Push came to shove on May 22 in a 3-minute non-meeting in the White House between President Donald Trump and Democratic party leaders and the 2 trillion infrastructure plan collapsed, blown apart by the tornadic winds from the President’s mouth. The demise of the alleged plan was predictable, because from the start it was built not on strong pillars with deep pilings, but on a house of cards in which the joker was wild. The victim of all of this was the nation’s infrastructure, … [Read more...]
Articles
Frank blogs regularly for the Huffington Post and writes occasional columns and articles for publications such as the International Business Times and The Economic Times of India.
Frank writes on a wide variety of topics that are critical to shaping the future of America and the American dream and to making the United States and the world a better place. These include: Business; education; poverty and inequality; politics and public policy; immigration; manufacturing; innovation; leadership; citizenship; and social commentary.
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Pakistan’s bid to reform Madrassas
Pakistan has recently announced to mainstream its 30,000 religious schools known as madrassas in a long overdue move to curb militancy. According to spokesman of Pakistan’s military Major General Asif Ghafoor, these autonomous religious schools would be brought under state control. Under the reform agenda, modern sciences will be included in the curriculum of these schools and hate speech will be excluded from their existing syllabus. The announcement is an important step for independent … [Read more...]
National Service An Idea Whose Time Has Come?
Is national service an idea whose time has come? The answer is maybe. The one thing that can be said definitively is that in the first half of 2019 it has re-emerged as a concept for consideration. Fareed Zakaria, journalist and author, suggested a national service program of some type in his commencement address at Ohio State University on May 5 of this year. Mr. Zakaria concludes his article for the Washington Post,adapted from that address, by opining, “National service will … [Read more...]
May 23: A day to Celebrate India’s Democracy
On May 23, the seven-week long Indian election process will come to an end. The votes will be counted and a winner will be declared. No matter who wins, the real winner will be Indias democracy. I say this as an Indian American who has had the privilege of living in the two largest - and, I would add, greatest - democracies in the world. I have watched in awe as this years election in India has unfolded. It brought back memories of Indias national election of 2014. The scope and size … [Read more...]
There will be no winners in US-China trade war
The United States and China, the two largest economies in the world, are currently engaged in what might be called the mother of all trade wars. The first salvo of the trade war was fired by President Donald Trump in January 2018 — less than a year into his presidency — when he announced tariffs on products of several nations, including Chinese solar panels and washing machines. In spite of several rounds of bilateral talks over the past 17 months, major … [Read more...]
Pakistan Needs a Master Plan to Win the Climate Change War
Pakistan is among the leaders in climate change. Unfortunately, it is leading not in fighting climate change but as being one of the countries most affected by and at risk because of climate change. That’s what Yale’s 2018 Environmental Performance Index revealed. The Index ranked 180 countries in terms of their environmental health and ecosystem vitality. The five countries at the bottom of this list included neighbours India, Bangladesh and Nepal. It should be of little solace … [Read more...]
GOOD CITIZENSHIP: THE TEST FOR OUR TIMES
In 1930, Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a seminal piece for Pictorial Review titled Good Citizenship: The Purpose of Education. In her article, Ms. Roosevelt asserted, In our schools are now given courses in civics, government, economics, current events. Very few children are as ignorant as I once was. But there still remains a vast amount to be done before we accomplish our first objective — informed and intelligent citizens, and secondly bring about that the … [Read more...]
Enfranchise NRI Voters to Enhance India’s Democracy
There is a simple and straightforward solution to solve this problem. It is to reform the election law and to let the NRI’s vote from where they are. They could cast either postal votes or vote online. By May 19, close to 600 million Indians will have cast their ballots in what will be the largest electoral process in human history. More than two-thirds of the 900 million eligible voters, living across the length and breadth of the country, are expected to vote in this election. The … [Read more...]
Recognizing Middle School Teacher Civic Engagement Champions
On April 8, at its annual legislative conference, the National Association of State Boards of Education announced that it was collaborating with the Frank Islam Institute for 21st Century Citizenship to present civic engagement champion awards to middle school teachers. Following that announcement, Frank told the conference attendees why he was supporting these awards through his Institute by answering three questions: Why civics? Why middle school? And, why teachers. His … [Read more...]
India-Pakistan peace is the only way forward
Pakistan and India came to the brink of war in February this year when their air-forces clashed following a deadly suicide attack in Indian Kashmir’s Pulwama district. This was frightening because the only rational way forward for these two nuclear armed rivals must be peace and not war. This is the point that Tarun Basu makes in his article for last month’s South Asia Monitor in which he advises that both countries need to acknowledge their mistakes and act in the best interest of … [Read more...]