Assalam Alaikum,

As I was watching the coverage of the events that unfolded, it left me thinking on some of the issues that I thought should be brought for discussion here.

There's no doubt that the masses in South Asia live below poverty lines, yet our nations (be it Pakistan or India) are engaged in the race to arm themselves with whatever they can find, so god for bid when they confront each other they don't have an excuse to be unprepared. Yet, the recent events shows that how prepared we are, not against each other but in the face of the national disaster.

So much of our budget is spent on arming ourselves to teeth, that we have simply forgot the people we are suppose to serve, and the result being we fall short on providing the basic needs that our masses require to even live in normal times. It is no surprise to me that our emergency preparedness to respond to disaster like this is close to none, I am not claiming that we can't respond (because the generosity of our people shows that we certainly can), but there is one thing to respond to disasters like these, and there is another to prepare and build infrastructure necessary in advance to respond to these events as they unfold in a swift and efficient way. And that is yet to be achieved, and I don't necessarily see a glimpse of light on the other end of the dark tunnel, at least not yet.

As bad as the after effects of the earthquake was, just imagine these quakes being epicenter in dense populated urban centers, such as Karachi, Lahore etc. The damage will be unimaginable.

I leave rest to your imagination, and hope that we never have to see anything like this at least in our lifetime.

May Allah spare us from his wrath, and guide us to the righteous path in this month of ramadan.

Thanks.