Pranay Gupte Blog

Louis Silverstein: The Man Who Changed Newspapers

2011-12-04T02:00:00.001-08:00

By Pranay Gupte(Published in The Hindu, India, December 4, 2011)There will never be another Lou Silverstein again. Yes, there will be other geniuses in the media world that fuse design with words and create magic on paper (or on the cyber screen); yes, there will be young people sprouting new ideas of dealing with visuals in the media in order to attract more readers (visitors?). And yes, media design will keep evolving, as all enterprises of the mind must.But there will never be another Lou Silverstein again. He died Thursday in New York of cardiac arrest. He was 92 years old, but you’d never know it. His cheery character, cherubic face and continuous enthusiasm for his art form made him seem half his age. I could never imagine Lou ever aging. I suppose neither could he, or anyone who came into contact with him.For a man whose career as an artist and designer dated back to World War II, for a man who re-invented The New York Times when it was in dire straits, for a man whose concept of introducing bold visuals and airiness on the printed page, for a man whose intellectual concepts were imitated across the United States and in scores of other countries – for such a man to be so modest, to be so giving, was astonishing. During his lifetime, the awards piled up, the accolades cascaded into his Brooklyn apartment, the applause rarely ceased. But Lou took it all in his stride, maybe spent a second savoring his success, and then kept on working.That dedication to work, that relentless focus on excellence, that consistent attention to detail – all of those characteristics drew admiration from other notables in the design business. Ask Mario Garcia. Ask Roger Black. Ask any number of much-hailed design maestros. They will, to a person, speak of Lou Silverstein with reverence and respect.But reverence and respect weren’t what Lou necessarily coveted. Those things, in his life view, were incidental. What mattered was the stuff that came from his mind through his heart and his fingers and on to paper. (Yes, even in this cyber age, Lou drew only on paper.) What mattered was to amuse readers, to educate them, to inform them, to provoke them, to make them think – what mattered was to always introduce that element of surprise that made readers look at a newspaper page in a way that might not have otherwise occurred to them.That element of surprise, Lou always said, was what made a newspaper – its pages, its stories – special. Add to that the fact that Lou was a very imaginative illustrator. His sketches of people and places were mischievous, yet they captured the moment. When he and I worked together at The Earth Times – a newspaper on environment and sustainable development – I often suspected that readers came to our publications more for Lou’s drawings than the reams of text on ecology. Those drawings were done not only in America, but also around the world. Lou and his wife Helen had traveled everywhere. But, without question, their deepest affection was for India. Lou approached India with a childlike wonder. The Silversteins went everywhere. Even I, much younger, was exhausted by their questions. The sketches Lou produced – and the vignettes that Helen wrote – filled several issues of The Earth Times. They will soon appear in a book.They featured enigmatic sketches of India, its people, its monuments, its urban communities and its rural hamlets. They caught the subtleties of India. They sensed the sorcery of the culture. They got the zeitgeist just right. That was no mean achievement. The diversity and the ethnic mosaic of India can be bewildering to anyone, let alone a visitor from another land. But Lou keenly understood, as did Helen, that the key to understanding a culture was in its history. And so he read copiously about the India millennia, he studied architecture. He always wanted to know what was it that explained the continuity of an assemblage of ethnicities in a country so geographically large; he always wanted to know how such a large polity could be governed at all. What, Lou wanted to know, underlay the basic tolerance and understanding that largely characterized the land? And why those occasional blips of communalism?Behind those questions was an abiding affection for India and Indians. Lou Silverstein, after all, liked people. He could strike up conversations with any stranger: he may not have always shared the vocabulary, but he was a communicator and so he used as his main tools his ears and eyes. Those keen eyes, of course, were more than a tool – they were high-intensity cameras. Even in his later years, as his hearing declined, he still caught every inflection. Lou missed nothing. He missed nothing because he was always a man of endless curiosity. Why, he would ask, how, when, how come? He would listen carefully to what people said – with their words and their gestures and their expressions. A conversation with him often turned into a Socratic dialogue. It was an education just listening to him ask his questions; occasionally his eyes, or a hint of a quizzical smile, relayed those questions.It was an education, too, for the generations of young journalists he mentored. He did so with good cheer, but he also did so in the belief that in journalism and design – as in life – there were certain fundamentals that were inviolable: honesty, integrity, fairness, keeping one’s word, delineating the difference between fact and fantasy. What had these fundamentals to do with art and media and design? Everything, Lou Silverstein would say – because unless you had a solid core of unassailable values, your work would always be perceived as shallow or suspect or worse. While Lou was too gentle a man to put down someone, he was never enamored of poseurs.And so Lou Silverstein is gone now, leaving behind Helen, and their writer daughter Anne, and the two sons of Anne and her husband Dan, a lifelong newspaperman. I am still in shock as I write this; the deep grief, I know, will set in soon. That kind of grief, it seems, is recurring far too frequently in my life. I am at that age when I am losing my mentors. Lou Silverstein has left. So has another mentor at The New York Times, Abe Rosenthal. Jim Michaels of Forbes – like Lou and Abe a great lover of India – has also departed. The great journalist Varindra Tarzie Vittachi has been gone a long time. So have my parents, Balkrishna and Charusheela Gupte. Another bulwark of my life, Judge Bruce J. Gould is dying of pancreatic cancer in New York, with only a few months left to live.They asked nothing of me other than that I ask them questions about life and living now, should I so wish. So to whom do I pose my questions now? To whom do I turn for wisdom and enlightenment, for guidance during those times when uncertainty and cluelessness converge?But perhaps there is an answer to all this: I may not realize it, but my mentors like Lou Silverstein left me a treasure trove of wisdom and good sense. It’s all within me, really, I only have to tap into that aggregation of profound and selfless knowledge that they imbibed in me. Answer by answer to my stream of questions, my mentors created within me a space of endless dimensions where universal knowledge resides. The questions that I once posed them in real life – now I should be able to ask those of myself. I am increasingly sure the answers reside in that special inner space that my mentors created.That, in the final analysis, may have been the greatest gift of my mentors. How fortunate I was that Lou Silverstein and those other mentors walked on the same soil as I during their time on earth. How fortunate I am that they still walk on the same soil – but this time it’s on the circuitry of my mind.(Pranay Gupte’s latest book, ‘Dubai: The Making of a Megapolis,’ has just been published by Penguin Viking (India). He can be reached at: pranaygupte@gmail.com)

The Ghost Who Writes But Doesn’t Speak

2011-11-01T04:32:00.000-07:00

By Pranay Gupte

If you walk into most bookstores in India and elsewhere, the chances are that you’d see books written by me. One or two titles, or perhaps all 14 that I’ve penned so far in the last three decades, would have my name on the cover. Many more would not carry my name on the jacket at all. Perhaps some of those books might mention me in the acknowledgements, but that’s all. But they are my books nonetheless.

How so? Because, you see, I am a “ghost.” Business tycoons and world leaders hire me to provide words for their voice and, of course, for their byline. They sign contracts with publishers; they get the advances; they pocket the royalties. Publishers know the identity of the ghostwriter because, after all, the luminary usually cannot be bothered to deal with the nitty-gritty of the editing process; it’s the ghost who must deal with demands of by editors, it’s the ghost who must respond to queries, it’s the ghost who’s responsible for fact-checking and for rectifying typographical errors.

But the glory of being celebrated on the book’s cover goes to the man – and it’s usually men – who invited the ghostwriter to pen (well, let’s say “create”) his words for posterity.

There’s an ironclad rule in the ghostwriting industry: Unless the “author” chooses to name you as a collaborator, the ghostwriter keeps his/her lips zipped. Your silence, or reticence, if you will, is purchased for anywhere from US$100,000 to multiples thereof. The ghostwriter is paid a one-time fee, and that is that. I have a friend in New York who typically makes more than $2 million annually from ghosting: he always has two or three projects on the burner simultaneously. His literary agent – who fetches him projects for the standard 15 percent of his book writing income – is a very happy person indeed: she just bought an island off Croatia.

Sometimes ghosting a book can come in the form of a biography. Just the other day, the industrialist Kumarmangalam Birla reportedly agreed to pay the Mumbai-based writer Minhaz Merchant Rs. 3-crore to write a book about his late father, Aditya Birla. Vir Sanghvi, the ubiquitous journalist, reportedly was paid a handsome amount by a fabled Indian business dynasty to write a biography the late Madhavrao Scindia. A paid-for biography still comes within the ambit of ghostwriting.

Lest the reader might want to jettison his day job and jump into the ghostwriting business, let me sound a word of caution. Please take me seriously. There are less than honorable men out there who commission, or formally invite, you to ghost an autobiography or biography. You do the book, or at least a substantial chunk of it, and then – and then they say they’ve changed their mind. Or you don’t hear from them. The bottom line is that you’ve spent months on the project on good faith, and in the end there’s no bottom line for you. In sum, don’t start ghosting unless you have a solid contract in hand, and a sizable down payment.

