Who was Lee Kuan Yew?
first PM of Singapore.
credited with building Singapore into one of the world’s
wealthiest nations on a per capita basis
a strong, pervasive role for the state and little patience for
dissent.
Lee recognized that Singapore needed a strong economy
in order to survive as an independent country, and he
launched a program to industrialize Singapore and
transform it into a major exporter of finished goods.
He encouraged foreign investment and secured
agreements between labor unions and business
management that ensured both labor peace and a rising
standard of living for workers.
While improving health and social welfare services, Lee
continually emphasized the necessity of cooperation,
discipline, and austerity on the part of the average
Singaporean.
Who is Dalai Lama?
Dalai Lama is a title given by the Tibetan people to the
foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat"
school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest and most
dominant of the four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism.
The 14th and current Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso,
who lives as a refugee in India.
His personage has always been a symbol of unification of
the state of Tibet, where he has represented Buddhist
values and traditions.
Arab Spring:
The Arab Spring was a series of pro-democracy uprisings
that enveloped several largely Muslim countries, including
Tunisia, Morocco, Syria, Libya, Egypt and Bahrain. The
events in these nations generally began in the spring of
2011, which led to the name.
On December 17, 2010, a young Tunisian who sold
vegetables from a barrow set himself afire to protest
against police harassment. Mohamed Bouazizi died on
January 4, 2011, but not before his gesture went viral,
sparking protests against the cost of living and the
country’s authoritarian President Zine El Abidine Ben
Ali.
On January 25, 2011, thousands of Egyptians marched in
Cairo, Alexandria and other cities, demanding the
departure of President Hosni Mubarak, who had been
in power for 30 years. On February 11, as more than a
million took to the streets, Mubarak resigned and handed
control to the military.
On February 15, protesters took over the Pearl Square
roundabout in the capital which they renamed “Tahrir
Square” and demanded a constitutional monarchy among
other reforms. But their camp was stormed by riot police
three days later, killing three people and injuring many.
The same day the Bahrain protests started, the Libyan
police used force to break up a sit-in against the
government in the second city, Benghazi. The country’s
leader Muammar Gaddafi pledged to hunt down the
“rats” opposing him. The uprising turned into a civil war
with French, British and American air forces intervening
against Gaddafi. On October 20, 2011, Gaddafi was
captured and killed in his home region of Sirte by rebels
who found him hiding in a storm drain.
Baloch Grievances:
The province is a hot seedbed of grievances with a wide
ethno-tribal diversity, and a strategic hotspot in the
crosshair of big power contestation. With the
strategic Gwadar Port acting as the terminus of
CPEC, the US-China rivalry acts as a magnet for
destabilizing proxies unleashed by countries such as
India and other detractors of CPEC-Gwadar.
Balochistan is not a geographical or demographic
monolith. It is divided in three main portions — the
Pakhtun belt of north; Baloch belt of centre and
south; and the coastal belt of Makran comprising
coastal region and Panjgur district. All three regions have
different sociological profile and characteristics. Pakhtun
belt features entrepreneurial Pakhtuns, with urban
areas under PKMAP sway and the rural areas
dominated by JUI. The Baloch belt features rugged and
inhospitable terrain dominated by tribal dynamics. The
Makran belt comprises a non-tribal society with
relatively high incidence of literacy rate. Due to
above diversity the Baloch polity is exceedingly
fragmented with low incentive for development of cross
ethnic political parties. The result is ubiquitously fragile
coalition governments and a Chief Minister perennially
blackmailed by the coalition partners.
ethno-tribal diversity
Economic backwardness
Lack of development
Social deprivation-[The Baloch] Sardars have exploited the
local population.
Political marginalization- denying democracy to Balochs.
Economic injustice-economic exploitation of Balochistan’s
natural resources.
External financing of insurgents- externally sponsored
identity politics
Security-centric governance paradigm-military incursions
are examples of state actions that have turned Baloch’s
against the establishment.
Solution:
Applying a development-oriented model.
Need of a strong political inclusion strategy to wean the
separatists away from the path of militancy.
Addressing their grievances.
needs a vigorous state response against foreign funding.
