TechLahore

Iran is now in possession of the most advanced US drone, the RQ-170 "Beast of Kandahar"

It seems to be drone season here at TechLahore! Right after we wrote about Pakistan’s Burraq UCAV, one of the hottest pieces of news that came out revolved around the downing or “forced landing” of a top secret US drone in Iran. The RQ-170, also known as “The Beast of Kandahar” was only deployed in late 2009 and represents the absolute cutting edge in American reconnaissance and autonomous drone/UAV technology. Early reports about the incident revolved around the debate of whether the drone had in fact been downed, what kind of drone it was, how it was downed and so on. It took several days for the facts to come to light. Initially, the US had declared via ISAF, that a drone “may” have “strayed” into Iran as a consequence of loss of control during a mission over eastern Afghanistan. On the face of it, this was a ridiculous position to take because it wouldn’t make sense for the US to use a stealth drone for missions over Afghanistan, a country over which it has complete airspace control. Following this, a US spokesperson explicitly confirmed that satellite pictures had shown the drone lay utterly destroyed and was hence not going to be useful to the Iranians. Then further tidbits of information started to come out. That in fact the drone was not operated by ISAF, but by the CIA. That in fact it was conducting a spy mission over Iran. And yes, that the drone was in tip-top shape and was, rather unfortunately, the vaunted RQ-170.

All this was rather embarrassing and quite reminscent of the May Day incident in 1960 when Nikita Khruschev’s Soviet Union shot down Francis Gary Powers’ U2 spy-plane. Interestingly, the Soviets held on to the wreckage for a day or so and let the Americans proclaim that the aircraft downed over the USSR was in fact a “weather balloon”. Once the U2 wreckage was shown, President Eisenhower had to back down from this position. But confidence was high in the US that Gary Powers would have either died, or would have taken the poison pill was he supplied with. Neither happened, and three days into the incident, Gary Powers was paraded in Moscow, leading to a very unfortunate situation for the US State Dept. By the way, if you are interested in learning more about the U2 incident, you should read Michael Beschloss’ excellent book on the subject, titled “May Day”. [Read the rest of this entry...]

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Ally China is pursuing a number of UCAV projects. So is Pakistan...

Since the war on terror started in Afghanistan back in 2001, the United States Air Force has employed various different UAV platforms to target insurgents and the Taliban. Both on Afghan soil as well as in Pakistani territory, with the covert approval of the Pakistan government. Observing the efficacy of UAV platforms like the Predator, the Pakistani military establishment requested the United States to equip it with UAVs so that the war on terror could be prosecuted with more efficacy on the part of the Pakistani military. However these requests were denied repeatedly and America cited the potential use of these UAV platforms in military theaters outside the Afghan Pakistan border (i.e. India) as a flimsy excuse. Faced with these denials, but unwavering in its resolve to achieve its objectives, Pakistan undertook a domestic UAV development program. Even prior to Predator requisition requests being turned down, the Pakistani military had already invested in various autonomous target drones, built both by the private and public sectors. Here at TechLahore, we covered Pakistani drone developments a couple of years ago. In fact, we pointed out that the level of sophistication was such that – in a rather ironic twist -private Pakistani drone  manufacturers were exporting UAVs even to the United States homeland security department for oversight applications on the US-Mexico border.

Since then, much has happened. Pakistan entered into a deal with the Italian firm, Selex-Galileo, for the licensed production of fairly capable UAV aircraft at the Kamra Aeronautical facilities. In addition, the Pakistan Navy also acquired rotorcraft drones from foreign sources. Separately, the Pakistan Army has pursued partnerships with China and has incented local manufacturers to continue to develop more advanced platforms within the country. One of the more promising UCAV projects currently in progress in Pakistan is the Burraq armed drone. Burraq is envisioned as a high endurance, long-range, over the horizon, armed UAV aircraft. For the last four years it has been under development and rumors are now surfacing that it may be ready for deployment. At the recent Zhuhai airshow in China, in which the Pakistan Air Force participated with its JF-17 Thunder fighter aircraft, Chinese manufacturers also displayed miniaturized lightweight missiles that were particularly suited for carriage on a drone. Various parts of this sprawling Pakistani drone development program are coming together, in partnership with China – weapons development, control systems development, propulsion, airframe, ground stations and much else. The Burraq will only the first in a line of capable, armed Pakistani drones. [Read the rest of this entry...]