Let me give you three examples of my own misguided trust in people who commission books. The brother of Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa invited me last month to write a biography of the leader, who will turn 65 in November 2012. We shook hands on the deal, and then the brother, Defense Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa, sent me to meet a senior aide, Jayantha Wickramasinghe, to complete the logistical arrangements. Mr. Wickramasinghe said he would revert to me. He took his time in doing so. His ultimate decision: “No.” He had overruled his boss. I have little doubt that he and the Rajapaksa brothers will take my outline of the proposed book and have someone else do it – undoubtedly for less money. What am I going to do? Take the President of Sri Lanka to court in Colombo? Or sue his flunkies?

This is a hazard of the ghosting trade: You have very little recourse unless you’re prepared to spend large sums on lawyers. Years ago, I persuaded Macmillan, one of the world’s leading publishers, to take on an autobiography of Kamal Nath, who was then India’s minister of trade and commerce. Mr. Nath is an old friend.

But guess what should happen? Scarcely had I started the project, two members of his inner circle – neither of them writers – muscled in and took over the book. The book’s title was mine, its architecture was mine, but did my name appear anywhere? Of course not. A shady restaurateur in New York was actually mentioned as the man who brought publisher and author together! Now this gentleman may know lots about wine, spices and women, but not much about words.

Other than the thousands of copies bought by Mr. Nath’s friends at the Confederation of Indian Industries, the autobiography was not what you might call a bestseller.

In my long experience in the ghosting business, I dare say that I’ve found trustworthiness not an especially prominent characteristic of bigwigs from South Asia. Of course, I should have long learned lessons from some of my bitter experiences. But as a professional writer who depends on words for his livelihood, I am forced, willy-nilly, to take chances.

One of those chances was with the wealthy Jashanmal family in the Gulf. They even gave me written guarantees. I did extensive work on the book, including interviews with members of the family, that was among the first to open retail stores in the Middle East. Two years have gone by. But not a word from the Jashanmals, and not a dollar.

Then there was Farooq Kathwari, the Kashmiri tycoon behind Ethan Allen, the global furniture chain. He gave me a contract, then decided he would have someone else do his autobiography after I’d spent months on the project. He refused to pay me what was owed – until a mutual friend, a member of the New York Establishment, shamed him into parting with a few pennies. In retrospect, not writing his book may not have been such a bad thing after all, especially in view of Mr. Kathwari’s controversial engagement with the Kashmir issue.

Whose books would a ghost like me refuse at the very outset? Criminals, crooks, wife beaters, for sure. That some of the “respectable” figures would turn out to be cheats, or worse, is purely a matter of chance. Ghosts need to take risks in their career, but there’s only so much gloss that even ghosts can apply to unworthy lives.

(Pranay Gupte’s next book, under his own byline, “Dubai: The Making of a Megapolis,” will be published this month by Viking-Penguin. Mr. Gupte can be reached at: pranaygupte@gmail.com)

Today's top culture picks from around the Web

2011-09-01T02:07:00.000-07:00

Today's top culture picks from around the Web

The Hindu : Columns / Chandrasekhar : The debt danger for India

2011-08-29T22:33:00.000-07:00

The Hindu : Columns / Chandrasekhar : The debt danger for India

The Politics of Grief | Online Only | Granta Magazine

2011-08-29T12:28:00.000-07:00

The Politics of Grief | Online Only | Granta Magazine

How Google Dominates Us by James Gleick | The New York Review of Books

2011-08-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

How Google Dominates Us by James Gleick | The New York Review of Books

Problems Will Be Global -- And Solutions Will Be, Too - By Anne-Marie Slaughter | Foreign Policy

2011-08-29T06:27:00.000-07:00

Problems Will Be Global -- And Solutions Will Be, Too - By Anne-Marie Slaughter | Foreign Policy

The Kingdom of Magical Thinking - By Robin M. Mills | Foreign Policy

2011-08-29T06:24:00.000-07:00

The Kingdom of Magical Thinking - By Robin M. Mills | Foreign Policy

Au revoir, Table Talk

2011-08-29T06:18:00.000-07:00

Au revoir, Table Talk

The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Libya poses policy challenge to Asian giants

2011-08-28T14:56:00.000-07:00

The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : Libya poses policy challenge to Asian giants

How sexists find love

2011-08-28T13:09:00.000-07:00

How sexists find love

The evolution of the mistress

2011-08-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

The evolution of the mistress

The swashbuckling world of pirates

2011-08-28T13:02:00.000-07:00

The swashbuckling world of pirates

New report maps the roots of Islamophobia

2011-08-28T12:57:00.000-07:00

New report maps the roots of Islamophobia

Astronomers Think They've Found a Planet Made of Diamond - Technology - The Atlantic Wire

2011-08-27T13:23:00.000-07:00

Astronomers Think They've Found a Planet Made of Diamond - Technology - The Atlantic Wire

Editor & Publisher ® - Indian-Journalists-May-Soon-Need-Law-Degree-to-Report-on-Supreme-Court

2011-08-24T10:26:00.001-07:00

Editor & Publisher ® - Indian-Journalists-May-Soon-Need-Law-Degree-to-Report-on-Supreme-Court

Editor & Publisher ® - Journalists-Join-the-Education-Field

2011-08-24T10:26:00.000-07:00

Editor & Publisher ® - Journalists-Join-the-Education-Field

Does reading great books make you a better person?

2011-08-24T07:33:00.000-07:00

Does reading great books make you a better person?

Can a computer ever give good book recommendations?

2011-08-24T07:32:00.000-07:00

Can a computer ever give good book recommendations?

How gloomy should we be about the economy?

2011-08-24T07:30:00.000-07:00

How gloomy should we be about the economy?

Study Links Writing Difficulties to ADHD - US News and World Report

2011-08-24T07:29:00.000-07:00

Study Links Writing Difficulties to ADHD - US News and World Report

President Obama: Why don't you read more women?

2011-08-24T07:28:00.000-07:00

President Obama: Why don't you read more women?

Editor & Publisher ® - Newspapers-Need-a-DNA-Transplant

2011-08-16T13:47:00.000-07:00

Editor & Publisher ® - Newspapers-Need-a-DNA-Transplant

Amid Straw Poll Nonsense, the GOP Presidential Race Roars to Life

2011-08-15T08:16:00.000-07:00

Amid Straw Poll Nonsense, the GOP Presidential Race Roars to Life

Why Turkey Holds the Key to the Regional Power Game on Syria

2011-08-15T08:15:00.000-07:00

Why Turkey Holds the Key to the Regional Power Game on Syria

Let the fight for the right begin

2011-08-15T08:11:00.000-07:00

Let the fight for the right begin

Perry: The military doesn't respect Obama

2011-08-15T08:10:00.000-07:00

Perry: The military doesn't respect Obama

College: Expensive, but a smart choice

2011-08-15T08:06:00.000-07:00

College: Expensive, but a smart choice

Beware the jerks at work

2011-08-15T08:04:00.000-07:00

Beware the jerks at work

Pranay Gupte Blog: Alizanne Labuschage: Engaging With The Needy / By ...

2011-08-12T18:07:00.000-07:00

Pranay Gupte Blog: Alizanne Labuschage: Engaging With The Needy / By ...: "Alizanne Labuschagne: Engaging With The Needy By Pranay Gupte (Published in The Hindu, December 21, 2010) I missed seeing Sachin Tendulkar..."

Dubai Never Leaves You / By Pranay Gupte

2011-02-02T00:01:00.000-08:00

By Pranay Gupte
(Published in The Hindu, February 2, 2011)

When I came to Dubai nearly four years ago to write a book, the great financial crisis that was to afflict much of the world had just begun to take shape. In the event, one of its most notable victims was this tiny Emirate, a city-state that had risen out of the Arabian littoral’s unforgiving desert and become a global metropolis in barely two decades. Its economy was hit hard, and it is still recovering.

Now another crisis is in full bloom – the popular revolt in Egypt – in another part of the Middle East. This one has far deeper implications concerning governance for everyday Arabs than anything they’ve experienced. The story of people-driven democracy is still unfolding, I yearn to cover it, but the time has come for me to leave Arabia because a different assignment – in southern Africa -- beckons. I have always felt that it’s best to say farewell while one is still welcome to stay.

I end my four-year tenure in Dubai as I began: with optimism about Emirati society, and with admiration for its tolerance. I end my tenure, however, with the nagging feeling that I may not be the last person of Indian origin to leave this land, which was largely built with the brains, brawn, and banking and bargaining skills of South Asians. Even though India is largest trading partner of the United Arab Emirates – home to Dubai and six other sheikhdoms – it is Pakistan that’s on the ascendancy here. There is, of course, the Islamic connection that binds the two countries, but there’s also the fact that Pakistan has been extraordinarily diligent in cultivating the Emiratis. There are roughly 1.7 million Indians in the UAE – but there are also 1.6 million Pakistanis; the numbers of the former are decreasing, while those of the latter are on the rise.

Indian or Pakistani, the presence of South Asians has been nourishing for the UAE, a country whose own nationals constitute just about 10 percent of the population. It has been a heady experience to observe this, even for a veteran journalist who has reported from more than 150 countries in a career spanning more than four decades.

