Posts

Showing posts from May, 2019

The History of South Asians in America

Image
It was in early 1980s when I was driving through Yuba City with a couple of friends. It was lunch time and we were looking for a halal restaurant when we spotted Rasul's. At the restaurant we met a man who introduced himself as Mohammad Ali Rasul. He spoke in Mexican accented English but he told us his father came from the Punjab region now in Pakistan and his mother was of Mexican ancestry.  There were 400 such marriages between Punjabi men and Mexican women by 1940, according to Professor Karen Leonard of UC Irvine. Rasul gave us a warm welcome when we told him him we are also originally from Pakistan. He offered us his "Roti Quesadilla" special without charge as a gift. The fusion dish is a variation on Queso Quesadilla made with Indian "nan"(flat bread) topped with traditional rich, melting cheese which originated in Mexico and Texas. I had forgotten all about it until memory was refreshed by a story titled " California’s Lost (and Found) Punjabi-Mexica

Pakistani Family Wins AI Championship in Silicon Valley

Image
The Mayet Family from Karachi, Pakistan has won AI Family Challenge World Championship held in Silicon Valley , California on May 20, 2019.  The family's entry called "Cavity Crusher" uses  artificial intelligence  algorithm to monitor a child's brush time and determine their oral health habits to notify parents accordingly. It was organized by Iridescent, a global technology education nonprofit organization that empowers underrepresented young people to become self-motivated learners, inventors, and leaders. Winners Salman Mayet, Yasir Salman and Fareeha Mapara. Photo courtesy Intel Corp The  AI Family Challenge  partners with lifelong learning advocates and leading experts in AI, including those from Google.org, NVIDIA, Intel, and the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation. The event was hosted at Intel's Santa Clara campus. It was the culmination of Iridescent's AI Family Challenge in which 7,500 people from 13 countries participated in a 15-week program t

Growing China-Pakistan Collaboration in Science and Technology

Image
With 6,000 Pakistanis working on their PhDs in China, the two countries are enjoying rapid growth in scientific and technological collaboration, according to  Journal Nature . Pakistan's scientific output is now growing at the  fastest rate  in the world. With nearly 3,000 papers jointly authored and published by Chinese and Pakistani researcher, China has now emerged as Pakistan's top partner in scientific collaborations, surpassing Saudi Arabia (about 1,500 papers) and the United States (about 1,200 papers) in 2018, according to an analysis of co-authored papers from Elsevier’s Scopus database. China is co-sponsoring a range of research centers in Pakistan that are studying topics from rice agriculture to  artificial intelligence  and railway engineering. Pakistan-China ties are rapidly growing well beyond  the economy  and  the military  with tens of thousands of Chinese and Pakistani citizens regularly traveling between the two countries. More Pakistanis than ever are lea

Pakistan Ranks Among World's Top 3 Nations For New Hydroelectric Capacity Added in 2018

Image
Pakistan ranked third in the world by adding nearly 2,500 MW of hydropower in 2018, according to  Hydropower Status Report 2019 .  China added the most capacity with the installation of 8,540 megawatts, followed by Brazil (3,866 MW), Pakistan (2,487 MW), Turkey (1,085 MW), Angola (668 MW), Tajikistan (605 MW), Ecuador (556 MW), India (535 MW), Norway (419 MW) and Canada (401 MW). New Installed Hydroelectric Power Capacity in 2018. Source: Hydroworld.com Pakistan's Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) says commissioning of the 108-MW Golen Gol 2, 1,410-MW Tarbela 4th Extension and 969-MW Neelum Jhelum hydropower projects in 2018 boosted its hydroelectric generating capacity of 9,389 MW, an increase of 36% in just one year, according to  Hydro Review . Hydropower now makes up about 28% of the total installed capacity of 33,836 MW as of February, 2019.   WAPDA reports contributing 25.63 billion units of hydroelectricity to the national grid during the year, “despite th

