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First Post
21 hours ago
- Automotive
- First Post
A question for Munir: Why India became ‘Mercedes' and Pakistan a ‘dump truck'?
Asim Munir's 'Mercedes vs dump truck' analogy was meant to show Pakistan's grit, but in the cold light of economic history, it only revealed just how far the country has stalled while India races ahead read more Wish Pakistan Army's Field Marshal Asim Munir could pull off something like Winston Smith in George Orwell's classic 1984. In Orwell's novel, Smith works at the Ministry of Truth (Minitrue in Newspeak), where his job is to alter historical records and documents so they match the current version of events approved by the Party. He rewrites old newspapers, speeches and reports so that past predictions and statements always appear correct, making it seem like the Party is infallible — a kind of professional reality-revisionist. It's a bit like being a historian, except your main qualification is pretending the past never happened the way you remember it. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Munir, a devout Muslim and apparently part-time automotive philosopher, presents himself as an ambassador of truth. In his own world, Munir told a gathering in Tampa, Florida, this week that India was 'a shining Mercedes' while Pakistan was 'a dump truck full of gravel'. Forgive him for thinking Mercedes and Ferrari are one and the same thing. His point, as he explained, was that if this lumbering dump truck rammed the Mercedes, the Mercedes would lose. It's a neat analogy, except that a dump truck is always a dump truck, and a shining Mercedes is always a shining Mercedes. The analogy itself says a lot about the state of progresses made by the two countries that attained Independence on the same night in August 1947. The internet, as expected, did not buy the ticket to this logic ride. Twitter (or X) users quickly noted that Pakistan's dump truck might not even start, or worse, topple over before ever reaching the Mercedes. Some suggested the dump truck was already in the scrapyard, stripped for parts and mortgaged to the IMF, the International Monetary Fund. One user quipped, 'Inka field marshal analogy me bhi apne desh ki beizzati karwa raha hai [even in analogies, Munir manages to humiliate his own country]. And yet, the analogy was honest. Pakistan is economically the dump truck, but not the sturdy, rumbling kind you see at a construction site. This is more like a battered, smoke-belching 1970s relic, bought on credit, with no fuel, and whose driver is constantly in court for loan defaults. From agrarian beginnings to IMF regular When Pakistan was born in 1947, its GDP was dominated by agriculture (53.2 per cent), and a desperate need to industrialise — much like India. Both countries needed industrialisation and shift in economic structure. Pakistan got fertile lands and minerals, with good sea port, and comparatively low population load. By the early 1950s, the two newly independent countries backed five-year plans to guide their path to economic progress. Yet, 78 years later as the two nations gear up to celebrate their respective Independence Days, the most powerful man in Pakistan thinks his country is a 'dump truck' to the 'shining Mercedes' that he described India as. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD India's growth story is well-documented and debated across organisations and universities. But how did Pakistan became a 'dump truck'? The first few years after Independence, 1947–1950, saw Pakistan's GDP growth limp along at barely over 3 per cent. By the 1950s, the country embraced planning with five-year plans, import regulation and modest growth — manufacturing at 7.7 per cent and agriculture at 1.9 per cent. By the 1960s, under General Ayub Khan, the economy showed some promise — GDP growth of 6.7 per cent, manufacturing booming at 8.51 per cent. But then came the wars, floods and the spectacular self goal of losing East Pakistan in 1971. The dump truck's first major crash. In the 1970s, the socialist experiments of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto nationalised industries — a sort of emulation of India's model — sent GDP growth into a pothole: agriculture grew at just 2.7 per cent, inflation soared to 15 per cent and the deficit ballooned to 8 per cent of GDP. The Mercedes next door, meanwhile, was busy sowing the seeds of its Green Revolution, which would propel it toward self-sufficiency in food production. