Undoubtedly, it is true, correct, and authentic but indeed narrow. The spectrum it covers is constricted and confined to one city in NWFP area in the north of that country. Because, if one is writing such a passionate and demonstrative account it should have been for the whole country of Pakistan, and not only Peshawar. The real GDP growth has contracted to about 4.5 to 5 percent in 2008-09. The Pak rupee has historically been a weak currency; it has further depreciated (since the June 2007) vis-a-vis the American dollar by about 28 percent. Consequently the average inflation (depending who is measuring it) has stepped-up to 16-17 percent. The external current account deficit widened to about $14 billion which is 9.0 percent of the GDP in 2007-08. Needless to mention, that from Okun's law we know that for every 2% fall in GNP relative to potential GNP, the unemployment rate rises by 1% point. The structure of the Pakistani economy has changed from a mainly agricultural base to a strong service base. Agriculture accounts for approximately 20% of the GDP, while the service sector accounts for 53% of the GDP. Which also means that that owing to poor policy making , Pakistan in the previous many years has disinvested itself out from industry and agriculture, and instead steadily investing in the infrastructure in defence projects , in luxury housing complexes and civil administration. There is huge moonlit / parallel economy in that country owing to drug peddling, bribery, counterfeit money, money laundering, and you name it, which makes lives of salaried person miserably difficult. Moody's Rating Service has confirms a negative outlook for Pakistan's B3 sovereign bond ratings while removing the review for possible downgrade. The bond ratings were lowered to B3 from B2 in October 2008 on account of intensified external liquidity pressures and the unavailability of, or delays in, expected assistance from key allies and official creditors. But Pakistan is not only in an economic crisis it is also in a crisis of governance. The government and the public are separated through an ever widening credibility gap and rarely see eye to eye on matters. BBC’s Owen Bennett Jones, in his book 'Pakistan: Eye of the Storm,' had written a reflective account: ''No elected government has ever completed its term in office. It has had three wars with India and has lost around half of its territory. Its economy has never flourished. Nearly half its vast population is illiterate and 20 percent is undernourished.'' It is not only in Peshawar as this news item has talked about, there is a continuing institutional decline of Pakistan, the world's seventh most populous country and a potential nuclear version of Yugoslavia. A report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA, in 2005 had predicted a "Yugoslav-like fate" for Pakistan "in a decade with the country driven by civil war, bloodshed and inter-provincial rivalries, as seen recently in Balochistan." (Energy Compass, 2 March 2005). According to the NIC-CIA, Pakistan is destined to become a "failed state" by 2015, "as it would be affected by civil war, complete Talibanisation and struggle for control of its nuclear weapons". Regretfully , and somehow all of that is coming out to be true.