Iganar: Difference between revisions
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As with other provinces in Packilvania, Iganar is nominally subservient to the Imperial Government, but in reality has been devolved considerable autonomy over its internal affairs. Its government is helmed by the Meer who is appointed by the Sultan for as long as he pleases. The Meer in turn appoints the Premier and the Provincial Council of Ministers who run the provincial government on a daily level. The Khanoniyat makes the laws. Its upper house, the Legislative Council consists of representatives from religious, minority, professional, business, and local government bodies while the less powerful Representative Assembly is selected by a lottery. In both bodies, there are minimum quotas for the representation of women, youth and minorities. The Meer in turn promulgates the laws which are applied and interpreted by the judiciary which is appointed and accountable to the Imperial Government.
As the richest and most populous province in the country, Iganar exercises considerable independence from the Imperial Government and has in the past diverged significantly on areas of policy. Although the Meer is a Prince of the Bedonite dynasty, Iganar's political elite consists largely of [[Association of the Friends and Veterans of the Carriers of Mercy|former members and descendants]] of the [[Carriers of Mercy]], people part of and affiliated with the [[Magisterium of Paxism]], and lobbyists for government and privately owned corporations. Iganar's government has highly competitive taxes partly because part of its annual budget is independent of grants from the [[Fiscal policy of Packilvania|national budget and taxes]] (to which it is the largest net contributor along with [[Ashura]] and [[Fidakar]]) due to royalties from fossil fuel exploration and extraction. This has lead its budget to fluctuate, causing it to be reluctant to dispense widespread social welfare services such as income grants for the poor or universal health insurance. The government has focused its efforts on creating an environment conducive for businesses to flourish including through lax regulations and an effective system for resolving disputes.
Iganar is highly religious. The strand of religious ideology that permeates this province is slightly different from Ashura which ascribes to a highly ascetic and formal religious tradition. In contrast, a culture of celebrity style Magisters and [[Priesthood in Paxism|Priests]] leading congregations that focus more on outbursts of spiritual fervour has taken root that has influenced politics by enabling their involvement in political decision-making and influence. Iganar also has a very urbanized population, so in spite of the general restrictions on public discourse that pervade Packilvanian society, at local and regional level, the is a surprisingly high amount of media outlets such as radio stations and newspapers that have asserted surprisingly robust criticism of state institutions, policies and public norms compared to provinces such as Ashura.
Additionally, despite the formal illegality of protests, people in Iganar are notorious for public demonstrations and participation in public fora. Iganar struggles with the presence of militant and well-organised groups of young men whose obsession with the [[Martyrdom in Paxism|cult of martyrdom]] creates a difficult and influential political constituency whose most fundamentalist members have often resisted state authority through civil disobedience and public violence. Despite the modern veneer, tribal rulers also exercise considerable authority of state decisions at local level especially because of how lucrative auctions for long term leases of communal land have proven to be which has undermined the land rights of pastoralists and families with small holdings. Furthermore, Iganar has maintained political rivalries with other provinces namely [[Jumhurikesh]] over control of water and supply of electricity and disputes with Fidakar over its liberal attitudes to religion and its annexation of [[Tasselvalta]].
== Economy ==
Iganar has a GDP of over 2 trillion KRB making it the richest province in the country by total annual economic output. It has a GDP per capita, making it the highest in the country outside of a special economic zone or autonomous city. The province benefits from a highly business friendly environment, abundance of natural resources, world class communications and transport infrastructure, navigable rivers, an educated, urbanized and low labour cost population, and laissez-faire attitude to business regulation that has enabled it to cultivate domestic industries and attract foreign investment. Iganar has a highly export oriented economy that has leveraged the oil and gas industry as a base for decades since the [[Demirite dynasty]]'s rule in the 19th century.
The province has some of the largest oil reserves and gas reserves of any place in the world. Iganar often competes with Ashura for the top spot of the biggest gas and oil producer. Iganar benefits not only from the size of its reserves but from the ease with which they can be extracted from the ground and the large scale technical capability and infrastructure to ramp up or curtail production based on economic and political circumstances and goals. It has some of the lowest prices of natural gas and oil, enabling it to produce enough electricity for itself and to export to other provinces. Coupled with its high consumption of petrol and diesel powered cars and dense concentration of factories, Iganar is one of the worst emitters of greenhouse gasses in the world.
Iganar has a very high rate of employment and labour participation. It has been experiencing considerable growth over the past three decades that has been driven by the rapid move of millions of people from rural areas to the cities. Thus, a massive construction and property development industry has arisen that is one of the largest employers and contributors to the economy. Nevertheless, the overallocation of capital to this sector, tendency of middle and upper class buyers to pay upfront for unbuilt homes and lax regulations by the government has led to ghost cities and fears of a property price bubble driven by real estate speculation and excessive building.
Iganar has a massive tourism industry due to having some of the largest concentrations of dinosaur fossils in the world with the Zukaril Museum for Natural History have a collection of 400,000 dinosaur skeletons and attracting over 3 million visitors annually. Iganar also has highly respected religious sites and charismatic celebrity priests and magisters who host huge conferences and festivals that attract millions of people, making Iganar one of the most visited places in the country. The province has highly developed infrastructure including thousands of kilometers of electric cables and pylons, canals, roads and railway tracks including high speed rail within and between major cities.
Iganar has vertically integrated much of the supply chain enabled by its fossil fuel reserves, namely having a large electricity sector, large refining industry, huge pipelines for transportng the fuels to the rest of the country, production of ammonia for agriculture and a massive petrochemical centre. Despite having low rainfall and facing an encroaching desert, Iganar is able to supply about three quarters of its food needs based on its heavy exploitation of the fertile soil and waters of its wetlands and heavy damming of rivers and use of irrigation and use of fertilisers, genetically modified organisms resistant to the heat and lack of water and mechanised farming. The Iganarian agricultural sector has been accused of excessive water use and causing eutrophication due to run-off from its farms.
==Culture==
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