The World Bank tries to teach Pakistanis

 It is a hopeless task, but the World Bank tries.
This comic book: Aaj Kal Ka Zamana (PDF file)

Pakistan - World Happiness Report 2019

There is an outfit that publishes the World Happiness Report.  The primary measure is the "Cantril Life Ladder" (from Hadley Cantril, Patterns of Human Concern, 1965).

As far as I can tell, some 1000-odd people of age 15+  in each of 156 to 158 countries are asked by Gallup polling each year the following question, which in English reads:

“Please imagine a ladder, with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?”

The average for the country is supposed to reflect its level of happiness. The report also includes measures that one might think affects the answers given on the Cantril Life Ladder, such as per capita income and life expectancy, and survey measures such as perceived freedom to make life choices, perceived corruption, and so on.

Pakistan's scores on the Cantril Life Ladder are shown below, and the world rank, out of some 156 countries, in the report issued in the next calendar year.

---
GWP = Gallup Worldwide Polling
waves = rounds of polling
Data and captions taken from the World Happiness Report 2019.

GDP per capita is in terms of Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) adjusted to constant 2011 international dollars, taken from the World Development Indicators (WDI) released by the World Bank on November 14, 2018.  The equation uses the natural log of GDP per capita, as this form fits the data significantly better than GDP per capita.

The time series of healthy life expectancy at birth are constructed based on data from the World Health Organization (WHO) Global Health Observatory data repository, with data available for 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2016. To match this report’s sample period, interpolation and extrapolation are used.

Social support is the national average of the binary responses (either 0 or 1) to the Gallup World Poll (GWP) question “If you were in trouble, do you have relatives or friends you can count onto help you whenever you need them, or not?”

Freedom to make life choices is the national average of binary responses to the GWP question “Are you satisfied or dissatisfied with your freedom to choose what you do with your life?”

Generosity is the residual of regressing the national average of GWP responses to the question “Have you donated money to a charity in the past month?” on GDP per capita.

Perceptions of corruption are the average of binary answers to two GWP questions: “Is corruption widespread throughout the government or not?” and “Is corruption widespread within businesses or not?” Where data for government corruption are missing, the perception of business corruption is used as the overall corrup- tion-perception measure.

Positive affect is defined as the average of previous-day affect measures for happiness, laughter, and enjoyment for GWP waves 3-7 (years 2008 to 2012, and some in 2013). It is defined as the average of laughter and enjoyment for other waves where the happiness question was not asked. The general form for the affect questions is: Did you experience the following feelings during a lot of the day yesterday?

Negative affect is defined as the average of previous-day affect measures for worry, sadness, and anger for all waves.

It's the economy, stupid!

Ali Hasanain writes in the Dawn:

In the five-decade period between 1963 and 2002, India generally grew slower than Pakistan, yet there were six instances of India’s annual economic growth exceeding the size of Pakistan’s entire economy.

More worryingly for the strategist, in the 15 years since 2003, India has achieved this feat nine times.

and

Simply to return to our relative strength with respect to India to 1990 levels, we need to grow at an average of 10pc for the next 30 years — achievable, but a feat accomplished only by Ireland, China and Vietnam in the past.

The key out of this mess lies in understanding that this is as much a story of our stagnation as it is of India’s rise. Since the 1980s, every major South Asian economy has improved its citizens’ health, and since 1990 its wealth, faster than Pakistan.

AMRAAM - Pakistani or Taiwanese?

The Express Tribune of Pakistan:

The wreckage displayed by the Indian generals identified the missile as an AIM-120C-5 AMRAAM. Markings on the wreckage also identified the contract serial number of the missile as FA8675-05-C-0070.

They then note that “Report to Congress on Department Of Defense Sales of Significant Military Equipment to Foreign Entities Fiscal Year 2009” lists AMRAAM sales to Taiwan under this contract number.

The problem is that they should have looked at  “DoD FY 2006 & 2007 Sales of Significant Military Equipment to Foreign Entities" available on this US Department of Defense site.

