Of Lattes & Wrenches

Below are 2 notes that I wrote for the IR Tribune at IUJ:

The Defence Housing Authority (DHA) is one of the most opulent localities in Lahore – the second largest city of Pakistan. The crème de la crème of the society thrives in DHA – a popular destination for many Lahorites to have pancakes and café lattes and of course, the notorious dance parties. The Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) – my undergrad school is also located here with its $3000 annual tuition making it hopelessly inaccessible for most Pakistanis. Barely 3 kilometres from LUMS is a slum called Chararpind. The inhabitants are mostly day labourers and helpers in DHA houses. The monthly income of the families there would range from $80 to 175 – and this is the combined sum for both husband and wife. These are large families (average size, in my opinion, would be 6-7) and the children are expected to contribute to the family income as soon as they can pick up a wrench. The girls would help their mothers as helps whereas the boys might work in auto workshops, grocery stores etc. Those families, who are able to send their children to school, would discriminate between the sons and the daughters – the former getting the preference over their sisters.

It is in this setting that Society for the AdVancement of Education (SAVE Inc.) has opened its first school by the name of Mashal Primary. Faraz Sheikh, the founder of this Indiana based NGO, is studying PhD at Indiana University Bloomington and SAVE Inc. is his brainchild. His vision is to run such schools from primary to post-secondary levels and to run them absolutely fee of cost. SAVE Inc. has started in Pakistan but is intended to be a global mission and does not differentiate between race or religion. I personally know Faraz from our time at LUMS and am very good friends with his younger brother, Samir Sheikh who is based in the UK and actively involved in SAVE Inc. All details about the school can be obtained at . There is also a community on facebook.com by the name of “FREE Primary School in Lahore Project” which has information on this NGO. More on this in the next edition of the IR Tribune.

The following is due to be printed in the next edition…

In the last month's edition of the IR Tribune, the concept and motivation behind SAVE Ins. was introduced. The first project, Mashal Primary, is schooling 170 students from poor households free of cost. The syllabus being taught is entirely in English and matches those of the private schools in the city. Public schooling in Pakistan, if available at all, has a curriculum solely dependent on Urdu, the native language. Students emerging from the Urdu-medium stream face severe challenges and often emerge second best when compared to those who had the luxury of a private, English-medium education.

Only 1 out of 2 children in Pakistan begin school and if you think that’s bad, only 70% of those that begin primary education actually complete it. This is the biggest challenge that SAVE Inc. faces in Pakistan. They have taken a few steps to tackle this. Firstly, they have a free dispensary on-campus which not only provides basic medication and health check-ups to students but their families as well. This acts as an incentive for the parents not to pull their kids out of school. The school also conducts monthly parent-teacher meetings in which the students with the best attendance record are rewarded. The mothers of these students are also gifted a suit for ensuring regularity of their child.

The idea of Mashal Primary is to cap its present enrollment and take this batch of 170 students all through class 5. It has also begun an accelerated program in the evenings for those students who are relatively old for the classes that they are in currently.

Mashal Primary will hopefully change lives. The reason for sharing this piece in the IR Tribune was to promote this wonderful project and so that we can acknowledge that we do not have to be Bill Gates or Bono to change the world. Every small contribution counts.

I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do something that I can do. – Hellen Keller

To know more about SAVE Inc. visit http://www.educationsaveschildren.org or join Facebook community called “FREE Primary School in Lahore Project”.

Analysis on the Current Financial Crisis - What happened?

I have found Marin Wolf of FT to be one of the best analysts of the ongoing turmoil in the global economy. Below, I paraphrase one of his video analysis:

The financial panic has ben cooking over a long period of time. One of the key reasons that we are in this mess is the over leveraging of the global economy. The amount of debt has been increasing rapidly since the 1980s. Nowadays, the private sector debt to GDP ratio is at an all-time high. If we look at the component of this debt, we can not miss the remarkable growth in the financial sector debt. It's increased from 20% of GDP 30 years ago to over a 100% of GDP now. The HouseHold debt has also doubled from 50% of GDP to 100%.

Another thing has happened in the last 10 years to exacerbate the economic woes. The global economy has witnessed a drastic imbalance of saving and investments. Countries like China with extraordinarily large savings resulted invested in the western countries, generating tremendous current account surpluses. The US was the principal borrower. Capital flew from the poor countries to the rich and it was basically the Households in the latter which did most of the borrowing. THe housing bubble in the US helped eat-up all this capital inflow.

The third element to this financial crisis was the cleverness of the financial sector in creating instruments in absorbing all this money. We saw the rise of all sorts of complex derivatives and what have you.

Now, when the prices began to tumble, people realizing that all these assets were not worth what they paid for them. They also found out the riskiness of these investments. This was the stage when panic set-in and turned into hysteria with the collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 13th. These assets became toxic and lending dried-out in the financial markets. The financial sector effectively stopped functioning. When there was no one willing to borrow, the demand in the western economies ala US, UK collapsed. This triggered a massive global recession since the excess savings from the East could not find a sink. The exporting companies began to worry now since they were living off the bubble in the US. In this manner the entire world is now effected by this crisis.

3 Cups of Tea by David Relin & Greg Mortenson

Three Cups of Tea is an amazing book. Probably the best I have read so far. First lesson that Greg Mortenson's tale taught me is of hope. It teaches us that we can achieve anything as long as we try hard enough for it. There were so many occasions in Mortenson's life when, if he were an ordinary person, he could call it quits. It's a story of clinging on to a cause. The guy went through uncountable hardships in trying to work on his goal of imparting education to the impoverished children in northern Pakistan and later Afghanistan. His girlfriend left him; he got kidnapped by the Taliban; and was called a traitor by his countrymen. Yet he believed in the purity of his task and in the end succeeded where an entire Pakistani government had failed.

Mortenson's determination and courage are extremely insipirational. It was very heartwarming to read how he learnt to tackle problems by considering the local people's point of view. For example when he got too uptight in managing the construction of the first school in Korphe, it was the numberdhar who made him realize that his objective needs to be achieved considering the local culture and working style. This is an important lesson even for business folks. We need to grasp the local psyche and be vary of irresponsibly applying our working style in alien environments.

Another important aspect about this book was the discussion on terrorism and the rise of extremism in Pakistan. I totally agree with Mortenson's idea that the best of tackling terrorism is by providing education. It would become very difficult for the militants to gather support if the population of that area has economic incentives to opt otherwise. Education goes a long way in achieving this.

All in all, the book was thoroughly enjoyable. I have started recommending it to all my friends. My copy has started doing rounds in our dorm. The more people read such views, the better idea they will get on Pakistan and Islam. I pray that Mortenson's work pays off for Pakistan in the long run. Our government should also recognize his work and give him the highest national award. I salute you, Mr. Mortenson!