Elections and betrayals
On March 9, Kenya’s Election Commission declared Uhuru Kenyatta, the son of the country’s first president and a suspect wanted for war crimes, Kenya’s next president. Mr Kenyatta won by…
Foreign investment
Four features of Finance Minister P Chidambaram’s budget stand out. First, thanks to its obsession with reducing the fiscal deficit, the budget fails to raise social-sector expenditure – just when…
Between peril and promise
What is the state of Pakistan`s economy? Or, perhaps of greater relevance, the broader state of the `union`? Each year, the highly-regarded and widely followed annual report of the State…
Literacy and skills
A Very large number of Pakistanis are illiterate and unskilled. If literate they are barely so, and if skilled, most have poor skills. Given the demographics of a young nation,…
The care they can take
The constitution is silent on the precise role of the caretaker government. There is a general agreement that the caretaker setup should not take any action that favors one political…
MFN status for India now
ThePakistan government had resolved in principle to give India MFN status by end of 2012. Regrettably, it has sought an extension in the implementation of this decision, an outcome that…
No guilt or shame
High and rising debt constitutes a serious threat to economic prosperity for a number of reasons. It acts as a major impediment to growth and hence to employment creation and…
Missing the target
There are too many large untargeted subsidies in Pakistan that are wasting a lot of resources due to their untargeted nature. The wheat subsidy goes to all the people who…
The parting kick?
In an editorial about the "long march" on Islamabad, and the approaching (really?) general elections, The Economist said the "transition would be historic: never in Pakistan's violent and unstable history…
The orphan economy
There are at least six different parties and groups giving their own views about the state of the economy and the required direction of policies, and their viewpoints differ drastically…