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Golden illusion of the 1980s General Zia-ul-Haq's era (1977–1988) saw an economic uptick. GDP grew at 6.3 per cent, helped by US aid during the Afghan war, remittances and reversal of nationalisation. The dump truck got a new coat of paint and a temporary infusion of diesel—courtesy of Washington. But it was all external money. When the Soviet-Afghan war ended, the aid dried up. Pakistan returned to its default setting of political instability, sanctions and IMF begging bowls. The 1990s under alternating PPP and PML-N governments were a fiscal freefall—GDP growth at just 4.05 per cent, foreign debt tripled, and the country flirted with bankruptcy after nuclear tests in 1998. India, during the same decade, liberalised its economy in 1991, opening the floodgates to investment, technology and global trade. By the time Pakistan was negotiating its nth IMF tranche, India's GDP growth was comfortably cruising at 6 per cent annually. The Musharraf mirage Enter General Pervez Musharraf in 1999 — the other 'golden era' military ruler economists grudgingly acknowledge. Growth peaked at 8.6 per cent in 2004–05, foreign reserves swelled to $9 billion and debt-to-GDP dropped from 100 per cent to 55 per cent. For a fleeting moment, the dump truck almost resembled a serviceable pickup. But the model was fragile which was consumption-driven, import-heavy and utterly dependent on post-9/11 US aid. When that pipeline slowed, so did the economy. By Musharraf's exit, Pakistan was again struggling to finance even its basic fuel imports. Decade of decay (2008–2018) PPP rule after 2008 brought growth down to an average of 4 per cent, agriculture to 2 per cent. Power shortages crippled industries, inflation soared and debt piled on. The PML-N (2013–2018) managed some stability — GDP growth back to 5 per cent, inflation easing — but only by borrowing heavily from the IMF. In contrast, India during this same period emerged as the fastest-growing major economy, riding the tech boom, manufacturing incentives and infrastructure buildouts. By 2018, India's nominal GDP was over $2.7 trillion while Pakistan's was around $314 billion. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Khan catastrophe and Covid collapse Imran Khan promised a 'Naya Pakistan' in 2018, but GDP growth crashed from 5.55 per cent in 2017 to just 0.99 per cent in 2019. Debt ballooned by $70 billion in three years and Covid-19 in 2020 shrank the economy by 6.4 per cent, wiping out millions of jobs. India, too, faced a Covid recession, but by 2022 was already back in high-growth mode, aided by digital adoption and strong exports. Pakistan, meanwhile, was queuing outside the IMF office like a regular at a tea stall. The 2023–2024 currency of crisis By 2023, Pakistan's GDP had fallen to $338.4 billion, inflation hit over 29 per cent and foreign exchange reserves hovered near default territory. Debt servicing consumed nearly half the federal budget, with $23 billion due in external repayments for FY2025–26. The Shehbaz Sharif government's $7 billion IMF bailout in late 2024 was a lifeline—but with austerity conditions that would choke growth. Inflation, however, dropped from 29 per cent to around 4.6 per cent in 2024 and reserves improved to $9.4 billion, but these are band-aid metrics. The fundamentals—low productivity, narrow export base and chronic political instability — remain untouched. India's Mercedes moment While Pakistan tries to keep the dump truck from rolling backward, India has officially overtaken Japan as the world's fourth-largest economy in 2025, with GDP at $4.187 trillion. This is not just size — it's trajectory. India is targeting over 7 per cent growth, driven by manufacturing, services, infrastructure and digitalisation. Initiatives like Make in India, the PLI schemes and massive infrastructure spending have turned India into a magnet for global investment. It has weathered demonetisation, a pandemic and global recessions — and still emerged stronger. Pakistan, in comparison, has averaged around 4 per cent GDP growth over the past two decades, punctuated by repeated IMF rescues. The gap between the Mercedes and the dump truck isn't just cosmetic — it's structural, systemic and widening. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Why the dump truck analogy backfires Munir's boast that a dump truck can wreck a Mercedes ignores the basic principle of economics — and physics. The Mercedes is faster, more efficient and designed for long-term performance. The dump truck is slow, inefficient, and, in Pakistan's case, running on loans and donor goodwill. If the dump truck 'hits' the Mercedes — be it via war, sanctions or regional instability — it's Pakistan that risks total economic collapse. With imports covering basics like wheat and fuel, and foreign reserves covering barely two months of imports, Pakistan cannot sustain prolonged confrontation. Meanwhile, India, with diversified trade partners, a over $600 billion forex reserve and global investor confidence, would take a hit but recover. The dump truck, however, would be towed straight to the IMF workshop — for its 24th visit since 1958. Ironically, Munir's latest anti-India outbursts followed India publicly stating that it shot down at least five of Pakistan's fighter jets and also damaged F-16s in hangar during Operation Sindoor. Social media is abuzz reminding Munir of what a 'Mercedes' just did to the 'dump truck'. Munir is about loud speeches, empty wisdom The deeper irony is that the Pakistan military has been one of the biggest players in Pakistan's economic mismanagement and the primary beneficiary of Pakistan's budget revenues. The army controls vast business conglomerates in real estate, energy, agriculture and manufacturing. So, when Munir compares Pakistan to a dump truck, he might be advised to check who's been driving it for most of the past 75 years. Spoiler: it's been men in uniform. