By Dr
Farrukh Saleem
12/9/2007
Here's what is happening in India
:
The two Ambani brothers can buy 100 percent of every company listed on
the Karachi Stock Exchange (KSE) and would still be left with $30 billion to
spare. The four richest Indians can buy up all goods and services produced over
a year by 169 million Pakistanis and still be left with $60 billion to spare.
The four richest Indians are now richer than the forty richest Chinese.
In November, Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark Sensex flirted with
20,000 points. As a consequence, Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries became a
$100 billion company (the entire KSE is capitalized at $65 billion). Mukesh owns
48 percent of Reliance.
In November, comes Neeta's birthday. Neeta
turned f orty-four three weeks ago. Look what she got from her husband as her
birthday present: A sixty-million dollar jet with a custom fitted master
bedroom, bathroom with mood lighting, a sky bar, entertainment cabins, satellite
television, wireless communication and a separate cabin with game consoles.
Neeta is Mukesh Ambani's wife, and Mukesh is not India 's richest but t he
second richest.
Mukesh is now building his new home, Residence Antillia
(after a mythical, phantom island somewhere in the Atlantic=2 0Ocean ). At a
cost of $1 billion this would be the most expensive home on the face of the
planet. At 173 meters tall Mukesh's new family residence, for a family of six,
will be the equivalent of a 60-storeyed building. The first six floors are
reserved for parking. The seventh floor is for car servicing and maintenance.
The eighth floor houses a mini-theatre. Then there's a health club, a gym and a
swimming pool. Two floors are reserved for Ambani family's guests. Four flo ors
above the guest floors are family floors all with a superb view of the Arabian
Sea . On top of everything are three helipads. A staff of 600 is expected to
care for the family and their family home.
In 2004, India became t he
3rd most attractive foreign direct investment destination. Pakistan wasn't even
in the top 25 countries. In 2004, the United Nations, the representative body of
192 sovereign member states, had requested the Election Commission of India to
assist the UN in the holding elections in Al Jumhuriyah al Iraqiyah and
Dowlat-e Eslami-ye Afghanestan. Why the Election Commission of India and not the
Election Commission of Pakistan ? After all, Islamabad is closer to Kabul than
is Delhi .
Imagine, 12 percent of all American scientists are of Indian
origin; 38 percent of doctors in America are Indian; 36 percent of NASA
scientists are Indians; 34 percent of Microsoft employees are Indians; and 28
percent of IBM employees are Indians.
For the record: Sabeer Bhatia
created an d founded Hotmail. Sun Microsystems was founded by Vinod Khosla. The
Intel Pentium processor, that runs 90 percent of all computers, was fathered by
Vinod Dham. Rajiv Gupta co-invented Hewlett Packard's E-speak project. Four out
of ten Silicon Valley start-ups are run by Indians. Bollywood produces 800
movies per year and s ix Indian ladies have won Miss Universe/Miss World titles
over the past 10 years.
For the record: Azim Premji, the richest Muslim
entrepreneur on the face of the planet, was born in Bombay and now lives in
Bangalore.India now has more than three dozen billionaires; Pakistan has none
(not a single dollar billionaire).
The other amazing aspect is the rapid
pace at which India is creating wea lth. In 2002, Dhirubhai Ambani, Mukesh and
Anil Ambani's father, left his two sons a fortune worth $2.8 billion. In 2007,
their combined wealth stood at $94 billion. On 29 October 2007, as a result of
the stock market rally and the appreciation of the Indian rupee, Mukesh became
the richest person in the world, with net worth climbing to US$63.2 billion
(Bill Gates, the richest American, stands at around $56 billion).
Indians
and Pakistanis have the same Y-chromosome haplogroup. We have the same genetic
sequence and the same genetic marker (namely: M124). We have the sam e DNA
molecule, the same DNA sequence. Our culture, our traditions and our cuisine are
all the same. We watch the same movies and sing the same songs. What is it that
Indians have and we don't?
BECAUSE WE HAVE ISLAM VALUES YOU STILL A HINDU VALUES
The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist.
Email:
farr...@hotmail.com