Here in the UAE, I saw for myself a nation under construction in white speed. I witnessed how city-states such as Dubai showed their resilience during a wrenching financial crisis. I cringed when the international media often misread social clues here. I fulminated at the malevolence of some observers who wrote off Dubai when the real-estate bubble burst. They failed to understand that societies, like people, have their ups and downs, and that the development of Dubai is, simply put, an act of indomitable will. I know that Dubai will never be deterred: it has come too far along the road to development for any catastrophic collapse to occur.

That said, what were the special lessons I learned during my time in this extraordinary country blessed with great reserves of crude oil but not with a significant cohort of homegrown talent?

I learned that as a foreigner, one should never forget that one is a guest here. That means it’s important to be always respectful of Emirati customs and traditions. That also means one must always follow the law – in letter and in spirit. The UAE is arguably the most liberal of the six countries that form the Gulf Cooperation Council. But it is foolhardy to push the envelope too much. I am not a squeamish man – not after having covered coups, earthquakes and wars on many continents – and I do not ride a high moral horse. I am appalled, however, at how indifferent many expats are to local sensitivities.

Local sensitivities to bacchanalian behavior by outsiders may not be reactionary. But that doesn’t matter. The UAE is an Islamic society, with its own canons and customs. The least that we transients can do is to study those principles, and to be mindful of them. The least we transients can do is to accept that all cultures are entitled to celebrate their special histories and practices.

Another lesson: Never say in private what you’d be ashamed to say in public. This is not to suggest self-censorship, or muzzling of one’s opinions. But anyone coming to the UAE is surely aware that the political system here is not akin to the Westminster or Washington or New Delhi models. This is not the place to make radical political statements – because the UAE is not a political society. Its governance is based on tribal traditions of fairness; grievances do get heard and do indeed get resolved, for the most part.

There’s no point in caviling about hereditary rule in the seven emirates: it is what it is, and no amount of snarky commentary is going to change the system. I always say to fellow foreigners: This is a place to come to enjoy your life, ply your trade, become prosperous, and revel in the sheer beauty of the UAE. This is not the place to practice politics. If you want to run for public office, try London, or New York, or New Delhi, or Papua New Guinea. If you want to come to Dubai, leave your political baggage behind. My Egyptian and Palestinian friends find this difficult to accept. But they really have very little choice in a country where the whereabouts and whispers of every person are carefully monitored.

Yet another lesson: Try and circulate beyond your own ethnic communities. People who complain that they have few Emirati friends sometimes ask me how did I manage to have so many. No magic to that: Just reach out. This doesn’t mean that you will always form enduring friendships with nationals. But you will always find warm welcomes. Dubai offers unique opportunities for cultural cross-fertilization. It’s a pity that far too many foreigners seem stuck in the grooves and groves of their own communalism. This especially true of Indians, who often seem daunted by a perception that Arabs are racist and that they favor whites. I can’t speak for Arabs, but I doubt if I’ve been judged by the pigment of my skin. Many Emiratis I know seem puzzled at the trademark servile mannerisms of Indians. I’ve been puzzled, too.

Still another lesson: Trust is hard won here. Your work will be generally recognized. If it isn’t, then just shrug, swallow an aspirin, and slide away. You need to know when to leave, because no one will really ask you to go away. That simply isn’t the Emirati way: Emiratis don’t like to lose well-wishers, but that doesn’t mean they are prepared to tolerate inefficiencies and indifference.

And that brings me to perhaps the single most important lesson that I learned during these last four years: You may choose to leave Dubai, but Dubai never leaves you. Once you get here, Dubai lodges itself in your DNA. And that is not a bad thing at all, no matter where in the world you go next. I leave Dubai with the comforting knowledge that I will always be welcomed back.

(Pranay Gupte’s next book, “Dubai: The Journey,” will be published soon by Penguin-Viking to mark the 40th anniversary of the founding of the United Arab Emirates.)

Alizanne Labuschage: Engaging With The Needy / By Pranay Gupte

2010-12-20T14:33:00.000-08:00

Alizanne Labuschagne: Engaging With The Needy

By Pranay Gupte
(Published in The Hindu, December 21, 2010)

I missed seeing Sachin Tendulkar crack his 50th Test century on Sunday evening in South Africa by about a week. I had to return to my home base in Dubai because work beckoned, but I would have loved to watch my fellow Mumbaikar earn a permanent place not only in the history of cricket but of sport in general. The unbeaten century that he made is not only for the record books, it is for the ages. That’s why the applause for his achievement resonates around the world.

The applause is particularly warm among South Africa’s million-plus people of Indian and South Asian origin, the largest such concentration outside the Subcontinent itself. They are scattered all across this country of 50 million people, where the first Indian immigrants, Kalaga Prabhu and his son Chorda, who were Cochin merchants, arrived in 1771 after being exiled by the Dutch for conspiring with the Mysore king, Haider Ali, to overthrow the ruler of Cochin. The first large batch of indentured workers didn’t get here until almost a century later, and they settled on sugarcane plantations in Natal province.

It was to Natal’s capital city of Durban that I had gone earlier this month, but it wasn’t a celebratory visit. It was to attend a memorial service for Alizanne Forsyth Labuschagne, an extraordinary woman of Scottish descent who died of a massive stroke at the age of 78. Her family, like that of her husband, Dr. Nicholas Labuschagne, has been in South Africa for 300 years.

That is a formidable pedigree indeed, and both Alizanne and her husband put their respective backgrounds to good use. Alizanne was a social activist, especially energetic in her Presbyterian church. Dr. Labuschagne trained as a physician but gained tremendous success in business and in the world of horse racing.

It is no longer the custom to raise statues to those who have performed outstanding civic duty, but there still exists a statue dedicated to Some day, perhaps, they will raise statues in Durban in honor of Alizanne and Nick. But the statue that exists now in Durban is that of Nick’s father, Dr. Paul Labuschagne. It would be no hyperbole to say that virtually every Indian who grew up in the sugarcane belt of in South Africa knows of him. And they all every Indian remains grateful for his pioneering work in tackling malaria and tuberculosis, among other maladies. The Trinity CollegeDublin-trained physician worked primarily among Indian indentured workers on the large sugar plantations now owned by Tongaat-Huewlett, a major company that he helped start in Natal. The generally wretched life of those workers, and of Gandhi’s involvement with obtaining social justice for them are examined in Joseph Lelyveld’s forthcoming book, “Great Soul: Mahatma Gandhi and His Struggle With India.”

At about the same time that Gandhi traveled to South Africa, after spending several years treating lepers in a colony in Nigeria, Dr. Paul Labuschagne returned to went back to his home in Tongaat, in what was then the province of Natal.land to assist those workers after long years in Nigeria, where he had treated lepers. It must have been a wrenching experience, but in Nigeria Dr. Labuschagne developed an overriding compassion for the dispossessed and a sensibility that proper health care must be accompanied by proper education, proper housing, and proper employment. Otherwise, he argued, there would be little social or economic progress of any consequence..

Although the annals of Third World development rarely praise him for pushing that ethos, Dr. Labuschagne’s philosophy was to be the precursor of the large-scale development methodology promoted in later years by the World Bank and the United Nations, and by scores of bilateral aid agencies.

I would argue that despite nearly $2 trillion that these entities have spent in the post-colonial era to address issues such as poverty alleviation and universal health care, Dr. Paul Labuschagne had more impact on a per capita basis than most consultants who pack aid organizations and make a lucrative living off the poverty industry.

What was remarkable about Dr. Labuschagne was that he put his own money and personal labour into development projects for Indian workers. It was also remarkable for those times that this white man of French Huguenot descent had no reservations whatsoever about working closely with poor labourers of colour.

That benign disregard for the origins, politics and sociology of ethnicity, that humanitarian concern with the less fortunate, that engagement with the needy, were certainly also characteristics of Alizanne Labuschagne’s life. In the memorial service for her, celebrants recalled some of her good deeds – but the eulogies weren’t triumphal; they reflected the quiet dignity and selflessness that characterized her life.

As I sat in the church pews listening to those eulogies, and the lovely hymns that were sung by the congregation – by whites, blacks and browns alike – it occurred to me how swiftly the torch of social change is being passed on to a new generation in South Africa, as in India. I thought about how much change is wrapped up in commercial considerations nowadays, and that how much a part of the irretrievable past the sensibilities of people like Alizanne Labuschagne, and her predecessors and elderly peers, have become.

They were sobering thoughts, and they made me value the contributions of miss Alizanne Labuschagne and Dr. Paul Labuschagne even more – even though I had only known Alizanne as the mother of her son, Nic, a close friend, and even though I had only seen Paul as a statue in a green grove on a rainy afternoon in Tongaat.Durban

(Pranay Gupte’s next book – the 15th that he has written or edited – “Dubai: The Journey,” will be published in early 2011 by Viking-Penguin. He is currently working on his memoirs of more than four decades in international journalism.)

When a Hundred is a Fifty / By Pranay Gupte

2010-12-20T02:39:00.000-08:00

When a Hundred is a Fifty

By Pranay Gupte

Sachin Tendulkar of India cracked his 50th Test century in South Africa on Sunday evening, a record that’s unlikely to be broken any time soon. His nearest rivals – Ricky Ponting of Australia, with 39 centuries – and Jacques Kallis of South Africa, with 38 centuries – simply do not have Tendulkar’s stamina and steadiness. Moreover, the 36-year-old Indian batsman isn’t done yet – who knows how many more centuries he will pile up?

