Haq's Musings

Riaz Haq writes this data-driven blog to provide information, express his opinions and make comments on many topics. Subjects include personal activities, education, South Asia, South Asian community, regional and international affairs and US politics to financial markets. For investors interested in South Asia, Riaz has another blog called South Asia Investor at http://www.southasiainvestor.com and a YouTube video channel https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCkrIDyFbC9N9evXYb9cA_gQ

Showing posts with label Students. Show all posts

Saturday, December 14, 2024

Canada Gets Tough on Foreign Students Amid Mounting Tensions With India

The Canadian government has recently taken a series of steps to cut the number of international students studying in Canada. This is believed to be related to the extremely hostile Indian government response to Canadian allegations that the Indian officials ordered assassinations of Sikh activists in Canada. There are now new reports that Ottawa has asked Indian students to resubmit their documents for review. Earlier, Canada made a decision to end the fast-track visa process, known as Student Direct Stream (SDS), for students coming from India, Pakistan and a few other developing countries. Meanwhile, US F-1 visas granted to Indian students fell 38% between January and September of 2024.

Sikh Activist Assassinations:

The United States and Canadian governments are alleging that Indian government agents plotted assassinations of Sikh dissidents on their soils. Their investigations paint a shocking picture of how recklessly Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government operates.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi (L) and Home Minister Amit Shah

The criminal charges announced by Washington and Ottawa are backed by Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, the remaining three countries that make up the 5-nation intelligence sharing alliance known as the Five Eyes. Revelations made by the US Justice Department and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) indicate that the authorization for Sikh assassinations came directly from the top Indian government officials, including Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-hand man Amit Shah. International criminal gang leader Lawrence Bishnoi is listed among the people tasked with carrying out the murders. These allegations are based on intelligence gathered from multiple communication intercepts among Indian government officials in New Delhi and Indian diplomats posted in Canada.

Canadian Student Visa Approval Rates. Source: ApplyAbroad

Canada's Student Direct Stream:

As of 2024, there are 427,000 Indian students studying in Canada, surpassing the 337,630 Indian students enrolled in the United States, according to media reports. The SDS was very popular in India, with nearly four in five Indian students applying for their Canadian study permit through the program.

Until recently, foreign students who applied for a Canadian study permit through the SDS saw a significant approval rate advantage over regular stream applicants in every emerging market. In 2022, India was the biggest beneficiary of SDS with 78% of applicants approved, followed by Pakistan 44%, Vietnam 22%, and China 7%.

Canada's decision to end SDS will hurt future student visa applicants from more than a dozen countries, including Pakistan.

Demand to Resubmit Documents:

Indian students in Canada are deeply concerned after receiving notices from Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) requesting the resubmission of critical documents, including study permits, visas, academic records, attendance, and part-time work details. Many of these students hold visas valid for up to two more years, causing fear.

International Student Visa Cap:

The Canadian government has also decided to reduce the number of student visas granted each year. The international student visa cap for 2025 and 2026 is 437,000, which is a 10% reduction from the 2024 target of 485,000. It has also increased the cost of living requirement for international students from C$10,000 to C$20,635 a year.

Indian F-1 Student Visas in US:

US F-1 visas granted to Indian students fell 38% between January and September of 2024. According to the US State Department, 64,008 F-1 visas were granted to Indian students, a significant drop from the 1,03,495 issued during the same period in 2023. This number is also reportedly lower than the 93,181 issued in 2022 and marginally higher than the 65,235 recorded in 2021, marking the lowest post-pandemic level, according to Indian media reports.

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Thursday, June 27, 2024

Growing Pakistani Diaspora in North America

The US government granted 16,320 immigrant visas to Pakistani nationals. Another 11,861 immigrant visas were given to Pakistanis by the Canadian government in the same period. The total number of new Pakistani immigrants admitted as permanent residents in North America in 2023 was 28,181.

There are currently over a million Pakistanis living in North America. These include 687,942 Pakistanis in America as of 2020, according to the US Census. And 303,260 Pakistanis residing in Canada as of 2021, according to Statistics Canada. There are nearly 6 million people from India living in North America, according to government data.

