Watching Poverty Grow

Are the trends getting better or worse? That would tell the story. Large scale demographic changes take time.

Anil writes "Riaz, your obsession is silly. "

Anil sahib refrain from writing silly posts when you have nothing better to say. THE IITs and other madrassas of capitalism are not producing educated folk they are producing peons that compare with the other peon producing school you talk about HBS- after all O'reilly attended Harvard and look how he turned out, that miserable sorry excuse for a human being.

Re: # 69
You can not look at the issue of infant mortality in isolation from the general issues of poverty and illiteracy faced by women in particular. There is no one silver bullet. The solution depends on nutrition, sanitation, women's education/empowerment, prenatal healthcare etc.

Although volunteerism and public service are not as highly valued in Pakistan as in many other places, many Pakistanis care enough for these issues to contribute money, to volunteer time and organize efforts in urban slums and rural communities in Pakistan. There are many, many examples such as HDF, OPP, Hidaya, Agha Khan Foundation, Kashf foundation that are actively working to provide these basic things. There are also social entrepreneurs like Saafwater who are working in the poor neighborhoods to get clean water which is very important in dealing with the issues of infant mortality and health.

These and similar organizations need to be supported to scale up to address the size of the problems. Such organizations can also play the strong advocacy role to push the politicians to spend more on human development and less on military and non-developmental projects.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

#66 Posted by RiazHaq on

I haven't seen how many different statistics you have give so far, but just so that you do not derive much false pleasure out of those statistics, remember that on per capita basis if you include Pakistan, it will be equally bad (ignoring a slight up/down in performance of any of the two countries in a particular year).

Somebody, talked about malnutrition, and was happy that pakistan has more over nourished people than India, again wrong. Over all the ratio of malnourished people in India and Pakistan is almost same, for Pakistan it is around 35 million in 172 million and for India it is around 217 million in 1170 million, if you calculate Indias ratio seems a bit better (should have had 235 million to match pakistan) but that is insignificant.

So overall where India is performing bad, Pakistan never performs any better (except in Cricket/Hockey, but again not in overall sports). But there are areas where India is much better compared to Pakistan


So whenver you get statistics given on chowk here, do check proportions before getting mislead.

Re: # 66
Please tell me what the citizens could do about infant mortality? There must be action on the political level and the sense of shared responsibility could grow as the individuals find any relief from the intensity of misery and suffering. The middle-class and the upper class in Pakistan desensitize themseves from the misfortune of the poor. This acquired skill needs to be unlearnt and a connection with other humans must be made.

Re: # 65
Who are you? And why are you so personally attacking me?
Why don't you contribute your own thoughts to influence discussion here rather than call for others to stop, or even demand that people you disagree with be banned? What kind of an educated person are you who is either unable or afraid to debate on merit?
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Re: # 31
Madni saheb
"looting national treasury and blackmailing is concentrated politics which is economics"
Do you think the rot is reversible?
Thank You.

Re: # 64

Until I see a real benevolent, caring and strong government leadership in Pakistan, I will not look to Pakistani government to solve these serious problems of human deprivation. I think it is time for each Pakistani to start lighting candles instead of continuing to curse darkness. If enough of us do it, we make a real difference to alleviate the ongoing suffering of our poor brothers and sisters.

Let me quote a Pakistani young man from Lahore who has organized voluntary trash collection effort via a Facebook group called "Zimmedar Shehri". “Everybody keeps blaming the government, but no one actually does anything,� said Shoaib Ahmed, 21, one of the organizers. “So we thought, why don’t we?�

What can we do? There are many many things individuals like you and I do to support human development in Pakistan. I have written about it extensively on my blog. Here are a couple of links:

http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/05/hdf-silicon-valley-fundraiser-for.html




http://www.riazhaq.com/2009/05/young-pakistanis-inspire-with-public.html
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Can someone please ban this Riaz ul Haq character from Chowk?

Re: # 61
Riaz
Some information you posted. It is horrible but insensitivity has numbed minds. I do not hear any political party in Pakistan raising these issues. Media is consumed by hot stories and international observers provide us a comparison table to see and grieve the infant mortality of 79 per 1000. Are there any on-going projects? How would this budget allocation effect them?

Re: # 59

Riaz:

"...Are the harsh judgments of Pakistan's higher education quality justified? Especially, when compared with other mainstream institutions in the region? You be the judge..."

Education is a fundamental value / right of citizens in a country. Your comparison is foolish. Each must be valued and compared against previous performance.

IITs and IIMs are listed in Global best, not because they want to be compared, but they constantly provided better environment and rigid meritocracy to bring in the best and brightest. It is the latter more than the former that is the reason of their position.

Does Pakistan have its talent, yes they do?
Why would you compare to anyone or any thing other than their own performance?

Good education also be provided through Lal Masjids too, if it can attract the best and brightests with even a certain group.

Riaz, your obsession is silly.

This article is about Pakistan but some of us have successfully diverted this debate again into "Who sucks more: India or Pakistan"

Poverty in Pakistan is absolutely heart wrenching. I am a frequent visitor to both of these South Asian countries and I can tell you with mathematical certitude that poverty in India is substantially more visible.

Two points I would like to make here: disparity between rich and poor is much grander in India and Muslims in India are disproportionately more miserable than Hindus.