If Tendulkar’s 20-year career in Test matches is a metaphor for the values that typify cricket in its purest form – class, endurance, technical skills, success in a diversity of playing fields, and the sheer joy of being in the sport – it is also a metaphor for his native city, Mumbai. He personifies the go-getting nature of Mumbai, India’s commercial and financial capital. And Mumbai, in turn, shares common ground with Dubai in that its vibrancy and positive energy are very much discernible in this much younger metropolis on the Arabian Gulf.

Tendulkar has always enjoyed playing in the United Arab Emirates, which hosts international cricket tournaments in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah. He has spoken warmly of the welcome extended to him not only by Indian expatriates but also by Emiratis. And he has noted that Dubai – which arguably has the world’s most modern cricket stadium – is home to the sport’s governing body, the International Cricket Council. The ICC determines which country is eligible to play “Test” matches – typically five-day games, with each side fielding 11 players. Ten nations currently qualify to play Tests.

The UAE is not among them, even though its stadiums have been the venues for Test matches involving Pakistan, where domestic political conditions these days are deemed too delicate to stage international matches. While Emiratis have long followed and supported cricket, a new generation of nationals is increasingly engaged in the game – as players, albeit at an amateur level. I think it’s a matter of time before a UAE team qualifies for Test cricket.

That would be yet another step for the country to advance in participating in the global economy. Cricket has the second largest following – after soccer – in the international community’s 192 countries. And top Test cricketers have not only become worldwide celebrities, they are gathering huge commercial endorsements. Tendulkar, for example, has a $40 million contract with sports management firm Iconix; India’s captain, Mahendra Singh Dhoni, recently inked a record two-year endorsement deal with another sports-management company, Rhiti, for $42 million.

This kind of money makes Dhoni and Tendulkar superstars in a sport where Test cricketers average $500,000 in annual income. That average may not match the revenues of baseball, soccer or tennis players – but the endorsement deals commanded by the two Indian players touch those of the best players in other global sports.

Revenues of this sort have meant, of course, that cricket has attracted unsavory hangers-on. In recent years, the sport has been marred by allegations of illegal betting by underworld characters colluding with some Test players. Indeed, the ICC and national cricket authorities have defrocked some high-profile players after official inquiries.

There hasn’t even been a hint of scandal involving Tendulkar – in any manner. Although he hails from the commercially freewheeling city of Mumbai – which is also the reported capital of India’s underworld – his personal values mirror the “zero tolerance” policy of Dubai. Just as Dubai emphasizes the upholding of civic and moral values, Tendulkar retains his middle-class bred principles of frugality, closeness to family, and humility. Surely louts and touts, even if subtly, must have endlessly approached him. One simply cannot imagine Sachin Tendulkar succumbing to such importuning.

And why would he want to? He has earned his place in the history of sports; he has earned lucre as well as the love of millions of fans through his extraordinary dedication to cricket. The century that he made on Sunday in South Africa is not only for the record books, it is for the ages. That’s why the applause for his achievement resonates around the world.

(Pranay Gupte’s next book – the 15th that he has written or edited – “Dubai: The Journey,” will be published worldwide in early 2011 by Viking-Penguin. He is currently working on his memoirs of more than four decades in international journalism.)

The Fall of India's Katie Couric?

2010-11-30T11:49:00.000-08:00

The Fall of India's Katie Couric?

A Farewell To Dubai / By Pranay Gupte

2010-11-25T11:21:00.000-08:00

A Farewell To Dubai

By Pranay Gupte
(Published in The Hindu, India’s national newspaper, November 26, 2010)

Perhaps it was the good feeling generated by the visit this week to the United Arab Emirates by the septuagenarian President Pratibha Patil of India, or perhaps it’s the fact that the octogenarian Queen Elizabeth II – whose country, Britain, formerly governed the Gulf region – arrived as a supplicant just as Mrs. Patil left with a bagful of new bilateral business agreements.

Whatever it is, a significant portion of the global media – which treated Dubai with contempt or pity or both during the erstwhile financial crisis – has apparently decided that this emirate should be in favor again. To put it another way, Dubai is back on center stage in a benign role, not to be vilified

I am, of course, delighted that many highly positive articles about
Dubai are suddenly being carried by top publications, including London’s Financial Times, a longtime and predictable critic. But at least the FT’s integrity cannot be questioned, a statement not necessarily applicable to some other British publications, and a few from the United States and Asia – regions where Dubai has extensive investments.

I don't know whether the media have had a conversion on the Road to Damascus. Perhaps their rediscovery of Dubai's attractions and assets flows from the energetic pro-Dubai efforts by communications stalwarts such as Nicholas Labuschagne of South Africa, Naamat Baradhy and Cyba Audi of Lebanon, Giselle Pettyfer of Britain, and Charles McLean of the United States.

These veterans have been retained by Dubai’s powerful media czar, Ahmed Al Shaikh, to manage its global reputation, and clearly they are succeeding – even if Mr. Al Shaikh, who also serves as “media escort” to His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai, believes that much more needs to be done. And Mr. Al Shaikh is not one to be crossed.

It isn’t an easy job “managing” a sovereign entity’s reputation, particularly that of one like Dubai that nearly defaulted on debt-service payments a year ago this month; the emirate startled the financial community by calling for a “standstill” on money owed by government-related companies such as Dubai World to nearly 100 banks and entities. The International Monetary Fund estimates that total debts are around $110 billion, or 160 percent of Dubai’s GDP; but Dubai’s leaders dispute that figure.

We are unlikely to ever know the true figure: there are, after all, many ways of doing the math. It isn’t that Dubai dissembles; it’s just that the system here is unaccustomed to outside scrutiny. But outside bankers and economists have cautioned that if Dubai is to continue on its path toward establishing itself as a truly global metropolis, then its governance system will need to heed the conventions and concerns of the global community.

Disclosure: I have worked with several Dubai entities since December 2007, although not in a public relations or propaganda capacity. My current tenure with the Government of Dubai Media Office ends on December 31, when my resignation becomes effective. My just-completed book on the links between my native India and the Gulf will be published by Penguin-Viking in late Spring 2011. I am currently working on my memoirs of more than four decades in international journalism, and my time in the Middle East – and particularly in the United Arab Emirates -- will feature prominently in this next book, due for publication in 2012.

I admit to being enthralled by the Middle East, a region that I have visited as a journalist since 1971, when the seven sheikhdoms of the Trucial States became a federation under the rubric of the UAE. I have seen Dubai – and the neighboring capital city of Abu Dhabi – rise from the unforgiving deserts of the Arabian littoral.

That’s why those of us who always believed in Dubai's resilience and capacity to weather the financial storm are pleased that media coverage is positive -- and certainly fairer -- once again. I am heartened by the fact that Dubai decision makers are correcting course to focus on the emirate's traditional basics: trading, transportation and tourism, and logistics. This isn't to say that Dubai's financial travails have ended. But debts are being successfully renegotiated, and management methods are being streamlined.

Indeed, Sheikh Mohammed – a longtime friend of India – has appointed a team of seasoned -- and trusted -- technocrats to oversee Dubai's financial recovery and sustainable economic development. In addition to himself, this quartet consists of his uncle, His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman of The Emirates Group; Mohammed Ibrahim Al Shaibani, Director General of the Royal Court and head of the Investment Corporation of Dubai; and Ahmad bin Humaid Al Tayer, Governor of the Dubai International Financial Center, and a scion of one of Dubai’s oldest business families.

They have few illusions of the challenges ahead, but they see their tasks as just that -- challenges. I have no doubt whatsoever that they will succeed. They are men who see great value in strengthening the UAE’s commercial and diplomatic ties with India, this country’s biggest trading partner. And they publicly acknowledge the critical role that India entrepreneurs as well as laborers have played in the making of this modern state.

For anyone who has lived in the UAE for any length of time, it is difficult not to wish Dubai anything but success as it attempts to make a comeback from the financial crisis. The Emiratis are, for the most part, a warm, decent and generous people, and they deserved better than the relentless – and often reckless – media shellacking they received during the financial crisis.

During my time in Dubai, I was witness to the fact that Emiratis generally took such shellacking in stride – and with a not inconsiderable dose of Arab humor and faux horror. I was also witness to the fact that when droves of “friends” seem to desert Dubai during the crisis, India and Indians stood steadfast by their historical ally; the loyalty was very much appreciated and reciprocated by most Emiratis. That says something about both cultures.

(Pranay Gupte is a veteran international journalist and author.)

Why Dubai? What the UAE? Here's Why.

2010-11-10T00:35:00.000-08:00

By Pranay Gupte
(Published in Khaleej Times, November 10, 2010)

President Barack Obama of the United States spoke fulsomely about shared values between his country and India of tolerance and cultural understanding, and of sustainable economic development during his three-day visit to this week. But he could just as well have been talking about the United Arab Emirates.

Of course, the demographic scales are different. The ethnicities are different. And the political ecosystem is different. Still, there are few countries in the world that have so consistently demonstrated a tolerance of universal faiths, and of ready understanding of other cultures. Small though the UAE is in terms of population, its large-heartedness is laudable; indeed, it would be no hyperbole to suggest that this is among the most open societies in the world.

