Mishaal Mariam Moeen | Author at South Asia Times (SAT)

Glam Pulse

The Importance of Free Play in an Overscheduled World

Pakistani schooling lacks ‘free play’ concept, focusing on rote learning. Absence of self-directed learning education structures.

Earth Eco

Recycling? That’s a utopian concept!

Its 2021 and Pakistan still does not have a formalized government-led recycling policy or initiative is absurd to type, read and research.

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Islamabad Security Dialogue An analytical review

The first-ever Islamabad Security Dialogue (ISD) was held in Islamabad on March 17-18, 2021, under the National Security Division of the Government of Pakistan, in collaboration with various think tanks. Sessions were devoted to comprehensive national security, economic security, human security, regional peace and security, and the evolving world order and Pakistan. Luminaries included a former American ambassador, federal ministers, and politicians from across the political divide and academics. Prime Minister Imran Khan addressed the inaugural session, whereas Gen Bajwa spoke at the opening session. Foreign Minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi also participated as a keynote speaker in one of the event proceedings. The Good What was good about the event was that it widened, enhanced and updated Pakistan’s age-old approach to national security. Our usually narrowed perspective of looking at things via a security prism seems to have been acknowledged in its redundant and outdated approach. Much of this change has to do with the focal person that this conference was clearly the brainchild of, Dr Moeed Yusuf. Dr Moeed Yusuf is a straightforward, blunt and outspoken researcher. He never window-dresses or fluffs items that might seem sensitive to address, rather gets to the underbelly of the problems and seeks to advocate simple and lasting solutions. His vision of bringing Pakistan’s approach to national security in the 21st century can be felt throughout the conference. The panel selection on various days elucidated this change with the involvement of some of Pakistan’s top academicians and business people like Dr Huma Baqai, Ms Amber Shamsi, Mr Ali Jehangir Siddiqui and Dr Akbar S Ahmad. This spoke volumes of the undercurrents of change visible in the approach to the theme. Had this security conference been held a decade ago, we would only possibly have seen the involvement of serving and retired army personnel and MOFA representatives. The inclusion of young thinkers and talent and those of important women speakers like Dr Shamshad Akhtar and Dr Sania Nishtar ticked the women participation box as well, making the dialogue more cohesive and inclusive in its approach. Furthermore, the widening of the scope of what we think of as National Security meant that we had talks on topics like Climate Change, Technological Evolution, Culture and History (indirectly in Dr Akbar S Ahmad’s talk). All these were a welcome change and a refreshing take on our attempt to redefine national security moving forward. The Bad Even though women were involved in the conference, notable personalities like Maleeha Lodhi and Nighat Dad were missed. This is perfectly exemplified during the session’s 1,2 and 4, where there is only one woman speaker, as opposed to 4-5 men. A small tweak could have been to hold a session entirely hosted by women and which would have had women speakers and panellists only, possibly discussing the importance of gender in policymaking, national security and diplomacy. Another aspect where a change could have been made was perhaps to dedicate a complete session on cybersecurity, big data, social media and language weaponization in information space. Here, some notable names in digital media could have been included, as well as academicians and scholars studying this field. This is an arena and a discipline where Pakistan is still lagging behind the rest of the world. It would have been wise and forward-thinking of the organisers to include cybersecurity in the new definition of national security because data is the new oil, the new stock market and the new focus and Pakistan is still to build its capabilities in the field. The only speaker who talked about this topic was Mr Ali Jehangir Siddiqui and it was not enough. The rise of the Internet of Things (IoT) and 5G technologies mean that the world is again advancing in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), whereas Pakistan might still be at least 50 years in the past. This has significant impacts on national security, as the more data is available online, the more vulnerable our state is. Next, a session should have been kept on the importance, role, and evolving nature of blocs and international organisations. With Brexit, the sustainability and importance of organisations like the European Union and United Nations are now facing immense criticism. Pakistan could have significantly played on this theme because the UN has done close to nothing about the atrocities being committed in Kashmir, even though our Premier has taken the issue up on the floor of the UN. Will blocs and organisations be relevant in terms of international security in the 21st century? The dialogue could have addressed it. It could also have used that session to stress the importance of regional blocs that we could make with Afghanistan, China and CARs via CPEC. This topic was talked about by various panellists, though not under this umbrella. However, civil service voices were absent for more hands-on and grassroots-level analysis. Maybe a session could have been kept which included speakers like Hamza Shafqat and Amna Baig, where they could have talked about how the civil services view national security and what they do to make the situation better on the ground. They could also have spoken about youth involvement in civil services and how we must include the nation\’s youth in this changing dynamic of national security so that our new policy penetrates at the level where our new leaders of tomorrow could also be exposed to some of the ideas being discussed. Lastly, a few panel choices were a bit confusing, some speakers on some sessions did not go with the topic being discussed or the other panellists. The best examples of this were during session 3, where Dr Sania Nishtar and Dr Faisal Sultan lead the discussion about health and Malik Amin Aslam discussed climate change. The last speaker, Mr Ihsan Ghani’s topic and expertise did not fit the discussion, as he steered the debate back to the age-old notion of security: terrorism. This session could have benefitted from the involvement of an urban city manager who could have

