Thursday, February 23, 2023

Use like to cure like.

"India is hosting the first major G20 event under its year-long presidency at the summer retreat of Nandi Hills near Bengaluru." BT. While India has proudly "declared a temporary no-fly zone within a kilometer radius of Hotel Taj West End from January 4 to 11", DH, for our VVIPs and for foreign delegates, "Pakistan Defence minister Khwaja Asif has said that the country has already defaulted amid looming fears that the cash-starved country may go bankrupt and blamed the establishment, bureaucracy and politicians for the prevailing economic crisis." TOI. "Pakistan is currently in the deepest economic crisis in its history. Many essential food items are now unaffordable for large swathes of the country's population," wrote Sandipan Deb. "The Sensitive Price Index (SPI), used to measure short term inflation, rose to 38.42 percent on a year-on-year basis in the outgoing week," according to "the latest data of the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics." ET. That must be agony for the poor. "Petrol prices were raised by Rs 22 (in Pakistani currency) to Rs 272 a liter." One US dollar buys 261 Pakistani rupees, xe.com, which means that, at PKR 272, one liter of petrol costs $1.04 in Pakistan. In India, the price of petrol in Delhi is Rs 96.72 per liter, ET, while the dollar is worth 82.73 INR, xe.com. Which means that petrol costs $1.17 in Delhi and an eye-watering $1.35 in Mumbai. "It makes absolutely no sense to provide any sort of succour to Pakistan. Any financial or food aid would possibly not even reach most of those who need it - the country's incredibly corrupt elite would loot the bulk of it," wrote Deb. So true. "Pakistan should be made to remain busy full-time in solving its internal problems, almost all of which it has created for itself. That will keep it distracted from its deranged anti-India ambitions." That is not certain. Pakistan was hit by devastating floods from 14 June to October 2022, that killed 1,739 people and left 2.1 million homeless. wikipedia. 1,164,270 livestock killed, 897,014 houses and crops destroyed, causing $14.9 billion worth of damage and $15.2 billion in economic losses. In January, over 100 people were killed by a suicide bomber at a mosque in Peshawar's Police Lines area. Dawn. The attack was most likely carried out by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Last week, the TTP accepted responsibility for an attack on the police headquarters in Pakistan's largest city Karachi which killed 2 officers and one civilian. TOI. "The TTP is an alliance of militant networks formed in 2007 to unify opposition against the Pakistani military." dni.gov. "TTP leaders also publicly say that the group seeks to establish an Islamic caliphate in Pakistan that would require the overthrow of the Pakistani government." Meanwhile, "The rising inflation has hit the Pakistani army, affecting the food supply chain the soldiers' mess, according to a top military source." News 18. In 2022, Pakistan had 100-120 nuclear weapons. Reuters. Imagine the threat to India if the TTP manages to get hold of these weapons. True, the Pakistani elite and the upper echelons of its armed forces are utterly corrupt. Therefore, they have every reason to fear and hate the TTP. Isn't it better to help our known enemy beat the unknown one? Like homeopathy.

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