Take Dubai. It has 220 different nationalities that have traditionally lived in harmony in a city-state with a benign, people-focused government system, even if it isn’t along the conventional lines of Washington or Westminster.

Or take Abu Dhabi. The majlis gatherings hosted by various royal sheikhs are a microcosm of the global community. People of different tongues and wide aspirations turn up not only to pay their respects to the hosts but also to mingle freely with one another. From this mix flows a collective energy, an aggregate of ambitions that would be hard to find in too many other places.

I speak of the UAE’s traditions of tolerance and understanding not only because President Obama made a point of highlighting those enduring values in India. Ironically, people from South Asia have long settled in the UAE and in other Gulf countries, benefiting from the openness of Arab societies and from the warmth of the welcome extended to them.

I speak of the UAE’s traditions because I briefly wrestled with the idea of returning to my home in New York after having spent the last four years here. New York, like the UAE – and like Mumbai, where I was born and raised – is multicultural, a city of diversity, a metropolis that invites newcomers and new ideas to replenish its creative and commercial cores.

But what’s missing in New York is the tangible warmth and hospitality of the UAE. What’s missing is the reflexive assumption that newcomers will want to participate in the ongoing task of nation building. New York, after all, was founded as a trading post by the Dutch in 1624; the federation of the UAE was established in December 1971. New York is a “completed” city; cities such as Dubai and Abu Dhabi are still works in progress.

Their relative chronological newness feed the imperative to be wide open to progressive ideas for economic growth and social development. And although the UAE is firmly anchored in Islamic culture, religion here is a matter of benevolent personal faith and family values. Where else in the world would you see adherents of virtually every religion being allowed to observe their precepts and philosophies? There is no thought control in the UAE; no requirement that the state religion be the only one can be practiced in the open.

This is an important point. During the ghastly financial crisis that originated in America in 2007 and spread virally around the world, leaving few lands untouched, some in the foreign media – especially in the West – painted woeful pictures of this country, particularly of Dubai. The lines between fiction and falsities were blurred, let alone those between truth and reality. The “financial crisis” became a code for characterizing the UAE – and especially Dubai – as a land whose zenith had been reached and which was now careening toward a catastrophe.

Those who spun such things, or broadcast them, neglected to take into account a vital element that an open society fosters – resilience. They failed to note that resilience in turn engenders a special can-do spirit. Dubai amply demonstrated these characteristics, which is why it – as His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai, said recently – “Dubai is back.”

A closer analysis suggests that Dubai never went away. The indomitable spirit fostered by the families such as the Al Maktoums of Dubai and the Al Nahyans of Abu Dhabi could not possibly desert the people of this land in a crisis, however severe. For an outsider like myself, this is something not only to note but also to applaud with enormous enthusiasm.

That’s why I’m still in Dubai, and not in New York.

(Pranay Gupte, a US national, is a veteran journalist and author. His next book, on India and the Gulf, will be published in Spring 2011. He is currently working on his memoirs of more than four decades in international journalism.)

Why Dubai? Why the UAE? Here’s why

2010-11-09T16:45:00.000-08:00

Why Dubai? Why the UAE? Here’s why

The Most Brilliant Minds I Have Ever Met / By Pranay Gupte

2010-11-05T02:01:00.000-07:00

The Most Brilliant Minds I Have Ever Met / By Pranay Gupte

During the course of a long journalistic and writing career, I have had the privilege to meet some of the smartest men and women of my time. They have had an impact on me because their staggering intellects, their ability to synthesize ideas, their modesty, and their natural inclination to find solutions to societal problems. I learned a lot from each one of them – most of all the humbling reality that I could never match their brilliance. It is difficult selecting a few from a large list of great people I have personally known well, but here’s my choice (offered alphabetically):

The late Ambassador Morris B. Abram (United States)

Mr. Salameh Fouad Abdul-Hadi (Jordan)

Mrs. Diana Hamade Al Ghurair (United Arab Emirates)

The late R. W. “Johnny” Apple (The New York Times)

Dr. Endré Balazs (Hungary)

Professor Jagdish Bhagwati (Columbia University)

Professor Ralph Buultjens (Sri Lanka)

Mr. Chua Huck Cheng (Singapore)

Mr. Sean Cleary (South Africa)

Mr. Gerson da Cunha (India)

Professor Padma Desai (Columbia University)

Mr. Arthur Gelb (The New York Times)

Dr. Allan E. Goodman (Institute of International Education)

The late Professor Charusheela Gupte (India)

The late Dr. Mahbub ul Haq (Pakistan)

Mr. Lee E. Koppelman (United States)

Mr. Prabhakar Koregaonkar (India)

Mr. Nicholas Labuschagne (South Africa)

The late Anand Mohan Lal (India)

The late James W. Michaels (Forbes Magazine)

Mr. Jamil K. Mroue (Lebanon)

Mr. Hugh O’Haire, Jr. (United States)

Lord Swraj Paul of Marylebone (United Kingdom)

Mr. Dawood A. Rawat (Mauritius)

The late A. M. Rosenthal (The New York Times)

Professor Vandana Sehgal (India)

The late Father Leonard Serkis, S.J. (Lebanon)

Mr. Anwer Sher (Pakistan)

Mr. Louis A. Silverstein (The New York Times)

The late Theodore C. Sorensen (Advisor to President John F. Kennedy)

Ms. Emma Thompson (United Kingdom)

Ms. Jyotsna Varma (Indian Administrative Service)

Gone: The lions and the lionesses / By Pranay Gupte

2010-11-01T19:41:00.000-07:00

Gone: The lions and the lionesses

By Pranay Gupte
(Published in The Hindu, India, November 2, 2010)

In life, as in parables, there are lions and lionesses, and there are snakes. There are the good, and there are the greedy. There are those who smile, and there are those who stab. There are friends who limn one’s life with the joy of learning and laughter – but, like lions and lionesses, they are few and far between. Rarer still are friends who double as mentors and teachers.

Theodore C. Sorensen was one such friend. He’s gone now: The man who was President John F. Kennedy’s closest advisor died in New York late Sunday afternoon, some hours after an essay I’d written about him and Kennedy for The Hindu went to press. They say the cause of death was complications from a second stroke he’d suffered a few days ago. I think he went to join his great mentor, who was assassinated in Dallas 47 years ago this month, and whom Ted missed every single day since. I know they are together now.

I am at that point in life when friends and mentors like Ted are starting to go. The good fortune of journalism is that one gets to meet remarkable men and women in the course of work, sometimes almost by chance. I’ve always felt that you simply have to show up in order to run into such people. They may be few and far between, but you’ve got to get to where they are.

Abe Rosenthal was at one such place, The New York Times. He took me under his wings, he taught me the rudiments of journalism through tough love, and then he let me loose to become a foreign correspondent in the wilderness of Africa and the Middle East. He was a Jew, I a Hindu-born kid from Mumbai; he was a Canadian-born man who became a naturalized American, and I had retained my Indian citizenship at the time. We had little in common other than two things: an enduring romance with India, and an enduring romance with journalism.

India had been Abe’s first posting as a foreign correspondent for The Times in the 1950’s. He could never get the Subcontinent out of his system. He always said that covering India wasn’t just a journalistic assignment for one of the world’s leading newspapers; it was, Abe said, “high adventure.”

Because he viewed India through his own special prism, Abe’s dispatches had clarity and color, they were analytical and astute. He wrote with passion, but he also possessed acuity. Long before the world’s media came around to the belief that India had the potential to become a giant of the global economy, Abe believed in the country’s potential.

That is not to say he gave India a pass on such matters as bribes and political banditry which, well after his time in New Delhi, came to corrode the polity. Abe continued to write occasionally about India even when he got top job at The Times, that of executive editor. But it was always tough love for India: he did not condone the moral decay and the erosion of civic values. Just as he seldom failed to chide me when he felt that my dispatches were credulous or, worse, failed to fairly assess the social and political sensibility of the places I’d visited, Abe spoke out forcefully against those who, in his view, were gullible or culpable regarding corruption.

He did that with a powerful voice. In the end, that voice proved to be a liability for the owners of The Times, and they did the unthinkable – they fired Abe Rosenthal.

He continued writing for other publications after that, but his heart was clearly still lodged at The Times. In the end, that heart was just worn out. He spurned by the only institution he ever worked for on a full-time basis, and it had let him go.

That also happened to another sturdy friend of India, James W. Michaels, the legendary editor of Forbes magazine. He first went to India during World War II to serve as an ambulance driver for the Allies. He stayed on to become a correspondent for what was then called United Press. Michaels was not far from Mahatma Gandhi when Nathuram Godse shot the latter. It was Jim’s dispatches about the assassination that ricocheted around the world, bringing him fame early in life.

From India Jim went to Forbes, and in due course transformed the business magazine from a moribund publication to one that had snap, crackle and pop. But Jim really never left India, and he would visit every couple of years. He encouraged his correspondents to file more stories about Indian entrepreneurship. He supported me fully when I did investigative stories about the Bofors scandal, and about the Hindujas.

