South+Asia

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=Pakistan Suffers From Crazy Attacks =  Recently there have been a series of gun and bomb attacks on security forces throughout Pakistan. They have reported that the enemy has started a guerilla war! This means hit-and-run tactics are used. One of the larger problems is... they don’t know who is attacking them. Pakistan is guessing Taliban is to blame. The government has reacted by transferring responsibility for security in the capital Islamabad from the police to a paramilitary force, the Rangers. Attacks such as a suicide car bomb (See map - Kohat) near a police station, wall-scaling grenade-throwers at a police commando training center (See map - Bedian) and gun battles at a federal security building and two police academies (See map - Lahore). Lahore, Pakistan’s second-largest city and “the centre of [the country’s] cultural life,” is where the worst of the violence has unfolded. Over 150 people have been killed in the past two weeks. It’s no party in Pakistan. [|BBC News: Pakistan rocked by fresh attacks] 

Click [|here] to read about an **eye-witness **  **account **  of one of the attacks on Lahore. 

= = =India Has Rain Issues=

The funny thing about India's water crisis is that it actually won't be hurting the economy too badly (it's predicted to grow by 5%!) because India's agriculture only counts for 18% of the GDP. "Lavish spending" on rural welfare since 2004 when Congress won power in Dehli will also help the economy. On top of their drought, India's summertime sources of water, the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers are being deprived on account of the melting Himalayan glaciers. This means longer dry seasons and more violent wet seasons are to come. India is in trouble if they can't learn to manage their water and use it wisely! ** [|The Economist: India's water crisis: When the rain falls]
 * India has had some problems managing its water in the past. Now that monsoon season has come and brought practically __no__ water, (it usually supplies 80% of India's precipitation between June and September), the nation is in even worse shape. The outlook for winter wheat crop is grim, too, because India's main reservoirs are 1/3 below their seasonal average. People in India will be getting less water, and working harder for it. Andhra Pradesh (see map) counted more than 20 farmer suicides last month, and there are probably more to come.

=__Population and Demography of South Asia__=

*South Asia  (modified for this class) consists of five countries. Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. *Arithmetic density <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal;">is the total number of people divided by the total land area (in square kilometers.) <span style="color: #cc24b5; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 27px;">

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 17px; line-height: 25px;"><span style="color: #1b53c5; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal;">*Crude Birth Rate <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal;">, or CBR is the total number of babies born per 1000 people annually. <span style="color: #05a3a3; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 18px;">*Crude Death Rate (CDR) <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: normal; line-height: 25px;"> is the total amount of deaths in a year for every 1000 people. <span style="color: #a013a0; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 18px;">*NIR - National Increase Rate <span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 18px;">, is the annual growth of a population.



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=Drought Wilts India's Sugar-Cane Crops=

<span style="font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 130%; font-weight: normal;">In India, it is the driest it has ever been in 83 years! This has put a damper on staples, rice, oilseeds, legumes and SUGAR. India is the world's largest sugar consumer, and it is now practically being forced to buy sugar from other countries. It is slated to import more than 5 million tons of sugar by March, and thanks to this drought, the cost for sugar (and other crops) have gone way up in India. Uttar Pradesh, the country's second-largest sugar producer was one of the areas that was hit the hardest. The state has drought in 58 of its 71 districts. That is a lot of dry. Uttar Pradesh usually counts solidly on rainwater to maintain their summer-sown crops; their irrigation system is always dry on account of poor maintenance. They also have frequent power cuts and the like. India's government has been coming up with plans to revamp the irrigation network, but there has not been any work that has made a difference yet. New Delhi recently tried to slow rising prices by limiting trader's maximum inventory, and also easing import restrictions on sugar. Despite these efforts, sugar prices continue to climb.

[|The Wall Street Journal: India's Sugar Crop Wilts Amid Drought]

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