The Forum in Mauritius, a new entity aimed at finding workable solutions to issues of global immediacy from the perspective of developing countries, will be launched on Friday, October 22.  Deputy Prime Minister Dr. Ahmed Rashid Beebeejaun of Mauritius will formally open the annual inaugural summit at the Labourdonnais Hotel, Port Louis.  The theme of this year’s conference will be “THE INFLUENCE OF THE MEDIA IN THE WORLD”.  The one-day summit has attrac...

By Pranay Gupte   I don’t know how many business leaders in the oil-rich Gulf have seen “Slumdog Millionaire” -- which won the Oscar for Best Film on Sunday night – but they might want to. After all, quite of a few of the business elite of the United Arab Emirates were born or spent their childhoods in Mumbai, India’s commercial capital, where much of the movie was shot.   The parents of many of them were traders, or had some commercial dealings w...

I found the following article surprising in its shallowness and bias. Any reactions?   From its artificial islands to its boring new skycraper, Dubai's architecture is beyond crass By Germaine Greer The Guardian, Monday 9 February 2009 If Monaco is, in Jack Nicholson's phrase, Alcatraz for the rich, what shall we make of Dubai? Dubai is a city built between the desert and the pale blue sea, that uses more water per capita than anywhere else in the world, and derives 97% of it fr...

DUBAI, Nov. 24 – Senior officials and leading business leaders said today that the fundamentals of the economy of the United Arab Emirates were healthy, and that the federation was taking steps to ensure that it would be able to deal adequately with the financial turmoil roiling the global community.   Those steps include improving the liquidity situation of key real-estate companies in which governmental institutions have a stake, and of locally owned banks. Better governance ...

In early October, I decided to take a short break and flew to the country of my birth, India. Although I hold a United States passport, I visit India frequently; and over a career of more than four decades in international journalism, I have written about India often; these writings include columns and books. In New Delhi, I went with my friends Sunita Kohli and her husband Romesh to the home of Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Isher Ahluwalia. Montek is deputy chairman of India's Planning Commissi...