Pakistani Diaspora in North America. Source: US, Canadian Governments

Non-immigrant visas issued annually by the US government to Pakistani passport holders have almost doubled over the last 5 years, from 40,679 in 2018 to 80,852 in 2023, according to Gallup Pakistan. Meanwhile, immigrant visas issued annually to Pakistani citizens have increased by about 60% in the last 5 years, from 10,114 in 2018 to 16,320 in 2023.

Pakistani immigrants make up the 25th largest group in America, far behind immigrants from Mexico, India and China. In Canada, Pakistani immigrants are the 5th largest group of foreign-born residents.

Top 8 Source Countries of Foreign Students in US. Source: IIE OpenDoors

Pakistani student enrollment in America's institutions of higher learning rose 16% last year, outpacing the record 12% growth in the overall number of international students hosted by the country. This puts Pakistan among eight sources in the top 20 countries with the largest increases in US enrollment. India saw the biggest increase at 35%, followed by Ghana 32%, Bangladesh and Nepal at 28% each, Pakistan 16%, Colombia 13%, Italy 10% and Spain 5%.

"During 2022-2023, there were 10,164 Pakistani students, compared to 8,772 in the previous year, indicating an impressive 16% increase," according to IIE Open Doors Report for 2022-23. There has been an overall 33% increase in enrollment of Pakistani students in US colleges and universities.

The average annual household earnings of Pakistani-Americans are $149,178, according to the latest update issued by the United States Census Bureau for 2022. The update estimates the median income of 132,958 Pakistani-American households at $106,281. Average is calculated by adding up all incomes and dividing it by total number of households. Median income level divides the top 50% of families from the bottom 50%. It shows that Pakistani-American household incomes are roughly at par with the Asian-American households' median of $104,646 and average of $149,363. The highest income ethnic group in the US are Asian Indian households with a median of $152,341 and average of $197,732. Asians are significantly richer than Whites (mean $78,636, average $112,415) and African Americans (mean $52,238, average $76,888). The word "alone" in the labels in the following table excludes mixed race households.

South Asian Americans Households. Source: US Census Update 2022

Asian Americans are the best educated racial group in the United States. From 2012 to 2022, the percentage of adults age 25 and older with a bachelor’s degree or more increased from 34.5% to 41.8% for the non-Hispanic White population; from 21.2% to 27.6% for the Black population; from 51% to 59.3% for the Asian population; and from 14.5% to 20.9% for the Hispanic population, according to the US Census.

Educational Attainment By Racial Groups (Source: US Census)

Among Asian Americans, the Indians (three quarters) have the highest educational attainment with at least a bachelor's degree, followed by Koreans and Pakistanis (about 60%), followed by the rest.

Asian American Educational Achievement by Countries of Origin. Source: US Census

Asians, including Chinese/Taiwanese, Indians and Pakistanis, tend to be concentrated in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Technology) fields where incomes are generally much higher than in other occupations.

As of 2019, there were 35,000 Pakistan-born STEM workers in the United States, according to the American Immigration Council. They included information technologists, software developers, engineers and scientists. These figures do not include medical doctors and healthcare workers.

Foreign-Born STEM Workers in America. Source: American Immigration Council

Foreign-born workers make up a growing share of America's STEM workforce. As of 2019, foreign-born workers made up almost a quarter of all STEM workers in the country. This is a significant increase from 2000, when just 16.4% of the country’s STEM workforce was foreign-born. Between 2000 and 2019, the overall number of STEM workers in the United States increased by 44.5 percent, from 7.5 million to more than 10.8 million, according to American Immigration Council.

