Pakistan’s Software Industry

Re: # 183

Thank you Prashant for exposing your true identity...

A visit to Lahore would open anyone`s mind except Veeresh`s ... but it is quite impossible with you.

rsidhar #159: You are correct regarding the impact IT can have in reducing beaurecracy.......But I am not sure how it could impact the top two most corrupt organizations, as per the survey, i.e. police and judiciary. It is quite amazing to see that in South Asia, 100% of the people say they have faced police corruption.......

There is a company in Pakistan, which is computerizing land records. This should reduce the beaurecratic power of the patwari, in a society in which land is the main form of investment. And in many cases, the only form. However, how can the actions of the police and judges be changed by IT? They have to give certain decisions and take certain actions, which are independent of the medium (online, off-line) that is utilized........

What is interesting is that all of us on Chowk (upper-middle class and upper class crowd from a social point of view in Pakistan) is actually on the other side of this corruption problem. We are not the awam. We are a part of the decision making and empowered class. We are, infact, the beneficiries of this corrupt system. We are related to the police officers, deputy commissioners, etc. We have relatives and friends who are judges, landowners, businessmen who are beneficiaries of this culture......

I have quite a few friends and classfellows who are in civil services. As well as some relatives. I myself almost applied, at one point. They are in the police, foreign service, taxation, customs etc. There are people on Chowk who are sons and daughters of beaurecrats, generals, politicians etc. etc. So many of us probably never took a driving test in Pakistan, and got their licenses through contacts........So many of us know politicians, and SSPs and have an uncle who is a magistrate and a judge, etc.

Yet we are the ones who keep talking about cleaning up Pakistan (in some cases in a revolutionary manner). When, in fact we need to clean up the social class that we come from. Those surveys actually point to the exploitation of the Pakistani society by individuals who are much more comfortable in the Chowk crowd, then with the average Pakistani who suffers from such corruption.........

This is the real problem.........And I am not sure how IT could solve it............

re: 180, 178, 175, 177 ....
Thanks to the ``Father of Pakistans/Islamic nuclear bomb``, the entire world knows of Pakistans complicity in proliferating nukes. If it were not of Bushs dependence on Mushy, Pakistan would have received severe spankings by the world body. I still remember the footage when Pakistanis used to run around with a replica of ``Islamic bomb`` on their shoulders.
BTW, I read that Pakistan has dismantled a missile like structure which it had built in a town square (?) several years back, I guess didn`t want to project that kind of image anymore.

urstruly: I think you should talk to someone who works for the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission on Dr. Qadeer - it is not without reason that they almost uniformly despise this man there as a self-promoter in that Agency. The unsung heroes (at least in the eyes of Pakistanis like me who were thrilled to see Pakistan`s ``fitting response`` to India under BJP in 1987) of Pakistan`s nuclear project are people like Dr. Munir (late head of the Atomic Energy Commission). As one man from the Atomic Energy Commission told me, this was their project and they were responsible for 18 of the 19 steps involved in going from raw materials to nuclear weapons and Qadeer`s outift had only one step (the centrifuges) - Qadeer actually requested AEC to be present at the Chagai testing (with which he had nothing to do with and therefore was not even invited to attend until after he requested), and at the last minute took the limelight by calling a press conference. This was team work, and all Pakistani leaders (from ZAB to Zia to BB to NS on down), regardless of their differences, were united in their efforts to ensure that Pakistan would never be held hostage to Indian military threats and that 1971 would never again be repeated.

Furthermore, Qadeer has played fast and loose with the sacred task of ensuring Pakistan`s security by selling off its nuclear secrets to anyone willing to pay him his millions - and thus enriched himself to the tune of almost a billion dollars by many estimates. You can check all this if you wish.

Or you can join the rest of the half-brained maulvis in making a hero out of this self-promoter who has jeopardized this sacred task of protecting Pakistan. After all, no one accused the maulvis of being rational.

Urstruly#162:
Do you believe that Dr. Salam was ``laanti``, a traitor and an agent of India, U.S and Israel, as claimed by the learned author of the article pasted by you?

And if Dr. Salam was a traitor, what would you call Dr. Qadeer who was born and brought up and got his education in India? Shouldn`t he be called a traitor to India`s muslims?

Re: # 178 Dost

The SUPARCO (Space & Upper Atmosphere Research CorP of Pak) of the 80s became very different from that of 60s when Dr. Salam was its Chairman. In 60s SUPARCO was sending weather setallites while in 80s it was researching on spy satellite and Missile systems with nuclear payload. It is a well known fact that ISI and other intelligence agencies considered Dr. Salam a security risk because of his religious beliefs coupled with his dubious activities post 1974 era as detailed in the article.

In my opinion, Dr. Salam was a theoretical physicist and not a manager. Dr. Qadeer on the other hand had extraordinary management and organizational skills, which most scientists usually lack. Dr. Qadeer was a hustler, a go-getter, and a get-it-done kinda guy. He gathered a team around him that shared his attributes and habbits. Dr. Salam was a misfit in Pakistan. With lack of research facilities and capital, it would have been a great loss for science had he been put on a useless post on a revolving chair signing employee vacations. Despite all that I do not think that Dr. Salam was a laanti, probably because his potential to harm us was well contained in time. You cannot condemn someone on the assumptions of having bad intentions only.

Dr. Qadeer Khan is a Kutay ka bacha... who ever helped proliferate our nuclear assets are pigs...

These idiots didn`t know that the first rule of ``Nuclear deterrence`` is that we don`t share with others...

Now... thanks to these bastards... not only do we have to worry about a nuclear armed neighbor to the east but also possibly one to the west... meanwhile ... this brotherly Islamic country is entering into alliances with our eastern neighbor every day...

SHAME ON people like QADEER KHAN .. and the haraamzadas who support him...

