100 Pakistanis

30 comments posted

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1. Gardezi says:
   August 19th, 2009 4:21 pm

   Please DO NOT add references (except maybe in very fine print as footnotes somewhere or in separate post on your blog. You will mess up an otherwise very good effort if you do. The kerray nikalnay wallas will do what they always do – produce nothing themselves and find faults in others. Just ignore them.

   References will just mess this up. The point of these broad numbers is that they are broad they give a snapshot, a 30,000 feet view. Footnotes will only imply they are somehow exact. And they are not. Plus this is for the general casual reader and the purpose is to grasp attention, it is NOT an academic paper (if it was, then even with footnotes it would fail). Its an attention grabber so leave it like an attention grabber. Don’t listen to the bad advice being given by some. If they want the details they can go and search for it. In fact, that should be the point. The attention grabber should grab attention enough for them to get off their bum and do some digging themselves.

   You will defeat the purpose if you get into too many details.

   Good job, by the way.

2. Shehryar says:
   August 19th, 2009 3:37 pm

   Jawad, Am embarrassed at my proof reading on heroin vs heroine. Footnotes for the references will be added shortly on both blogs. Thank you for pointing out the mistakes.

   Btw, the 3 addicts of Babra Sharif (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0788774/) don’t want her confused with Barbara Sharief (http://www.voteforbarbarasharief.com)

   ;o)

   Watan Aziz, We used Islamabad simply as a symbolic million strong capital city that everyone reading this blog can most probably relate to.
   One of the reasons for starting these short pieces was to ignite a bigger debate on the lack of reliable data on our country.
   I guess for now, the data is as ‘spurious’ as its sources like GoP reports, UN databases and CIA Factbook etc, over which I claim no responsibility.

   Apologies for falling behind on posting all my refs/footnotes.

3. Watan Aziz says:
   August 19th, 2009 1:42 pm

   ~~
   Also, heroin is the opiate. Heroine is Barbara Sharief (female hero) etc.

   So. If there were 100 Pakistanis. 99 would use statistics without footnotes. 98 would use the words bhang, charas and horoin etc without knowing the difference. 73 would know the difference between heroin and heroine. :)
   ~~

   Priceless.

   Although in fairness, 3 **would be** addicted to Barbara Sharief.

   Seriously, besides the most obvious numbers which have not changed in years, the rest of the numbers based on “access” are nearly bogus.

   I challenge the veracity of these:
   90 would have access to safe drinking water; 10 would not
   58 people would have proper sanitation; 42 would not

   30 would have access to vehicles like bikes, cars, buses etc

   75 would have access to electricity;25 would be living in darkness
   Only 20 would have gas in their homes

   50 would own a mobile phone
   3 would have access to a land line
   50 would have access to a TV set
   96 would have access to a radio set

   Only 12 would have internet access

   The term “access” would generally mean here that they can recognize the pictures, know the name for it and can recall where they have seen it last.

   The mobile phone number is most likely the commutative sale of phones since day 1, which includes broken phones, phones not in use and multiple phones owned by a small group of people.

   These will never in their “daily use”.

   Finally,
   ~~After one year, 2 people will be added to the population.
   That

4. jawad says:
   August 19th, 2009 12:57 pm

   This kind of list only makes sense if it is accompanied by extensive footnotes.

   Bhang is not poppy buds. It is any number of concoctions made from ganja that one can eat drink or smoke. The original article gets closer by calling it cannabis. They may have gone back and corrected it. It is good blog practice to indicate all updates that were made after publishing.

   Also, heroin is the opiate. Heroine is Barbara Sharief (female hero) etc.

   So. If there were 100 Pakistanis. 99 would use statistics without footnotes. 98 would use the words bhang, charas and horoin etc without knowing the difference. 73 would know the difference between heroin and heroine. :)

5. Shehryar says:
   August 19th, 2009 11:22 am

   Thanks for all the constructive comments. The list is an evolving document and will keep on improving based on better data availability and user input. We’ll also be putting up all the references used in a few days time.

6. jk says:
   August 19th, 2009 11:18 am

   >3 would have access to a land line – I am pretty sure that more people have land lines.

   Maybe they meant land mines.

7. RAI AZLAN says:
   August 19th, 2009 10:45 am

   worked really hard on the figures

8. ATP Administrator says:
   August 19th, 2009 10:43 am

   A few comments from the ATP Facebook Page:

   - “Wow there will be no Talibans in 100?”
   - “It is nice way of presenting the information. The writer very concisely and conclusively gave all the facts and figures. Well Done, Keep it Up! V wd like to read some more info like this.”
   - “I am trying to find some time out to convert this into infoviz as this is pretty depressing to read this way but def. interesting data.”

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