Raytheon seems to have had a multi-year contract FA8675-05-C-0070 for supply of arms to both Taiwan and Pakistan.

Page 8 of Attachment 2 is reproduced here, with highlighting added:

PS: On twitter, Jatish Tyagi (@JatishTyagi) posted this image, for which the source is here. Note the highlights.

 

The key paragraph reads:

Raytheon Co., Tucson, Ariz., is being awarded a $269,646,834 firm-fixed-price contract modification. This action is exercising an option to purchase 500 Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) Air Vehicles (AAVs) Air Intercept Missile (AIM) – 120C-5 missiles and rehost. This effort supports foreign military sales to Pakistan 100%. At this time, total funds have been obligated. This work will be complete April 2011. Headquarters Medium Range Missile Systems Group, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., is the contracting activity (FA8675-05-C-0070/P00028). 

Also note this February 13, 2006 notice from the same source, with the contract number FA8675-05-C-0070:

Raytheon Co. Missile Systems, Tucson, Ariz., was awarded on 28 December 2005, a $50,739,270 firm fixed price contract modification to provide for 102 Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missile Air Vehicles under the foreign military sales program for the following countries:  Czech Republic, Hungary, Jordan, Malaysia, and Canada.  Total funds have been obligated.  This work will be complete in July 2008.  Headquarters Medium Range Missile Systems Group, Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., is the contracting activity (FA8675-05-C-0070/P00016)

Pakistan Senate approves of Mandarin as an official language - fake news

ANI reports: (turns out this is fake news, this reinforces longstanding doubts I have had about ANI)

The Pakistani Senate on Monday approved a motion to declare Mandarin as one of the official languages of Pakistan. The motion said the step was necessary in view of ties between Pakistan and China, AbbTakk News reported. It said the relation between Islamabad and Beijing would deepen further and help the people connected with the China Pakistan Economic Corridor communicate easily if Mandarin was made the official language of the South Asian nation.

Pakistan's Ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani tweeted: "In a short span of 70 years, Pakistan has flirted with promoting four languages that were not the mother tongue of many people in the country - English, Urdu, Arabic, and now Chinese -- ignoring native languages." Punjabi, which is widely spoken in Punjab province of Pakistan, Pashto and many other native languages have not been declared official languages of the country.

Gandhi on exemplars of simplicity

In Harijan of July 17, 1937, Mahatma Gandhi wrote about what he hoped for from the Congress ministries that were assuming office in the various provincial governments.  Excerpt {highlights added}

Then the personal behaviour of Ministers. How will Congress Ministers discharge themselves? Their Chief, the Presidentt of the Congress, travels third class. Will they travel first? The President is satisfied with a coarse khadi dhoti, Kurta and waistcoat. Will the Ministers require the Western style and expenditure on Western scale? Congressmen have for the past seventeen years disciplined themselves in rigorous simplicity. The nation will expect the Ministers to introduce simplicity in the administration of their Provinces. They will not be ashamed of it, they will be proud of it. We are the poorest nation on earth, many millions living in semi-starvation. Its representatives dare not live in a style and manner out of all correspondence with their electors. The Englishmen coming as conquerors and rulers set up a standard of living which took no account whatsoever of the helpless conquered. If the Ministers will simply refrain from copying the Governors and the secured Civil Service, they will have shown the marked contrast that exists between the Congress mentality and theirs. Truly there can be no partnership between them and us even as there can be none between a giant and a dwarf.

