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Thread: Pakistan crumbling & rusty: a train journey

  1. #1
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default Pakistan crumbling & rusty: a train journey

    In his last despatch from Pakistan the NYT's Declan Walsh travelled on the crumbling railway system and IMO provides a vivid, human portrait of a country I suspect many SWC readers would prefer to ignore:http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/wo...pagewanted=all

    There's also a photo series - some tell more than the author writes

    Friends have travelled on Indian railways and they bear no comparison to Pakistan - they gave up trying to book long journeys, the booking office didn't even have a computer.
    davidbfpo

  2. #2
    Council Member Red Rat's Avatar
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    I travelled from Karachi to Islamabad by train in 1995. The journey took 28 hours, as scheduled, and despite the General Strike and attendant heavy paramilitary presence in Karachi I never felt threatened at all. It was a great way to get a feel of the country.

    I am not so sure I would have the same positive experience now.
    RR

    "War is an option of difficulties"

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    On tablet at moment, but IIRC the article's author just got expelled from Pakistan.

    I wonder how much this article or similar antispin reportage with candor led to it?

  4. #4
    Council Member davidbfpo's Avatar
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    Default On the Karachi to Peshawar train

    A commentary on a still functioning, if hardly modern part of Pakistan, its railways and on a journey for the intrepid - this time a lady:http://roadsandkingdoms.com/2015/a-r...e-in-pakistan/
    davidbfpo

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    As long as the people of Pakistan continue to swallow the force-fed narrative that they are better off than people in India and Bangladesh, true or not, they will gladly suffer such crumbling infrastructure and poor/non-existent services of all kinds. The rich, on the other hand, have it quite good but pretend they do not, sort of like a bigger North Korea.

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