of our brands are produced locally, creating employment for thousands, contributing to the exchequer and simultaneously creating a better future every day for the people of Pakistan.”
https://www.geo.tv/latest/187415-no-material-impact-expected-if-pakistan-included-in-fatf-grey-list-moodys
Moody's does not expect Pakistan's inclusion in the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) grey list to have a material impact on its external financing.
Pakistan had perviously been included in the list between 2012 and 2015 but managed to negotiate when its entered into an IMF program.
Moody's does not anticipate any disruptions on borrowing from multilateral sources.
The credit ratings service noted that a strong domestic demand was increasing pressure on Pakistan's external account while external borrowing accounted for a significant portion of Pakistan's debts.
Pakistan's current account deficit has widened driven by a large increase in the good deficit, which is higher due to China-Pakistan Economic Corridor-related (CPEC) capital goods imports.
Moody's noted brighter prospects were expected from exports and remittances, where rising oil prices were likely to translate into a higher remittance inflow from GCC countries.
Exports are expected to rise considering most energy related projects under CPEC were nearing completion and the resulting energy suplly would play a role in boosting production activity.
Given that foreign reserves dipped to a thirty-four month low of $12.1 billion; the State Bank of Pakistan had 2.5 months of import cover on a three month rolling basis, below the IMF's minimum adequacy guideline.
On Pakistan's economy, Moody's noted that the country's economy has maintained its solid momentum through the first half of FY2018. Economic growth has been supported by the ongoing recovery in the agricultural sector, according to the rating agency.
Moody's noted positive signs in the form of an increase in credit disbursements and more favourable weather conditions, robust activity in large-scale manufacturing owing to improved energy availability and capacity expansions.
In light of domestic factors and ongoing investments related to CPEC will likely result in strong growth, Moody's noted, expecting a GDP growth of 5.5 percent for FY2018.
The ratings agency does not anticipate the central bank to aggressively raise rates ahead of the upcoming general elections.
The benchmark projections of poverty by country imply a high speed of poverty reduction in South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific, fuelled by the high rates of income per capita growth in India, Indonesia, Bangladesh, the Philippines, China and Pakistan, the study says. It showed global income increases in the last decades have led to systematic decreases in poverty rates worldwide, with the experience in India and China having played the most important role when it comes to the overall number of persons escaping absolute poverty.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/30/technology/bias-google-trump.html
Let’s get this out of the way first: There is no basis for the charge that President Trump leveled against Google this week — that the search engine, for political reasons, favored anti-Trump news outlets in its results. None.
Mr. Trump also claimed that Google advertised President Barack Obama’s State of the Union addresses on its home page but did not highlight his own. That, too, was false, as screenshots show that Google did link to Mr. Trump’s address this year.
But that concludes the “defense of Google” portion of this column. Because whether he knew it or not, Mr. Trump’s false charges crashed into a longstanding set of worries about Google, its biases and its power. When you get beyond the president’s claims, you come upon a set of uncomfortable facts — uncomfortable for Google and for society, because they highlight how in thrall we are to this single company, and how few checks we have against the many unseen ways it is influencing global discourse.
In particular, a raft of research suggests there is another kind of bias to worry about at Google. The naked partisan bias that Mr. Trump alleges is unlikely to occur, but there is a potential problem for hidden, pervasive and often unintended bias — the sort that led Google to once return links to many pornographic pages for searches for “black girls,” that offered “angry” and “loud” as autocomplete suggestions for the phrase “why are black women so,” or that returned pictures of black people for searches of “gorilla.”
I culled these examples — which Google has apologized for and fixed, but variants of which keep popping up — from “Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism,” a book by Safiya U. Noble, a professor at the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School of Communication.
Dr. Noble argues that many people have the wrong idea about Google. We think of the search engine as a neutral oracle, as if the company somehow marshals computers and math to objectively sift truth from trash.
But Google is made by humans who have preferences, opinions and blind spots and who work within a corporate structure that has clear financial and political goals. What’s more, because Google’s systems are increasingly created by artificial intelligence tools that learn from real-world data, there’s a growing possibility that it will amplify the many biases found in society, even unbeknown to its creators.
Google says it is aware of the potential for certain kinds of bias in its search results, and that it has instituted efforts to prevent them. “What you have from us is an absolute commitment that we want to continually improve results and continually address these problems in an effective, scalable way,” said Pandu Nayak, who heads Google’s search ranking team. “We have not sat around ignoring these problems.”
