Australia, England and India, the three biggest revenue producing nations in the world of cricket, are seeking to remodel International Cricket Council (ICC) along the lines of the UN Security Council. They are making a naked bid to get more money and power for themselves at the expense of the cricket boards of the rest of the ICC member nations including Bangladesh, New Zealand,…

Pakistan experienced rapid economic and human capital growth in years 2000 to 2008 on President Pervez Musharraf's watch. Savings, investments and exports hit new records and the rate of increase in human development reached new highs not seen before…

A recent study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Nature magazine reports that Pakistanis are among the most carnivorous people in the world.



The scientists conducting the study  used "trophic levels" to place people in the food chain. The trophic system puts…

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Former President Musharraf's detractors argue that he lacked legitimacy because he came to power through a coup which removed a duly elected government in 1999.

Implicit in Musharraf's opponents' argument is the assumption that the electoral process is the only source of legitimacy for a ruler. It ignores the possibility that the will of the people can also be expressed in ways other than elections to confer legitimacy on a leader. It rejects the notion that a leader…

Total number of deaths in Pakistan terrorist violence declined from 6,211 in 2012 to 5,279 in 2013, the lowest since 11,704 fatalities suffered in 2009, according to figures compiled by South Asia Terrorism Portal.…

Karachi's KSE-100 Stock Market Index was up 49.4% (37% in US$ terms) in 2013, beating all but four stock indices in the world. It handily beat Morgan Stanley's MSCI emerging market index which remained essentially flat. By comparison, India's main stock index rose just 8.89% in the…

Pakistani-American Prof. Asim Khwaja and his doctoral student Bailey Klinger at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government observed that banks have money to lend, but even profitable small businesses in developing nations often cannot access it, choking growth.…

An ongoing debate about the vision of Pakistan's founder flares up every year around Christmas time which coincides with Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's birthday. It is centered on one key question: Did the Quaid want an Islamic state or a secular one?



Islamic or Secular Pakistan?…

Today is the 6th anniversary of the death of Pakistan Peoples Party leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. She was assassinated on December 27, 2007 after addressing an election rally at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi.  It is believed that her assassination was ordered by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani wing of the Taliban called the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Mehsud was later…

Taiwan, Singapore and South Korea  experienced a dramatic rise under authoritarian regimes from 1960s through 1990s. The dictators who led these states also showed the way to…

IT projects ranging from automated meter reading and computerized land records management to online education and mobile banking are now at various stages of implementation across Pakistan.  In a report released today, the World Bank calls these projects "unprecedented in the public sector in developing countries". The objective of these efforts is to…

Drone is now a household word in Pakistan. It outrages many Pakistanis when used by Americans to hunt militants and launch missiles in FATA. At the same time, it inspires a young generation of students to study artificial intelligence at 60 engineering colleges and universities in Pakistan. It has given rise to robotics competitions at engineering universities like…

Pakistani rupee has sharply declined to 109.50 rupees to a US dollar, a loss of nearly 10% of its value in just a few months since Mr. Nawaz Sharif was sworn in as Prime Minister in June, 2013. At the same time, the foreign exchange reserves have plunged to $3.463 billion, a 12-year low since November 2001 when country had foreign reserves of $3.5…

I was a little child growing up in Karachi when the news of JFK's assassination was received with great shock and extreme sorrow in Pakistan. That was 50 years ago today. Just a couple years earlier in 1961, Pakistan's President Mohammad Ayub Khan had  made a successful state visit to the United States. He was warmly received at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington DC by US President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Mrs. Jacqueline Kennedy. …

A 2005 study by US General Accounting Office (GAO) found that Indian government's figures for software and technology exports to the United States were 20 times higher than the US figures for import of the same from India.



U.S. General Accounting Office looked at the 2003 data showing the United States reported $420 million in unaffiliated imports of BPT (business, professional, and technical) services from India, while India…

Livestock revolution enabled Pakistan to significantly raise agriculture productivity and rural incomes in 1980s. Economic activity in dairy, meat and poultry sectors now accounts for just over 50% of the nation's total agricultural output. The result is that per capita value added to agriculture in Pakistan is almost twice as much as that in …

Suhail Rizvi's 15.6% stake in Twitter was worth $3.8 billion at the end of trading on Thursday when the social media company went public on the New York Stock Exchange.…

The new Ms. Marvel’s real name is Kamala Khan, a 16-year-old Muslim Pakistani-American girl from Jersey City, New Jersey. “Kamala has all of her opportunities in front her and she is loaded with potential, but her parents’ high expectations come with tons of pressure,” says Marvel's press release. “When Kamala suddenly gets…

Book rental companies like Silicon Valley based Chegg, founded by Pakistani-American Osman Rashid and Indian-American Aayush Phumbhra, are helping American college students deal with rising textbook costs. Their business is inspired by Netflix movie rental business. Other major contenders in this space are Bookrenter,…

Malala Yousufzai has inspired about 200,000 children, including 75,000 girls, to enroll in primary schools in Pakistan's Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KP) province, according to the provincial education minister.



Yousafzai's story "is certainly helping us to promote education in the…