India and Pakistan Among Top 10 Countries Receiving US Immigrant Visas. Source: Visual Capitalist

India topped the top 10 list of foreign-born STEM workers with 721,000, followed by China (273,000), Mexico (119,000), Vietnam (100,000), Philippines (87,000), South Korea (64,000), Canada (56,000), Taiwan (53,000), Russia (45,000) and Pakistan (35,000). Enormous number of Indian STEM workers in the United States can at least partly be attributed to the fact that India's "body shops" have mastered the art of gaming the US temporary work visa system. Last year, Indian nationals sponsored by "body shops" like Cognizant, Infosys and TCS received 166,384 H1B visas for work in the United States. By comparison, only 1,107 Pakistanis were granted H1B visas in Fiscal Year 2022. In addition to H1B work visas, 9,300 Indian nationals and 7,200 Pakistani nationals received immigrant visas to settle in the United States as permanent residents in 2021.

Doctor Brain Drain. Source: Statista

In addition to 35,000 Pakistan-born STEM workers, there were 12,454 Pakistan-born and Pakistan-trained medical doctors practicing in the United States, making the South Asian nation the second largest source of medical doctors in America. Pakistan produced 157,102 STEM graduates last year, putting it among the world's top dozen or so countries. About 43,000 of these graduates are in information technology (IT).

H1B Visas Issued in Pakistan. Source: Visagrader.com

H1B Visas Issued in India. Source: Visagrader.com

Every year, applicants sponsored by Indian body shops claim the lion's share of H1B visas. In 2022, Indians received 166,384 new H1B visas, accounting for nearly three quarters of all such visas issued by the US government. The figures reported as India IT exports are in fact the wages earned by millions of Indian H1B workers in the United States.

Many developing countries are experiencing brain drain. But India is losing its best brightest at a much faster rate than others. Some call it "The Great Indian Brain Drain". This is the reason why Indians in the United States are the best educated and the highest earning group. In a recently published book titled "The Other One Percent", authors Sanjoy Chakravorty, Devesh Kapur and Nirvikar Singh explain this phenomenon.

They write that the vast majority of Indians who migrate to the United States are from privileged backgrounds in terms of caste, class and education. They have gone through “a triple selection” process that gave Indian-Americans a boost over typically poor and uneducated immigrants who come to the United States from other countries. The first two selections took place in India. As explained in the book: “The social system created a small pool of persons to receive higher education, who were urban, educated, and from high/dominant castes.” India’s examination system then selected individuals for specialized training in technical fields that also happened to be in demand in the United States. Kapur estimated that the India-American population is nine times more educated than individuals in the home country. Here's an excerpt of it:

"A major focus of this book is on demonstrating and understanding the multiple selections that shaped the Indian-American population. These selections applied not only to education (that, in terms of attaining college degrees, made the India-born population three times more educated than that in the host country and nine times more educated than the home country’s population) but also to class and caste (favoring, by large margins, the “upper” and dominant classes and castes of India), profession (engineering, IT, and health care), and both the region of origin (Gujarati and Punjabi were overrepresented in the first two phases, and Telugu and Tamil in the third phase) and region of settlement (in specific metropolitan clusters in and around New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Houston and Dallas). In addition to direct selection is what we call the “selection+” advantage: we suggest that group characteristics or norms, such as the fact that Indians had the highest propensity to live in married-couple households of any major immigrant group, added to the advantages of being an already selected group. We show, in particular, how family norms were useful in keeping the Indian-American poverty level low (under 5 percent) and family income high (the highest in the United States). It is also likely that the selection process enabled, without explicitly intending to, the generation of high levels of social capital (through linguistic/ professional networks such as Gujarati entrepreneurs in the hotel industry, Telugu and Tamil workers in the IT industry, IIT engineers, Malayali nurses, Bengali academics, etc.)"

Saturday, July 22, 2023

Pakistani Students Account For Largest Share of Increase in Interest in Europe

Interest in studying in Europe is growing in certain key markets like Pakistan and Bangladesh in particular, according to a recent report on foreign students coming to Europe. Although India generates the largest share of relative demand, this fluctuates drastically and has gradually declined overall in recent years, the report adds.

Interest in Bachelor's Programs. Source: StudyPortals.com

The chart above shows the top origin countries for interest in Bachelor’s programs in Europe, as well as the evolution of that interest over the last four years.

