South Asia Investor Review

The Biden administration has proposed a number of significant changes to how the H-1B temporary work visas are issued to high-skilled foreign workers. These changes are the result of the government finding earlier this year that companies, particularly Indian body shops, had colluded to try to increase their chances of winning a coveted visa by gaming the visa lottery system. This has helped Indian workers win as many as three quarters of all H1B visas issued in recent years.  H1B Visas Issued in India. Source: Visagrader.com Every year, applicants sponsored by Indian body shops claim the lion's share of H1B visas. In 2022, Indian nationals received 166,384 new H1B visas, accounting for nearly three quarters of all such visas issued by the US government. The figures reported as India  IT exports  include the wages earned by millions of Indian H1B workers in the United States.   Public interest groups have been complaining about the behavior of Indian body shops gaming the system to

India's child-wasting rate of 18.7% is the highest in the world, according to the Global Hunger Index  (GHI) 2023  released recently.  The South Asian country’s child wasting rate is higher than that of war-torn Yemen (at 14.4%) and Sudan (at 13.7%), which are ranked second and third in the world. Pakistan's child wasting rate is 8%.  It represents the share of children under age five who have low weight for their height, reflecting acute undernutrition.  The child wasting rate of the South Asia region is 14.8%, the highest of any world region and more than twice the child wasting rate of Africa. India is home to a quarter of the world's most undernourished people. According to the United Nations, India has nearly 195 million undernourished people. This is more than any other country, including China.  India Tops in Child Wasting Rate. Source: The Wire India Tops the World in Child Wasting. Source: Global Hunger Index 2023 India's Hindu Nationalist government  of Prime

The average annual household earnings of  Pakistani-Americans  are $149,178, according to the  latest update  issued by the United States Census Bureau for 2022. The update estimates the median income of 132,958 Pakistani-American households at $106,281. Average is calculated by adding up all incomes and dividing it by total number of households. Median income level divides the top 50% of families from the bottom 50%.  It shows that Pakistani-American household incomes are roughly at par with the Asian-American households' median of $104,646 and average of $149,363. The highest income ethnic group in the US are Asian  Indian households  with a median of $152,341 and average of $197,732.  Asians are significantly richer than Whites (mean $78,636, average $112,415) and African Americans (mean $52,238, average $76,888). The word "alone" in the labels in the following table excludes mixed race households.  South Asian Americans Households. Source: US Census Update 2022 Asian

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has recently  tweeted  that he is "shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel", adding that "We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour".  This tweet was posted immediately after the Hamas militants' unprecedented attack on Israel by air, land and sea. Modi's critics have noted that he has yet to tweet any condemnation of months-long killings of his fellow countrymen in Manipur which are continuing unabated. Nor has he issued any similar condemnation of the long and brutal Israeli military occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. To those who know Modi, his reaction makes sense given the similarities between Modi and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Both leaders are extreme right-wing divisive politicians. Modi is a Hindu Supremacist and Netanyahu is a Jewish Supremacist. Both have a long history of murdering large numbers of Muslims living under their rule. Both are pursuing settler colonial

Recent appointment of Karachi-born Irfan Siddiqui as Chairman of the Physics Department at the University of California at Berkeley highlights the growing numbers of Pakistani-Americans in the top ranks of the academia. Dr. Irfan Siddiqui is among the top US experts in quantum computing. He is also the head of Lawrence Livermore Quantum Computing Lab at UC Berkeley.  He's also one of the architects of the United States Quantum Initiative backed by industry, academia and the federal government. Pakistani-American Professor Dr. Irfan Siddiqui, Chairman of Physics Dept at UC Berkeley In addition to  Dr. Irfan Siddiqui , there are many other high-profile Pakistani-American academics. For example, astrophysicist Dr.  Nergis Mavalvala  is the Dean of the School of Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).   Dr. Asad Abidi is a professor of electrical engineering at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Economist Dr. Asim Khwaja is Director of the Center for In