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Upgrade or obsolescence? Pakistan's economic journey since 1947 is a story of missed opportunities, political instability and over-reliance on foreign aid. Even its best growth periods — Ayub in the '60s, Zia in the '80s, Musharraf in the 2000s — were built on temporary external inflows rather than sustainable reforms. India's rise to a $4.1 trillion economy is not just the result of size or luck. It's the cumulative effect of decades of policy shifts, institution building and integration into the global economy. The Mercedes keeps upgrading. The dump truck, meanwhile, is still waiting for the next donor to fill the tank.
Daily Record
04-08-2025
- Politics
- Daily Record
Fox News slams Keir Starmer's leadership in UK as they issue urgent 'Big Brother is watching' alert
A Fox News correspondent compared the UK to George Orwell's novel 1984 as they said "Big Brother is Watching" Fox News has aired an urgent alert in a mortifying dig at Keir Starmer's leadership. The American news channel caused some controversy when they declared "Big Brother is Watching" on Sunday night's Fox Business show, The Bottom Line. This is a reference to George Orwell's dystopian novel 1984, where the Ministry of Truth is a government agency responsible for propaganda, historical revisionism, and manipulating information to align with the Party's narrative. The Fox News anchor declared: "1984 called and it wants its Ministry of Truth back. "The UK has created an elite police unit known as The National Intelligence Investigations Team dedicated to monitoring anti-migrant social media posts. Leaders claim its purpose is to detect early signs of potential unrest." The channel then showed images of ongoing protests in Epping as tensions rise over migrants being housed in hotels within the area, the Express reports. The report comes amid increased worries surrounding free speech and growing disorder in the UK. An elite team of police officers are set to watch over social media for anti-migrant sentiment amid fears of summer riots. Detectives will be taken from forces across the country to team up in a new investigation that will identify early signs of potential civil unrest. During Donald Trump's visit to the UK last week, Keir Starmer assured the press that we have had "free speech here for a very long time and we're very proud of that". The Fox News correspondents were joined by Public News Founder Michael Shellenberger. Host Guy Benson said: "Michael, it's true that the UK and the West has a fairly robust tradition when it comes to free speech but i'm not so sure that's true anymore. "There is story after story about people being thrown behind bars in the UK - even for tweets they have deleted with longer prison sentences than people who have committed actual physical violent crimes." Michael replied: "It's an incredible story. There is a woman that has been in prison for 31 months which is four months longer than a child rapist. All she did was have a tweet up for four hours that she ended up taking down. "This is a sweeping crackdown on free speech in Great Britain. We have not seen anything like this for hundreds of years. Keep in mind they were arresting 30 people a day for wrong speech in Britain before this. "Now, they have a special police task force to constantly monitor social media including X formerly Twitter and they can stop content based on age verification." He added: "They are not going to allow people to criticise mass immigration. They're going to call it Islamphobia. A hate crime and prevent it. George Orwell perfectly predicted this in 1984 when he wrote his book in the mid 40s." Michael went on to explain that as the UK continues to increase social media surveillance it is effectively taking place worldwide including within the EU and the US. He explained: "It's happening everywhere and has accelerated since Trump was elected. So it's the EU, it's Britain, it's Ireland - they want to read your private text messages. Canada, Brazil - the strategy here is to make it so the social media companies will censor this content for everybody." Michael also alleged the heavy censorship that has been politicised due to the growing support of