English: The Safe and Easy Option

Ziauddin Ahmed makes good points in his letter:

The Indians continued to use English as the medium of instruction in science and mathematics, and took bold steps to steer science education on the pattern of the best universities of America. Obviously, this would be unthinkable if local languages were used as mediums of instruction. As a result, the expertise of Indians in science and technology is now rated among the best in the world.

We in Pakistan adopted the opposite policy and have seen how badly this policy has affected our students.

This was inevitable because switching of languages without having first prepared the requisite groundwork could not have produced any other result. The experience of Russia, Japan, and China shows that an essential prerequisite is to establish an elaborate organization to translate thousands of scientific and technical books into the national language. This would have to be a continuous process rather than a one-time event, requiring tremendous human and financial resources. Regrettably, such an organization is conspicuously absent in Pakistan, and we do not even have a plan or conceptual framework for one.

[Emphasis mine]

Imagine even attempting to translate the various Biology, Physics or Chemistry journal articles from the West into Urdu. It would be a nightmare. Most of the time, there aren't even any Urdu words in existence for many of the scientific terms in the West. So, in the end, we'd likely end up with a soup of Latin, Greek, English, and Urdu. It just makes the material more complicated than it already is.

In this India vs. Pakistan match, India is definitely the winner.