South Asia Investor Review

The United Nations World Food Program has ranked Pakistan fourth among donor countries and sixth overall in 2024.  Among the largest 15 donors worldwide, the United States topped the list with $4.45 billion, followed by Germany ($995 million), the United Kingdom ($610 million), European Union ($593 million), private donors ($335 million), Pakistan ($228 million), South Korea ($203 million), France ($196 million), Sweden ($183 million), Canada ($166 million), Norway ($158 million), Japan ($155 million), UN Central Emergency Fund ($135 million), other UN agencies ($120 million) and Switzerland ($88 million), according to the  World Food Program .  Top Donors to World Food Program in 2024. Source: WFP The  World Food Program  says that 319 million people in 67 countries are facing acute hunger, and the scale of the current global hunger and malnutrition crisis is massive. "A total of 1.9 million people are in the grips of catastrophic hunger – primarily in Gaza and...

Last few months have seen a grotesque display of obscene wealth in India, a country with well-documented levels of extreme  poverty ,  hunger  and  unemployment . Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani has splurged hundreds of millions of dollars on his son's wedding attended by top politicians including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Hollywood and Bollywood celebrities and Ambani's fellow billionaires who have accumulated vast amounts of wealth in one of the world's most unequal countries.  Experts blame it on Mr. Modi's policies promoting crony capitalism.  Viral Acharya, former deputy governor of Reserve Bank of India, told the  BBC  that their ability to acquire large distressed companies, a growing appetite for mergers and acquisitions, and India's conscious industrial policy of creating "national champions via preferential allocation of projects and in some cases regulatory agencies turning a blind eye to predatory pricing". Indian Prime Minister M...

Many Pakistanis are singing effusive praises of India on social media platforms and racking up millions of views, according to a report in the Indian  mainstream media. These Pakistanis are boosting their earnings by feeding into the  Indians' delusions . The " India Today " report claims that, in the last 6 months alone, the number of channels using the hashtag #pakistanireactiononindia on YouTube increased by 1,000, and the number of videos by 5,000. Calling it an "industry" is an acknowledgment of the profit motive of the Pakistani YouTubers. These YouTubers steer clear of anything that even remotely challenges their unadulterated praise of India. For example, they make no mention of India ranking worse than Pakistan on income  poverty , hunger and overall  happiness . Nor do they talk about thousands of  Indian farmers  killing themselves every year.  Nor do they mention extremely high levels of  unemployment  in Modi's India.  Modi ...

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 governme...

Well before India's Chandrayaan-3 landed on the moon on August 23, India's "Godi Media" started showing split screens with the landing craft’s animated image (no pictures or live video) alongside a photo of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. It was clearly meant to give him exclusive credit for ISRO scientists' major accomplishment after their decades-long hard work. This Hindutva propaganda has echoes of Adolf Hitler’s use of the 1936 Berlin Olympics to promote his Nazi ideology.  It is boosting the morale of the hateful  Hindu supremacist  trolls unleashed by the BJP “IT cell” on social media. It is easy to conclude that the Chandrayaan is now essentially a prestige project for the Hindu Nationalist government in New Delhi. Funding such projects is easier for politicians than implementing social sector programs to uplift hundreds of millions of poor and hungry Indians who are deprived of the most basic necessities.  Chadrayaan3-Modi Split Screen Godi Media Pro...

The extensive news coverage of the loss of Pakistani migrants' lives in the recent Greece boat tragedy has linked it to "hunger" in Pakistan. The essence of these news stories is captured by a quote in a CNN headline: "We'll die of hunger anyway". It is attributed to a young man from the Pakistani town of Gujarat who is unfortunately believed to have drowned in the Mediterranean on his way to Greece.  These stories beg the following questions: Is it really true that Pakistani migrants are fleeing hunger and poverty? How can people suffering from hunger afford to pay thousands of dollars to human smugglers to leave for greener pastures?   Pakistan Per Capita GDP. Source: World Bank Pakistan's  GDP per capita  is about $1,600 The above questions are answered by two recent  studies  released by the Center for Global Development as follows:  As GDP per capita rises, so do emigration rates. Emigration is seen as an investment as migrants are better-edu...

India occupies 126th position among 137 nations ranked in the  World Happiness Report 2023  released by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network. In South Asia, Pakistan (score 4.555) ranks 108,  Sri Lanka 112, Bangladesh (4.282) 118 and India 126 (4.036). Only Taliban-ruled Afghanistan ranks worse at 137. Finland is the happiest nation in the world, followed by Denmark and Iceland in 2nd and 3rd place. Least Happy Countries in 2023. Source: Quartz Bottom Third Countries in World Happiness Rankings. Source: World Happiness Report The latest country rankings show life evaluations (answers to the Cantril ladder question) for each country, averaged over a 3 year period from 2020-2022.  The Cantril ladder asks respondents to think of a ladder, with the best possible life for them being a 10 and the worst possible life being a 0. They are then asked to rate their own current lives on that 0 to 10 scale. The rankings are from nationally representative samples for the ...