International Telecommunications Union Ranks Pakistan Regulator Among Top 5 in Asia Pacific

International Communications Union has ranked Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA) among top 5 regulators in Asia Pacific region.  Pakistan's ICT regulations are 4th generation (G4), more advanced than India's and Bangladesh's 3rd generation (G3) regulations, according to the ITU report titled “Global ICT Regulatory Outlook 2020 (GIRO)”. Only 8% states have managed to achieve G4 status of the 38 economies ranked in Asia-Pacific region. G4 regulations address both economic and social goals.  Among the key policy goals are financial inclusion and digital inclusion.

Telecom Regulators Grouped in 4 Generations. Source: ITU

Pakistan's ICT regulations are ranked 4th in Asia Pacific, ahead of Malaysia's ranked 5 but behind Singapore's ranked 1, Japan's ranked 2 and Australia's ranked 3.  Pakistan scores 88 and ranks 48th in the world among 193 countries. The report uses 50 indicators organized across four pillars: regulatory authority, regulatory mandate, regulatory regime, competition framework. Pakistan scores 20/20 for regulatory authority, 22/30 for regulatory regime and 27/28 for competition framework and 19/22 for regulatory mandate.

ITU's Definition of 4 Generations of ICT Regulatory Regimes. Source: ITU

The Global ICT Regulatory Outlook 2020 benchmarks regulatory progress across no fewer than 193 countries worldwide. In three years, the report claims it has established itself as the go-to reference for regulators and policy-makers seeking to shape meaningful, regulatory change that will benefit all.

Pakistan Telecom Indicators As Of December 31, 2019

Pakistan's designation as G4 country and its high rank is in part due to its efforts to use its regulatory powers to close the digital divide. Pakistan's Universal Service Fund (USF) promotes the development of telecommunication services in un-served and under-served areas and populations throughout across the country. The fund consists of contributions (1.5% of adjusted revenues) by the Telecom Operators with no Government funding involved.

Internet traffic in Pakistan has surged 15% amid COVID-19 lockdown, according to Pakistan Telecommunications Authority (PTA). This spike has occurred in spite the fact that Netflix and YouTube have reduced their bandwidth requirements during the current health crisis. Netflix says it has cut its bandwidth use by 25% without sacrificing quality.  Google's YouTube video platform has decided to temporarily change the quality of all videos on YouTube to standard definition.The increased traffic is mainly due to people working from homes. Pakistan has nearly 80 million 
broadband subscribers as of now.

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Pakistan Students Crowned World Champions in World Education Games 2015

Pakistanis were crowned World Champions and won the Maths World Cup, with Malaysia taking second place and the Literacy World Cup and Australia claiming third place overall and the Science World Cup, according to a report in Australia's The Educator publication.

World Education Cup 2015 saw student competitors from 159 countries earn 169 million UNICEF points, and raise more than $100,000 which will help 33,000 kids go to school.

The event was hosted by 3P Learning, an Australian company internationally renowned for its online education resources including Mathletics. Its CEO, Tim Power, said he had seen a big improvement in the results of STEM education subjects. World Education Games is a free downloadable program for registered schools for students to use.

Pakistan's winning team members included Ali Saud Khan (Grade 9), Abeeha Saud (grade 4) and Emaan Fatimah (Grade 7) from Beaconhouse school in Mandi Bahauddin, Lahore, according to The Express Tribune newspaper. The goal of the annual event is to ensure that students have 21st century skills to be prepared for the jobs of tomorrow.

Pakistani kids are now increasingly visible on the international stage in global competitions. Recently,  an exceptionally bright student of PakTurk International School in Jamshoro brought home a gold medal after competing in Math Challenge V hosted by the Pan-Asia International School in Bangkok.  In 2013, Khadija Niazi,  then a 12-year-old Pakistani girl attending advanced MOOCS (Massively Online Open Courses) was featured at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. In 2012, four teams of Pakistani students won five medals, including one silver, in four international science competitions.

After seeing its youngsters win several international competitions, Pakistan has now decided to host the 48th International Chemistry Olympiad (IChO) in Karachi next year at the International Centre for Chemical and Biological Sciences (ICCBS), University of Karachi (KU).

Although access to quality education remains quite limited in Pakistan, it is still encouraging to see some Pakistani youngsters excelling in STEM fields at the international level. I hope these wins will help inspire more young Pakistanis to pursue and excel in math and science education.

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Foreign Worker Expulsions Hit South Asia

As the global economic crisis continues to take its toll in US, Europe, Middle East and East Asia, South Asian workers overseas are being let go in large numbers

Faced with rising unemployment in Malaysia, the Kuala Lumpur government on Tuesday said it will reduce the number of foreign workers in the country to 1.8 million by 2010 from the present over two million. This decision has serious implications for tens of thousands of South Asians, mostly from Bangladesh, India and Nepal, who currently work in the island nation.