73 Years of Independence A Snapshot of Where Asia\’s 2 Biggest Countries Stand Now.

The auspicious days of 14th August and 15th August 2020 bring forth the 73rd year of Independence of South Asia\’s largest countries. From neighbours to rivals, let us take a detailed look at where Pakistan and India stand today. What have they achieved in 73 years and where will their future trajectories lead them. In a comprehensive feature report, team SAT brings you an in-depth analysis between the two Asian rivals. In the paradigms of governance & politics, security & diplomacy, economy, and technology. Governance and Politics Today, India has 28 states, 9 union territories while Pakistan has 4 provinces and 2 Pakistan-administered areas. India’s capital, Delhi, is an age-old city, whereas Pakistan chose to build a new capital, Islamabad. If we talk about legal systems, India’s legal system is based on the English model, and separate law codes apply to Hindus, Muslims and Christians. Pakistan’s legislative system, although adopted from the British, has an amount of influence from Shariah, Islamic jurisprudence and code of conduct. Pakistan Pakistan has had free and open elections since 2008. The 2013 political elections were a peaceful shift in the federal government indicating a hint of democratic strengthening. Ex-PM Nawaz Sharif’s dismissal by the Supreme Court, followed by corruption charges, affirmed the legitimacy of Pakistan’s institutions. The past struggles with democracy, Pakistan now avails democracy free play through fair and free elections. Pakistan is its nation now with pace in democracy. For the first time in history, Pakistan went through the exchange of power, three times in a row via a ballot box without a coup. India In India, democracy standards have been descending. Hindu Nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 2014 general elections headed by Narinder Modi. Since taking lead, BJP not only engrossed over economic development but also revealing the Hindu nationalist agenda. Implementing bans on beef, discrimination against Muslims, removing article 370 of the constitution, or intolerance towards perspectives criticizing governments take over Kashmir as “anti-national” confronts the basis of Indian liberal democracy. The contemporary Hindu Nationalist policy may dare Indian democracy a great challenge. Security and diplomacy India India has expanded its military expenditure under BJP led government and is now the third-largest country of the world in terms of military expenditure after America and China. According to Sipri India spent $71 Billion, While Pakistan spent $10.3 billion that’s 3.4% of its GDP. Pakistan Right after independence, Pakistan joined American block and India joined those days Soviet block. These associations stayed. Post-war on terror era, Pakistan’s increasing cooperation with China, and then start of China’s landmark one belt one road initiative changed global bonding. India tilted towards America and Pakistan signed many agreements in economic and defence domains with China. Pakistan successfully came back on the world stage with its role as the main facilitator in the US Taliban peace deal, a mediator between Iran and Saudi Arabia, Exposed Indian brutalities in illegally Indian occupied Jammu and Kashmir. Pakistan has also restored military balance in the region by its Quid Pro Quo Plus policy and stopped India to create a new normal in the region. Other countries including Iran, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Turkey wished to join OBOR which will result in a golden circle starting from China than Pakistan and Iran connecting Afghanistan and Turkey and at the end Russia. This would be the start of a new economic block that India is not part of. Technology India realised the untapped potential of their IT industry decades before Pakistan had a chance to. This has given them a first mover\’s advantage over many aspects of the field. For example, the engineering talent pool that India\’s skilled labour provides the worlds top companies. Moreover, their growing and stable economy has attracted much foreign investment in the field of IT, over the last few years. Most notable of which can be the fact that Amazon runs its services there but is yet to develop a partnership of that sort with India. India Furthermore, the government of India also takes an active and keen interest in the sector. Whereupon it spends a significant amount of money on it and guarantees trade agreements and foreign partnerships. Similarly, a lot of there success in the field is fuelled by Indian alumni working overseas. Having established themselves in enviable executive positions — the CEOs of Google, Microsoft and Adobe are all of Indian origin. Something Pakistan can still not claim to compete with. Pakistan Eventhough Pakistan currently seems to be lagging a bit behind, some facts and figures provide insight into a budding future. The current IT industry in Pakistan is worth approximately $2.6 billion. With a GDP contribution of about 1.4%. With nearly 7000 companies working in this field. It seems like a matter of time before Pakistan does become a contender in the Global IT sector. India may currently be the topmost offshoring destination for IT companies across the world. However, Pakistan\’s statistics now offer an entire new gamut of opportunities for top IT firms to expand their reach and impact. Economy Pakistan with a population of 216,565,318 million (2019), produced a GDP of US $278.222 billion (2019). India with a population of 1.366 billion (2019), yielded a GDP of US $2.875 trillion (2019). Similarly, for 2019, the Annual GDP growth for Pakistan stood at 1.9%. While for India 4.2% GDP growth was recorded in the pre-pandemic period. According to IMF estimate, for Pakistan, the net lending/borrowing accounted for -8.848% of GDP. For India, the statistic was -7.442 %. Percentage change in inflation, based on average consumer prices, was recorded to be 6.738% for Pakistan. For India, the change was 4.536%. The current account balance (percentage of GDP) for Pakistan was estimated to be -4.955. For India, the balance was recorded as -1.126%. Competitiveness Rank-Asia World economic forum has invented a new methodology to access a total of 141 economies with special emphasis on the role of human capital, innovation, resilience, and agility. Given below in the image, are the twelve pillars of development