Interest in Bachelor's Programs. Source: StudyPortals.com

Bangladesh and Pakistan also show strong demand in Master’s programs, alongside students in Turkey and Iran. The report reveals widening European interest and shift towards STEM.

Among 2,835 students from 143 countries selected for the Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters program, Pakistani students rank at the top with 192 scholarships, followed by India 174, Bangladesh 140, Mexico 118, and Nigeria 109, according to an EU tweet. Currently, there are 7.114 Pakistani students studying in Germany.

The United Kingdom emerged as the top destination for Pakistani students with 28,188 student visas granted in 2022, up 95% from the previous year. The UK has now surpassed China has the biggest draw for Pakistani students after the COVID19 pandemic. Of the 486,868 UK student visas granted (to both main applicants and their dependents), 117,965 went to Indian nationals. This is an increase of 80,569 (+215%) compared to 2019, and slightly more than the 115,056 granted to Chinese nationals — but Pakistani nationals saw a bigger increase in approvals for their UK student visas at 377% compared to India’s 215%, according to Study International.

Foreign Students in the US. Source: Open Doors

The US also reported a 17.4% increase in the number of Pakistani students studying in the United States during 2021-22. This brought their number to 8,772, according to Open Doors. The Open Doors Report identified China and India as the largest sources of international students to the United States. During 2021-22, China sent 290,086 students, which is 30.6% of the total number of international students in the US, a decline of 8.6% from the previous year. India, which sent 199,183 students this year — 21% of the total — saw a 19% year-over-year increase. Together, China and India make up more than half of all international students in the United States.

The number of Pakistani students studying in Australia has also increased 21% to 20,935 in 2022. The number of first-time enrollments of Pakistanis jumped 71% in the year, according to ICEF Monitor.

Offsetting a decline in Chinese enrollments in Australia (177,470 in 2022, down 11% y-o-y) and zero momentum from India (128,980, up .03%) were notable enrollment increases from:

Thailand, the 6th largest market, up 61% to 25,792

Nepal, the 3rd largest market, up 21% to 71,805

Colombia, the 4th largest market, up 21% to 28,435

Pakistan, the 9th largest market, up 21% to 20,935

Wednesday, June 28, 2023

Pakistani Students Team Among Three Winners of International Competition by Top European Research Labs

Top European Research Labs have announced the selection of three teams of high school students-- one each from Pakistan, the Netherlands and the United States-- to conduct accelerator beam experiments at CERN and DESY. They won the Beamline for Schools (BL4S), a physics competition open to secondary school pupils (Grade 9 to 12) from all around the world. Pakistani and US teams will travel to CERN, Geneva, in September 2023 to perform the experiments that they proposed. The Dutch team will be hosted by DESY in Hamburg, Germany.

Beamline for Schools Competition Sponsored by CERN, Switzerland and DESY, Germany

This year's winning teams have been picked by a committee of CERN and DESY scientists from a shortlist of 27 particularly promising experiments. All the teams in the shortlist will be awarded special prizes. In addition, one team will be recognized for the most creative video and 10 teams for the quality of physics outreach activities they are organizing in their local communities, taking advantage of the knowledge gained by taking part in BL4S.

Pakistan's winning team named "Particular Perspective" has drawn its members from the Islamabad College for Boys, Supernova School in Islamabad, the Cadet College in Hasanabdal, the Siddeeq Public School in Rawalpindi and the Cedar College in Karachi, Pakistan. Here's an excerpt of the joint announcement by CERN (Switzerland) and DESY (Germany):

"In 2023, for the second time in the history of the Beamline for Schools competition, the evaluation committee selected three winning teams. The team “Myriad Magnets” from the Philips Exeter Academy, in Exeter, United States, and the team “Particular Perspective”, which brings together pupils from the Islamabad College for Boys, the Supernova School in Islamabad, the Cadet College in Hasanabdal, the Siddeeq Public School in Rawalpindi and the Cedar College in Karachi, Pakistan, will travel to CERN, Geneva, in September 2023 to perform the experiments that they proposed. The team “Wire Wizards” from the Augustinianum school in Eindhoven, Netherlands, will be hosted at DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron in Hamburg, Germany) to carry out its experiment".