Lest Congressmen should think that they have a monopoly of simplicity and that they erred in 1920 in doing away with the trousers and the chair, let me cite the examples of Aboobaker and Omar. Rama and Krishna are prehistoric names. I may not use these names as examples. History tells us of Pratap and Shivaji living in uttermost simplicity. But opinion may be divided as to what they did when they had power. There is no division of opinion about the Prophet, Aboobaker and Omar. They had the riches of the world at their feet. It will be difficult to find a historical parallel to match their rigorous life. Omar would not brook the idea of his lieutenants in distant provinces using anything but coarse cloth and coarse flour. The Congress Ministers, if they will retain the simplicity and economy they have inherited since 1920, will save thousands of rupees, will give hope to the poor and probably change the tone of the Services. It is hardly necessary for me to point out that simplicity does not mean shoddiness. There is a beauty and an art in simplicity which he who runs may see. It does not require money to be neat, clean and dignified. Pomp and pageantry are often synonymous with vulgarity.

Why is this relevant?

The claim is made: {highlights added}

The so called letter to Pir of Manki Sharif by Jinnah which Dr Ishtiaq Ahmed has quoted throughout his academic career is based entirely on Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani’s speech delivered on March 9th 1949, long after Jinnah was dead and unable to contradict the Maulana’s point of view. It is an alleged excerpt which seems to promise Shariat from an undated letter, which does not occur in any primary source document. The same four lines of the letter were reproduced as part of the “Quaid-e-Azam Jinnah’s Correspondence” compiled by Syed Sharifuddin Pirzada, whose very association with Jinnah has been suspect and whose role as the establishment’s go to guy is well known. My conclusion, having seen how Jinnah’s statements have been manufactured over the last 70 years by unscrupulous individuals on the right wing in our state is that we cannot admit this as evidence so long as we have the original in a verified primary source. In the same speech, Maulana Usmani claims that Gandhi advised Congress ministers to follow the example of Hazrat Umar (RA) and Hazrat Abu Bakr (RA) in 1937 and 1938. No such reference exists in the 90 volumes of Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi either.

The claim made by Maulana Usmani that Gandhi advised Congress ministers to follow the example of Umar and Abu Bakr is correct.
 

Pakistan Census 2017

Provisional census results put Pakistan’s population at 207.774 million

Shown below are the Pakistan census results over the years (the dots) and the low(blue), red(high) and constant-fertility(green) variants of the United Nations population projects for Pakistan made in 2012.

 
 Pakistan's annual population growth rate is said to be 2% - 2.4%.
(2% comes from the Google compilation of data as the rate in 2016; 2.4% is the growth rate averaged from 1998 to 2017.)

At a 2% growth rate, and at 207.774 million in 2017, Pakistan in 2020 will be 220.5 million strong. This is above the constant-fertility variant of the 2012 UN population projection.


The 2012 UN table is here:

Low variant		High variant		Constant-fertility variant
Year	Value	Year	Value	Year	Value
1950	37542	1950	37542	1950	37542
1955	41109	1955	41109	1955	41109
1960	45920	1960	45920	1960	45920
1965	51993	1965	51993	1965	51993
1970	59383	1970	59383	1970	59383
1975	68483	1975	68483	1975	68483
1980	80493	1980	80493	1980	80493
1985	95470	1985	95470	1985	95470
1990	111845	1990	111845	1990	111845
1995	127347	1995	127347	1995	127347
2000	144522	2000	144522	2000	144522
2005	158645	2005	158645	2005	158645
2010	173593	2010	173593	2010	173593
2015	187919	2015	191378	2015	192422
2020	200540	2020	210189	2020	213758
2025	211629	2025	229589	2025	237213
2030	221103	2030	247779	2030	261599
2035	228766	2035	264967	2035	287169
2040	234396	2040	281781	2040	314904
2045	237695	2045	298374	2045	345569
2050	238538	2050	314272	2050	379242
2055	237045	2055	328856	2055	415670
2060	233311	2060	341769	2060	454747
2065	227493	2065	353298	2065	496968
2070	219755	2070	363895	2070	543245
2075	210376	2075	373869	2075	594497
2080	199757	2080	383325	2080	651358
2085	188372	2085	392285	2085	714296
2090	176629	2090	400837	2090	783759
2095	164873	2095	409175	2095	860368
2100	153363	2100	417464	2100	944843