Drones to exterminate Locusts in Pakistan

Ongoing Locusts Plague in Pakistan Pakistan has carried out anti-locust operations in the country\’s 32 impacted districts, covering 2.6 million acres of land. According to data from the National Locust Control Center (NLCC). As many as 1028 joint teams containing over 5336 individuals and 676 vehicles engaged in the anti-locusts operations including aerial spraying. In the meantime, Pakistan\’s Faisalabad University of Agriculture is making biopesticides to combat locusts. Moreover, the locust invasion was proclaimed as a national disaster earlier this year. According to an FAO report, an estimated 38 per cent of Pakistan\’s land is a potential locust’s breeding ground. Technology saves the Day Even though, in a worst-case situation, the Ministry for Food projected the losses from locusts to agriculture could vary from a minimum of Rs490 billion to Rs2.451 trillion. In such dire circumstances, sparks the hope of technology! Pakistan unveiled local drones on Tuesday to fight the locust attack which threatens food security. Furthermore, Pakistan-made \”drones are going to revolutionize the agriculture industry in the country,\” Federal Science & Technology Minister Fawad Chaudhry said, sharing the drone photo on Twitter. Pakistan\’s Ministry of Science and Technology has signed an agreement with ABM-SATUMA, a private company, to produce and use the drones for agriculture to cope with the locust crisis. Views and opinions from industry leaders Minister Fawad said, urging young people to work on aggrotech startups. \”With the launch of drone technologies to improve agricultural production, the ministry is now focused on precision farming,\” Additionally, Dr Suleiman Ashraf, CEO of Surveillance and Target Unmanned Aircraft (ABM-SATUMA), said the company that has been working with the country\’s defence industry for more than two decades has decided to develop agricultural drones to help farmers save crops and achieve efficiency.\” Also, the farmers don\’t have to purchase the drones or maintain them. The government plans to launch an Uber-like rent-a-drone service. Which would link farmers to the drone according to their requirement, clarified Minister Fawad. Working & service provision Moreover, the drones equipped with mapping sensors will be used to spray pesticides. Nearly 60 districts in all of Pakistan\’s provinces are fighting an invasion of desert locusts that devour crops. Pesticide spraying using drones is highly effective over traditional methods, such as sprayers mounted on vehicles.