And don`t tell me he invented the bomb.... we stole it ... like all other countries in the world.

Mantolives,

Honesty is the only true liberator.

Please tell me which of my statements in #163 is wrong

As for as Aakar Patel`s article - he is a manipulating liar too. Look at his worthless,
meaningless statement.
``This series was a conversation and a debate between the pluralism of modern,
irreligious India and the pluralism of modern, Islamic Pakistan``

YLH, you are more honest than Aakar Patel. You admitted that there are systemic
and institutionalized prejudice in Pakistan.
People like Aakar Patel are more dangerous to pakistanis than anyone else.
They fool you with their duplicity.

I know you are well intentioned and that your being in Pakistan may limit what
you can or cannot say (the same is true of Ahmed Madani)

The real manipulators and culprits are the `chowkies` (and other Pakistanis)
who live in the West, enjoy its freedoms but still dont tell the truth.

Re: # 174

Oh so ... Aakar Patel is a liar.... because he chose to present one side of Pakistan people like you don`t? Shame ... that is not the sign of a balanced personality.

abdus salam unveiled ...........

........... many people on chowk, specially jay and his cadre of rss activists, have been asking questions about abdus salam ............. now, finally, urstruly has revealed the truth ........

............ according to the revelation posted by our resident islamist, abdus salam was a ``saamraji agunt``, i.e. an agent of the imperialists who worked for the cia and was a high ranking member of the israeli intelligence agency, mossad...........he was awarded the nobel prize as a reward for his services to the cause of imperialism and zionism ..........

............. and now you know the rest of the story !

p.s. there is no limit to the idiocy of the ummah - and then we wonder why we can`t write software

#166 by malik99 on March 14, 2005 7:14am PT


In fact, the only conclusion once can come up with is that you are a vile and hateful man of stupid arguments.


damn...the kid is a closet hindu?

manto writes: ``not only did you take away Malik99`s superiority complex as the great invading horde from Afghanistan and Arabia.... but you reduced him to a petty convert from the lower castes...``

Manto - I don`t know about qadiyanis, but it may come as a surprise to you that in my religion (Islam) there is no caste system. Whether you are an arab or a shooder, you are all equal in the eyes of Allah. You can call me a person of the lowest possible caste, it will not make an iota of a difference to me.

But forget Islam, even in the purest secularist terms, it does not matter what your ancestors were. All that matters is what you are and how you make a positive impact in your present surroundings.

With that said, you do not come across as a secularist either. In fact, the only conclusion once can come up with is that you are a vile and hateful man of stupid arguments. Please note, your stupidity has nothing to do with your caste, it has everything to do with what you are today.

Hope that helps.

Re: # 166

So going by your standard... of the impact you are making on your surrounding... you belong to the lowest possible class human beings I suppose...

BTW do you think calling some one Qadiani when they have repeatedly said that they are not ... is your way of being one up and superior? Pathetic if you ask me...Oh... you didn`t clarify ... why was I an ``anti-Islam bigot jewish agent``? Because I don`t agree with you?

You keep tying yourself up in knots.

This is what ordinary Pakistanis who had been to India for the cricket have to say about India >>

It`s after a long, long time that ordinary Pakistanis are getting their first taste of the liberal democracy that is India. ``It`s so prosperous. The people are so warm and friendly. I wish I could stay here forever,`` says 24-year-old Naima from Lahore, living with a Chandigarh family. The draw is not just for the bottles of Dabur Amla hair oil or the tubes of Fair and Lovely cream being bought up by visiting Pakistanis. It lies in the sameness of language, and culture, the more liberal atmosphere, for girls like Naima to drive a scooter on the road and for the boys to drink at the local pub. For instance, when 74- year-old Fatima Bibi of Lahore finished with visiting her native home in Patiala, she stopped a Chandigarh college girl to ask, ``Beta, will you give me a ride on your scooter?`` Visiting Pakistanis are amazed at the discovery that `their hated neighbour` is a more developed, easy-going, and less suffocating place. And they want much more of it.

Re: # 164

Here is something an Indian, with some credibility (he is the editor of Mid Day) wrote last year:

For me, Pakistan was a foreign country. Visitors to Pakistan will be shocked at how they have kept their cities and their airports. They are truly world class. India can never be this efficient or clean.

Lahore is paradise. It has huge gardens splashed through the middle of its roads. An enormous canal glides through the middle of a thoroughfare. Indians will also be amazed with how much at ease the Lahauri is with his culture and how little this culture has to do with religion.

To me that culture is alien because it is Punjabi, not because it is Muslim. To me, the groups of Sardars walking again in the streets of Lahore’s old city with the kirpans by their side and the shopkeepers at their elbow, seemed to belong there. They were Lahauris.

But for all of Pakistan’s foreign-ness, it had everything that we pride India for. It was pluralist, it was joyous, it was tolerant. In the colourful Indian crowds, clapping, shouting, shopping, Pakistans also discovered something perhaps foreign to themselves and perhaps something of themselves. This was the greatest series ever played in the history of cricket, perhaps because it was not about cricket at all. Cricket was not the winner here; cricket was not even in the running. With their teams in the vanguard, the legions of India and Pakistan met in an embrace half-combative, half-friendly, fully emotional. People will cite Douglas Jardine’s Bodyline series as the defining moment of cricket, when it matured into an aggressive modern sport from being a gentleman’s leisurely pursuit. It is a white man’s world, but if ever a series was historic, it was the one we just won. This series was a conversation and a debate between the pluralism of modern, irreligious India and the pluralism of modern, Islamic Pakistan.I’m not sure who won that.

http://www.chowk.com/show_article.cgi?aid=00003380&channel=gymkhana

Re: # 170

So much for your ``attributed`` sources in Indian newspapers...