Pakistan and its relevance in the world

I have a World Economic Forum’s (WEF) report before me that outlines the top ten emerging technologies of 2020. It is instructive, as the outlined technologies were under development during the Covid period. The list includes microneedles for painless injections and tests. These tiny needles penetrate the skin without pain to the nerve, go no deeper than a sheet of paper and the width of a human hair, helping pain-free injections and blood testing.

Then there is ‘Sun-powered chemistry’ that uses sunlight to convert waste carbon dioxide (CO2) into useful chemicals. This would ultimately result in creating ‘solar refineries’ producing medicines, detergents and fertilisers from waste gas. In healthcare, ‘virtual patients’ would swap humans for simulations. High resolution images from a human organ, fed into complex mathematical models, would generate a virtual organ for drug testing and clinical trials. Companies like Microsoft and Amazon were working with ‘spatial computing’ integrating the physical and digital worlds. Using virtual-reality (VR) and augmented-reality (AR) apps, this technology digitises objects, creating a digital depiction of real world. Usages are at home and in industry, healthcare, transportation.

Using different apps in commonly used smart watches, ‘digital medicine’ is detecting/treating mental and physical disorders like depression, Alzheimer, irregular heartbeat and breathing problems, etc. By computing sampling, and using the huge user-based data available on the web, this technology proved its relevance in fighting Covid-19. Pills with embedded sensors are under development to send data to apps that monitor body temperature, stomach bleeds and cancerous DNA, etc.

In transportation, ‘electric aviation’ using electric propulsion would ensure green travel, cutting down on carbon emissions, reducing fuel costs and bringing ambient noise down. Companies from Airbus to NASA are working on technology and about 170 electric plane projects were under development in 2020. Airbus claims fielding the first 100-passenger electric plane by 2030. In infrastructure technologies, a startup ‘Solidia’ was working on ‘low-carbon cement’ as the 4 billion tons of cement consumed yearly was responsible for around 8% of global CO2 emissions. Researchers were working to eliminate cement altogether out of concrete, given its likely enhanced usage because of continuing urbanisation.

In computing, ‘quantum sensing’ would “see” around corners in self-driving cars. Small scanners would monitor brain activity. Quantum sensing — with greater precision — would enable underwater navigation systems and early warning apparatus for volcanic activity, etc. In order to decarbonise energy industry, hydrogen is produced through electrolysis, splitting water into ‘green’ hydrogen (and oxygen) with no other byproducts. ‘Green hydrogen’ was forecasted to become a $12 trillion market by 2050.

And lastly, the report mentioned ‘whole-genome syntheses’. Researchers were designing genetic sequences (writing genomes) to be inserted in a microbe to reprogram it. This technology was to be used in curing many genetic diseases, besides giving insights into how viruses spread, to subsequently produce vaccines, etc. It could potentially help to sustainably produce chemicals, fuels or construction materials from waste-gases or biomass and design pathogen-resistant plants for example.

In its 2021 Report, the WEF list of top ten technologies comprised rising decarbonisation, self-fertilising crops, breath sensors to diagnose diseases, on-demand drug production, producing energy from the pervasive wireless signals, 3D printing of houses from local material, facilitation of healthy aging, wireless connectivity of most bio-marker devices for data compilation/diagnosis, and connecting the ‘internet of things’ to space.

After reading about such innovations in our near-abroad, and comparing our own situation with it, the despair of pessimism is hard to resist. It looks like we will pass the ongoing 4^th wave of Industrial Revolution (Internet and Renewable Energy undergoing since 2000) also sleeping. Deeply engrossed in petty battles of political dominance, our elite seems to have made power-grab and then hanging on to power by all means, as the only raison d’etre of our existence.

Most political parties are built around iconic demigod(s) of dynastic/other credentials; surrounded by sycophants (with rare sampling of ideologues and sincere persona) who find it financially lucrative and politically advantageous to worship/promote the demigod(s). No party is serious in governance; none has any idea of shadow government while in opposition, let alone diligent taskforces working on different national problems; hence none is prepared to run Pakistan after its power-grab conspiracies and manipulations succeed.

In the geopolitical landscape, regionally India seems in no mood for nudging in the direction of a composite dialogue, sensing time on her side. It reckons, it can get away with atrocities that under another geo-strategic construct were unpardonable. Bangladesh economically breezes past us and SAARC is virtually dead. Relations with the GCC and Saudi Arabia are on the ‘watchful mend’ after our ill- considered positions on war in Yemen and the OIC enlargement. A perpetual begging bowl is causing donor fatigue in friendly quarters like China, whose flagship project for BRI, the CPEC, has not been handled with due diligence by us. Success in securing loans for political point-scoring, rather than enduring structural changes to the economy, seems the operative political framework.

Afghanistan seems suspicious of our ‘noble’ intentions and Sri Lanka is too busy in domestic problems. Africa is of lesser consequence.

Overtures towards Russia for fuel and grain are dead-stopped in tracks because of war in Ukraine and we seem to have accrued no tangible benefit from this junket. India and China, meanwhile, reap the windfall paying 30% below market price for Russian oil. Central Asia is wary of our incessant parroting of Islamic fraternity and affinity. Turkey only, holds on to its historic goodwill.

Europe sees things through different lenses; and with America the situation is of an uneasy calm after Imran Khan’s frequent and recurring unhelpful tirades, which still continue. FATF, IMF, WB and other international fora are overtly unhelpful, if not outright hostile, thanks to PTI’s foul-mouthing and our economic fragility.

What is Pakistan’s clout and relevance today other than the overused but inefficiently cashiered ‘strategic’ location? In this hyper-connected world, emphasising interdependence and leverages, what is Pakistan’s ‘positive relevance’ other than decades of ‘negative relevance’ given our centrality in the global war on terrorism? We — collectively — do not seem to have moved past the archaic notions of ‘any’ relevance besides the existing security-dominant construct of Pakistan.

Above considered, we continue the debate under two paradigms. Is return of PTI ‘reinforcement of failure’? And what, if any, are political contours of post-PTI Pakistan.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2022.

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