More Taxes?

Mr. Shaukat Treen the financial advisor to GOP keeps saying that the tax to GDP ratio in Pakistan is only 9-10% which is too low and should be increased. He seems to forget that agriculture contributes 25% of Pakistan's GDP and agricultural income is not taxed. So the actual Tax/GDP ratio of taxed GDP is more like 12-14% which is higher than China, India, Bangladesh, Russia and perhaps even USA. Any further increase in the taxation of the industrial and services sectors would be simply criminal and counterproductive. After all Mr. Tareen is a highly respectd Banker but hardly an economist (which I am not either, but I try to get my sums right). Tax the agricultural income and all of Pakistan's economic woes will disappear. We might even become able to say "get lost" to Kerry-Lugar circus.


It is worth mentioning here that the actual government expenditure in Pakistan is over 20% of GDP including income from the giant state owned enterprizes; but offers none of the benefits enjoyed by the citizens of European countries with similar state expenditure ratio.

The reason why agricultural income is not taxed in Pakistan is that most of it goes into the pockets of a few dozen landlord families easily identified as Chaudhrys, Makhdooms, Sardars, Maliks and Pirs. Add to them the decendants of the knights and title holders of the British empire such as Bhuttos. Unfortunately for the peolple of Pakistan, these families also dominate the political scene and abort any initiative to tax agricultural income by conniving together and with military rulers.

Everywhere in the world the agricultural sector feeds the nation, but in Pakistan it fleeces and starves the nation with impunity.

Kerry-Lugar - 2

On looking carefully at at the Kerry-Lugar Bill it is obvious that although the intentions of its initiators may have been noble, it has been used to renege on the three agreements reached with the government of Pakistan on Sept 30, 2006 and to create possible excuses for not honoring in future the commitments being made now.
It is true that the Americans are desperate to break the Indians away from the Russian who are still communists and have the Indians as their only allies, but they should not do so at the expense of the Kashmiris or the pride and honor of the Pakistanis.
It is now Pakistan's internal necessity to fight the Taliban insurgency, but the problem is far too complex to be solved by sheer military force. A lot needs to be done in the West if the growing trends the Islamic world are to be set in the right direction.
Christian extremism has existed for so long that it has become the norm in the West. The recent rise of Islamic extremism is a reaction to the awareness of realities gained in the past two decades mainly through the internet.

Obama's Peace prize

President Obama should be congratulated on winning the Nobel Peace Prize. After all it is a prestigeous award. The interesting thing is that the Nobel Awards committe found none of the nomonations entered before the due date worthy of the award, which means that the world has run out of people with a record of working for peace. Another interesting news is that the UN is now prepared to try some Israelis for war crimes in Palestine. Does it have anything to do with President Obama, or have the influential American Jews finally and rightly realized that the Israelis do not belong to them? In the past the US had won notoriety for unjustifibly vetoing resolutions against Israel. Let us hope that the world is moving in the right direction and will continue to do so in future.

Kerry-Lugar

The Kerry Lugar Bill is perhaps the greates exercise in corruption ever made in the world. It aims to set aside 1.5 billion dollars every year half of which would be paid out to the US politicians' favorite consultants and the other half would be doled out to the relatives of Pakistani rulers. At the end of 5 years the Pakistani public would be saddled with a debt of 7.5 billion dollars and a hefty amount of interest which it will have to pay through the nose. It doesn't make any difference to the American public because money borrowed from the Chinese at a lower interest rate would be lent to the Pakistanis at a higher rate, so if anything they stand to gain from it.

If the Americans are really interested in helping Pakistanis and establishing a long-term relationship, they should double the money and direct it to providing loans at discounted rates for US-Pak private sector joint venture projects in power generation, mining, oil and gas exploration, coal gasification, basic chemical industries, industrial plant and machinery production and offer scholarships to Pakistani students for technical training and higher education in USA on merit. They could also spend some money on reducing the time taken for visa issuance to Pakistanis.

The absurdity of the Bill is that it makes "aid" for social and educational purposes conditional upon the actions of the military and intelligence organizations. It also intends to take away from the Pakistani people their right and duty of defending their national institutions. The worst part is that instead of being based on any laws or principles its dispensation is based entirely on the discretion of the Secretary of State. Will Hillary be remembered in history as the lady with the whip?

It seems that the Indian origin advisors of the US lawmakers have ensured that the bill would worsen rather than improve their relationship with Pakistan. The school home-work of most rich american kids is being done in India via internet, perhaps the same is true of the politicians. Or did the few extremist Christians of USA have a hand in it?