For years, Dr. Noble and others who have researched hidden biases — as well as the many corporate critics of Google’s power, like the frequent antagonist Yelp — have tried to start a public discussion about how the search company influences speech and commerce online.
There’s a worry now that Mr. Trump’s incorrect charges could undermine such work. “I think Trump’s complaint undid a lot of good and sophisticated thought that was starting to work its way into public consciousness about these issues,” said Siva Vaidhyanathan, a professor of media studies at the University of Virginia who has studied Google and Facebook’s influence on society.
Dr. Noble suggested a more constructive conversation was the one “about one monopolistic platform controlling the information landscape.”
In the United States, about eight out of 10 web searches are conducted through Google; across Europe, South America and India, Google’s share is even higher. Google also owns other major communications platforms, among them YouTube and Gmail, and it makes the Android operating system and its app store.
Note: Mani Shankar spent some time in Pakistan posted as a diplomat, serving as India's first consul-general in Karachi from 1978 to 1982. He's a former federal cabinet minister and current member of Rajya Sabha
"unlike numerous other emerging nations, particularly in Africa, the Idea of Pakistan has repeatedly trumped fissiparous tendencies, especially since Pakistan assumed its present form in 1971. And its institutions have withstood repeated buffeting that almost anywhere elsewhere would have resulted in the State crumbling. Despite numerous dire forecasts of imminently proving to be a "failed state", Pakistan has survived, bouncing back every now and then as a recognizable democracy with a popularly elected civilian government, the military in the wings but politics very much centre-stage, linguistic and regional groups pulling and pushing, sectarian factions murdering each other, but the Government of Pakistan remaining in charge, and the military stepping in to rescue the nation from chaos every time Pakistan appeared on the knife's edge. The disintegration of Pakistan has been predicted often enough, most passionately now that internally-generated terrorism and externally sponsored religious extremism are consistently taking on the state to the point that the army is so engaged in full-time and full-scale operations in the north-west of the country bordering Afghanistan that some 40,000 lives have been lost in the battle against fanaticism and insurgency.
"And yet," as was said on a more famous occasion, "it works!" Pakistan and her people keep coming back, resolutely defeating sustained political, armed and terrorist attempts to break down the country and undermine its ideological foundations. That is what Jaffrelot calls its "resilience". That resilience is not recognized in Modi's India. That is what leads the Rathores and the Parrikars to make statements that find a certain resonance in anti-Pakistan circles in India but dangerously leverage the impact on Pakistani public opinion of anti-India circles in Pakistan. The Parrikars and the Saeeds feed on each other. It is essential that both be overcome.
But even as there are saner voices in India than Rathore's, so also are there saner - much saner - voices in Pakistan than Hafiz Saeed's. Many Indians would prefer a Pakistan overflowing with Saeeds to keep their bile flowing. So would many Pakistanis prefer an India with the Rathores overflowing to keep the bile flowing. At eight times Pakistan's size, we can flex our muscles like the bully on the school play field. But Pakistan's resilience ensures that all that emerges from Parrikar and Rathore are empty words. India is no more able than Pakistan is to destroy the other country"
http://www.ndtv.com/opinion/pakistans-resilience-beats-modis-56-inch-chest-771700
http://www.riazhaq.com/2022/08/indian-diplomat-sharat-sabrhawal-on.html
Retired Indian diplomat Sharat Sabharwal in his recently published book "India's Pakistan Conundrum" disabuses his fellow Indians of the notion that Pakistan is about to collapse. He faithfully parrots the familiar Indian tropes about Pakistani Army and accuses it of sponsoring "cross-border terrorism". He also writes that "Pakistan has shown remarkable resilience in the face of adversity". "Pakistan is neither a failed state nor one about to fail", he adds. He sees "limitations on India’s ability to inflict a decisive blow on Pakistan through military means". The best option for New Delhi, he argues, is to engage with Pakistan diplomatically. In an obvious message to India's hawkish Hindu Nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he warns: "Absence of dialogue and diplomacy between the two countries carries the risk of an unintended flare-up". Ambassador Sabharwal served as Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan from 2009 to 2013. Prior to that, he was Deputy High Commissioner in Islamabad in the 1990s.