Many fear the return to civil war in Afghanistan after the US pull-out. Are these fears well-founded? If so, who will be the main combatants in such a civil war? The Afghan Taliban? Or notorious warlords of yesteryears like  Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Ismael Khan, Abdur Rashid Dostum and progeny of Ahmad Shah Masood? Or terror groups like ISIS, TTP, ETIM, IMU, etc etc.? …

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has been the target of the Modi government's cyber attacks, according to a recently released Project Pegasus report.  The Indian government has neither confirmed nor denied the report.  The focus of the report is the use of the Israeli-made spyware by about  a dozen governments to target politicians, journalists and activists. The users of the Pegasus software include governments of  Bahrain, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, India, Mexico, Hungary, Azerbaijan, Togo…

Pakistan has received nearly $30 billion in worker remittances in fiscal year 2020-21, according to the State Bank of Pakistan. This is a new record representing about 10% of the country's gross domestic product (GDP). This money helps the nation cope with its perennial current account deficits. It also provides a lifeline for millions of Pakistani families who use the money to pay for food,…

US President Joseph R. Biden  has signed a sweeping executive order to promote competition in a wide range of industries from big tech to telecommunications, transportation, banking and healthcare. This order has come within weeks of the appointment of young Pakistani-American law professor Lina Khan as the United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chairperson. Lina Khan, 32, is the youngest FTC…

A recent Pew survey in India has found that 64% of Hindus see their religious identity and Indian national identity as closely intertwined. Most Hindus (59%) also link Indian identity with being able to speak Hindi language. The survey was conducted over two years in 2019 and 2020 by Pew Research Center. It included 29,000 Indians.  

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu Nationalist BJP party's appeal is the greatest among Hindus who closely associate their religious identity and the…

With a score of 84.4, Pakistan ranks third among 50 countries tracked by the Economist magazine for return to pre-pandemic life. Pakistan's neighbor India has a score of 46.5, ranking it near the bottom in 48th position.  China (score 72.9) is 19th, United States (72.8) 20th, United Arab Emirates (68.9) 27th and United Kingdom (62.5) 36th. The global average for return to pre-pandemic activity is 66.6 on a scale of 0 to 100. …

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was founded one hundred years ago on July 1, 1921. The party has transformed China from a poor and backward third world country into a vibrant and prosperous industrialized economy. This rapid historic transformation has surprised everyone, including China's friends, but especially its western foes who now see the emergence of the Asian giant as a challenge to centuries-long western domination of the world. It has also earned the CCP high levels of…

Student visa applications from Pakistan have jumped 37% this year. Overall, the number of international student applicants has increased by about 9% this year from last year, according to data from the Common App, as of January 22, 2021. Most of the top “sending” countries are showing increases, with the notable exception of China, the leading source of international students. But that decrease has been more than offset by substantial increases from countries like India, Canada, Nigeria,…

Hindu Americans have surpassed Jewish Americans in education and rival them in household incomes. How did immigrants from India, one of the world's poorest countries, join the ranks of the richest people in the United States? How did such a small minority of just 1% become so disproportionately represented in the highest income occupations ranging from top corporate executives and technology entrepreneurs to doctors, lawyers and investment bankers? Indian-American Professor Devesh Kapur,…

Security software pioneer John McAfee was found dead in his jail cell in Spain today. He was 75 years old. He started McAfee Associates in 1987 in his small house in Silicon Valley, in response to the news of a Pakistani computer virus called Pakistani Brain, thought to be the first to infect personal computers. Miko Hypponen, a top software expert, believes that "they (Pakistani brothers Amjad and Basit Alvi) never meant to destroy any data or cause any harm for anyone". He was fighting…

Jesper Brodin, CEO of Holland-based Ingka Group, started his 25-year career working for Ikea in Karachi, Pakistan in 1995. Ikea does not operate its stores in Pakistan but the company sources home textiles from the South Asian country. Today,  Ikea is a major global retailer of home furnishings with worldwide sales of over $40 billion. Like any other major retailer, it is responding to its customers' demand for products produced in a sustainable way in terms of their impact on the…

Over half a million Pakistani-Americans constitute the 7th largest Asian ethnic group in the United States. Pakistani-Americans are young, well-educated and prosperous. Median age for Pakistani-Americans is 31.7 years. 60% have at least a bachelor's degree. Their median household income is $87,510 a year.  The graph below shows that immigration into the United…

“With all my privilege and profile, I often wonder if this is going to be the year they round us up, if this is the year they’re going to put Trump’s Muslim registry into action, if this is going to be the year they ship us all off,” Riz Ahmad said back in 2019 at Creative Artists Agency's Amplify Conference. “The representation of Muslims on screen — that feeds the policies that get enacted, the people that get killed, the countries that get invaded.”…

American Defense publication "The Drive" claims that Pakistan has helped China get access to American stealth aircraft technology. Specifically, the American website alleges that the Pakistanis gave Chinese access to the wreckage of the US stealth helicopter destroyed during the American raid to kill Usama Bin Laden in Abbottabad in 2011. Chinese experts have called the accusation "groundless", according to Global Times. …

Food prices in Pakistan rose 14.8% in May while the average inflation rate for July-May period of the current fiscal year came in at 8.83%,  according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.  Meanwhile, global food prices have surged by 40% in May,  the highest rate in a decade, according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Poor harvest due to bad weather and …

Kleiner Perkins, a top Silicon Valley venture capital investment firm, is leading series A round of $17 million investment into Pakistani start-up Tajir. The startup operates an online marketplace for small store merchants in Pakistan. The announcement came via a tweet by Mamoon Hamid, a …

Indian economy shrank 7.3% in fiscal year 1920-21, its worst performance since independence in 1947. Nearly 230 million middle class Indians have slipped below the poverty line, constituting a 15 to 20% increase in poverty since Covid-19 struck last year, according to Pew Research. Middle class consumption has been a key driver of economic growth in India. Erosion of the middle class will likely…

Hamid Mir, a primetime TV talk show host, has reacted angrily to an attack on fellow Pakistani journalist Asad Ali Toor this week. Without explicitly naming anyone in his emotional outburst against the Pakistan Army and the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence Service), Mir has accused their leadership of cowardice in allegedly ordering attacks on journalists. Dredging up the name of "General Rani", believed to have been the mistress of former Army Chief and President Yahya Khan in the…

Seed Labs, a Pakistani financial technology startup based in Karachi, has raised $6.5 million in seed funding to launch a derivatives trading platform. It was founded about a year ago by four young men in their mid-20s: Yameen Malik, Rabeel Jawaid, Zabi Mohebzada, and Ahmad Jawaid, according to Bloomberg reporter …

Global e-commerce giant Amazon has recently added several dozen Pakistani exporters to its approved list, according to Eric Broussard, vice president of Amazon International Seller Services. "We are excited to announce that as of today, Pakistani entrepreneurs are eligible to sell on Amazon. We are eager to work with Pakistan's dynamic business community, including small and medium-sized sellers and…