Emeds revolutionizes Pakistan\’s healthcare industry

Entrepreneurism during the Pandemic Emeds.pk is a first of its kind initiative in Pakistan. It has the potential to change the access to medicines in Pakistan. Developed by a team of qualified medical and pharmaceutical experts. The app is user-friendly and includes state of the art digital technology. Moreover, VM Interactive’s COO Alex Kalavrezos says: “Having seen the Pakistani tech industry grow leaps and bounds. The government is clearly focused on taking the tech industry to another level. The chance to invest in the health-tech sector during this time was an opportunity not to be missed. How the App Operates Furthermore, the buying portal of emeds.pk provides the ease of downloading a prescription and purchasing the drug electronically by pressing a few keys. These programs often include customers with a medical area that maintains track of the past of the user\’s medication, medications, and replacement alerts and people are rarely left without these drugs. After a customer has registered his drug, the approved pharmacists must check it for correct dose, length, and certain validation points, providing the most convenient route to buy drugs. Regulatory Body In-charge Additionally, Pakistan’s Drug Regulatory Authority (DRAP) approves and controls companies like Emeds. It now lists more than 8,000 over-the-counter prescription and non-prescription drugs. Unlike other online pharmacies that utilize third party pharmacies without some quality control program. Emeds considers itself as distinctive in the industry given that, unlike other online pharmacies, they directly send orders to the consumers. COO’s Thoughts & Views Conclusively, Emeds\’ COO Faizan Sajid says: \”The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed Pakistan\’s still vulnerable healthcare system. It has emphasized the industry\’s need for technology. As we collaborated with VMI on health-tech ventures in the UK. It was important for us to introduce to Pakistan a program that we hope would make medicines available to the masses.” The service aims to help promote access to real drugs. By ensuring links to these essential daily medications. While creative processes and rigorous protocols ensure that only legitimate drugs are obtained. The team has developed extensive protocols to ensure fake medicines are not sold.

Celebrating World Youth Skills Day in Pakistan How to Shape the Future of our Youth

The emergence of the Coronavirus pandemic challenged the way the world approached education, business, and skill development. All across the world, private and public sectors alike struggled to seamlessly convert their brick and mortar based work into digital service provision. Trying to keep productivity levels high in an attempt to not shock the global economy. However, all efforts proved to be futile. As businesses and schools globally came to a close, productivity and efficiency took a drastic nosedive. Even though the western, developed world faced their fair share of problems acclimatizing to employees working from home, the developing world suffered much more. With inadequate digital infrastructure, inconsistently available broadband facilities, unavailability of laptops, and unreliable electricity provision many students and employees found it nearly impossible to adjust to the ‘new normal’ they were suddenly faced with. Given this dreary context, this year’s World Youth Skills Day finds the youth of Pakistan in a difficult position. Today, approximately 64 percent of Pakistanis are younger than 30 and 29 percent are between 15 and 29 (an age category we identify as the youth). Moreover, Pakistan currently has the largest percentage of young people in its history. A cause for celebration elsewhere in the world, a cause for crippling anxiety in Pakistan itself. According to some startling statistics about the youth of Pakistan as found in Pakistan National Human Development Report published by UNDP in 2018, only 14 out of 195 countries spend lesser than Pakistan on education and skill development. Furthermore, the report states that at the current net enrolment growth rate of 0.92 percent, it will take another 60 years to reach the target of zero out of school children in Pakistan. Similarly, we add approximately 4 million people to the labor market each year (see the attached graph for youth unemployment statistics). Out of all these statistics, perhaps the most worrisome are those related to access to digital and technological facilities. The report says that 90 percent of the youth do not have access to recreational facilities, 15 percent have access to the internet, 8 percent to the radio, and only 48 percent own a mobile phone. This means many more uneducated young people in rural areas are offline for every person who is educated and has access to the Internet. This digital divide raises the powerlessness and dissatisfaction of those who do not have access to facilities that are now considered basic in other parts of the world. Source: International Labour Organization, ILOSTAT database. Data retrieved on June 21, 2020. Additionally, if we take a long, hard look at all the problems that plague Pakistan, e.g unprecedented population growth, lack of capital, social injustices, environmental issues, etc. We must also see how we are training the younger generations to perceive these issues. Are we honing their skills in a way that they look at these problems and formulate technological solutions? Or are we still applying centuries’ old notions of education in an attempt to aid them in their future challenges? The issues that Pakistan faces are constantly evolving, so our approach to them should be changing with the times. A digital approach to issues is the need of the hour, for our children to not be left behind by the rest of the world. Let us also take a look at the youth privileged enough to have access to technology in Pakistan. Children and youngsters in our part of the world are increasingly becoming passive users of technology. A news article in The News International Pakistan, on November 20, 2019, published a table to show the number of downloads in each popular app in Pakistan. These millions of users are actively participating in passive, superficial content provided by these networks; causing the youth more harm than benefit. Scrolling through apps for hours on a device that is more powerful than some supercomputers used to be previously, highlights how we have lost our way when it comes to technological education and skill induction for youth, as a nation. It must be said though that the problem does not lie entirely with the youth. Our older generations either don’t trust technology at all or rely on it too heavily for news and other world updates. Both extreme cases that are not benefitting society in any way. The former makes them not understand the need their children or grandchildren have for technology in a constantly changing world. Hence, they might not actively push the children in their family to enhance their tech skills, favoring traditional skills and career choices, which is why we still see an abundance of doctors, engineers, and business graduates. The latter, whereupon the older generations are relying too much on platforms like WhatsApp and Facebook for news and updates, is a new phenomenon present all over the world. With fake news and disinformation being spread like wildfire because of the speed of communication, the need to sift through the noise to reach actual news is something that must be inculcated in people, young and old alike. Amidst such a backdrop, inculcating skills in our children based on computational subjects like data, algorithms, networks, hardware, and programming is an inherent need. These subjects need to be introduced in the school curricula at all levels, starting from primary school. Only via exposure at a young age, will children be able to develop logical reasoning. They will understand how to break complicated problems into models. How to turn those models into algorithms and how to feed that algorithm into a computer to achieve the desired results. This will also help them learn programming languages early on, a dire skill needed to survive in the data-driven 21st century. Computational thinking and logical reasoning will also enable a young mind to look at the bigger picture. It will teach them to prepare for unforeseeable events and plan for all possible situations that a model can come up with. In such a way, as a child grows he will be able to understand