The Pakistan team “Particular Perspective” will measure in detail the beam composition of the T10 beamline of the CERN Proton Synchrotron accelerator. The experiment set-up they designed will make it possible to differentiate between different particle species and measure their intensity.

Recently, Pakistani students won more EU-funded Erasmus scholarships than students from any other country in the world. These are fully-funded scholarships for recipients to study at universities in the European Union. Pakistan has also seen a post-pandemic surge of student visas to study in Australia, the US and UK this year.

In 2014, Pakistan became the first Asian country and only the third in the world (outside of Western Europe) after Turkey and Serbia to be honored with CERN's associate membership. The status of associate member is a step before full membership. As an associate member, Pakistan is entitled to attend open and restricted sessions of the organization.

The CERN was founded in 1953 by 12 European nations including Belgium, Denmark, France, the Federal Republic of Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and Yugoslavia. The organization was subsequently joined by Austria (1959), Spain (1961-1969, re-joined 1983), Portugal (1985), Finland (1991), Poland (1991), Czechoslovak Republic (1992), Hungary (1992), Bulgaria (1999) and Israel (2014). The Czech Republic and Slovak Republic re-joined CERN after their mutual independence in 1993. CERN now has 21 member states and Romania is a candidate to become a member state. Serbia is an associate member in the pre-stage to membership. "Observer" status allows non-member states to attend council meetings and to receive council documents, without taking part in the decision-making procedures of the organization. Over 600 institutes and universities around the world use CERN's facilities.

Pakistan's National Center for Physics (NCP) has been collaborating with CERN since 2000. Pakistan's associate membership application was unanimously approved at a meeting of the CERN council in 2014. The final approval came after a report of a CERN “fact-finding mission” to Pakistan in February 2014 was accepted.

CERN is leading the most high-profile effort to find "God Particle" about 300 ft below ground in a tunnel at the French-Swiss border. Buried there is a massive particle accelerator and super collider called LHC (Large Hadron Collider) run by CERN (European Organization of Nuclear Research), which has two beams of particles racing at nearly the speed of light in opposite directions and the resulting particles produced from collisions are being detected by massive detectors in the hope of experimentally finding the fundamental particle of which everything in the universe is built from: God Particle.

Dr. Hafeez Hoorani and President Musharraf

Among the world scientists working at CERN on LHC project is Professor Hafeez Hoorani of Pakistan's Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad. He is one of 27 Pakistani scientists at CERN. Hoorani has acknowledged that Pakistan government's support for Pakistani scientists' serious involvement at CERN materialized only after 1999, the year former President Musharraf's government assumed power. He also gives credit to Dr. Abdus Salam, Pakistan's only Nobel Laureate, for inspiring him and his colleagues to pursue serious scientific research. Here's what Professor Hoorani says about Pakistan's involvement in LHC and CERN:

When I first came to CERN, I was mainly working on technical things but became increasingly involved in political issues. In 1999, I went back to Pakistan to set up a group working on different aspects of the LHC project. There I had to convince my people and my government to collaborate with CERN, which was rather difficult, since nobody associated science with Switzerland. It is known as a place for tourism, for its watches, and nice places to visit.

However, Pakistan already had an early connection to CERN through the late Abdus Salam, the sole Nobel laureate from Pakistan in science and one of the fathers of the electroweak theory. CERN has been known to the scientific community of Pakistan since 1973 through the discovery of neutral currents which eventually led to the Nobel Prize for Salam. We are contributing much more now because of the students who worked with Salam, who know his theories and CERN, and who are now placed at highly influential positions within the government of Pakistan. They have helped and pushed Pakistan towards a very meaningful scientific collaboration with CERN. People now know that there is an organization called CERN. It took a long time to explain what CERN is about, and I brought many people here to show them, because they did not imagine CERN this way. Many people support us now which gives us hope…”

In addition to the 27 scientists, Pakistan has made material contributions to the tune of $10m. Pakistan signed an agreement with CERN which doubled the Pakistani contribution from one to two million Swiss francs. And with this new agreement Pakistan started construction of the resistive plate chambers required for the CMS muon system. While more recently, a protocol has been signed enhancing Pakistan’s total contribution to the LHC program to $10 million.

