thakur_ritesh
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there is rarely a moment when sensible talk happens in pakistan and an absolute rarity it gets done by someone holding the high offices, all the more when it gets done about india, and for the first time we have someone of the level of a defence minister do that, i wonder what bit him, a reality check bug (generally this bug bites the paks when they are out of the high offices)!? lets not forget its coming from ppp, and when they took over the reigns of pakistan, it was zardari who had gone on record to suggest that pakistan needs to be friends with india, but soon enough his wings were to be clipped, reigned in by the army and was to be publically declared mentally not stable with all sort of propaganda, this was the exact time when gilani was getting propped up the army as a counter balance though not any more because soon enough zardari was to make sure gilani stays in his aukat. my sense is two things prompted this.
1. nawaz sharif riding on anti-army public sentiment has been on the offensive which has pushed the army on the back foot as a result ppp which had completely surrendered the foreign policy and almost everything in terms of governance is now looking to reassert itself and not just be seen as completely out of sync on how their strings are being pulled by the army (which is what its like today, absolutely clueless), if not complete control, they might be trying to get some leeway. never underestimate zardari the politician!
2. ppp has just won the elections in PoK, which gives them this huge confidence booster even after all the negative propaganda against them and if i am not mistaken this was the first provencial election that was held post 2007-08 when ppp came to power in the center. so the feel of public sentiment being with them does act as a booster of doing some plain talk and some point scoring.
pakistan's economy is in tatters, which has a bearing on the defence budget, preparedness and training, contrast this to the way indian economy has done and what over all impact it would have on our preparedness and training. that said, a significant amount gets spent on the forces and this comment could well be a point scoring on the armed forces and nothing more, because recently najam sethi said, the openly presented and hidden pak defence budget is to the tune of 10-11b usd and one of their retired senior air force officer (of the rank of vice-air marshal) put this figure at 8.5-9b usd, which means a lot of funding happens which is kept away from public eye, so just by the economy being in complete tatters doesnt mean their armed forced will be in exact the same shape as the economy but certainly not in the shape they otherwise would like to have it in.
that takes me to something more important, pakistan's budget is of 33b usd for fiscal 2011-12 of which around 9-11b usd will be spent on the armed forces, another 11.5-13b usd will be spent on debt servicing, so they will be left with 9-13b usd which will to be spent on the welfare of the state and of this a significant amount will get spent on salaries, pensions and other such non-welfare expenditure and a big chunk of the remaining would get siphoned off in corruption, lets not forget they are supposed to be as corrupt as they come, so pakistan will be left with negligible amount, if any, to spend on the welfare of its people. one can by looking at those figures imagine the plight of not just the poor but even the lower/middle-middle class of that country. what a curse jinnah brought to this country! and people in pakistan dare say no to all that aid money that is flowing to their country! oh boy, they are yet to understand what will hit them if all that was to frozen, eating grass would become a reality for most there.
of interest is the trade figure, which was also mentioned and put as "five to six times greater", on the contrary the differentiating factor is around 12times with india's trade around 600(+)b usd and pakistan's 52b usd.
1. nawaz sharif riding on anti-army public sentiment has been on the offensive which has pushed the army on the back foot as a result ppp which had completely surrendered the foreign policy and almost everything in terms of governance is now looking to reassert itself and not just be seen as completely out of sync on how their strings are being pulled by the army (which is what its like today, absolutely clueless), if not complete control, they might be trying to get some leeway. never underestimate zardari the politician!
2. ppp has just won the elections in PoK, which gives them this huge confidence booster even after all the negative propaganda against them and if i am not mistaken this was the first provencial election that was held post 2007-08 when ppp came to power in the center. so the feel of public sentiment being with them does act as a booster of doing some plain talk and some point scoring.
pakistan's economy is in tatters, which has a bearing on the defence budget, preparedness and training, contrast this to the way indian economy has done and what over all impact it would have on our preparedness and training. that said, a significant amount gets spent on the forces and this comment could well be a point scoring on the armed forces and nothing more, because recently najam sethi said, the openly presented and hidden pak defence budget is to the tune of 10-11b usd and one of their retired senior air force officer (of the rank of vice-air marshal) put this figure at 8.5-9b usd, which means a lot of funding happens which is kept away from public eye, so just by the economy being in complete tatters doesnt mean their armed forced will be in exact the same shape as the economy but certainly not in the shape they otherwise would like to have it in.
that takes me to something more important, pakistan's budget is of 33b usd for fiscal 2011-12 of which around 9-11b usd will be spent on the armed forces, another 11.5-13b usd will be spent on debt servicing, so they will be left with 9-13b usd which will to be spent on the welfare of the state and of this a significant amount will get spent on salaries, pensions and other such non-welfare expenditure and a big chunk of the remaining would get siphoned off in corruption, lets not forget they are supposed to be as corrupt as they come, so pakistan will be left with negligible amount, if any, to spend on the welfare of its people. one can by looking at those figures imagine the plight of not just the poor but even the lower/middle-middle class of that country. what a curse jinnah brought to this country! and people in pakistan dare say no to all that aid money that is flowing to their country! oh boy, they are yet to understand what will hit them if all that was to frozen, eating grass would become a reality for most there.
one the economic bit, pakistan's economy rode high on inflation as usual and they now have the gdp at 210b usd (estimated by the 30th june 2011), and we are around 1.650t usd, though with that 210b usd, pakistan now has more than double the number of poor in the country than they had in 2007-08 when the present ppp led government took over. the differentiating factor is 8 times, but quality heavily in india's favor since we are not witness to astronomical levels of inflation as pakistan has been in the last 3 years.
of interest is the trade figure, which was also mentioned and put as "five to six times greater", on the contrary the differentiating factor is around 12times with india's trade around 600(+)b usd and pakistan's 52b usd.
akistan won't last war with India for 45 days: Mukhtar
