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Yet Another Lost Decade Under Democracy in Pakistan?

Meager 4.1% GDP growth reported by Pakistan for 2013-14 caps sixth consecutive year of disappointing economic performance under "democratic" governments in the country. This slow growth brings back bitter memories of the last lost decade of 1990s when economic growth plummeted to between 3% and 4%, poverty rose to 33%, inflation was in double digits and the foreign debt mounted to nearly the entire GDP of…

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Added by Riaz Haq on June 2, 2014 at 11:57pm — 1 Comment

Pakistan's Jang Group Suffers Major Losses of Viewers and Advertisers

Geo TV has lost 80% of its viewers and billions of rupees in advertising revenue since it accused Pakistan's ISI of attempting to assassinate its anchor Hamid Mir last April, according to credible reports in the mainstream media.

Pakistan's once…

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Added by Riaz Haq on May 31, 2014 at 7:30pm — No Comments

Pakistan's Shadow Entrepreneurs

Pakistan has 109 informal entrepreneurs for every formally documented entrepreneur, ranking the country 4th in the world for the size of its shadow economy, according to a study published by Professor Erkko Autio and Dr. Kun Fu of the Business School of London's Imperial College.

Pakistan's 109 shadow entrepreneurs for every officially registered one rank it 4th…

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Added by Riaz Haq on May 27, 2014 at 11:00pm — 5 Comments

Impact of Modi's Rise on India-Pakistan Relations

BJP leader Narendra Modi has made history as the first low-caste Hindu to be elected prime minister of India. Modi's spectacular rise from being a chai-walla to a major world leader is sure to inspire the world's largest population of poor who call India home.  Before discussing how Modi's rise will impact India-Pakistan ties, let's briefly examine the new man at the helm of affairs of the world's second most… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 21, 2014 at 1:30pm — 9 Comments

Ex Attorney General of Pakistan Munir Malik Vs Riaz Haq Debate in Silicon Valley

Viewpoint From Overseas team invited former Chief Justice of Pakistan Mr. Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and former Attorney General of Pakistan Mr.… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 20, 2014 at 8:45am — 2 Comments

Pakistani Steel Mill Engineer-Turned-Oligarch Shapes Ukrainian Politics

Oligarchs have shaped politics in post-Soviet Russia and other former Soviet republics including The Ukraine since the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. One such oligarch is Karachi-born Pakistani Ukrainian Mohammad Zahoor, a member of growing Pakistani diaspora which is already the world's 7th largest. He owns Kyiv Post… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 18, 2014 at 10:29pm — 4 Comments

Pakistan Economy Ranks 23rd in the World

With an estimated $788 billion PPP GDP for 2011, Pakistan's economy is the 23rd largest in the world, according to the World Bank's International Comparison Program (ICP) 2011. Other surprises in the report include the…
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Added by Riaz Haq on May 14, 2014 at 9:00pm — 3 Comments

Pakistani Economy Suffers From Sharp Decline in FDI and Savings Rate

Pakistan needs investment of 20% of GDP to achieve 5% economic growth, a capital-to-output ratio (COR) of four, according to Mohsin Mushtaq Chandna, economic minister at the Pakistan Embassy in Washington, DC.



Major Issues:



In a wide-ranging presentation to the Pakistan Club at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Mr. Chandna,… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 13, 2014 at 10:00am — 7 Comments

Pakistanis Enabling 2nd Machine Age in Silicon Valley

Silicon Valley is home to 12,000 to 15,000 Pakistani Americans. Thousands of them are working at Apple, Cisco, Google, Intel, Oracle and hundreds of other high-tech companies from small start-ups to large Fortune 500 corporations. Pakistani-Americans are contributing to what Erik Brynjolfsson and Andrew McAfee describe as… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on May 4, 2014 at 12:00pm — 1 Comment

Pakistan Second Lowest Cost Country With $877 Billion PPP GDP and $4,450 Per Capita GDP

Pakistan is the second least expensive country in the world. Pakistan's GDP is $788 billion as of 2011 based on purchasing power parity (PPP), according to International Comparisons Program (ICP) findings 2011 released yesterday by the World Bank.



World Bank's International Comparison Program (ICP) does a detailed study of a list of… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 30, 2014 at 11:30pm — 2 Comments

OPEN Forum 2014: Question Iftikhar Chaudhry About His Adverse Impact on Pakistan Economy

Organization of Pakistani-American Entrepreneurs (OPEN) Silicon Valley has just announced a panel discussion featuring Pakistan's former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry and former attorney general Munir Malik.…



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Added by Riaz Haq on April 29, 2014 at 11:30pm — 5 Comments

Does GeoTV's Hamid Mir Have Links With Taliban and Intelligence Agencies?