It was ironic that Ted Sorensen was the Hindujas’ lawyer at the time, and he tried to dissuade Forbes from running my cover story. Nevertheless, I understood that Ted was acting on behalf of his clients; our friendship did not deteriorate.

Ted is gone now, as are Abe Rosenthal and Jim Michaels. Gone are the lions (and the lionesses, too, such as my mother, Professor Charusheela Gupte, who also mentored my intellectual development), and there seem to be few left now. I seem to be going to more and more funerals these days. I wonder who will be left to come to mine.

(Pranay Gupte has completed his new book on India and the Middle East, which will be published in Spring 2011. He is currently working on his memoirs.)

Fifty Years After JFK's Election

2010-10-31T13:45:00.000-07:00

Fifty years after JFK’s election

By Pranay Gupte
(Published in The Hindu, India, November 1, 2010)

I’ve met several American presidents during my long journalistic career, but I never met John Fitzgerald Kennedy, one of my political heroes. I was a schoolboy in Bombay – now Mumbai – when he was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963. I was younger still when Kennedy was elected in 1960 as the 35th president of the United States. He was 46 years old, the first Roman Catholic president of the United States.

On Tuesday, it will be 50 years since that memorable election, which some historians still debate on account of alleged vote fraud in a few of the US’s 50 states (Kennedy got a plurality of just 118,574 votes over his Republic opponent, then Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon). But there is little doubt that the brief Kennedy presidency was a bright and shining moment in American and world politics, not the least because of JFK’s wit and sparkling personality. It was Kennedy’s wife, Jacqueline, who opened up India in the minds of millions of Americans when she made a celebrated trip to the Subcontinent. Kennedy himself said how much Gandhi’s writings influenced him.

I write now about JFK not simply to draw on a distant historical memory but because one of the last real-time connections to the Kennedy Presidency lies gravely ill in New York. Theodore C. Sorensen, a Nebraska-born lawyer who was arguably Kennedy’s closest aide, has suffered a second stroke. He’s in his 80’s, and when I last saw him the night Barack Obama was elected as the 44th president of the United States in 2008, tears were flowing down his face as Sorensen witnessed on television the triumph of the first black man to occupy the White House. Just recently, Sorensen noted that while Kennedy wasn’t able to visit India during his presidency, President Obama would be traveling there this week.

Sorensen, of course, was one of several very capable men and women that Kennedy brought to the White House. The writer David Halberstam called them “The Best and The Brightest” in a best-selling book. There was the historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., and there was Robert F. Kennedy, who served as attorney general in his older brother’s cabinet. There was Dean Rusk, the secretary of state, and there was Robert S. McNamara, the former head of the Ford Motor Company, who became JFK’s secretary of defense.

They are all gone now, and only Sorensen remains. I was having dinner with him and his wife Gillian Martin Sorensen in New York a year or so before Obama’s election, and Ted – everyone called him Ted, not the more formal Theodore – predicted that the young senator from Illinois would win the 2008 presidential election over Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona.

And that’s what happened: Obama – he of the dazzling smile, the intellectual wattage and rapier wit, all JFK characteristics – became president. Sorensen had privately advised Obama on foreign-policy issues. When I heard Obama deliver his inaugural address in January 2009, I thought I detected some familiar cadences. I asked Sorensen if he’d contributed to Obama speech, and Ted shrugged. “The speaker wrote the speech,” he said.

He’d been asked many, many times in an earlier and since, if he’d crafted some of Kennedy’s most enduring lines, among them: “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” He’d also been asked if he “ghosted” the biography that won Kennedy – then a senator from Massachusetts – the Pulitzer Prize, one of America’s two highest literary honors (the other being the National Book Award). As always, Sorensen’s modesty and wariness came through when such questions were put to him: “The speaker wrote the speech,” and “The writer wrote the words.”

I like to think that I know who really wrote most of Kennedy’s memorable lines, and who crafted his book. But that’s my intuition; Ted Sorensen is simply not the kiss-and-tell sort. His recent memoir, “Counselor,” drew attention not so much to himself as to JFK and his smart set. And quite rightly so. History celebrates – or condemns – leaders, not their factotums. Sorensen correctly believes that people like him are only bit players in a presidency.

I don’t want this to sound like a eulogy for Ted Sorensen. He’s a hardy man, one filled with more energy and zest than might be expected of an octogenarian. He’s suffered a major stroke before, and he pulled out of that one just fine, other than a diminishing of his eyesight. He has continued writing and lecturing. He has privately advised top Indian and Pakistani officials about the Kashmir imbroglio. He has traveled to conferences in places such as the United Arab Emirates.

I asked him not so long ago how often he thought of his prince, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. “Every day,” Sorensen said, “I miss him every day.”

I don’t want to miss Ted. He’s led a full life, of course, but I want him around longer – much longer – as a mentor and a friend. I want him around to write history, and not be relegated to it.

Some hours after this essay went to press, Ted died. What can one say?

(Pranay Gupte’s next book, about India and the Middle East, will be published in Spring 2011.)

The Forum in Mauritius on The Influence of Media in the World

2010-10-27T01:38:00.001-07:00

The Forum in Mauritius on The Influence of Media in the World
By Ibrahim A. Vayid
(Published in IMPACT Magazine, October 26, 2010)

It’s an absolute first for Mauritius to host an international Forum to discourse on matters “concerning peace, sustainable economic development and inter-cultural understanding”. The Forum in Mauritius is the brainchild of Dawood Rawat, the Chairman of the British American Investment Group, who is fully committed to the pursuit of peace, prosperity and the welfare of the global community. The project has been in gestation for a while and it is meant to be an annual event where an assembly of international prominent and distinguished personalities will debate openly the most pressing and relevant issues of our times. They will then participate in a closed brain storming session where they will discuss the concerns raised by the issues at hand and come up with potential solutions through a Declaration of the Forum in Mauritius to be issued after every Forum as a contribution from the developing countries to the world community.

The Forum in Mauritius had its inaugural session on October 22 and it attracted a leading cluster of eminent and eclectic personalities from the world of multimedia, business and academia. To say that the Forum’s debut was a tremendous success would be an understatement as it drew a captive audience as diverse and eclectic as the panel of experts who for one whole day kept the delegates spellbound with their thought provoking ideas, opinions and personal experiences. It was a highly interactive Forum attended by politicians, business people, academics and the cream of the local media industry. The attendance must have been beyond the organizers’ expectations as the conference room was jam-packed with enthusiastic delegates eager to ask questions and/or to offer their ideas, opinions, or to challenge the panel on their stand on the topics under consideration.

What emerged from the day’s proceedings is a synthesis of perspective of what the media is all about, how it is supposed to be free but in fact is not; how there are degrees of nuances in freedom of expression in the media because the process of freedom has changed and is contingent on several factors, including political stability and interference; how the journalist is entitled to his opinions, but not the facts he is reporting on; how ownership controls editorials and influences the World’s activities and opinions; how prejudice and deliberate malicious reporting (especially in the Western media) can do irreparable damage to the political, economic and social stability of whole nations as testified by what happened to Iraq and Palestine; how the print media has been transformed by technology and how the Internet with its multiple derivatives like Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, including Blogs, have revolutionized the reading habits of generations of people leading them away from traditional media publications. The panel still feel, however, that although conventional publications have been losing readership, especially with the younger generations, the future of traditional press media is secured as long as it keeps pace with technology and its ever demanding readership.

As for the topic of Media and Terrorism, the consensus is that there is an obvious bias when the term is applied to specific groups, especially by the Western Media when dealing with Islam and Islamic factions. Nowadays, most of the world “terrorist” groups have their own well oiled propaganda machines to broadcast their philosophy, activities or demands, and to optimize their exposure to the world. The panel also discussed the matter of State Terrorism as practised by the Zionist State of Israel with complete impunity and the complicity of the world community.

Based on the comments made by the delegates and the subsequent write-ups by the journalists in attendance, there is no doubt that the inaugural session of the Forum in Mauritius has been a tremendous success and has exceeded the expectations of its initiator and organisers. It has put Mauritius on the world map as a potential think-tank in this corner of the world for internationally renowned decision-makers, academics and philosophers to get together and discourse on contentious issues of a global or regional impact. What the Forum in Mauritius has done is to prove to the world that people from both developing and emerging countries have the capacity and wherewithal to make a significant contribution to world peace, harmony and prosperity.

We define who we are through our thoughts and actions. When we translate our beliefs, feelings, ideals and opinions into actual deeds, we confirm our identity which in turn validates our philosophy of life and our stand both internationally and locally. When we put our resources where our mouth is, it implies unreservedly that we observe what we preach and advocate.

Through this initiative, Mr. Dawood Rawat has proved that he is not only a visionary, but also a man of action and a man of his word. He has not simply raised the bar significantly when it comes to Freedom of Expression and the Media, he has also elevated our island nation on the world stage giving it a cachet that distinguishes it from other developing countries. The Forum in Mauritius has been an eye opener. It will be the talk of the town for quite some time and we are looking forward not only to reading and assessing the resolutions that will come out of the “Declaration of the Forum in Mauritius”, but also when will the next Forum in Mauritius be held and what will be the theme.

Why The Forum in Mauritius, which opens October 22?

