Better late than never: Rain
It is raining in Lahore. Finally.
Archive for April, 2010
Development Challenges in the New Decade
The Lahore School of Economics is having its Sixth Annual Conference on the Management of the Pakistan Economy on the 22nd – 23rd of April, 2010 at the Lahore School main campus (on Burki Road). The theme of this year’s Conference is “Development Challenges in the New Decade”.
The Conference will bring together a group of distinguished academic researchers and decision makers from the private and public sectors. In each session the speakers will present papers related to the theme which will be followed by a short discussion.
The next decade is an important one for Pakistan, if it can successfully deal with the key challenges it faces, Pakistan can make the transition to a middle income country by 2020. These challenges include addressing the recurrent energy crises, developing an efficient water resources management system, overcoming the persistent poor government revenue mobilization effort and bridging the growing regional disparities and lack of trust between the four provinces. It is hoped that the papers and deliberations at the Conference will help in the formulation of policies to put the country on a sustainable growth path. {Via Logic is Variable}
Jazeera Airways adds Lahore to its destination map
Beginning May 12, 2010, Jazeera Aiways, Middle East regional carrier, is adding Lahore to its destination map. The airline will fly three times a week from Kuwait to Lahore. This is welcome news for Pakistan aviation industry, which in the past decade has seen bunch of international airlines terminating their operations in Pakistan due to deuterating security situation in the country. Let’s hope other major international airlines would also add back Pakistan to their destination maps soon.
Pakistan 1951-2001: The Forgotten Asian Economic Success
Lahore School of Economics Center for Research in Economics and Business (CREB) is organizing a seminar by Dr. Mathew McCartney on Monday April 5, 2010 at Mahmood Chaudhry Library, Lahore.
The topic of the seminar is: Pakistan 1951-2001: The Forgotten Asian Economic Success. There is an almost uniformly negative perception of Pakistan’s economy in current media and academia, this view is sharpened by the very positive reporting of India – the new Asian Giant/ Miracle. It is firstly interesting to remember how such images have changed dramatically over time. In the 1960s for example Pakistan was widely seen as a ‘miracle’ economy with a modernizing and pro-western leader and India as a country becoming increasingly impossible to govern and facing a future of likely mass famine.
Making a judgment about whether a country/ economy has been a ‘success’ or ‘failure’ is too often based on media perception and heavily weighed by recent economic events. There are more rigorous means of making such a judgment about Pakistan since 1947. Those included in this seminar are a comparison with Pakistan’s own history before 1947, a comparison with similar developing countries after 1947 and a comparison of Pakistan’s development after 1947 with the initial conditions and constraints prevailing at independence. Using these more substantial and rigorous measures it can be possible under certain circumstances to say that Pakistan is indeed ‘the forgotten economic success of Asia’ of the last sixty years.
Dr Mathew McCartney is visiting CREB for two weeks. He is currently a lecturer in Economics and admissions tutor in the department of Economics, SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London). He has an MPhil from Oxford and a PhD from SOAS. He has also taught at Korea University in Seoul and JNU, New Delhi. His recent publications include ‘India-The Political Economy of Growth Stagnation and the State, 1951-2007’, London, Routledge (2009), ‘Political Economy, Growth and Liberalization, in India 1991-2008’, London, Routledge (2009). His research interests are “role of the state in late development, industry and industrialization, economic growth, comparative political economy of South Asia, India and Pakistan since independence.” {Via Logic is Variable}
