India and Pakistan: The Stark Reality

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Gujjubania #344,

``One last thing - although most of India has developed spectacularly over the last
decade , there are 3 states which have retrogressed and are holding India back - UP ,
Bihar and West Bengal``

Kya karein ? These states don`t have the illustrious and progressive Narendra-bhai
leading them. And would you please drop the prefix ``pseudo`` for secularists - it was very
un-original to begin with, and needn`t be tortured any further. Also, about a dozen
states in India do not have a BJP government and seem to be doing all right. Care
to enlighten us about that ?

Parts of India has poverty levels unseen in sub-Saharan Africa ; whom exactly are
you kidding here ? Last year there were reports of large-scale starvation deaths in
Orissa, well into triple digits. I agree that food grain reserves appear healthy lately
and we don`t witness any food riots, but indulging in fantasies about Indians not being
poor and hungry is quite another thing. By some estimates, the country has 10 million children living in the streets - I`d presume most of them are unfed and unclothed.

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afrasiyab

…apologise for this delay…your response got buried in the deluge t/here;)

yes…the key in my response was “all roads to ka’aba pass through ghq”

…even more briefly…there are no credible institutions left…not one…slate has to be wiped clean before any rebuilding begins…seems like a rehash of what was discussed between us years back…public pressure is suspect at best …(can you name one issue that has been resolved under mass pressure to the benefit of the masses over the past 56 years?)…role models or ‘personalities’ aside…powers is concentrated in few hands to the detriment of the majority…and short of violence cannot be retrieved back…

rgds,

t

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re:#323 by arjun_m
There is nothing much to gloat over that article. Poverty in India means: anyone earing less than $1.00 a day! Even millions of those so called ``not poor`` in India are desperately poor.
Sridhar

``#329 by godot on October 20, 2003 8:34am PT

Farzana, 320

“I like the way we Indians have taken over this Pakistani board. “

That’s right. Give you guys an inch and you will take a yard! But that’s democracy. Now you know why the Pakistan Army, and the Islamic regimes from Indonesia to the Maghreb, is so afraid of democracy. ``



FV.. GODOT your Prophet was afraid of democracy. He was employeed by a woman. Never a woman can openly own a business and say stay or..... in public in Mecca and Madina. Whole world knows it. It is ok to stay and blame India FV. Never Mecca and Madina... Give those woman an inch....

Her name was not FV BTW. Something else. 1400 years have passed. GODOT and FV will be still as usual...complex... inf....NAH

I liked the way you claimed THE common Indian positions. You know what common Indian live in Dharavi eh?

Kargil is nothing to Indians??

Which part of Dharavi...Please elaborate. I will be there. GODOT will be there. So will be Urs.. I too.

Who was living in Karachi who bombed Mumbai???? I think US of A said he is something else. THE common Indian knows there is no proof. Blame US of A. Blame ....

FV. I saw a film called RUDALEE. I know you saw it too. Prithviraj Chauhan ignored 20 times for your own hero called...... I am not ready to pay hence forth.

Which part of Dharavi??? when???

And you are....


Yogiraj Patil

#309 by arjun_m

Dude, 18 months ago US News printed one of my letters about Kashmir verbatim. I included my address in the letter and surely didn`t get any FBI calls or INS notices. Swing out of your delusions. In this country, nobody is branded a terrorist, imprisoned or shot dead for expressing his views peacefully and openly. This is not Srinagar.

#188 by Ras

``Pakistanis in general in spite of bad times still live better than Indians because of
lesser population pressures.``

There is a flaw in Ras`s argument. One has to remember that arid and barren Balochistan is nearly half of Pakistan`s territory. In terms of arable land per person, population pressure is not necessarily less in Pakistan than in India.

This is what today`s DAWN has to say on Ras`s perception:

http://www.dawn.com/2003/10/20/op.htm#2

Economy in decline
By S. Akbar Zaidi

..... Pakistan has been left behind in terms of economic development, by numerous countries. Many bureaucrats, planners and economists who have always felt the need to be overly patriotic, have reluctantly accepted the fact that many of the East Asian countries - the newly industrialized countries, as they were once called - have advanced to near developed country status.

