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Pakistan to License Multiple LEO Satellite Internet Service Providers

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The Pakistan government is preparing to license three low-earth-orbit (LEO) satellite operators for space communication services in the country, according to media reports. The companies whose applications are pending include London-based OneWeb, China's Shanghai Spacecom and US headquartered Starlink.  They operate tens of thousands of small mass-produced satellites in low orbits that communicate with designated (mobile and stationary) ground stations.  Each LEO satellite circles the earth in 128 minutes or less. The critical importance of the services they offer has recently become apparent in the Ukraine War being waged in Europe and the ongoing disaster response in the areas devastated by the California wildfires. Such services are essential for any area, remote or otherwise, where the land-based infrastructure either does not exist or it has been destroyed by war or natural disasters. Representation of low, medium and geosynchronous orbits. Source: MIT Pakistan has establ...
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British Pakistani Grooming Gangs: Myths and Facts

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American billionaire and President-Elect Donald Trump's confidante Elon Musk's recent tweets have revived the allegations by the far right that the  British Pakistani  gangs are mainly responsible for sex crimes against children in the United Kingdom.  Earlier, these claims were repeated by former British Home Secretary Suella Braverman when she said in a television interview that child grooming gangs in the UK were “almost all British-Pakistani”.  This claim elicited a strong response by British Press regulator   IPSO  which said that Braverman’s decision to link “the identified ethnic group and a particular form of offending was significantly misleading” because the (British) Home Office’s own research had concluded offenders were mainly from white backgrounds. The British Home Office  Report  on Group-Based Child Sexual Exploitation (December 2021) said that while some high-profile cases involved men of Pakistani ethnicity (2%), the academ...
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Pakistan Stock Market Among World's Best Performers in 2024

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Pakistan's KSE-100 index soared 86% in 2024, making it the second best among major indexes, according to  Bloomberg  News. The 2024 performance of KSE-100 represents its best year since 2002 when it shot up 112% . The top 3 performing stock markets in 2024 were Argentina (114%), Pakistan (88%) and Kenya (79%), according to Topline Securities. The US markets posted double digit gains with the AI-driven tech-heavy NASDAQ-100 up 27.6%. Small and medium US companies performed well with the Russell 2000 Index edging out India's Sensex with an 8.9% return.   Pakistan Among Top Performing Stock Markets in 2024. Source: Bloomberg Clearly, the $7 billion IMF program helped restore some investor confidence in Pakistan's economy in 2024. It was also boosted by remittances from  overseas Pakistanis  in  July-October 2024 which soared nearly 35% YoY to $11.8 billion as compared to $8.8 billion in July-Oct 2023. The fact that the KSE100 shares valuations relative to...
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Mass Exodus: Why Are Millions of Indians Leaving India?

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"Leave India! It's High Time!!" screams out a recent Reddit post that has gone viral! The poster who claims to be an Indian entrepreneur warns of impending "terrible economic collapse" with a "massive depreciation of the Indian rupee".   The now-deleted post, written by a user named ‘u/anonymous_batm_an,’ urges high-earning professionals, especially innovators, to leave  India  for countries with better opportunities and governance, as reported by the  Times of India .  It recommends the UAE or Thailand as alternative destinations . The sentiments expressed in the post are already resonating with a large number of Indians.  The non-resident Indians now constitute the world's largest overseas diaspora. Every year, 2.5 million Indians leave their country of birth, making India the nation with the highest annual number of emigrants in the world.  New Company Registrations in Dubai. Source: Khaleej Times Indian investors continued to top the list...
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US Missile Sanctions: Are Pakistanis Really Developing ICBMs?

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The outgoing Biden Administration has announced additional new sanctions against Pakistani entities working on the nation's missile program. The latest round of sanctions includes the Islamabad-based National Development Complex (NDC) and three Karachi-based organizations: Akhtar and Sons Private Limited, Affiliates International and Rockside Enterprise. Explaining the decision, US Deputy National Security Advisor Jon Finer accused Islamabad of having developed "increasingly sophisticated missile technology, from long-range ballistic missile systems to equipment that would enable the testing of significantly larger rocket motors.”  “Candidly, it’s hard for us to see Pakistan’s actions as anything other than an emerging threat to the United States,” Finer added, as reported by  Reuters news agency . "They don't acknowledge our concerns. They tell us we are biased," said the second U.S. official, adding that Pakistani officials have wrongly implied that U.S. sancti...
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Canada Gets Tough on Foreign Students Amid Mounting Tensions With India

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The Canadian government has recently taken a series of steps to cut the number of international students studying in Canada. This is believed to be related to the extremely hostile Indian government response to Canadian allegations that the Indian officials ordered assassinations of Sikh activists in Canada. There are now new reports that Ottawa has asked Indian students to resubmit their documents for review. Earlier,  Canada made a decision to end the fast-track visa process, known as Student Direct Stream (SDS), for students coming from India, Pakistan and a few other developing countries. Meanwhile, US F-1 visas granted to Indian students fell 38% between January and September of 2024.  Sikh Activist Assassinations:  The United States and Canadian governments are alleging that Indian government agents plotted assassinations of Sikh dissidents on their soils. Their investigations paint a shocking picture of how recklessly Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government opera...
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Russian Hackers Steal Indian Military Secrets From Pakistani Cyber Spies

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Hackers linked to Russian intelligence have stolen Indian military data from cyber spies believed to be working on behalf of the Pakistani state, according to an assessment by Microsoft researchers. All those involved are part of what are known as "advanced persistent threat" (APT) organizations in their respective countries.   TechTarget  defines "Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) as "a prolonged, targeted cyber attack that involves an attacker gaining and maintaining unauthorized access to a network for an extended period". The goal of an APT is to steal sensitive data, rather than cause damage to the network or infect systems with malware. It is harder to defend against such intrusions than to attack.  In a recent  blog post , Microsoft researchers have discussed how Russian FSB's Secret Blizzard APT has breached a Pakistan-based threat activity cluster called Storm-0156 ATP to steal India's military secrets gathered by Pakistani intelligence. Since t...
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