Provocative commentaries on international issues, social development, and people and places by a veteran journalist
PranayGupte's Articles In Current Events
June 27, 2010 by PranayGupte
Dubai leads the way in “soft infrastructure”   By Pranay Gupte (Published in Khaleej Times, June 28, 2010)   By now it’s become a cliché that the United Arab Emirates – and Dubai, in particular – enjoy one of the best infrastructures anywhere in the world. As with many clichés, this one has the added value of being true.   “Infrastructure” typically includes roads, power grids, ports and airports, and tel...
June 25, 2009 by PranayGupte
Please check this out: His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates, and Ruler of Dubai, has a Facebook page at: http://www.facebook.com/sheikhmohammed.
December 1, 2008 by PranayGupte
It’s probably unwise, if not unseemly and unkind, to say it, but the terrorism that afflicted Mumbai these last few days is almost certain to have financial implications for India and the United Arab Emirates.   It isn’t untimely, however, to suggest that those implications could be negative and positive for both countries.   Let’s start with tourism, which accounts for nearly 6 percent of India’s trillion-dollar economy. In the short to medium run, ten...
November 28, 2008 by PranayGupte
When I was very young and single and living in New York, I would visit my parents in my native city of Mumbai from time to time. They would predictably make mighty efforts to find a bride for me in the traditional custom of conservative Hindu families. I was, after all, an only child, and it was understandable that my parents dreaded the prospect – however unlikely – that I would wind up with an American spouse.   An endless procession of eligible Indian women would be br...
November 4, 2008 by PranayGupte
NEW YORK, November 4 – I wanted to be a witness to history. That’s why I decided to fly 7,000 miles from my new home in Dubai to my old home in America.   I could have cast an absentee ballot in the American presidential election, of course – the United States Consulate is in the building next to where I live on Sheikh Zayed Road. But I flew back in order to vote in person. I flew back to see for myself what it would be like when Americans choose a new president aft...
September 10, 2008 by PranayGupte
EIA estimates that members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) earned $671 billion in net oil export revenues in 2007, a 10 percent increase from 2006. Saudi Arabia earned the largest share of these earnings, $194 billion, representing 29 percent of total OPEC revenues. On a per-capita basis, OPEC net oil export earning reached $1,137, a 8 percent increase from 2006. Through August, OPEC had earned an estimated $740 billion in net oil exp...
February 1, 2008 by PranayGupte
Davos 2008 (Published in TIME Magazine, January 31, 2008) By Michael Elliott High winds on the last day of this year's annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos prevented me from taking my usual run from the top of the Weissfluhjoch to Klosters, thinking on the way of what I'd learned during the week. I wasn't too upset. Deprived of my usual partner on the pistes — Martin Lukes, ex-CEO of a-b Glöbâl, who was unavoidably absent from this year's meeting — the long trail down int...
January 19, 2008 by PranayGupte
The Man at the Summit: Profile of Klaus Schwab (Longer Version on an Article Published in Portfolio.Com, January 18, 2008) By Pranay Gupte Not many people know that Klaus Schwab started the World Economic Forum in 1971 as a nice way to get together some of his fellow European academics, along with a sprinkling of management types, for some serious skiing in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos. Schwab, the Harvard-trained management specialist who then taught at the University of Gen...
December 18, 2007 by PranayGupte
U.N. Finds Fraud, Mismanagement in Peacekeeping Task Force Says 'Multiple Instances' of Corruption Have a Cost of $610 Million By Colum Lynch Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, December 18, 2007 UNITED NATIONS -- A U.N. task force has uncovered a pervasive pattern of corruption and mismanagement involving hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts for fuel, food, construction and other materials and services used by U.N. peacekeeping operations, which are in the midst of the...
December 2, 2007 by PranayGupte
The question of why the Saudis agreed to let Nawaz Sharif -- no special friend of the United States -- leave his exile in Riyadh and return home to Pakistan to confront President Pervez Musharraf, has not quite been adequately dealt with. Was there some "understanding" between Washington and Riyadh that Sharif's return would somehow boost America's already dismal standing in the Gulf region? Or was Sharif fomenting intolerable mischief within Saudi Arabia through his connections with the more...
October 25, 2007 by PranayGupte
The following essay was written for a new book, "The Sands of Thought: Essays on The World of Ideas," by John Strassburger, president of Ursinus College. The published was published on the occasion of the Second Biennial Festival of Thinkers in Abu Dhabi and Dubai, October 21-24, 2007. The Future Is Now By Pranay Gupte (Pranay Gupte is a veteran foreign correspondent, author and documentary maker who has worked for the New York Times, Newsweek International, and Forbes, among other i...
September 25, 2007 by PranayGupte
Columbia University President Lee Bollinger's "welcome" of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran on September 24 at the university was about as insulting and demeaning as one could imagine (or not imagine). You simply don't insult yourguests in your own home, as it were. I am scarcely a fan of President Ahmadinejad, but I know Iran very well indeed -- and I seriously doubt that even the most virulent foreign visitor invited to any Iranian home or major public institution would ever be "welcom...
August 19, 2007 by PranayGupte
A record number of Nobel laureates, and distinguished thought leaders and decision makers from all around the world are expected to participate in the Festival of Thinkers in October, the biennial event organized by the Higher Colleges of Technology in the United Arab Emirates. Under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, Festival 2007 will foster discussion of ways and means of fostering creativity at the scientific as well as social ...
August 19, 2007 by PranayGupte
A fundamental premise of modern-day nation building is this: a country’s wealth, especially accruing from its natural resources, must be put in service of economic growth. On the face of it, that premise seems to capture the obvious. What else would a country – in this case, the United Arab Emirates – do with its enormous revenues from pumping out 2.1 million barrels of crude oil a day, confident in the knowledge that its proven oil reserves of nearly 100 billion barrels should last, well,...
July 17, 2007 by PranayGupte
I think this is the loveliest piece Seth Lipsky has ever written. Its cadences, its depth of feeling, the elegance of its sentences -- I hope Conrad Black and Barbara Amiel have read this, and I hope they were moved by Seth's prose. I'm not so sure that I fully understand the legal case against Black, so I won't comment on Seth's handling of the jurisprudence involved. But as a tribute to a fallen hero -- warts and all -- this is likely to be enduring journalism. I hope young journalists will...