Attempt on Hamid Mir's life has rightly drawn widespread outrage in Pakistan and around the world. It has to be condemned without reservations. Hamid Mir is reported have suspected that he was on Pakistani intelligence agency ISI's "hit list".…
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Added by Riaz Haq on April 28, 2014 at 4:20pm — 4 Comments

Pakistan Economy Better Than 27 Countries including India and Iran

Pakistan (score 21.9) at 28 ranks below Iran (score 61.6) at 2 and India (score 25.6) at 19 on world misery index rankings for 2013 compiled by Washington's Cato Institute. Other nations worse off than Pakistan on the list include Serbia, Argentina, Jamaica, Egypt, Spain, South Africa, Brazil, Greece, Macedonia, Palestine,… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 26, 2014 at 7:41pm — No Comments

Pakistani-Americans Release 1700 Urdu Videos on Khan Academy

Guest Post by Ali H. Cemendtaur



Koshish Foundation, a Silicon-Valley based non-profit corporation (Chairman, Suhail Akbar) with a strong presence in Pakistan where it works on education-related projects, has announced the completion of over 1700 math and basic science videos that are Urdu translations of the… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 25, 2014 at 11:30am — 5 Comments

Oscar-winning Pakistan Techie Shines in Hollywood

Academy Award winning Hollywood hits Frozen, Life of Pi and The Golden Compass have one thing in common:  Each used extensive computer-generated imagery (CGI) created by Pakistani-American Mir Zafar Ali who won Oscar statuettes for "Best Visual Effects" in each of them.…



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Added by Riaz Haq on April 23, 2014 at 10:30am — 1 Comment

Pakistani-American Dr. Asad Qamar of APPNA Among Highest Paid Doctors in America

Dr. Asad Qamar, a graduate of Lahore's King Edwards Medical College, received $18.2 million in payments from US Medicare program in 2012, making him the second highest billing doctor in America. Dr. Qamar is a member of APPNA, Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent in North America. He was a candidate for the presidency of APPNA in… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 11, 2014 at 10:37am — No Comments

Pakistan's Umar Saif in Silicon Valley

Umar Saif was invited by Organization of Pakistani-American Entrepreneurs (OPEN) to an event yesterday at the Palo Alto offices of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pitman Law Firm  in Silicon Valley to talk about the state of technology in Pakistan. The event was appropriately titled: "Presenting Umar-The Force Behind Plan 09- Pakistan's Leading Incubator For… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 8, 2014 at 10:30am — 4 Comments

Pakistani-American Kumail Nanjiani Stars in HBO Comedy "Silicon Valley"

“This guy’s a really good programmer, so that makes him arrogant, because of his skills in a very specific world. And then I take that arrogance and apply it to every other aspect of his life that he’s not good at. So I think that guy’s funny ’cause he’s arrogant — about everything, about how he thinks he is with the ladies. He’s not good with the ladies. You know, all that stuff. He thinks he’s cool. He’s not cool. He’s only good at programming.”… Continue

Added by Riaz Haq on April 3, 2014 at 9:30am — 6 Comments

Are Pak-Turk Schools Threatened by Erdogan-Gulen Split in Turkey?

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has scored a convincing victory over his opponents in the latest municipal polls in Turkey.  His Justice and Development Party (AKP) has won 44% of all the votes, well ahead of the 29% for the opposition People's Republican Party (CHP) which was founded as a secular party by…

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Added by Riaz Haq on April 2, 2014 at 8:56pm — 4 Comments

NSG Must Accept Pakistan as a Member State



"The Pakistani establishment, as we saw in 1998 with the nuclear test, does not view assistance -- even sizable assistance to their own entities -- as a trade-off for national security vis-a-vis India". US Ambassador Anne Patterson, September 23, 2009



Pakistan has the world's fastest growing nuclear arsenal today in the midst of a fierce insurgency waged…

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Added by Riaz Haq on March 28, 2014 at 9:00am — 10 Comments

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    Blog Posts

    Clean Energy Revolution: Soaring Solar Energy Battery Storage in Pakistan

    Pakistan imported an estimated 1.25 gigawatt-hours (GWh) of lithium-ion battery packs in 2024 and another 400 megawatt-hours (MWh) in the first two months of 2025, according to a research report by the Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA). The report projects these imports to reach 8.75 gigawatt-hours (GWh) by 2030. Using …

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    Posted by Riaz Haq on June 14, 2025 at 10:30am — 3 Comments

    Builder.AI: Yet Another Global Indian Scam?

    A London-based startup builder.ai, founded by an Indian named Sachin Dev Duggal,  recently filed for bankruptcy after its ‘neural network’ was discovered to be 700 Indians coding in India. The company promoted its "code-building AI" to be as easy as "ordering pizza".  It was backed by nearly half a billion dollar investment by top tech investors including Microsoft. The company was valued at $1.5 billion. This is the latest among a series of global scams originating in India. …

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    Posted by Riaz Haq on June 8, 2025 at 4:30pm — 10 Comments

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