Time to be really different.

"The inevitable has happened. On August 24, the Pakistani rupee (PKR) fell below 300 to a US dollar in the interbank market." Dawn. "On August 24, the rupee was seen trading in the band of 315-317 in the open market." "The rupee has shed 32.5 percent of its value against the dollar in less than eight months of this calendar year." If the currency falls in value it will buy less than before and prices will go up. So, "average prices of wheat flour (ata) shot up 131.3pc, followed by tea (95.2pc)...sugar (74.7pc) and chicken (58.6pc." By contrast the Indian rupee is trading at 82.60 to one dollar. xe.com. Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves fell by $32 million to $8.154 billion in the week ended 27 July 2023. Tribune. Also," India's forex reserves declined to near two-month low and was the biggest weekly fall in over six months for the week ending August 18," as it "dipped by $7.28 billion to $594.90 billion." ET. In October 2021, it reached its highest level of $645 billion. "Typically, the RBI, from time to time, intervenes in the market through liquidity management, including through selling of dollars, with a view to preventing a steep depreciation of the rupee." Despite RBI's efforts the Indian rupee (INR) has dropped from 58.3956 to one dollar in May 2014, when this government was first elected, to near 83 to the dollar today. Exchange Rates. While the PKR has dropped 32.5% this year the INR has dropped 41.38% in 9 years. Just a matter of downward velocity. "India's foreign exchange reserves stood at $5.8 billion at the start of 1991," "It had a foreign debt of over $70 billion and a fiscal deficit of over 10 percent." Dawn. Given a free hand by then Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, Finance Minister Manmohan Singh liberalised the economy and "By the end of 1991, India was able to repurchase, as per a clause in the leasing/sale agreement, all the gold bullion it had shipped out as foreign investment started to flow in." Pakistan should follow India's example, and fast. Physicist Pervez Hoodbhoy is incensed with checkposts in Balochistan and Gilgit-Baltistan in Pakistan. "Security is a fake excuse for the ubiquitous khaki presence." "Unnecessary checkpoints suggest a ruler mentality," he wrote. Exactly. We Indians share in that mentality. The Delhi Police put up metal barricades at whim causing traffic jams and enormous hardship for citizens. Attacks on religious minorities are common in Pakistan, including on Christians and Hindus. Dawn. A video on social media shows schoolchildren slapping a 7-year old Muslim boy, their classmate, after being asked to do so by their teacher in UP in India. CNN. India and Pakistan were born from a bloody partition of one nation (The Quint), because of the differences between Hindus and Muslims, but, even after 76 years, similarities persist. We can't tell Pakistan what to do but we Indians should become different. Really different. And fast.