South Asia Investor Review

The Warrior State: Pakistan in the Contemporary World  by Canada's McGill University Professor Thazha Varkey Paul, a graduate of India's Jawaharlal Nehru University, describes Pakistan as a "warrior state" and a "conspicuous failure". It is among a slew of recently published anti-Pakistan books by mainly Indian and western authors which paint Pakistan as a rogue state which deserves to be condemned, isolated and sanctioned by the international community. As Pakistanis celebrate 74th anniversary of  the 1940 Lahore Resolution  calling for the partition of India, it is important to examine TV Paul's narrative about Pakistan and fact-check the assertions underlying his narrative. Here's a point-by-point response to Paul's narrative: 1. Paul argues: Seemingly from its birth, Pakistan has teetered on the brink of becoming a failed state. In 1947 at the time of independence, Pakistan was described as a  "Nissen hut or a tent"  by ...

Amidst Pakistan's current troubles, Indian officials and mainstream media continue to display unconcealed delight in painting Pakistan as a "Failed State". And as they offer unsolicited advice to their neighbor, they ignore the ground reality that if Pakistan is a failed state, then India is as failed a state as Pakistan, if not more so. Why is India a Failed State? The reality of the failure of Indian state is as obvious as daylight. The Indian state's abject failures in delivering bare minimum services to its people, and its inability to solve India's basic problems are there for everyone to see. Not unlike North Korea, India is engaged in a massive arms buildup while almost half of its children are near starvation. A nation-state like India that fails to take care of 46% its children's basic nutrition needs has to be a failed state. In fact, George Friedman of Strafor raises serious doubts about India's viability as a modern nation-state, and dismiss...

The phrase "too big to fail" has gained currency in the United States to describe large and troubled financial institutions since the beginning of the banking crisis last year. The characteristics of such institutions include their large size and huge impact on the rest of the US banking system and the global economy at large. Seen in the context of regional and global geopolitics, are there any parallels between the the large US banks and the Pakistani state? Let's examine this proposition in a little more depth. Large Size: In terms of its size, Pakistan is one of the largest countries in the world. With population exceeding 170 million, it is one of only eight nations armed with nuclear weapons . The nation ranks as sixth largest in population, seventh largest in its army size , 8th in number of mobile phone users, 10th in educated English speaking population , 10th in labor force size , 17th largest in number of Internet users, 26th in economy and 34th in land area....