right-wing parties. Further protests have erupted across the UK as migrants are relocated to more affluent London areas. Join the Daily Record WhatsApp community! Get the latest news sent straight to your messages by joining our WhatsApp community today. You'll receive daily updates on breaking news as well as the top headlines across Scotland. No one will be able to see who is signed up and no one can send messages except the Daily Record team. All you have to do is click here if you're on mobile, select 'Join Community' and you're in! If you're on a desktop, simply scan the QR code above with your phone and click 'Join Community'. We also treat our community members to special offers, promotions, and adverts from us and our partners. If you don't like our community, you can check out any time you like. To leave our community click on the name at the top of your screen and choose 'exit group'. If you're curious, you can read our Privacy Notice. A spate of demonstrations has occurred close to the Britannia Hotel in Canary Wharf amid proposals for it to accommodate migrants. Men, thought to be asylum seekers, were captured on film entering the hotel from a bus in the early hours of Saturday, clutching what appeared to be brown envelopes and dressed in similar attire. A representative for Tower Hamlets Council has earlier verified that the Britannia Hotel is set to "provide temporary accommodation for asylum seekers".
Telegraph
29-07-2025
- Politics
- Telegraph
‘Savile' smear won't stop me defending free speech
It was just after 7AM yesterday when I received a phone message that a Labour cabinet minister had accused me, live on TV, of being in bed with Britain's most infamous paedophile, Jimmy Savile. Peter Kyle, Secretary of State for Science, told Sky News that, because Reform UK wants to abolish the Online Safety Act, I was on the side of predators and pornographers. 'Make no mistake about it,' Kyle assured the somewhat gobsmacked interviewer, 'if people like Jimmy Savile were alive today he would be perpetrating his crimes online and Nigel Farage is saying that he is on their side, not the side of children…' How low can these people go? How desperate must Labour be to imagine that smearing me in such a disgusting way will help their losing cause? We asked Kyle for an apology for his revolting slander. Instead, like the worst kind of online troll, this sorry excuse for a British secretary of state simply doubled down on the abuse. 'If you want to overturn the Online Safety Act,' he tweeted, 'you are on the side of predators. It's as simple as that.' No minister, it is not as simple as that, far from it. All of this is of course a deflection from the real problem with the Online Safety act, proudly passed by the previous Tory government and enthusiastically enforced by Keir Starmer's Labour. Like Big Brother's Ministry of Truth in 1984, this Orwellian law does the exact opposite of what it claims. In the name of safety, the Act poses the biggest threat to freedom of speech in this country in our lifetimes. In the name of protecting children, the law aims to regulate what adults are allowed to say or see – while doing nothing to make our children safer. That is why Reform UK is pledged to repealing the Online Safety Act. The Act gives the official state regulator, Ofcom, the power to impose huge fines if big tech platforms fail to do enough to censor what can be said on social media. This week the final section demanding age verification for accessing adult content online came into force. These apparently well-intentioned checks enforce mandatory ID scans, not just for porn sites, but also for mainstream social media where political or any other content is deemed potentially 'harmful'. This erosion of privacy could make it easier to identify online critics of government policy on migration and much else. If the Government's priority online is truly protecting the children, then why has the Home Office set up a new elite squad of police officers to monitor social media for 'anti-migrant sentiment ', as reported in The Telegraph this week? It also seems suspicious that the Labour Government is so keen to protect teenagers from receiving 'harmful' political messages, at the same time as it wants to grant 16- and 17-year-olds the right to vote. These checks won't prevent enterprising youngsters from accessing adult sites anyway. The number of people in the UK signing up for a Virtual Private Network (VPN), which allows them to sidestep ID scans and parental controls, has soared. And once teenagers are prompted to get a VPN, they can even use it to access the murky depths of the dark web. It should surely come as a shock to nobody that teenagers know how the internet works better than the dinosaurs who drafted and enforce this worse-than-useless law. The dangers inherent in the Online Safety Act don't end with ID checks. The extraordinarily