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Pakistan buries its dead after an unprovoked NATO attack killed 24 servicemen

Stratfor is one of the most respected strategic forecasting organizations in the world. They provide strategic intelligence to large corporations – including all the major financial institutions – and  a significant part of their membership is comprised of former and serving military officers in the western world. George Friedman, the Founder of Stratfor, has also written numerous books regarding the future of the world from a strategic and political perspective. Two of his books which I have read and particularly enjoyed are “The Next Decade” and “The Next 100 Years“. While I don’t agree with all of Mr. Friedman’s conclusions, a lot of his perspectives are right on the money. Here at TechLahore, we’ve previously featured Stratfor’s forecasting and you can take a look at that post here.

Much has been written and said about the most recent flareup in Pakistan-US relations. The crisis resulted from an unprovoked NATO attack on two Pakistani checkposts, leading to the martyrdom of 24 Pakistani army personnel, including two officers. In response, Pakistan ordered the eviction of US troops from a key air base in Balochistan, shut down all NATO supply lines, ordered troops on the border to fire at will in the even that NATO violates Pakistan’s territorial borders again and is undertaking a full review of all cooperation with NATO. What is very important to consider is how the immediate future will be shaped in context of this incident. Will this result in greater tensions between the two countries? A shooting war perhaps? Does NATO have the upper hand? Does Pakistan hold any strategic cards? These are all questions that are being asked by millions in Pakistan, the wider South/Central Asian region and indeed, the West. [Read the rest of this entry...]

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Wheat fields in Haripur Hazara. Pakistan can be an agricultural powerhouse with just a little strategic thinking on the part of its government. (Photo credit: Daniyal Gilani, Flickr)

For 5,000 years, the economic well being of the people of what is now Pakistan has been secured through agriculture. Even as Pakistan has rapidly modernized over the last 6 decades since independence, a very large component of the economy is still agriculture based. And in these days of population pressure globally, shortfalls of cultivable land, food security issues and rising food prices, this can be a tremendous asset for the country. Our strength in agriculture and farming is borne out by the numbers. We are the world’s 4th largest producer of milk, we export more than $24B worth of textiles annually based on the strength of our cotton production, we have one of the largest populations of farm animals – over 50M – in the country, and our wheat production stands at number 6 in the world. There are many other areas where Pakistan has unassailable competitive advantages, for example, in the fact that the variety of citrus produced in Pakistan is far more diverse than in any other country of the world, or that the mangoes grown in Pakistan are – without doubt – the richest and best on the globe.

Yet, so much more can be done. I have always been of the strong belief that Pakistan actually has no economic problems beyond mismanagement and poor planning. There are no inherent, structural reasons why Pakistan cannot rapidly develop to the levels of a first-world economy, and take its population of 180M along with it. There are very simple and – in the grand scheme of things – tiny steps that we can take to completely alter our economic picture. Let’s take a part of our agricultural sector; wheat production, as an example. We produce 24M tonnes of wheat per year, which is quite a bit. Yet, our per acre yield, at between 23-25 Maunds per acre, is the lowest in the world amongst major agri economies. If we increased yield to Australian or European levels (as high as 70 Maunds per acre), we would have an excess of between 30-40M tonnes of exportable wheat per year, from the existing land under cultivation. This would mean a minimum of an extra $10B of exports annually, given current international wheat prices. The reality is that these prices have been increasing over the past few years and with the world population expected to hit close to 10B in 2050, they won’t be going in the other direction any time soon. [Read the rest of this entry...]

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Mr. Bhandari says India's IT outsourcing future is not very bright

I’ve always wondered why India is having such trouble moving from IT enabled services into the product market. It has been obvious to every observer of the BPO ITeS market that wage based differentiation doesn’t amount to a long term, defensible competitive edge. There are two parallel threats – the first being the very high rates of inflation in developing countries such as India, which put strong upward pressure on local wages. And second, the emergence of other geographies that are willing to undercut traditional BPO/IT outsourcing destinations such as India.

