by What an age we live in! There are so many new and amazing online shopping services, delivery and taxi services now and it truly feels like Pakistan is slowly transforming into a first class country. Whether you want food delivered or book a holiday? You name it and there is an app for that.
Your neighbor forgot her medicine at her aunt’s place in Nazimabad? No problem, a rider will pick it up and deliver it. You urgently need grocery? There’s a website for that. You want to go to the Karachi Eat festival but are dreading the traffic? Take an Uber or Careem. Want to buy a phone but are afraid of being mugged? Order online! Restaurant riders even bring over wireless debit/credit card machines. I recently had an amazing experience of using one of these services. I was hungry at 2 AM and ordered a kofta wrap from MacDonald’s and there the rider came with my order. I searched my wallet, and was low in cash, the rider offered me that I could pay from my debit or credit card as well. Amazing! What may we expect next? Flying cars? I really hope so.
According to the World Ultra Wealth Report, Pakistan is home to 415 super rich people and their assets come to approximately $ 50 billion. Last year, there were 310 Pakistanis in the category with assets worth around $ 40 billion. Wow, apparently this sounds good but the ratio of the have-nots has also gone up considerably.
But while at the same time my poor brethren are offering their body parts for sale to get rid of hunger and arrange two meals a day for their families. To meet the basic needs of the family has become a Herculean task for my common brother. Neither any proper data nor information about the sources of the income of the super-rich is available. And it cannot be, under any circumstances, claimed that all the money has been made through just and legal means. In Pakistan, there are several ways to earn money and various means to evade taxes. The corrupt protect one another. The affluent are united to safeguard the interests of one another besides increasing their strength. The rest of the population is perhaps born to serve these ‘super human beings’.
After 70 years, it is a point to ponder whether our elders sacrificed so much to achieve a separate country where the rich become richer and the poor poorer. A number of allegations are leveled against the colonial rule, but there were no such injustices as have become the order of the day in Pakistan.