Indicators to check soft image of a country:
Quality of products and services
Political stability
Infrastructural development
Educational opportunities
Economic innovativeness
Rich history
Cultural goods
Foods and cuisines
Environmental protection
International social responsibility
Civil rights
Economic dualism:
A way of conceptualizing the existence of two separate
but symbiotic sets of economic processes or markets
within the same political or national social framework. In
Third World societies, for example, a dual economy is
formed by the coexistence of peasant subsistence
agriculture and cash production of basic commodities or
industrial goods for the international market.
Public Sector Enterprises:
The public sector enterprises are businesses owned and
controlled by the government. The government either
wholly or partially owns the enterprises. These enterprises
help the government participate in the economic activities
of the country.
Pak-Arab Refinery.
Pakistan Aeronautical Complex.
Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation.
Pakistan Electric Power Company.
Pakistan Engineering Company.
Peninsula:
The meaning of PENINSULA is a portion of land nearly
surrounded by water and connected with a larger body by
an isthmus.
Balkan Peninsula, Iberian Peninsula, Scandinavian
Peninsula.
Ocean Deposits:
Marine deposits are sediments that come from different
sources by different means, and it settle down in the
ocean floor. Marine deposits are classified into many types
based on sediments and location:
Classification based on sediments:
Pelagic-open Sea, not close to the shore
Littoral- close to the shore
Hemipelagic- between littoral and pelagic
Eupelagic- uppermost part of the oceanic zone, lying
above the mesopelagic zone, that receives enough
sunlight to allow photosynthesis
Classification based on location:
Continental
Neritic- Shallow Sea
Pelagic- Deep Sea
TAPI gas pipeline:
The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI)
pipeline will be a 1,814km trans-country natural gas
pipeline running across four countries.
Also known as the Peace Pipeline and Trans-
Afghanistan Pipeline, the TAPI pipeline will begin in
Turkmenistan and traverse Afghanistan to enter Pakistan
and India.
A Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement (GPFA) was also
signed by the petroleum ministries of the four countries in
December 2010.
The TAPI gas pipeline will transport gas produced from the
Galkynysh gas field in Turkmenistan to Afghanistan,
Pakistan and India.
Hindrances in completion of TAPI:
1. The planned route of the 1800 km pipeline will pass
through 735 km of southern and western
Afghanistan, regions which are hotbed of terrorism.
Withdrawal of US troops will put a question mark on
security aspects.
2. The pipeline will also pass-through Pakistan’s
southwestern Balochistan Province, a region suffering
from separatist and sectarian violence.
3. Moreover poorly guarded oil/gas pipelines in the region
have been favorite targets of terrorists.
4. Any downturn in India Pakistan relation can hamper
TAPI project.
5. The cost of the project is estimated to be 12 billion
Dollars. Though Asian Development Bank is assisting the
project but funding from other sources is required which is
difficult because Private players are doubtful about
success of project.
Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline:
The Iran–Pakistan gas pipeline (IP Gas) is an under-
construction 2,775-kilometre pipeline to deliver natural
gas from Iran to Pakistan. The $7.5 billion, 1,700-mile
megaproject is also known as the Peace pipeline. The
idea to bring people of both countries closer through this
initiative was first conceived by a Pakistani civil engineer,
Malik Aftab Ahmed Khan, in the 1950s. However, the
governments of Iran and Pakistan signed a preliminary
agreement in 1995 for construction of a pipeline from
the South Pars gas field to Karachi.
After the Islamic revolution, Iran was labelled as an anti-
US country. Pakistan was also facing diplomatic
pressure from the US and another influential country,
having ideological differences with Iran. The internal
chaos in Pakistan’s formal tribal areas due to the US-
led war against terror was another factor. Ironically, India
decided to withdraw from the project after signing a
civilian nuclear deal with the US in 2008.
CASA-1000
The Central Asia-South Asia power project, commonly
known by the acronym CASA-1000, is a $1.16 billion
project currently under construction that will allow for the
export of surplus hydroelectricity from Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan to Afghanistan and finally to Pakistan.
The project has been stalled by turmoil in Afghanistan.