Education and its digital divide in Pakistan

Education in the pandemic era In Pakistan, where more than 300,000 schools have been closed since March because of the coronavirus epidemic, some fortunate few who have access to private laptops and phones are coping with the change. However, that is a very small percentage of all Pakistani students willing and able to start learning via interactive platforms and applications. The basics of digital life-smartphones and the internet-remain out of control for millions of Pakistani students. Although access to education in Pakistan was still a challenge – 22.8 million of Pakistan\’s more than 70 million children are out of school – the coronavirus epidemic has highlighted its deep systemic inequities. According to Umbreen Arif, a former education adviser to Pakistan\’s central government, over 50 million schools, and university-going Pakistanis now face falling behind. Initiatives by the Government According to the Pakistan Telecommunications Authority, home connectivity is costly outside Pakistan\’s major cities, mobile penetration stands at 51 percent this year and only one million school-age children have daily exposure to wireless apps and bandwidth. Around 40 million Pakistani youngsters, though, have exposure to television – which is why the government claims it kicked off its distance learning coronavirus policy with a new television channel named Teleschool. The station, which was released on 13 April only two weeks after schools closed, airs on state-owned PTV Home, which has a subscription base of over 54 million citizens and broadcasts content for grades 1-12 free from four Pakistani ed-tech firms. A text message network was introduced in late May with 250,000 users so that parents and students could communicate with devoted instructors. Future worries and financial struggles Original support for Teleschool originated from a $5 m loan from the World Bank, advisor Arif notes, while the Global Partnership for Education, a multilateral financing mechanism focusing on emerging countries, received a $20 m award. Discussions are underway with the World Bank for $200 m of long-term funding to promote literacy of \”districts with inequities,\” says Arif. Parents \’and educators\’ concerns only deepened as the coronavirus-forced hiatus increased from weeks to months. Schools were initially expected to reopen on July 15, but federal authorities have now indicated that if coronavirus numbers increase, they will reopen on September 15. Meanwhile, it is running out of online material. Educatio Teleschool has just enough material to transmit until mid-July. However, officials are hopeful that entrepreneurs from the “edtech” sector can fill in the gaps. Edtech to pave the way? Policy leaders agree edtech has not become a focus for computers and internet access due to poor regional figures. Yet, while mobile penetration wasn\’t perfect, Hassan bin Rizwan, the CEO of Muse SABAQ, an award-winning learning app for primary-grade classes, said it was rising fast. \”This year we introduced one million new connections per month,\” he notes. \”Smartphones are becoming bigger faster than any other device.” Yet there are still specialists who caution that coronavirus is an invitation to the government to tackle current issues in the education system – bad teacher training, phantom schools, and weak learning standards – rather than aiming to technology as a \”magic bullet\”. A strategy for a longer period is needed. If we speak about a coronavirus-like scenario, we have to be cautious not to slip into that pit, to suggest that technology will fix all problems, given Pakistan\’s \”earth realities,\” the government could concentrate on a framework where the teacher\’s content and function remained essential to learning and could be strengthened.

