On 07/22/2011 07:21 AM, ss wrote:
On Thursday 21 Jul 2011 11:53:28 pm [email protected] wrote:
We need somebody from Pakistan in here. Ideas?
I have been on a wildly jingoistic, largely right wing Indian defence forum
which is very popular. About a decade ago there were similar calls on the
forum that "We need a Pakistani viewpoint". What became of that is a different
story that is not relevant here but my observations on the issue of Pakistanis
on English language internet fora provoked some study and some thoughts about
that subset of Indians and Pakistanis who actually communicate in English.
Like I said - the English speaking groups are a sub-set of the populations of
the two nations. Statistics about how many English readers or speakers there
are are reasonably easily available from India but are more difficult to access
from Pakistan. A lot of Information Technology promotion sites frm Pakistan
claim a huge number of English speakers who (it was believed) would give the
Indian BPO sector a run for its money.
But after repeated and much digging I discovered that the total circulation of
English newspapers in Pakistan in the year 2000 was about 150,000 for a
population of 134 million (at that time) More recently - there was a
burgeoning of TV channels in Pakistan and I recall the observation that there
was only one English language TV channel in Pakistan out of a several score
channels.
My conclusion was that it will be extremely difficult to get a Pakistani
viewpoint on here. Apart from the Pakistani press (whcih I follow closely) the
other places that give me some inkling into Pakistani thought are a Pakistani
"liberal" blog, which is also frequented by another silklister, and a
Pakistani jinoistic military forum.
It would be as relevant as any viewpoint expressed on silk list. As
relevant as the viewpoint of an English speaking Indian, at the very least.
.
Bharath
