Monthly Archives: December 2002

New information order

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

THE media scene is changing dramatically all over the world. Globalization, accompanied with phenomenal strides in communication technology, has proved to be the catalyst. Had it not been for the fact that capital now flows quite freely across borders and cable and satellite television and powerful transmitters have made it possible for sounds and images to be carried across thousands and thousands of miles, the reach of the media could not have been internationalized with such ease and at relatively affordable cost.
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As our population grows

By Zubeida Mustafa
Source: Dawn

THE UNFPA’s State of the World Population 2002 released last week should give much food for thought to policy makers in Pakistan. The first eye-opening information it gives us is that Pakistan’s population stands at 148.7 million.

The national census four years ago had put the head count at 130.5 million. If we accept the 1998 data as authentic — it was the product of a massive and costly exercise — the demographic growth has been phenomenal. That is not all. According to the UNFPA projections, Pakistan will have a population of 344.2 million in the year 2050 and we will be the fourth most populous state in the world after India, China and the US, in that order. What is most worrying in this mass of figures is the very high population growth rate (2.5 per cent) which is higher than many other heavily populated countries such as India, Bangladesh, Indonesia and China.
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