Here's some 2008 data from Indian govt on health indicators in India:

While India's maternal mortality rate per 1,00,000 live births remains a high 450, it is 45 in China, 58 in Sri Lanka and 320 in Pakistan.

Similarly, infant mortality rate (IMR) in India is 56 per 1,000 live births against 12 in Sri Lanka and 23 in China.

Even Bangladesh fares better than India in infant mortality with 54 children dying per 1,000 live births. India shares its IMR with the landlocked country of Nepal and fares better than Pakistan (79).

The survey has revealed that 74 Indian children per 1,000 die before attending their fifth birthday as against 14 in Sri Lanka, 27 in China and 73 in Bangladesh.

Giving a comparative study of life expectancy in South-Asian countries, the survey underlines that the average life expectancy in India is 62.9 years.

It is 72 years in China, 63.6 in Pakistan and 70.8 years in Sri Lanka.

Only Nepal (61.3 years) and Bangladesh (62 years) are behind India.

There has been some improvement in the quality of healthcare but wide inter-state, male-female, and rural-urban disparities in outcomes and impacts continue.

Source: http://specials.indiatoday.com/budget/2008/health.shtml
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

TehsinA:

While I am not in favour of governments coming in the way of economic progress, I do make an exception in the case of education and health. Since you mentioned level playing field, the only way the playing field can be made somewhat level is if the state takes the responsibility of providing quality education to all its citizens regardless of their social or economic standing. Indeed, I am not aware of any developed society where the state does not play a dominant role in providing education.

Re: # 56
While I agree that Pakistan's educational standards are not particularly good, I also think the quality of India's education is highly over-rated, especially among the harshest critics of Pakistan's education system.

A few Indian schools in top tier, such as the elite Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), can be reasonably compared to world-class schools, but the American investors and businesses have finally learned the hard way that there is huge gap between the few tier one schools and the tier two and three in India. The quality of education most Indians receive at tier 2 and 3 schools is far below any acceptable quality

Looking at the top 500 universities in the world, one can see a few universities from India and a few more from nations such as Malaysia, Indonesia, Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. Many new world-class universities are now being built in several nations in Asia and the Middle East, and they are attracting top talent from around the world.

A survey of human resource professionals at multinational corporations in India revealed that only one quarter of engineering graduates with a suitable degree could be employed irrespective of demand (Farrell et al., 2005). Another survey of employers shows that only a handful of the 1400 engineering schools in India are recognized as providing world-class education with graduates worthy of consideration for employment (Globalization of Engineering Services, 2006). These results suggest that engineering degrees from most Indian colleges do not provide signaling value in the engineering labor market. Hence, low quality (in the labor market sense) engineering schooling has come to predominate in the education market. The current situation, with an abundance of low quality engineering schooling, is considered objectionable by many in the Indian polity and is also projected to stifle growth of the Indian economy (Globalization of Engineering Services,
2006).

In terms of the quality of secondary and tertiary education, India also ranks low among the emerging economies, according to a study published in Silicon India. The drought of education in India has reached the extreme as it ranks sixth among the seven emerging economies of the world, in terms of education quality. The country has scored only 3.3 points in the study, in terms of primary, secondary, tertiary and demographic parameters, while Russia topped the chart with 7.3 points.

According to the Assocham study, India was in the last position in terms of quality of secondary education while Russia and Brazil had highest scores. The quality of tertiary education in India was lowest among the other emerging nations. The points it scored on the scale of 2, was 0.1. Even though the demographics of India are considered its strength, the country has scored the minimum in this too and was ranked at last place. Moreover, in terms of students enrollment for primary education, India is highly incompetitive with the gross enrollment ratio standing at 98.1.

"Serious attention needs to be paid towards the education system. India may stand to loose its competitive advantages against the other countries in long term if corrective measures are not taken to strengthen the Indian education system qualitatively," said Sajjan Jindal, ASSOCHAM President while releasing the ASSOCHAM Eco Pulse (AEP) Study 'Comparative Study of Emerging Economies on Quality of Education'. It was carried out on the basis of 20 parameters relating to primary, secondary, tertiary education and higher education and demography and data provided by UNESCO, IMF, WEF, Financial Times was used for the purpose.

Among the rest five countries, China has secured second place with scoring 6.7 points, while Brazil has positioned itself at third place with 5.56 score points as the quality of education in Brazil remains stable across all levels of primary, secondary and higher education. Mexico has been ranked at fourth place on the strength of its higher education. South Africa, a relatively new entrant to the club of developing economies, has managed to be on fifth place on the strength of its tertiary education and demographic qualities though it lags far behind in primary education. However, Indonesia stands at the last position with an overall score of 2.68 points. The gross enrollment ratio is highest in Brazil (148.5), followed by China (116.2) and Russia (113.8). Even Indonesia (110.9) and South Africa (105.1) enjoy better enrollment ratio than India.

However, only in terms of teacher-student ratio the country outsmarts all as in India for every forty students, there is one teacher.

Are the harsh judgments of Pakistan's higher education quality justified? Especially, when compared with other mainstream institutions in the region? You be the judge.
Riaz Haq, PakAlumni Worldwide

Re: # 56
You highlight a very important point; The co-existence of a federation alongwith its constituting units. Pakistan army, after dealing with the demands of Bengalis, embarked on curbing the Baloch, the sindhis and Pathans.
The establishment did not make effort at making peace with its units and that haunts Pakistan but the government still shows ignorance by labelling provincial demands as foreign instigated insurgency.