Pakistan has contributed the LHC in numerous ways including some of the following in particular:

1. Detector construction
2. Detector simulation
3. Physics analysis
4. Grid computing
5. Computational software development
6. Manufacturing of mechanical equipment
7. Alignment of the CMS (Compact Muon Solenoid) tracker using lasers
8. Testing of electronic equipment
9. Barrel Yoke: 35 Ton each feet made in Pakistan
10. Assembly of CF (Carbon Fiber) Fins for the Silicon Tracker’s TOB (Tracker Outer Barrel).
11. 245 of the 300 CMS chambers required were made in Islamabad.

DESY (Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron), is a national research center for fundamental science located in Hamburg, Germany. It operates particle accelerators for investigating the structure, dynamics and function of matter, and conducts a broad spectrum of interdisciplinary scientific research in four main areas: particle and high energy physics; photon science; astro-particle physics; and the development, construction and operation of particle accelerators. Its name refers to its first project, an electron synchrotron.

Thursday, January 10, 2019

Pakistani Mini Invasion of China?

Mid-1960s America saw a phenomenon called the "British Invasion". Anecdotal evidence suggests similar phenomenon, albeit on a smaller scale, is occurring in China with about 100,000 Pakistanis arriving there in recent years. While the growing presence of the Chinese in Pakistan gets a lot of press, there has been relatively little coverage of the movement of people in the other direction---from Pakistan to China. Jalil Shaikh, a Pakistani-American tech executive in Silicon Valley, has observed this phenomenon during his frequent visits to Jiangsu province in China. Jalil is often welcomed as "iron brother" by the people he meets during his stays in China.

Pakistanis in Changzhou, China

Pakistanis in Changzhou:

Jalil saw anecdotal of evidence of "Pakistani invasion" of China in the city of Changzhou in Jiangsu province. Changzhou has a population of about 5 million people which makes it a medium size city by Chinese standards. Changzhou is an educational hub and is home to several universities, including Changzhou University, Hohai University (Changzhou campus), Jiangsu Teachers' University of Science and Technology, Jiangsu Teachers' University of Technology, and Changzhou Institute of Technology. It attracts a large number of foreign students mainly from countries participating in China's BRI (Belt and Road Initiative). China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a flagship project of BRI. There are an estimated 22,000 Pakistani students studying in China. A significant fraction of these students receive Chinese government scholarships to study in the country.

Pakistani Restaurant in Changzhou, China

Pakistanis in Beijing:

Jalil has also travelled to the Chinese capital Beijing for business. During one such trips, he stayed at Oak Chateau hotel where he met dozens of Pakistanis working as engineers. They work as IT engineers at German automakers BMW and Mercedes whose Beijing offices are located just across the street from this hotel.

Food and Music at Changzhou Restaurant:

On a visit to Changzhou last year, Jalil ate at MandS Restaurant, a Pakistani restaurant in the city of Changzou. He met its Pakistani owner and several young Pakistanis attending universities there. He learned that here are scores of Pakistanis in Changzou and most of them are reachable on a WeChat group. WeChat is a ubiquitous smartphone application similar to WhatsApp that serves as both mobile messaging and payment platform. Owned by Chinese social media giant TenCents, WeChat competes with China's e-commerce behemoth Alibaba's Alipay in mobile payments space which has rapidly grown in China. Jalil joined the Pakistani WeChat group in Changzhou and invited its members to dinner and Karaoke singing at MandS Restaurant. About 40 Pakistanis, mostly students, showed up. Many of the Changzhou Pakistanis, including girls, are from families living in small towns and villages in Pakistan. Many get fully funded scholarships with full tuition, room and board as well as a monthly stipend of 1,700 RMB for Master's degree students and 2,000 RMB for PhD candidates. China gets the benefit of the research work and publications produced by them.

