Monday 18 May 2015

Mongolia- Time to invest

Mongolia is a land locked country, extremely cold with large area and very little population. It is a peaceful country and has abundance of natural resources. Most of us have heard the name of chengaiz khan who was a Mongol warrior and later his successors founded the most brutal era of human history in which millions of men and women were killed.

Later successors of chengaiz conquered India (modern day India, Pakistan, Bangladesh) and ruled the region for centuries. So in a way we have some connection with modern day Mongolia.
Now a day Mongolia is one place which has a lot of potential of  growth and development, more than 60% of population is below 30 and these young people growing up in the age of internet have much more knowledge and desire to succeed than their ancestors. They are getting themselves acquainted with the western society and aspire to be like them which is driving them to improve there life style and have a better life .

Mongolian Nomads

Mongolian are moving from there traditional life style to urbanized way of life. As a general rule when societies grow new business opportunities comes up, which make Mongolia one of those places in world which require foreign investors to come and fulfill the demands of developing society. Although there are many developing countries in the world but if you will look around you will find most of those are already conquered by big corporations, which makes it hard for small business man to penetrate in it, but Mongolia is one such place where even small investor can invest and make big money.
Mongolian Capital- Ulan Bator 

Being an engineer i can say, there is a lot of potential for even small engineering design and services companies to make big money, as Mongolia is rich in minerals and a lot of business opportunities are available in mining, power, oil & gas and petrochemical sector. Now is the time for countries like Pakistan and small entrepreneur to start looking for opportunities in such countries, our companies can go over there and explore possible opportunities. Its like British used to conquer different territories about 300 years ago, and make use of that by doing business with them, now off course new way of conquering is to develop economic bonds.

Chabahar, Gawadar Port & Gas Pipelines

India is making huge investment in Iran, along side the more popular news, circulating in media of development of chabahar port in iran by India, India and Iran are planning to build a gas pipe line via Arabian Sea and it will bypass Pakistan. Other than this India is developing a road and railway network from south of Iran to Afghanistan. This link will provide an easy route to access landlocked countries of central Asia. The good thing about Indian foreign policy is that they have not limited there economic ties to few countries like Pakistan did. India have very good trade relation with China, they might have some territorial differences with them but both the countries have realised that it is worthless to fight for those barren lands in north rather it is much more important to develop strong trade and economic relations. Similarly when it comes to defence Indian unlike Pakistan have come out of this mentality of Soviet block and US block, now they have signed defence deals with Russia and at the same time they are dealing with US and many other European countries as well. On the other hand Pakistan is still sticking with the old ways, i cannot understand what our foreign policy makers or defence analyst and economic gurus are doing, why they cannot convince the government to adopt a neutral policy and go for the option which is good for the people, if India can bypass the international sanctions and do business with Iran, then why can't Pakistan do that. Why Pakistan have to go and buy Qatar LNG, when a gas at lower cost is available next door, if India can fly in and start infrastructure project in Iran, then why can't Pakistan start same project that will provide high quality road and railway between Balochsitan and Sistan, and if Pakistan intend to start and work on such projects, it will be at a much lesser cost.
It is important for us to know that Gawadar as portrayed in media is no special port, it is no different from Chabahar which is few miles away, tidal and climatic conditions are exactly same, but it can only be made special if we start developing strong relationship with our neighbour, rather than looking some power thousands of miles away.

Sunday 17 May 2015

Pakistan Should Give Top Priority to Baluchistan

Growing up in the urban area of punjab will never help you in realizing the fact that people in baluchistan do not even have access to resources that originates in there land and you thousand of miles in islambad are enjoying its benefits. We did the same mistake in bangladesh when we treated them as worthless and did not give them their due share in government, administration and other affairs of the country. Unfortunately we are committing same mistake in baluchistan, it is the largest province in pakistan, with abundance of natural resources and still the poorest among all. Educational, health, road networks, transportation are poor in that part,  majority of natural gas in pakistan is supplied from Sui and other gas fields in baluchistan, still there are many areas around Sui and most part of baluchistan,  which has no natural gas. Just be honest with you and ask yourself whether punjabis ( which are in majority in Pakistani military, government and bureaucracy) have done justice with baluch, and then you blame them of starting a freedom movement,  muslims of india started the movement for Pakistan because they felt that they are not given the due share in any matter of state and it happen every where in world, where any ethnic group of people are sidelined, a time will come when they rise against the dominating ethnic group in that region, and they adopt every mean (peaceful dialogue or a brutal war) to get there rights.
Majority of people living in Punjab cannot even name more than two cities in baluchistan, if you ask them to pinpoint a city like naushki on a map they will take a while to do that,yet they enjoy the wealth of that land and if someone speak against this unbalanced distribution of resources ansd wealth he is labeled as a traitor and an agent of foreign powers.

Monday 11 May 2015

زندگی

خوشی کے چند لمہے اور اذیت کے ناختم ہونے والے لمحات، یادوں کا عذاب اور ان کے ساتھ جینا، سوچ کا نہ ختم ہونے والا سلسلہ اور ہر شے میں ان گزرے پلوں کو ڈھونڈنا،   زندگی کی تلخ حقیقت میں سے ایک ہے. 

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