PTI's New Economic Team Line-Up in Pakistan

Image
Who are the members of Pakistan's top new economic leadership team? Who's Reza Baqir? Who's Shabbar Zaidi? Why were the changes necessary? Were the latest changes made to remove previous PMLN government's loyalists considered to be responsible for the  current economic crisis ? Did their policies and actions contribute to large twin deficits? Did the International Monetary Fund (IMF) force these changes as a condition for the country's bailout? Pakistan's External Debt. Source: Wall Street Journal Pakistan Current Account Deficit. Source: State Bank of Pakistan As Pakistan awaits the news of the discovery of  large offshore oil reserves , what lessons should Pakistan learn from the governance failures in Venezuela? Is Venezuela suffering because of its government's hostility toward the United States? Will large oil reserves be a panacea for Pakistan's economic problems? Viewpoint From Overseas host Faraz Darvesh discusses these questions

Digital BRI: China and Pakistan Building CPEC Info Expressway With Fiber, 5G

Image
‘Digital Silk Road’ project is one of 12 sub-themes agreed to at the recently concluded  Belt Road Forum 2019 (BRF19)  in Beijing. This state-of-the-art information superhighway will involve laying fiber optic cables in Pakistan which will connect with China in the north and link with Africa and the Arab World via undersea cable to be laid from Gwadar Deep Sea Port built as part of  China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) . The global project will include 5G wireless networks deployment in BRI (Belt Road Initiative) member nations. China-Pakistan Fiber Optic Cable Route Fiber Optic Cables: The laying of 820 kilometer long China-Pakistan  fiber optic cable  has already been laid between the city of Rawalpindi, Pakistan in the south and the Khunjerab Pass, China in the north  and operational since July, 2018. By 2020, the 6,299 kilometers of underwater cables will extend to Djibouti from Gwadar and form the Digital Silk Route between Asia and Africa. At the same time, a space-

Pew Research: Fewer Pray in Islamic Republic of Pakistan Than in India, Iran

Image
Pew Religious Landscape Study has revealed that 67% of the people in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan pray daily. This figure of 67% in  Pakistan  is lower than neighboring India's 75%, Iran's 87% and Afghanistan's 97%. Other Muslim majority  nations surveyed  include Nigeria (95%), Indonesia (84%), Egypt (72%) and Turkey (60%). Oil-rich Arabian Gulf nations were not included in the survey. The Pew study found an inverse relationship between daily prayer levels and incomes. Countries such as the United States and Vietnam are outliers. Daily Prayer Map: Source: Pew Research The Pew survey shows that the level of daily prayer is the lowest in rich countries and highest in the poor nations. United States is an outlier rich nation with 55% of Americans saying they pray daily. The survey did not include wealthy Muslim nations in the Arabian Peninsula, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, which might be expected to have high levels of prayer. Level of Daily Pra

Massive Oil Discovery in Pakistan: Hype vs Reality

Image
Prime Minister Imran Khan has recently raised Pakistanis' hopes of ExxonMobil and ENI being on the verge of a massive discovery of offshore oil and gas reserves in Pakistan. Is this real? Or mostly hype? What is the size of these reserves? Will it be more than sufficient to meet Pakistan's current needs of over  200 million barrels  of oil per year? Will Pakistan become a net exporter of oil and gas like major OPEC nations? Top 3 Offshore Drilling Sites in Asia-Pacific. Source: Bloomberg Why is it taking so long to get confirmation from the companies involved? What are the technical issues in getting confirmation of these huge reserves? Why is there such a big concern about blow-out? Is it because the  1.5 billion barrels  pre-drill estimate of Kekra-1 well in block G of the Indus basin off the Karachi coast? Could such a large reserve cause a major blow-out accident like the one British Petroleum had in Gulf of Mexico near Louisiana in the United States? How long will

Easter Bombings in Sri Lanka; Belt Road Forum 2019 in Beijing

Image
Who carried out the Easter Sunday terrorist attacks at churches and hotels in  Sri Lanka ? Why? Is it a domestic group with outside help? What is India's role in it? Why did the attackers use India as their training base? Did  ISIS  inspire the attackers? With Muslims facing revenge attacks, what will happen to inter-ethnic and inter-religious relations in the island nation at the Southern tip of India? Will there be a renewed civil war? How will it affect South India and the South Asia region? Tamil Population in India and Sri Lanka What was the agenda of the Belt and Road Forum 2019 attended by 37 world leaders including Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan in Beijing? What did President Xi Jinping, Prime Minister Imran Khan and other world leaders say at this summit? How will this affect the next phase of  China-Pakistan Economic Corridor  (CPEC), a flagship project of BRI (Belt Road Initiative)? How will concerns ranging from debt sustainability and inclusive growth to en