Spinal Injury:

A Pakistani girl who had recently arrived had a serious mishap soon after arrival from her village near Multan. She slipped and fell. The fall caused serious spinal injuries requiring hospitalization and surgery. This occurred before her medical coverage started. The hospital demanded payment of RMB 35,000 which is equivalent to US$5,000. Pakistanis helped raise $4,000 and Jalil made up the difference to cover the unfortunate girl's medical expenses.

Muslims in Changzhou:

A large number of Muslims call Changzhou home. There are 5 mosques in the city. Jalil has had the opportunity to attend Friday prayers at packed mosques in the city. MandS Restaurant owner offered free meals to over 200 Muslims as part of Eid Milad un Nabi (Prophet Mohammad SAW's birthday)celebration last year.

China-Pakistan Ties:

Pakistan-China ties are rapidly growing well beyond the economy and the military with tens of thousands of Chinese and Pakistani citizens regularly traveling between the two countries.

More Pakistanis than ever are learning the Chinese language. China with its world class educational institutions is emerging as one of the top destinations for Pakistanis studying abroad. China-Pakistan relationship is becoming a truly multi-dimensional strategic relationship. This new phenomenon is the subject of a Pakistani spice company television commercial featuring a young Chinese woman in Lahore making the popular biryani dish using Shan masala.

China's Strides in Science and Technology:

Why is China becoming a fast growing destination for foreign students, including Pakistanis studying abroad? A story in India's "The Wire" online magazine has explained it in terms of the rapid rate of China's progress in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields as follows:

America's National Science Foundation and National Science Board have recently released their biennial science and engineering indicators which provide detailed figures on research and development (R&D), innovation and engineers. But its true message is in a different direction, “China has become,” concludes Robert J. Samuelson in a column, “or is in the verge of becoming – a scientific and technical superpower. This is not entirely unexpected given the size of the Chinese economy and its massive investments in R&D, even so, he says, “the actual numbers are breathtaking”.

1. China is the 2nd largest spender in R&D after the US, accounting for 21% of the world total which is $2 trillion. It has been going up 18% a year, as compared to 4% in the US. An OECD report says that China could overtake the US in R&D spending by 2020.

2. China has overtaken the US in terms of total number of science publications. Technical papers have increased dramatically, even if their impact, as judged by citation indices, may not be that high.

3. The US continues to produce more PhDs and attract more foreign students. But new international enrollment at US colleges was down for the first time in the decade in 2017. The Trump administration’s anti-immigration rhetoric and actions are scaring away students.

4. China has begun shifting from being an assembler of high-tech components, to a maker of super computers and aircraft and given the pattern of its investments in RandD and technology development, it is focusing on becoming the world leader in artificial intelligence (AI), quantum communications, quantum computing, biotechnology and electric vehicles.

Summary:

While the growing presence of the Chinese in Pakistan gets a lot of press, there has been relatively little coverage of the movement of people in the other direction---from Pakistan to China. Pakistan-China ties are rapidly growing well beyond the economy and the military with tens of thousands of Chinese and Pakistani citizens regularly traveling between the two countries. Jalil Shaikh, a Pakistani-American tech executive in Silicon Valley, has observed this phenomenon during his frequent visits to Jiangsu province in China. Jalil is often welcomed as "iron brother" by the people he meets during his stays in China. More Pakistanis than ever are learning the Chinese language. China with its world class educational institutions is emerging as one of the top destinations for Pakistanis studying abroad. It is becoming a truly multi-dimensional relationship which will help Pakistan rise with China on the world stage.

