Louder Than Words

According to UN-DP, 63% of Pakistan's population is under the age of 25 years, which is considered one of the largest in world, and if I am not exaggerating almost half of them are convinced that India is doing a lot better than Pakistan at almost every front of human and state development.

India in comparison to population and area is six times bigger than Pakistan, yet after 63 years of independence we find ourselves obsessed with each other. They consider us to be a den of terrorism (as quoted in Indian Gujrat text books) and we consider them to be a trend setter but between shining lights of Sheela ki jawani and Munni ki badnami we forget that 'facts speak louder than words'.

After a painstaking research, finally succeeded to compile a list of facts to enlighten the misguided half of our youth, hoping that this will bring some of the pride back in their souls

 

On similar lines,

• One out of every three illiterate adults in the world is an Indian, according to UNESCO 
• One out of every two hungry persons in the world is an Indian, according to World Food Program.
• One out of every two Indians live below the poverty line of $1.25 per day.

And yet, India spends $30 billion on defense, and just increased the defense budget by 32% this year.

A bucket full of similar indicators clearly suggest that perceptions about neighboring country are not entirely true, but one can't deny the progress they have made however we are not falling behind either, Pakistan is too big to fail, propaganda of terrorism and being a fail state is not going to last for a long time.

What is the bottom line then? The overall record looks mixed. Pakistan scores high on income and consumption growth, poverty reduction and integration with the world economy. India has done very well in developing its human resource base and excelled in the field of science and technology. Both countries face a set of common problems -- the inherited legacy of a control mind-set among the government and rent-seeking private sector, widespread corruption, poor fiscal management, weak financial system and congested and overcrowded urban service.

We are merely different than each other, if the gurus foresee that India will be the 4th largest economy by 2025 they also suggest that Pakistan is the one to look for, we face similar problems and there is no earthly reason as to why we cannot put our house in order, strike a consensus on the contours of our  direction, stop brick-bating each other for the larger sake of the country’s interests and avoid promoting contrived and perceived sense of instability. Its about time that we start believing as one nation because a decade into the new century, we have bigger things to eye on.

Through this article, I do not intend to prove anyone right or wrong, it is just a factual comparison between both countries.

Sources:

Asian Development Bank

2009 UN Human and Income Poverty Report

India State Hunger Index (Ishi) report in 2008

World Economic Forum's first Financial Development Report

United Nations Population Fund

Nationmaster

PAI Research Commentary by Karen Hardee and Elizabeth Leahy

UNESCO Education For All report for 2010

World Health Organization

UNICEF

Goldman Sachs report on "BRIC"

UNDP

The Education For All-Global Monitoring Report

Prof Richard Lynn's worldwide IQ data

No reference was taken from Wikipedia

A Foolish Man

Its 25th December, see the picture, recognize it? obviously you do, this is your 'beloved' Quaid-e-Azam, Father of the nation, Mohammad Ali Jinnah, Founder of Pakistan, he was born this day and died on 11th September, what tragedy that both dates are now monument of something more significant than him; wait, how can be something more significant than him? 2,996 people died in 9/11, none of them was Pakistani, yet we are are at the center of it, growing with a ratio of 2.9% (Which is faster than the ratio of world population 2.3%) in 2025, Muslims will represent 30% of world becoming the largest religion, yet we celebrate Christmas more than the person who gave us the the only republic built on Islamic ideology.

All year long, our company spent thousands of rupees celebrating Halloween, 14th August, 6th September, Eid and obviously Christmas, but sadly no one stepped up for Quaid, even the Mangoes were more celebrated than him, from Media to masses, be it different talk shows or bulk-sms, I couldn't find anything related,  few of the articles that were written had more politics than Jinnah in it.

Just the the other day I was watching a slow-paced Indian movie Raod to Sangam and sensible actors such as Paresh Rawal and Om Puri shocked me by taking roles that clearly did not represent us, crossing the line they didnt even let Jinnah go, blaming him for filing a case in Indian court to prove that he was not a true Muslim so that all property could go to his daughter.

Just imagine if something of similar nature had happened in a Pakistani drama or Film, what would have been the Indian reaction, but I haven't found anything against the film so far and its been an year to release. Prime example was Jaswant Singh's political biography of Jinnah - Partition f India, where he admitted to the greatness of the man and the reaction was obvious.

We now know where we stand in Pakistan and it is gratifying that a re-emergence of Jinnah occurred in India. Work on Jinnah continues in Pakistan, the latest being The Jinnah Anthology, but our celebrations of the Independence Day instead of being thought-provoking and academic enlightenment of the people, particularly the youth, is confined to the usual lip-service, waving flags, and patriotic dramas and songs. Notwithstanding this situation, the world will continue to assess Jinnah’s capabilities and he will be judged by the totality of his achievements in the background of the situation he was placed in and the role he was destined to play. The new political biography by Jaswant Singh is an example of this continued exercise which will hopefully continue. 

Dawn News - Friday, 21 Aug, 2009

I am not amused because we want to know more about Katrina Kaif, listen more to dumb-headed Shaikh Rasheed, watch more of Rang De Basanti than Film Jinnah, and that's exactly the course our future breed is going to follow unless we decide other wise, decide not to only post a quote of Quaid on your Facebook status but to actually try and understand that why is that he believed so much in us, only if he could see the future he would have known how foolish he was to give us a country that we don't even remember the birth-years of..

Written 25th December 2010

Enemy of the State

Thankfully to our cable operator, I have very limited choices and normally you would find me just changing channels to get to the other side of clock arm; one of those similar days, a road show caught me a little interested, unlike all the others; the host was very eager to know the answers of our problems, he was constantly asking for it every time someone started to tell the old same story of our problems and demon of corruption we have upon us, out of those people their was a man, aged between 60-65, with a beard and a bored look on his face, indifferent to his appearance he was very subtle in his speech;

"We have no one to blame but us, we have allowed ourselves to decay with time, we have tried this time and time again but yet we don't understand that we are the ones who will change our life style, if you want to carry on for next 50 years finding that one man who could solve your problems than you are welcome but we have no vision no direction and I see myself dying in vain"

He was calm yet couldn't hide the tears; everyone was touched for a moment and than the usual happened, realizing the blame the crowd erupted in defense that they haven't contributed to any of this. Impressively enough the man just wouldn’t step back, he listened to every one of them, the road show suddenly became a court room where he found himself cornered, I was loosing patience with it when he finally got to hold the mic again,

form sea-shore of Karachi to mountains of Nnaga-parbat, I ask only one question from my young children (he was obviously referring to the youth), you remember that crash in Rawalpindi?, Yes; they voiced together, than you must certainly have noticed a name, YPP - Youth Parliament of Pakistan, did you?, Yes, they were eager to listen him this time; how many of you admire the idea? Almost everyone raised their hands, including the host; and how many of you have actually joined them or at-least know how to join the initiative?

You can guess the inevitable, he left them puzzled, so as me; knowing that we have the largest population of youth in the whole world, yet only 0.71% of that has joined YPP. Everyone is not a starter, similar to when we broke the glass of neighbor's house, eventually to get the ball back we found someone to take the initiative, every one saw the man as an Enemy of the State but he gave something to think about.

Below is the link, its your call

YPP - Youth Parliament of Pakistan