All about Pakistan

The Muslim world is a vast and immense mass of land sprawling from West Africa to southern Philippines far in the Pacific. Its northern limits reach as far as the Volga River in Russia while southern frontiers run up to Mozambique in South-East Africa in the Indian Ocean. In China, Muslims are in substantial numbers in the provinces bordering Burma and in the districts around Peking. Total population of Muslims in the world is estimated at one billion. This paper deals with a small segment of this vast world, in a region called Pakistan. Pakistan in different forms and in different backgrounds has appeared many times in these very regions and endured longer than other independent states of the Asian sub-continent, making enormous contribution to civilization. It has, perhaps, witnessed more invasions than any other part of the world, absorbed more racial strains than any other region and more ideas have taken birth in the heart of this land than elsewhere.
It was in the lands of the Indus Valley Civilization where Pakistan flourised with its main cities in the Sind, Punjab, Baluch, and Pathan regions. It was here where the Buddhist culture blossomed and reached the Pathan region, it also reached its peak under the Kushans at

Pakistan is a poor, heavily populated country, suffering from internal political disputes, lack of foreign investment, and a costly confrontation with neighboring India. Pakistan's economic outlook continues to be marred by its weak foreign exchange position, which relies on international creditors for hard currency inflows. The government faces an estimated $21 billion in foreign debt due in 2000 to 2003. Foreign loans and grants provide approximately 25% of government revenue, but debt service obligations total nearly 50% of government expenditure. Future loan installments will be jeopardized if Pakistan misses critical benchmarks on revenue collection and the fiscal deficit. MUSHARRAF has complied largely with IMF recommendations to raise petroleum prices, widen the tax net, privatize public sector assets, and improve the balance of trade. However, Pakistan's economic prospects remain uncertain; too little has changed despite the new administration's intentions. Foreign exchange reserves hover at roughly $1 billion, GDP growth hinges on crop performance, the import bill has been hammered by high oil prices, and both foreign and domestic investors remain wary of committing to projects in Pakistan.

The terrain of Pakistan is mainly flat, Indus plain in the east, mountainous in the north and northwest, plateaus in the west, and the Arabian Sea to the south. The Indian tectonic plate pushing against the Asian plate, causing a rugged mountainous chain including the Himalayas causes the physical mountainous conditions of Pakistan. Currently, Pakistan is the tenth most populous country in the world, and at the rate it is going, it will be eighth by the year 2010. Compared to the U.S, Pakistan has more than one half of the population, and the size of Pakistan is a little more than the size of Texas. Regionally, Pakistan is nowhere in comparison to India, whose population exceeds one billion and size wise is approximately 3 times that of Pakistan. Pakistan’s population density is also nowhere near its neighboring country, whose is 26,000ppk, compared to Pakistan’s 1,900, which is more than four times that of the U.S. at 400. The U.S. is uncomparable with Pakistan for GNP, but Pakistan and India’s GNP is within $40 of each other. Similarly, the longevity of India and Pakistan are both near 60, while the average U.S. longevity is around 75.

Globalization is the gradual reduction of regional contrasts to focus on the world scale, resulting from an increase in international cultural, economic, and political changes. Globalization has driven for better living conditions for billions of people around the world, but it brings risks and costs that need to be confronted. It promotes growth and people have been trading goods, services, capital and information for centuries across national boundaries. World prosperity in the past fifty years is based in large part on the rapid expansion of international trade in goods and services, which year after year has grown more rapidly than production. Pakistan offers negative and positive evidence that globalization causes poverty among the people. The percentage of population under the poverty line has gradually increased during the 1990s when Pakistan opened its borders to the world economy. Growth began to decline in the 1990s mainly because of large debts that press down on public investment in the country. More encouragingly, Pakistan's 55-year record since independence shows that a threefold increase in the standard of living of the poor went hand in hand with the growing importance of exports and imports. The most important issues to the Pakistani people are jobs and caring for their large families. Although there are opportunities for men, there are some for women also, but not as many. Globalization would have a negative effect on Pakistani people because they have not yet reached the high technology era, and the new companies a