Even though Indian IT companies have had more than two decades now to develop and mature, there isn’t really a single Indian product that one could name without delving deep and “discovering” it deliberately. The brand recognition and market presence simply doesn’t exist for Indian products thus far. Then there’s the perception of India being primarily a “body shop”. This may be an unfair description, but as with all brand development challenges, it needs to be addressed. Thus far, I don’t see it happening. Perhaps what is needed is for an Indian IT services giant to acquire a western software company with an already established product brand. Short of this, I don’t see how India stays competitive in the long term. [Read the rest of this entry...]

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Farid's LCF offers courses in a variety of different areas

We’ve often talked about the need for Pakistanis to understand personal finance and the realities of the complex financial dynamics in today’s world. Thus far, there hasn’t really been an effective way to impart this education to willing learners without having them enroll in a university. To make things simpler, Jawwad Farid, founder of Alchemy, has launched an online e-learning portal called LCF. Jawwad’s audience, however, is not just limited to those interested in Personal Finance, nor is it limited to Pakistan. His courses have been incredibly well received by a global audience. In Jawwad’s own words:

“We recently crossed the 100,000 visitors benchmark after crossing the 200,000 pageviews benchmark in August. Traffic is up at about 8,000 monthly visitors and over 17,500 pageviews. An average visitor spends upwards of 2 minutes with some users spending all of 40 minutes at the site validating its stickiness. All content is locally generated and our online video course library has doubled this quarter and we hope will double again before the end of the year. [Read the rest of this entry...]

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Bustling cities like Cape Town, South Africa, hold a lot of promise for Pakistani IT companies

Pakistan and South Africa have a connection dating back at least 150 years. During colonial times, a large number of people from the sub continent moved to South Africa to work and find business opportunity. Today, there is a significant presence of Muslim South Africans in the business community in that country and people of Sub-continental decent – including those from modern-day Pakistan – are doing very well socially and economically. Since the end of Apartheid, South Africa has entered the comity of nations and has been welcomed by all. In fact, their post-Apartheid reconciliation process and the peaceful manner in which internal conflict was ended is used as a modern-day example of good sense, peacemaking and humanitarianism.

Along with its newly restored international standing and reputation, South Africa has also emerged as a business destination. There has always been a very strong tradition of technological development in the country. During the period they were under sanctions, South Africans achieved numerous technical feats, including their own nuclear programme, the development of high performance aircraft such as the Cheetah, and the continued growth of impressive R&D firms such as Denel.  [Read the rest of this entry...]

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Karachi's beautiful Sheraton hotel was the venue for P@SHA's 2011 Information Technology Awards

A big shout out to Jehanara, President of the Pakistan Software Houses Association (P@SHA), and her management team for organizing a brilliant event last night at Karachi’s gorgeous Sheraton Hotel.

The 8th Annual P@SHA’s ICT (Information and Communication Technology) awards were wonderfully organized, fairly judged and brilliantly presented. The tremendous momentum and growth of Pakistan’s IT industry is plain for all to see and this Awards ceremony is a great showcase. Each year, the entries have been getting more and more sophisticated and wide ranging. A fair number of new companies have been recognized in the 2011 Awards which bodes well for the industry’s future.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

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This is not a PG-13 post. If you are offended by bad language, please move on.

In Vino Veritas, as it is said in latin, in wine there is truth. And sometimes that truth can be ugly. So ugly, that it might be more comfortable to suppress it and continue on as if the ugliness never happened. The truth I wish to share with you is unfortunately of this ilk and I must confess that I fought my natural urge to smother it and bury it before anyone else could find out. It wasn’t easy.

[Read the rest of this entry...]

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Pakistani social gaming startup, White Rabbit, is about to launch Baby World - a social, virtual world experience.

Islamabad based social media gaming company, White Rabbit, has been covered here on TechLahore numerous times. We’ve even included guest posts from their Founder and CEO, Hassan Baig. Well, we wanted to revisit our past coverage and get you the latest that’s happening at White Rabbit. Hassan gave us a great update and caught us up with a lot of the exciting developments the company has seen in recent days.

First up, White Rabbit has secured investment from US-based investors to continue the development of its vividly imagined, top-tier social games. Hassan tells us that the company is continuing to look for additional investment from folks that can provide not just dumb money, but smart connections too. [Read the rest of this entry...]

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