South Asia Investor Review

Widespread student  protests  on the US campuses against Israel's genocidal war in Gaza are being labeled antisemitic by pro-Israel politicians and donors. They have now joined forces to intimidate the leadership of top American universities. President Liz MaGill of the University of Pennsylvania has already been forced out. Leaders at Harvard and MIT are also under threat.  The Pro-Israel Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the Brandeis Center have called on 200 college presidents to investigate pro-Palestinian student groups. Faculty members and instructors at several public and private colleges have either been placed on leave or fired for comments about the conflict, according to  Bloomberg  columnist Noah Feldman. These actions are a direct assault on the academic freedom in America, with long term negative consequences for the world's most admired institutions of higher education.  Pro-Palestine Protest at UCLA. Source: Daily Bruin Academic Freedom:...

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 Dire...

In its latest economic growth projections, Kennedy School's Center for International Development (CID) at Harvard University expects Pakistan's annual GDP growth to average 5.97% over the next 8 years, ranking it as the world's 6th fastest growing economy. Growth Projections. Source: HKS CID Report The Harvard growth projections are a bit more optimistic that other short, medium and long-term GDP growth forecasts for Pakistan offered by HSBC's 5% through 2050,   IMF's 5.5% till 2020, World Bank's 5.8% until 2019 and  The Economist EIU's 5.7% in 2017 Among the top 10 fastest growing economies, the  CID projects  Uganda to grow the fastest at 7.73%, followed by India 7.72%, Tanzania 6.66%, Senegal 6.49%, Madagascar 6.07%, Kenya 5.98%, Pakistan 5.97%, Indonesia 5.82%, Mali 5.75%, Turkey 5.64% and Philippines 5.43%. Among Pakistan's other neighbors,  China is forecast to grow at 4.41%, Sri Lanka at 3.77% and Bangladesh at 2.82%. Pakistan 2017...

Pakistani-American Prof. Asim Khwaja and his doctoral student Bailey Klinger at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government observed that banks have money to lend, but even profitable small businesses in developing nations often cannot access it, choking growth. Prof Asim Khwaja of Harvard's Kennedy School Looking into the reasons, they found it was the lack of access to tools like credit agency reports and FICO credit scores which are common in developed economies. This discovery gave birth to Entrepreneurial Finance Lab to develop alternative tools for bankers to assess risks to lend money to small business owners. Their basic tool is a multiple-choice psychometric test. Here's how New York Times describes it: The lab’s model asks questions that do not necessarily have a right answer; using an algorithm, it aims to predict whether an individual is likely to default based on how the answers relate to one another. For example, to assess their sense of personal control o...

Anum Fatima, a resident of Ibrahim Goth slum located near Karachi's Steel Town, is making history; she is going to Harvard  Business School this summer as part of a student exchange program. Anum's father is employed as a driver and her mother works as a maid. The slum school she attended is run by The Citizen's Foundation (TCF) , a private foundation. From 5 schools in Karachi in 1995, TCF has expanded to 910 purpose-built schools with 126,000 students in 97 towns and cities across Pakistan. Institute of Business Management (IoBM) Karachi After graduating from the TCF school located near her slum, Fatima has completed her BBA in Human Resource. She is currently attending College of Business Management (CBM) of  the Institute of Business Management (IoBM), a private Business School in Karachi . Anum is breaking many stereotypes about Pakistani  women , particularly poor women, by studying business management at top business schools in Pakistan and the...