This they have argued is a recognized fact - the Asian Miracle - and Pakistan should learn its lessons but not feel too discouraged by this trend. After all, it has always been maintained, Pakistan is well ahead in South Asia, and is the most developed of the three most populous countries in the region.

These Pakistani patriots have been particularly pleased that our growth rate and per capita incomes are way ahead of India. Little do they know, this is no longer true, and India has not just overtaken Pakistan, but is set to increase the difference between the two. Pakistan has surely been left behind, a fact that has major repercussions on the political economy of Pakistan and of the region as a whole.

In 1990, both Pakistan and India had identical per capita incomes, at $ 390 each; in 2001 for which the latest figures are available, Pakistan`s per capita income was $ 420, and India`s $ 460. It is probable, given Pakistan`s poor economic performance compared to India`s these last two years, that the difference has widened further. What is more suggestive, and worrying for Pakistan, is the comparison between India and Pakistan in terms of per capita income when we use a far more useful measure called the Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) figures.

These PPP comparisons allow a far better assessment of standard of living in terms of what people can actually purchase equalising for differences in prices. Pakistan`s per capita PPP income in 1990 was $ 1360, while India`s was $ 1380. In 2001, Pakistan`s per capita PPP had risen to $ 1860, a rise of $ 500 or 37 per cent. India`s PPP per capita in this decade had more than doubled and rose to $ 2820 per capita. Indeed, a highly impressive achievement.

This critical indicator, that of the per capita income, is only the first of numerous social and economic indicators which show the growing difference between India and Pakistan during the 1990s, a trend which has increased further these last three years, and is going to continue to increase, for some considerable time to come into the future. .....

..... Perhaps the most extraordinary difference in comparative growth trends between India and Pakistan is in India`s more than double export growth, and the four-times higher growth in new investment measured by Gross Capital Formation. Pakistan has had very little addition to Capital in the 1990s, a trend, which sadly, has been made even worse in the last two years following 9/11 and Pakistan`s role in the War Against Terror.

Since 1993, India`s growth rate has been higher than Pakistan`s in every single year, and in four years in the last ten, India`s growth rate has been double of Pakistan`s. This is not all. If we look at all the seven Saarc countries, today even lowly Bangladesh and Nepal perform far better than Pakistan, and this is especially so if we compare the 1980s. .....

..... In 2003, India is ranked far higher than Pakistan, as is Bangladesh. More importantly, Pakistan`s rank fell from being at 138 to the 144th rank in just one year, 2002-03, and Nepal and Pakistan are the only two non-African countries to be classified in the low human development group. Clearly, a most ignoble achievement.

There are numerous other social and economic indicators which re-emphasize the fact that Pakistan has been left far behind. Poverty in India, for example, has fallen from 45 per cent of the population in 1983 to 26 per cent today; in Pakistan it increased from 17 per cent in 1987 to 33 per cent today. .....

..... India`s economic growth has by far overtaken Pakistan`s, a trend which is unlikely to be reversed for some time to come. The implications of this should be obvious to all. It is high time that Pakistan`s leadership realizes this fact and starts putting its economic, social, political and foreign policy houses in order.

This north indian - south indian discussion borders on stereotyping. The other greatest mathematician that modern India produced was Harish Chandra, from the cow belt.

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Vereesh #332/333: Pakistan tends to center new buildings/areas around three names: Jinnah, Liaqut and Iqbal. Everything is named after them. Jinnah Terminal, Bagh-e-Jinnah, Quaidabad, Quaid-e-Azam Univeristy, Jinnah Town and Jinnahpur – the alleged country that Altaf Hussain was going to form, by breaking away Karachi from the rest of Pakistan.. Liaqutabad, Liaqut gymnasium, Liaqut Hall, Iqbal Town, Iqbal Park. Allama Iqbal Medical College, etc.

