Ali Malik's blog

The battle for new world order is being fought on multiple fronts. On one end, the conservative capitalism on one hand is trying to have its way in the West through interest groups, right wing media and powerful lobbies. On the other hand, it is preparing for an alternate bastion in the form of China and are creating an outsourced economy (how naive are the leftists who think the rise of China will mark the death of capitalism). On the other end, the liberal business and political community (specially in West) realizing the threat that the conservative capitalism poses to the ethos and ideals of Western civilization are trying to curtail the traditional capitalism. People like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet (strange strange for they still remain monopolists), few Hollywood celebrities (well not all are show-offs, neither are all genuine) etc. Have realized that if the Western values, ideals and civilization are to survive the route lies in spreading the fruits of wealth and progress to have

The foundations of the present World Order had been laid in Middle East after the First World War. Just when the democracy was establishing itself as an established norm rather than a mere concession and just when the World's economy was hooked to the fossil fuels, the British (the then super power and representative of the capitalism), through a master stroke of polity, imposed the new political order in the oil-rich Middle East. The former Ottoman Empire was chopped into bits and pieces forming new monarchies with full consideration given to the fact that the clans, tribes and ethnicities remain divided in multiple monarchies thus ensure that no coherent, stable political entity could emerge in the region. Another master-stroke of the order is the fact that in each new formed state, it was made sure that the Monarch or the ruler belonged to the tribe or sect that represented the minority. Saudi Arabia or Yemen or Iraq or Bahrain or Shah's Iran with majority Shia population we

I have to make a confession. I was one of the very few supporters of the energy policy being announced by Benazir Bhutto in 1995 (and then I looked a fool). Keeping in view the events that have gone by, I really feel good about me for taking that stand. My stand then was based on the following considerations: 1. Load-sheddings are a killer to economic growth and so energy is required from anywhere at any cost. 2. Hydel power is not a viable and sustainable option because of limited number of hydel power locations. 3. At that moment the quickest of hydel power projects would have took 6-7 years before being operational. The opportunity cost of the delay caused by sticking to only hydel would have been too much to bear (95-98 saw 5%+ GDP growth per annum). 4. Kalabagh and other hydel projects are extremely politicized and should be avoided at the cost of federation till the federating units reach a consensus. 5. There exists a strong mega hydel projects lobby in WAPDA and engineering wor