More Definitions - 1

1. Conservative = One having contempt for human weaknesses.


2. Constitution = A deliberated sacrosanct document used in countries with multi-religious populations as ultimate guidance for government and legislation without discrimination and acceptable to all segments of society for the regulation of their worldly affairs. In countries where more than 85% people adhere to a single religion, a secular constitution often becomes controversial.

3. Liberal = One having respect for human weaknesses.

4. Nineleven = Big farce, derived from 11th November, 2001 when simulation videos of the aerial impact of aircrafts on the World Trade Centre towers in New York were telecast while the buildings which had become unsafe due to a basement truck bomb attack in 1993 were demolished by sequentially controlled explosives planted at strategic points the night before. The operation was carried out after months of rumors that an aerial terrorist attack on New York was imminent. The planners had expected that that the buildings would be evacuated in an orderly manner after the initial explosions of petroleum drums on a few floors; they certainly had not anticipated that hundreds of firemen would rush in and die for nothing. The destruction was blamed by the US government on Osama Bin Laden a dissident Saudi who was blamed for explosive laden truck attack on US embassy in Sudan and was related by the extremist Christians to certain quatrains of Nostradamus.

5. Pakistan = South-Indian Muslim majority country formed in 1947 whose progress has been constantly impaired due to military conflict with neighboring India over Kashmir and internal conflict of interests and priorities between the armed forces and the rest of the population.

6. Statesman = One who can control others without annoying them.

7. Jinnahpur = Failed attempt by some British businessmen and their local friends to make Karachi an autonomous region that could be developed as a business hub to replace Hong Kong after its return to China in 1997. The idea was abandoned after competing cities of Dubai and Mumbai (Bombay) sponsored incessant violence and terrorism in Karachi which continued for years.

9/11 and Religions

In order to check if there was any religious implication of the New York 9/11 terror event of 2001, I decided to compare the share of major world religions before and after that event. Data compiled from the 2008 edition of Encyclopedia Britannica gives the following picture:


Adherents of                 % of World Population by Year

Religion                        1996             2001           2006

Christians                     33.7              32.9            33.2

Muslims                       19.4              19.7            20.4

Hindus                         13.7              13.4            13.3

Buddhists                      5.6                5.9              5.85

Jews                             0.239            0.236          0.231


From the above table the following trends can be interpreted:

• The share of Christianity which was declining between 1996 and 2001 turned into a discernible increase between 2001 and 2006. Christianity gained.

• The share of Islam continued to grow at an accelerating rate as before. Islam was not affected.

• The decline in the share of Hinduism was slowed down, probably due to reduction in conversion rate to Islam.

• The advance of Buddhism turned into decline.

• The Jewish share continued to decline as before.

The future historian, who might also compile similar statistics and corroborate it with the military activity of the Christian nations during the period, might be tempted to conclude that during the early 21st century Christianity was spread on earth with the help of bombs and rockets.

Limits of Authority

In a democratic set up the parliament is sovereign with he limitation that it can only make laws or take decisions and actions in the interest of the people it represents. If any of its actions results in national loss, the rulers lose their right to govern. The European definition of sovereign meaning autocratic king does not apply to an Islamic democracy based on the Caliphate tradition of public accountability for the head of state or government.

The members of the assemblies, senate and president take an oath to act in public interest and not for personal gain. So any law (act of parliament or presidential ordinance) made for personal gain of current or ex-legislators or which tends to eliminate or diminish expectation of public gain is not a law but a conspiracy.

The Supreme Court has the right to interpret laws, and it should do so not only in the light of constitutional and legal provisions but also uphold the fundamental objective of public good.

The Supreme Court’s decision to allow a new span of 120 days for parliament to endorse lapsed ordinances is tantamount to assuming that they were promulgated yesterday. It could have made sense if the parliament had done so in the first 120 days of its formation. It can always introduce a new bill incorporating the contents of a lapsed one.

Since all the sitting judges were persecuted by ex-general Pervez Musharraf, they should not participate in his personal trial. A tribunal of unbiased judges could be formed if investigations show that he deserves to be tried.

The constitution contains an oath for military officers. If they have not taken it so far, they should be made to do so now to give them constitutional legitimacy. There should also be a similar oath for civil servants.

A UN team is investigating the death of Benazir Bhutto. But independent analysis has begun to point to the mind-boggling possibility that the IMF may have done a deal with Asif Zardari and arranged her brutal elimination.

The chairman of Pakistan Steel Mills has been sacked for corruption and PM Gilani has ordered an enquiry into misdealing starting from his own office. Why not from the president's?

Every year every citizen has to declare all his or her assets to the FBR and elected representatives submit a similar declaration to the EC. Have the president and all ministers and advisers of the present government done that? I f not why not ask them to do it post haste and make it public?