2010-10-19T22:19:00.000-07:00

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 attracted more than 20 well-known international decision makers in media, business and academe, including Lord Swraj Paul, Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords, UK; Dr. Allan E. Goodman, President of the Institute of International Education and Administration of the prestigious Fulbright Programme; Mr. Raju Narisetti, Managing Editor, The Washington Post, Washington DC; Mrs. Barbara B. Knight, former White House Spokesperson and Press Secretary of US First Lady Laura Bush; Mr. Jamil K. Mroue, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of The Daily Star, Beirut, Lebanon; and Mr. Ashok Advani, Chairman and Editor-in-Chief, Business India Group of Publications, Mumbai, India.

The Forum in Mauritius has been initiated by Mr. Dawood Rawat, Chairman of the British American Investment Co (Mauritius) Ltd, one of the largest business groups in the country. For the organisers, it is highly appropriate for such an international meeting to be held in Mauritius, given its ideal location equidistant from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia, three regions that are the focal points for many current geopolitical and intercultural tensions.

Among the questions that panellists will debate with members of the audience are: How do special interests exert pressure on editorial positions? How do the media shape or reflect public opinion? How is information used for propaganda? Who speaks for developing countries in the corridors of political power that are populated mainly by Western groupings?

Contact: adeela@marcom.mu

The Forum in Mauritius opens October 22

2010-10-19T22:00:00.000-07:00

The Forum in Mauritius, a new platform to enable voices from the Global South to suggest implementable solutions to problems of international immediacy -- particularly relating to developing countries -- will be inaugurated on October 22 in Port Louis.

Please contact: adeela@marcom.com

New Wall Street Journal Book Review Sparks Conflict Concerns

2010-09-16T05:54:00.000-07:00

New<em> Wall Street Journal </em>Book Review Sparks Conflict Concerns

Will Indians Face A Backlash in America?

2010-07-01T22:39:00.000-07:00

Will Indians face a backlash in the United States?

By Pranay Gupte
(Published in The Hindu, India, July 2, 2010)

There’s been increasing angst and teeth-gnashing among Indians in the United States this week over a tongue-in-cheek essay by columnist Joel Stein in the international newsweekly, TIME. Mr. Stein ruefully talks about how his native Edison, a New Jersey community just across the Hudson River from New York City, has been transformed into a “Little India” – with the overpowering smells of Indian cuisine, the eclectic colors of Indian ethnicity, and the distinctive dialects of the Subcontinent dominating what was once a largely Italian-American town.

The blogosphere has been ricocheting with rants against the writer, accusing him of prejudice or worse. TIME’s editors subsequently said that the magazine – whose circulation is just under four million – did not intend to offend Indians. I know Mr. Stein, and he’s scarcely a racist; he has acknowledged that the presence of Indians had brought fresh prosperity and diversity to Edison. I’m pretty sure that his piece was intended to be satirical, even if it wasn’t especially felicitous. Columnists, after all, are paid to be provocative; engendering offense is sometimes one of those unintended consequences of the trade.

An Indian friend, who lives in East Asia, put a healthy perspective on Mr. Stein’s article after I’d e-mailed it to her. “I was aware somewhere that I ought to be insulted as this guy is saying mean things about my countrymen and culture – but the piece is written with so much humor and candor that I could not help but see his point,” she said. “I cannot help but see where he is coming from. It may not be balanced but brings out the feelings of so many. And somewhere along the line admits to being biased. I see why TIME ran it!”

My own feeling is that Indians – especially those living and prospering abroad – often tend to be bereft of irony and a self-deprecating sense of humor; they are given to being far too readily offended as a tribe. It may not quite be a “Masada Complex” – a feeling of being under siege – but there’s a cultural defensiveness that I’ve sensed among many Indians I’ve known since I first landed in the United States as a student.

Of course, there are now many more Indians in America since my initial arrival in 1967. When I visited the US – now my adopted country – not long ago for a major class reunion at Brandeis University near Boston and Cambridge, it struck me that just about every second person on the streets seemed to be of Indian origin. In my home city of New York, the situation was no less different.

Surely, I thought, America – a nation of 307 million – must profit substantially from the presence of these Indians, of whom there are now more than 2.5 million, a tenth of the global Indian Diaspora. As if by serendipity, I came across a study showing that indeed America does benefit handsomely through the contributions of Indians, including businessmen, physicians, and high-technology entrepreneurs.

This study was jointly prepared by the India-US World Affairs Institute of Washington, the Robert H. Smith School of Business of the University of Maryland, and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry; it revealed that Indians are not only the most affluent and most educated of the scores of ethnic communities in the melting pot that’s the US, they are also rapidly becoming among the most significant investors in the American economy.

According to the report, 90 Indian companies made 127 greenfield investments worth $5.5 billion between 2004 and 2009, and created 16,576 jobs in the United States. During the same period, 239 Indian companies made 372 acquisitions in the United States, creating more than 40,000 jobs. The total value of 267 (of the 372) acquisitions was $21 billion, or $78.7 million per acquisition. A “greenfield investment” is a form of foreign direct investment where a parent company starts a new venture in a foreign country by constructing new operational facilities from the ground up.

The study says that the five industrial sectors in the US that received the most greenfield investment were metals; software and information technology services; leisure and entertainment; industrial machinery, equipment and tools; and financial services. The sums poured into these sectors accounted for almost 80 percent of total greenfield investment. New Jersey – the state in which Edison is located – has been one of the top recipients of Indian investment.

New Jersey schools and colleges also have among the largest number of the Indian students who come to the US each year. Overall, there are an estimated 94,563 students from India whose net contribution to the US economy was $2.39 billion, according to the study. In fact, students of Indian origin constitute 10 to 12 percent of medical students entering US schools, the new study says. Furthermore, there are about 50,000 physicians (and 15,000 medical students) of Indian heritage in the American cities, and in rural areas.

New Jersey has its share of the so-called “Patel motels,” too. There are currently almost 10,000 Indian American owners of hotels/motels in the US, owning over 40 percent of all hotels in the country and 39 percent of all guest rooms; the study says that they own more than 21,000 hotels with 1.8 million guest rooms and property valued at $129 billion. These Indian-owned facilities employ 578,600 workers.

The US Census Bureau adds that there were 231,000 businesses owned by Indian Americans in 2002, which employed 615,000 workers and had revenues of over $89 billion. (The Census Bureau conducts the survey every five years, and the results of the 2007 survey will be available in a few days). A study led by Vivek Wadhwa for Duke University and the University of California, Berkeley, found that Indian immigrant entrepreneurs had founded more engineering and technology companies during 1995-2005 than immigrants from Britain, China, Japan, and Taiwan combined. Of all immigrant-founded companies, 26 percent had Indian founders.

Which brings us back to Joel Stein’s column and all the hullaballoo that it’s generated. Edison, New Jersey, may not be a precursor of things to come – in other words, Indians are hardly about to demographically dominate small towns all across America; the country’s immigration laws would work against that possibility. But Indians bring enterprise and energy to communities with their presence, and this works to everyone’s benefit. They are largely anchored in their homespun culture, but they are also respectful of American mores and morals, and laws as well. They make the American tapestry more colorful, richer, and culturally more alive. They are living the American Dream, but in their own special Indian way. What’s wrong with that?

(Pranay Gupte is a veteran international journalist and author. His forthcoming book is on India and the Middle East.)

Migration in Progress: From Print to the Web

2010-06-30T05:52:00.001-07:00

MIGRATION IN PROGRESS: FROM PRINT TO THE WEB

By Pranay Gupte
(Published in The Hindu, India, June 30, 2010)

I was dining with John Seeley in the Grill Room of The Four Seasons Restaurant, the one place in New York where the city’s elite habitually congregate for their “power lunch” five days a week. Mr. Seeley, like others in the wood-paneled, Philip Johnson-designed room, is a player – which is to say that, as founding editor of The Wall Street Journal’s new “Greater New York” daily supplement, he’s someone whose presence is immediately noticed and whose attention is sought, even by other influential figures in a power obsessed metropolis like New York.

Mr. Seeley, a trim, bespectacled man in his early 40’s, wears his power lightly; he’s an old friend, and one of the finest editors I’ve worked with. He takes his work very seriously, not the least because his new section is competing head-on with The New York Times’ formidable local report, both in print and on the Web.

One of the topics we discussed was the decline of print publications and the question of whether major newspapers should put up a “pay wall” for the content they offered on the Web. The proprietor of Mr. Seeley’s paper, Rupert Murdoch, is an enthusiast of the pay-for-content concept; The New York Times has announced that it will start charging visitors to its popular Web site for much of its content.

This topic may not have dominated conversation at every table of The Four Seasons Restaurant. But it would be safe to assume that it was lodged in the minds of the media tycoons there. On this day, the restaurant’s other diners included a variety of top media figures, including Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, and host of CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS; he was lunching with Henry Kissinger, the former US Secretary of State, who privately advises media companies. (Newsweek has put itself up for sale, and the prospects of a financially viable future seem grim.)