wide-ranging Section 179 makes it an offence to publish 'false' content which causes 'non-trivial psychological harm'. Who is to decide what speech is 'false' or 'harmful'? Like the Roman once asked, who censors the censor? We already know that coverage of recent protests at a hotel housing illegal migrants in Leeds has been censored, along with posts criticising the Government's soft migration policies and exposing the truth about Britain's mainly-Muslim rape gangs. Social media platforms such as X/Twitter, Facebook and Instagram are compelled to censor such potentially 'harmful' content proactively. If they fail to crack down fast and hard enough, Ofcom can fine them up to 10 per cent of their worldwide revenues – and prosecute the managers. Little wonder that their inclination is to censor first and ask questions later. And there could be worse to come. Section 44 of the Act empowers the secretary of state to unilaterally order Ofcom to make its rules even tougher. In future, what the British people are permitted to say could be dictated at the whim of a government minister. The secretary of state who oversees Ofcom today? Peter Kyle. Do you want the minister for political slander setting the rules for what can be said on social media? Passed by Tories, enforced by Labour, the execrable Online Safety Act is an indictment of the establishment uniparty and the contempt it has for our liberties. We saw last summer how, after the brutal murder of three young girls in Southport, the suppression of the full facts only stoked the fires of social unrest. I bow to nobody in my determination to protect families and children. But I will not allow the Government to hide behind children while attacking the fundamental British value of freedom of speech – and the liberty to tell the truth.
AU Financial Review
09-07-2025
- Entertainment
- AU Financial Review
How Trump 2.0 and social media gave Orwell's 1984 new life
Even the producer of a stage adaptation of 1984 now touring the country wishes George Orwell's novel from 75 years ago did not remain so relevant. 'It's sad that the timing always seems perfect for a bit of dystopia,' said Nick Skubij, founder and co-artistic director of Brisbane-based Shake & Stir Theatre, who will bring Big Brother, his thought police and the Ministry of Truth to Sydney from July 24.
Daily Mirror
21-06-2025
- Politics
- Daily Mirror
'Humphrey' and 'uwotm8': How Whitehall's AI assistant was given English lessons
Ministers' favourite chatbot has been given elocution classes to stop it spouting 'trash' - and get it to talk 'rubbish' instead Whitehall's AI assistant has been given elocution lessons to stop spouting 'trash' and talk 'rubbish' instead. The AI tool set, nicknamed 'Humphrey' after the manipulative civil servant in TV's Yes, Minister, has been used to cut back on expensive consultants and speed up how government departments operate. But users noticed a flaw in the bot - an irritating tendency of using Americanisms. Keen to make sure ministers' favourite official remained a true Brit, AI experts in Whitehall's Technology Ministry built a translator for Humphrey, known informally as 'uwotm8'. Technology Secretary Peter Kyle said: "Humphrey has the potential to transform the way government works – making things faster, more efficient, and less reliant on expensive consultants as we create a leaner state focused on delivering Plan for Change priorities. 'But an AI tool named after a British sitcom icon must speak the King's English. With this new translator, he now sounds a bit more like the rest of us – and that matters when he's advising ministers or engaging with the public. It's a simple fix with a big impact." The news comes as Elon Musk revealed a chilling plan to re-write history using his AI chatbot - with readers accusing him of copying 1984. In George Orwell's dystopian novel, hero Winston Smith works at the Ministry of Truth, where his job is to rewrite historical documents and newspapers so they match the tyrannical government's constantly changing party line. This morning, Musk vowed on X to use the latest version of AI chatbot Grok to 'rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information and deleting errors.' He said Grok, which X users can access directly within the app, would be 'retrained' based on the 'corrected' data. AI systems are trained on huge sets of data - mostly from publicly available sources like books, newspaper articles and other sources on the internet. ChatGPT, the main competitor for Musk's Grok AI, is estimated to be trained on more than a trillion words of information. Musk's suggestion would be for his next model to be trained not on original historical sources, but on Grok's revisions of them - with the erratic tech billionaire's team stepping in to remove 'errors'. Musk posted: 'Far too much garbage in any foundation model trained on uncorrected data.'