During his tenure as PM Nawaz Sharif had started a fund for national development to which everyone had contributed in local and foreign currencies. Why not start a new similar fund into which all patriotic Pakistanis should contribute at least half of their foreign assets? It could go a long way in resolving the financial crisis.

Nowadays the government is buying everything from Dubai. It should disclose the detailed identity of the suppliers in Dubai.

The Real Issues

There are some interesting arguments going on in the supreme court of Pakistan. But the most important issues to my mind are?
1. Did a general (Musharraf) and a judge (Dogar) conspire to subvert and deface the constitution of Pakistan and usurp the basic human rights of the Pakistani citizens?
2. Every time the constitution is abrogated, the judges who had taken oath of allegiance to it lose their jobs. So when the PCO was lifted, didn't the judges who had taken oath of allegiance to it lose their jobs automatically?
3. The orders issued by the self appointed chief of army staff on 3rd. November, 2007 are a disgrace to the Pakistani nation. Shouldn't they and all references to them be expunged from all official records?
4. Shouldn't there be referendum to confirm every president appointed by the parliament?

Theory of Mutuality

Since the Universe is expanding, it could be because the stars having a very high temperature repel each other. Gas molecules also repel each other at temperatures above the boiling or liquifaction temperature. With apology to Newton, it seems that the mutual force existing between two bodies is related to their masses, temperatures and mutual distance, and can be either attractive or repulsive (positive or negative) depending on these three (or more?) factors. The problem is that we have calculated the mass of the Sun based on the gravitational constant derived from forces between brass balls at earth temperature. It is possible that the actual mass of the Sun is many times greater and the specific force of mutuality between the Earth and Sun as may times smaller. Now don't ask me to fit the Big Bang into my Theory of Mutuality.

Putting The Record Straight

During the time of G20 meeting in London in April 2009, I made it a point to follow the proceedings and the statements of the participating leaders. Barack Obama was obviously the star of the show. He was focused and well informed. Yet as usual, his advisers had kept some of the facts from him.

He didn’t seem to be aware that the terrorist sanctuaries in FATA in Pakistan are located in places that have been the sites of Afghan refugee camps for the last 30 years. Terrorists breed in refugee camps be it in FATA, Palestine, Israel, Kashmir, North or South America, Africa, Australia, Europe or any part of Asia. People who have to live in squalor as second class citizens without identity or any hope for future become desperate and succumb to destructive ideas.

The Afghan refugee problem started in 1969 with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. In those days India was a close friend of both the Soviet Union and Afghanistan and it is obvious that the Soviets must have consulted the Indian leaders before invading Afghanistan. Had the Indians not encouraged them, the world would have been a different place today. And the Indians encouraged the Soviets to invade Afghanistan because they knew that such action would result in a huge influx of refugees into Pakistan and strain the economy and destabilize the country. Ever since 1947 it has been the policy of the Indian government to create problems for Pakistan so that it would not have time or resource to push for a plebiscite in Kashmir as per UNSC resolutions 38, 39, 47, 51, 80 etc.

The 62 year unrest in Balochistan has also been fomented by India and Iran because the Iranians have been afraid that oil drilling in Balochistan will cause their oil wells to run dry. Although on surface the Iranians have been friendly to Pakistan, the funds for the Baloch rebels have been persistently routed through that country.

The British and the Americans do not need to reinvent the wheel about terrorism. I had personally witnessed the numbing terrorism of IRA in early 70s which was financed from New York and Tripoli. When the funds dried up, things changed. Similarly Barack and Hillary only need to ask their elders what thing were like in Chicago and its Black ghettos or New York and its Bronx district during the sixties.

The American think-tanks, some of which are dominated by extremist Christians and Jews and most which rely on Indian advice have serious misconceptions about Islam and Asia. Muslim intellectuals are by their religious training averse to speculative thinking and fail to impress them. The Hindus, on the other hand make excellent underdog manipulators of opinion.
The West’s common reference to Hinduism is Gandhi who was a believer in the peace oriented Vedas, whereas majority of Indians follow the Aryan Brahmanism based on the war lyrics of Mahabharata which tend to promote a ferociously aggressive, sadistic and deceptive culture.

Religious extremists can be found everywhere and in every walk of life. Examples of politicians are Uk’s Straw and India’s chief minister Modi. Examples of military men are India’s Col. Prohit and USA’s Gen. McKiernan.

Recently a new full fledged war has started in Northern Pakistan resulting in the displacement of nearly one and half million people, who are being put in new refugee camps. I had said even before the operation started that it would not be long term solution. The Taliban will just hide their weapons and move into the refugee camps along with the civilian population and keep in hiding there until they find another opportunity. The terrorists that would breed in the Swat refugee camps may be far more dangerous and resourceful than anything we have seen before.