Malaysian minister Syed Hamid Albar said the authorities had managed to reduce the number of foreign workers by 60,000 since last March, according to media reports. Last week, the minister ordered the cancellation of 55,000 visas granted to Bangladeshis in 2007, eliciting protests from Bangladesh.

Though reliable unemployment figures are hard to find in the United Arab Emirates, there is evidence to suggest that joblessness is rapidly growing in the Gulf region. Dubai police have found at least 3,000 automobiles -- sedans, SUVs, regulars -- abandoned outside Dubai International Airport in the last four months. Police say most of the vehicles had keys in the ignition, a clear sign they were left behind by owners in a hurry to take flight. It is believed that the owners of these vehicles are mostly foreign workers from South Asia who have lost their jobs after Dubai's real estate crash, according to a DNA report.

As unemployment surges around the world due to the global economic crisis, the South Asian nations relying on large remittances from their nationals overseas will be particularly hit hard.

The United States government announced that employers cut another 651,000 jobs last month, driving unemployment up to 8.1 percent. Job losses in December and January were even higher than previously reported. There is anecdotal evidence that many of those losing jobs in IT and high-tech sector are H1-B visa holders. Laid-off foreign workers are scrambling for temporary visas and seeking advice from immigration attorneys about how long they can legally stay in the country while hunting for jobs.

In Asia, in China, the urban unemployment rate officially stands at 4.2 percent. However, the Chinese Academy of Social Scientists says it is closer to 9.4 percent. In China, rural unemployment is not measured because of the difficulty of doing so.

Also in Asia, in Japan, unemployment hit 4.4 percent by the end of 2008, rising at its fastest rate in 42 years. Growing lines at food banks have been one result.

In India, unemployment officially stands at 8.2 percent. However, that number is thought to largely reflect unemployment in the organized sector of the economy, which comprises just 10 percent of the country’s workforce.

In Africa, in South Africa, economists expressed “surprise” as the unemployment rate fell to 21.9 percent at the end of last year, down from 23.2 percent several months earlier.

In Europe, unemployment in Germany stands at 8.5 percent, and in Britain, it is 6.1 percent, the highest in ten years.

In Latin America, Mexico’s unemployment rate is 4.3 percent. However, anyone in Mexico who is 14 years or older and who has worked one hour a week is considered “employed.”

Until recently, the general deterioration in regional trade balances in South Asia has been offset by large remittance inflows, which represent a sizable, and generally increasing share of GDP: during 2007, 14 per cent in Nepal, 8 per cent in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, 4 per cent in Pakistan, and 3 per cent in India. The rising unemployment among South Asian workers overseas threatens this all-important lifeline, particularly in Bangladesh, Sri Lanks and Nepal.

According to the latest estimates of the World Bank, almost 40 percent of 107 developing countries are highly exposed to the poverty effects of the current economic crisis, less than 10 percent face little risk and the remainder are moderately exposed. Bangladesh, India, Nepal and Pakistan are ranked among the 43 countries most exposed to poverty risks, raising the horrible specter of further political instability and dangerous social strife in a very important region of the world.


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Malaysia's National Front Suffers Setback

Malaysia's opposition made significant gains in Saturday's elections. The alliance of three opposition parties led by former Finance Minister Anwar Ibrahim won 82 of 222 seats in the national Parliament, up from only 19 seats. By controlling one-third of Parliament, opposition parties will be able to block government efforts to amend the constitution. They also took control of five out of 13 states, up from one state previously. They included Penang, home to much of Malaysia's industrial base and to billions of dollars in U.S. and other foreign investments. These elections were held amidst the usual allegations of vote rigging by international organizations such as the Human Rights Watch. The results signaled that Malaysia, one of the world's most economically advanced Muslim-majority nations and the U.S.'s 10th-largest trade partner, could become a model of peaceful democratic change in the Islamic world. Although the jury is still out, this perception is further reinforced by the recent Pakistani elections where the ruling coalition was trounced by the opposition.

Under the decades-long rule of Malaysia's National Front, Malaysian economy has been completely transformed from a natural-resource base to a modern industrial base. The former prime minister and a retired National Front leader Mahathir Mohamad founded the regional alliance ASEAN along with former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yu of Singapore and late President Suharto of Indonesia. The three leaders, credited with the rapid economic and industrial development of the region, ruled with an iron hand for a long time. The current Malaysian opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim was abruptly removed as Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister, jailed and tortured by Mr. Mahathir Mohamad during his term in office.

As Yaroslav Trofimov of the Wall Street Journal reports, the spread of uncensored new media, such as the Internet and cell-phone text messaging, helped opposition parties break the government's stranglehold on information flow, harnessing public anger over mounting inflation, widespread corruption and inept governance. Combined with rising resentment by ethnic Chinese and Indian minorities over long-standing affirmative-action policies designed to benefit the country's Muslim ethnic Malay majority, this anger coalesced into a perfect storm of protest against Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi's government.

Mr. Abdullah is now facing growing pressure to step down. Former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who named Mr. Abdullah to replace him in 2003, also demanded the premier's head, accusing him of "destroying" the National Front.