Here's a video clip of Karaoke Dinner in Changzhou, China:

https://youtu.be/2YSnDGtVjsk

Related Links:

Haq's Musings

Rapid Growth of China-Pakistan Educational, Scientific and Cultural Ties

China-Pakistan Strategic Ties

US and China Compete For Influence in Pakistan

China-Pakistan Defense Tech Cooperation Irks West

Pakistan-Russia-China vs India-Japan-US

Pakistan Rising or Falling? Myth Vs Reality

Facts and Myths About China-Pakistan Economic Corridor

China Emerges as Top Destination for Pakistanis Studying Abroad

Sec Hagel: India Using Afghanistan to Launch Attacks in Pakistan

Ex Indian Spy Documents RAW's Successes Against Pakistan

Riaz Haq's Youtube Channel

PakAlumni Social Network

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

‎Massive Anti-Modi Student Protests Spreading Fast Across India

Students across India are rallying against Modi government's attacks on academic freedoms. Massive protests were triggered when the Modi government arrested Kahaiya Kumar, the student union president at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

Universities across India are ringing with the following slogans:

"Geelani bole azaadi, Afzal bole azaadi, jo tum na doge azaadi, toh chheen ke lenge azadi! (Geelani and Afzal demanded freedom. If freedom is denied, we will snatch it!)".

"Modi ka Hindutva nahin sahenge, Modi ke Brahmangiri nahin sahenge." (We will not tolerate Modi's Hindutva oppression. We reject upper caste Brahmin domination).

Geelani is the separatist leader demanding freedom of Jammu and Kashmir from illegal Indian occupation. Afzal refers to Afzal Guru who was executed by the Indian government on trumped up charges of terrorism.

Students also chanted in memory of Ishrat Jahan, a 19-year-old Muslim woman who was gunned down in Gujarat in June 2004 when the current Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi ran the state as its chief minister. In September 2009, Ahmedabad metropolitan magistrate called encounter fake. CBI , India's federal investigating agency, did not find link between her and LeT as was alleged by Modi's government in Gujarat.

Afzal Guru was accused of carrying out an attack on Indian parliament in Dec, 2001. The Indian supreme court judgment acknowledged the evidence against Guru was circumstantial: "As is the case with most conspiracies, there is and could be no evidence amounting to criminal conspiracy." But then, it went on to say: "The incident, which resulted in heavy casualties, had shaken the entire nation, and the collective conscience of society will only be satisfied if capital punishment is awarded to the offender." This shameful Indian Supreme Court verdict to approve Guru's execution is a great miscarriage of justice with few precedents in legal annals.

Independent educators and academics in India feel they are under siege since Hindu Nationalist Prime Minister Modi ascended to power. A concerted move is underway in many states across India to Hinduize education. RSS ideologues are being given key positions in India's educational and cultural institutions to realize a Hindu Nationalist vision of India.

Last year, Modi's BJP appointed Gajendra Chauhan as head of Film and Television Institute of India (FTII). The staff and students protested the appointment describing Mr. Chauhan as grossly unqualified for the position. The Indian media have sharply criticized his work that includes films such as “Jungle Love,” “Vasna” (“Desire”), “Jungle Ka Beta” (“The Son of the Jungle”) and various other B-grade movies. Aljazeera reported that his main qualification appears to be his affiliation with the Hindu Nationalist BJP as national convener for culture, responsible for promoting “the party’s ideology through cultural activities,” as he put it in an interview with The Indian Express.

In the Aug. 13, 2015 issue of The New York Review of Books, the economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen described how the government pressured him to step down from his position as chancellor of the newly formed Nalanda University — most likely because of his criticism of Modi before the elections, according to Aljazeera.

According to the Aljazeeera report, Mr. Sen has listed the ways in which the government has interfered in the management of many academic institutions — the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay and the National Book Trust. It has proposed a bill that would give it direct control of the 13 Indian Institutes of Management. The caliber of two recent appointments is also alarmingly questionable: Lokesh Chandra, the newly selected head of the Indian Council of Cultural Relations, which oversees India’s cultural relations with other countries, has said Modi is an incarnation of God, and Yellapragada Sudershan Rao, the new head of the Indian Council of Historical Research, has praised the caste system.

Massive student protests in India are the culmination of growing resentment against attempts by the Modi government to curb academic and intellectual freedoms and reshape educational and cultural institutions and the Indian society at large.

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