Pakistan Completes SDG Goal (13) a Decade before Deadline

A most notable achievement Pakistan often makes an appearance in lists describing the most vulnerable nations concerning climate change. However, a recent update from the UN Sustainable Development Goals Report 2020 states that Pakistan has achieved goal 13, 10 years before its official deadline in 2030. This groundbreaking news comes in light of several initiatives taken by the government to combat climate change and pollution in the country. The most notable of which are the 10 Billion Tree Tsunami Programme, Clean Green Pakistan Initiative, Clean Green Pakistan Index, Protected Areas Initiative, Eco-system Restoration Fund for facilitating the transition towards environmentally-resilient Pakistan by mainstreaming adaptation and mitigation through ecologically-targeted initiatives such as afforestation, biodiversity conservation, enhancing policy environment inconsistent with the objectives of Pakistan\’s Nationally Determined Contribution and attaining Land Degradation Neutrality. Government\’s Initiatives to counter Climate Change Goal 13 which urges nations to “Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts”, marks a drastic improvement from Pakistan’s general response to other goals mentioned in the charter. This provides the government and the institutions working to achieving them, the motivation to carry out more work to meet the international deadline. Highlighting the government\’s initiatives against climate change, Adviser to the premier on climate change Malik Amin Aslam said adoption and implementation of different low carbon growth trajectory, mitigation and adaptation initiatives paved the way for the country to achieve the UN’s Climate Action Goal 13 and that, too, 10 years before the deadline. According to the prime minister’s adviser, in the Climate Risk Index 2020, Germanwatch, a sustainable development advocacy group, ranked Pakistan in its long-term ranking fifth among the countries most affected by extreme weather events. The Index showed Pakistan among 10 countries most affected by climate change in the last 20 years due to its geographical location. Malik Amin said given economic damages estimated at $3.8 million in the Germanwatch Index 2020, Pakistan had been ranked number three in the long-term assessment over 20 years (1999-2028). CPEC & the future Affordable mitigation and affordable solutions exist and need to be adopted and scaled up to enable countries to leapfrog to cleaner, more resilient economies. “Turning to renewable energy and a range of other measures that will reduce emissions and increase adaptation efforts is a key way forward as a part of viable climate action,” he said. The prime minister’s adviser said Pakistan had also begun converting the China Pakistan Economic Corridor into the China-Pakistan Green Economic Corridor and had shelved the 2740MW imported coal projects signed by the previous government and replaced them by zero-carbon and indigenous hydel projects of 3700MW capacity. This achievement of Pakistan should be lauded given the conditions of the pandemic and other social issues the country continues to struggle with.

Pakistan’s Technological Vision for the Next Decade

In the next 10 years, Pakistan is aiming big as it announces its plans for a digital revolution. Federal Minister for Science and Technology Fawad Chaudhry said on Saturday that the PTI-led government aims to turn Pakistan into a technological superpower within the next 10 years. This comes in light of the “Made in Pakistan” initiative by the current government. So far, the successfully produced products under this scheme include local gloves and face mask production, which were previously either sold illegally or were imported to meet the country’s demand. In the pandemic, though, whilst imports were few and far between, the country drastically increased the production of these necessities, meeting not only our own demand but export demands globally, as well. Another technical product that Pakistan has started manufacturing under this scheme is ventilators. The acute shortage of ventilators hit the country hard, as coronavirus cases shot up a few months ago, and until recently. However, local production as well as some relief packages from countries like China have helped Pakistan in being able to successfully provide the ailing patients with ventilators. The initiative seems to be on the right path and one can only wait to see what the next product being produced under the scheme shall be. Fawad Chaudhry also lauded Pakistan in having a lenient tax structure and a convenient location to attract millions of potential buyers. An attempt to catch the eyes of manufacturing big wigs in the international production industry. As the world slowly opens up and recovers from the pandemic, we can be hopeful that Pakistan attracts more FDI aiding its balance of payments deficits and its economy. Plans also exist to turn Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad into special economic zones. In the next phase, a 200-acre health city will be built in Faisalabad, he added. In these economic zones, the technology industry and businesses will be granted special aforementioned privileges.

South Asia Times

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