In between, there was a phase of naming everything after Saudi King Faisal: Faisal Town, Faisalabad, Faisal Mosque, Shahrah-e-Faisal. But luckily that has ended.

The new trend is the home-built military hardware names. That seems to be named either Islamic religious tones, or pre-Mughal Muslim tones. Al-Khalid Tank, Hataf missile. Ghauri and Ghaznavi missiles.

The Mughal names seem to have gotten lost in the crowd, somewhere. I know there is a PNS Babur in the Navy, though.

Pakistani knowledge of India is based on three factors:

- Hindi movies
- Relatives of those in Karachi, living in India (who also speak Hindi/Urdu/with some Gujrati thrown in)
- Meeting expat Indians, who speak English, Hindi, or Punjabi.

While, Indian knowledge of Pakistan seems to be based on:

- Pakistan cricket team

So, more than likely, all Pakistanis are unaware of South Indians and think all Indians speak Hindi. And all Indians probably think all Pakistanis play cricket.

Haven’t run across Balti Chinese, yet. Though, I did meet a Chinese lady, in Toronto, whose family is from Pakistan and she understands Urdu. She runs a Halal Chinese-Indian-Pakistani Chinese restaurant. That is the actual part of the name. One of her relatives is the only Chinese-Pakistani pilots in the Air Force in Pakistan.

Stuka

Apparently so... and it is a long list too... including A G Noorani, Khushwant Singh, and if we go back a bit ... Sarojini Naidu... all of them fiercely critical of partition, all of them admirers of Jinnah. What a paradox.

-YLH

One more aside . . . the names of the Mughal Emperors for ships & airplanes were smartly grabbed by Indians before the Pakistanis could. So while you had Bagh-e-this and that, we sailed on Akbar and Shah Jahan and even today, some of the Air India jumbos carry the names of Mughal Emperors. (Airbus are named after rivers . . .)

Romair #330 . . . a short India primer for you and others here.

a) Your theory about Northen IQs stands on its head, look at it again that way. On the looks, boss, you got another one coming down South.

b) Toronto is now 14 hours away from Delhi by a daily Air Canada flight offering great discounts.

c) Your South Indian friend will KISS you when you discuss non-veg food with him. And also ``record dance``.

d) Please look at an Indian currency note, the types not faked by ISI, and you will see 17 languages there. It begins from there.

e) Actually I am surprised at the lack of knolwedge about South India in Pakistan. You are not the first Pakistani I have heard the same thing from. The original GT Express ran from Landi Kotwal to Mettupalayam connecting Ooty, and now is a shadow of its glorious self running from Delhi to Madras. Maybe that is the reason.

f) I know that even in London, Lahori Karahi advertises itself as ``Indian``. It doesn`t seem to make a difference. Just like here in Delhi, ``Pindi`s`` is great food too.

g1) I do not know why Pakistanis feel we Indians hate the Mughals. Yes, studying about them in history was painful, but boss we have no issue about common heritage and Islam and stuff like that. Except for some painful Wahhabi stuff, and they are running out of money soon, so.

g2) However, when we meet Pakistanis, we feel honour bound to not like Mughals. Do you understand this? Please do. I think that is the key of the various battles here at chowk.

h) Aurangzeb is not on restaurants, but surprisingly is on a lot of roads all over the country, including the one our PM lives on. Akbar and Shah Jahan seem to figure on many hotels/restaurants. Jehangir seems to be particularly a hit with hair-dressers nee barbers. Bahadur Shah Zafar has roads named after him too. Babar Khan in Delhi is a friend of mine, and I don`t think anything is named after him, though he may have a paternity suit or two named after him if they had invented DNA testing 20 years ago.

i) South India starts when the coffee starts tasting human. Actually, ``the South`` if you look at a political map would be Andhra and Tamil Nadu on the East Coast with Kerala and Karnataka on the West Coast.

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And finally, have you tried ``balti Chinese``? I have seen this in London, on a take away. I think it is Vietnamese but trying to get a leg into the desi communities.

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What`s your IT company called?