Mortimer Zuckerman, publisher of The New York Daily News was there, too; his paper’s print circulation has been steadily declining, as is that of its Murdoch-owned tabloid rival, The New York Post. In another corner, the former US Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin was eating with Vernon Jordan, arguably the closest friend of former President Bill Clinton, and a former member of the board of Dow Jones, which publishes The Wall Street Journal. Mr. Rubin is co-chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, a prestigious think tank whose Web publications have been winning awards as well as more and more visitors. Still another diner was a top executive of Condé Nast, which recently shut down the bible of the food industry, the monthly magazine Gourmet, and is reviving it as a Web offering.

“Print versus Web” is a topic that has upturned the media industry in the United States, and in many other countries, resulting in significant job losses for print journalists. In 2007, there were 6,580 daily newspaper around the world, including nearly 1,500 in the US; by mid 2010, the overall figure is down by 500, while newspaper revenues have declined by a fifth on account of an advertising fall precipitated by the global recession, as well as a migration of many advertisers to the Web.

A prominent example of a print paper opting to transform itself entirely into a Web publication is the venerable Christian Science Monitor, the Boston-based newspaper that was founded in 1908 by Mary Baker Eddy. It shut down its daily print edition on March 27, 2009, citing losses of $18.9 million per year versus $12.5 million in annual revenue. It now offers content online on its Web site and via e-mail. John Yemma, the paper’s editor, says that the move to go digital was made because the management recognized that the Christian Science Monitor’s reach would be greater online than in print. He says that in the next five years the Monitor will aim to increase its online readership to 25 million page-views, from the current figure of five million.

In the United Arab Emirates, the daily business daily, Emirates 24/7 – which is owned by the Dubai Government company, DMI – announced a few days ago that it, too, would terminate its print edition. Like the Christian Science Monitor, Emirates 24/7 will be published daily solely as a Web newspaper.

While newspapers generally are suffering from a decline in advertising and subscription revenues, rising newsprint costs simultaneously besets them. US East Coast prices – the barometer of global rates for newsprint – rose to nearly $600 per tonne in January 2010, compared to $464 in August 2009. Moreover, new contracts concluded after March 2010 include an additional $50 per tonne. (Indian publishers for whom newsprint constitutes the single largest cost element -- accounting for 40 to 60 percent of total cost, are bracing themselves for this rise, even though newsprint is currently exempt from customs duty; publishers import 50 percent of the 1.8 million tonnes of newsprint used annually.)

Here’s another set of statistics that should be sobering for the print industry: The online ad business, excluding mobile ads, is set to expand to $34.4 billion in 2014 from $24.2 billion in 2009, according to a report released last week by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The same report says that newspapers continue to suffer from a decline in advertising revenue. According to the Newspaper Association of America, print advertising revenue dropped 28.6 percent in 2009 to $24.82 billion. The PricewaterhouseCoopers report estimates that print advertising in newspapers will drop to $22.3 billion by 2014. It also estimates that mobile advertising in North America will quadruple from $414 million in 2009 to $1.6 billion in 2014.

With the galloping fortunes of high-technology driven portable gadgets such as Apple’s iPad and the new iPhone4, media organizations clearly see the advantage of pushing content through telephony. This doesn’t augur well for the print industry, although, of course, its decline may not suggest imminent demise.

Still, as The Wall Street Journal’s John Seeley told me, smart media organizations are revving up their digital technology. “You need to be where the readers are,” he said. The Journal is in the comfortable position of having a daily print circulation of 2.09 million, compared to 952,000 for The New York Times. Neither paper is taking its relatively high print circulation for granted – both are spending fresh sums of money on boosting print circulation through ads and provocative marketing. But both are also accelerating their Web operations. They hear the future approaching rapidly, and its sounds do not necessarily include the reassuring rustle of newsprint.

(Pranay Gupte is a veteran international journalist and author. His next book is on India and the Middle East.)

Dubai leads the way in "Soft Infrastructure"

2010-06-27T14:51:00.000-07:00

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 telecommunications. Those of us who live in the UAE take it for granted that electricity will rarely, if ever, fail, or that roads will buckle under despite heavy traffic, or that the nation’s airports will be clogged on account of the growing number of flights.

But how many of us give thought to the nation’s “soft infrastructure”?

That’s because the term is seldom heard in everyday usage, even though it’s as relevant to our daily lives as the “hard infrastructure” of roads and power supply and bridges. The UAE’s leaders proudly – and rightfully so – talk about how a key to the country’s economic development has been its emphasis on focusing on a strong infrastructure. And more and more they underscore the importance and value of e-government.

In fact, His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime of the UAE, and Ruler of Dubai, was a pioneer in the region of getting government offices to incorporate electronic communications and procedures in providing services to everyday people. Well before “e-government” became a fashionable concept around the world, Shaikh Mohammed would visit municipal offices and exhort them to transform their systems in order to provide services more speedily through electronic means; in the process, of course, these offices would be able to save on cumbersome paperwork.

His exhortations have clearly worked. Not long ago, when I went to obtain an “e-gate” card at the airport, I was astonished at being able to get one in less than five minutes. I expressed my surprise to the cheerful official behind the e-gate window, and his response was, “What did you expect? This is Dubai.”

This is Dubai indeed. A friend went by to register his vehicle, and got the deed done in less time than it takes to get a hamburger at a fast-food outlet. Another friend and her husband wanted to set up a graphics company in one of Dubai’s free zones, and their experience was similarly salutary. Still another friend found that her television system was malfunctioning: the provider sent someone to fix the problem within two hours.

These sorts of things ease the business of living and working in urban environments in the UAE, ordinarily considered stressful in most countries – especially developing nations. As a veteran journalist who has been to virtually all of the 192 member-states of the United Nations, I can speak from first-hand experience that there are very few societies that are capable of managing their “soft infrastructure” as well as the UAE. When I visited my hometown of New York a few days ago and discovered, to my dismay, that the electricity in my apartment had been inexplicably switched off, it took almost a day of haggling with the local power company to set matters right. I asked the official I was dealing with if she’d heard about the concept of “e-government,” and her somewhat puzzled response was, “What’s that?”

One wouldn’t have expected such a response in a sophisticated city like New York – which prides itself on the efficiency of its municipal services, notwithstanding the tough trade unions -- but I suspect that such puzzlement wouldn’t be uncommon in many developing countries either. These countries have often lacked visionary leadership and resources to introduce “e-government.” Moreover, the presence of corruption has frequently ensured that municipal leaders find it more advantageous to continue doing things the old fashioned way. Why bother with innovation, which could well eliminate the prospects of further lining one’s pocket?

The UAE’s ability to recognize that “soft infrastructure” necessitates the providing of appropriate public education, public health, and social-welfare safety nets, has fetched its residents remarkably superior living conditions. A recent World Bank study said, “All aspects of regulations, taxation and licensing are candidates for review to minimize cost, time and frustration for businesses, whilst maintaining appropriate necessary environmental and related standards.”

By these criteria, Dubai’s record is little short of outstanding. It is a record that development institutions such as the World Bank should be highlighting to the 135 emerging countries that constitute the cohort that’s long been known as the “third world.” It is a record that demonstrates that vigilance against corruption offers not only protection to everyday people, it also enhances everyday living conditions for everybody.

To put it another way, the emphasis placed by the UAE and Dubai on promoting the “soft infrastructure” shows foresight. Good governance is meant for both current and future generations. It wouldn’t be at all inappropriate to applaud this country for establishing the right set of priorities when it come to paying attention to the everyday needs of those who live and work here.

(Pranay Gupte, a veteran author and journalist, is with the Government of Dubai’s Media Office. This essay is written in his personal capacity, and does not reflect any official position.)

The Past Is Not Prologue / By Pranay Gupte

2010-06-17T15:02:00.000-07:00

THE PAST IS NOT PROLOGUE

By Pranay Gupte
(Published in The Hindu, India, June 18, 2010)

I traveled to Boston a few days ago to attend the 40th reunion of my college class, my first such get-together with former classmates since I graduated from Brandeis University in 1970. I went because I hadn’t stayed much in touch with them, I went because I was curious how their lives had played out over these long years, and I went, perhaps most of all, to revisit the past that had shaped me, a past that I had always thought served as a prologue to everything that subsequently happened in my life.

But that past had disappeared from view. I found myself a stranger among classmates whom I hadn’t even known during my college days. The campus had changed – it’s still pretty, of course, but it has suffered from the “edifice complex,” that peculiar American condition where wealthy donors raise buildings as much to promote education as to set their names in stone, or marble. What once was a bucolic area was now filled with malls and a bewildering maze of highways. There was a superficiality to the reunion parties, the food wasn’t very good – it never is on American campuses – and it became quickly clear that the courteous young students who served as guides for the occasion had little cognizance with the past I’d experienced, and even less curiosity about it. They seemed eager to talk about themselves, and so I did what I like to do best – ask questions.

I went to the United States in 1967 at a time of great cultural upheaval over its involvement in the Vietnam War, which cost nearly 60,000 American lives – and those of a million Vietnamese – and maimed tens of thousands of young soldiers on both sides, and altered forever the lives and destinies of untold numbers of men, women and children in Indochina. In the end, it was all for nothing – America lost that war, its only such defeat, and, Vietnam still figures as a metaphor for how the best and brightest policymakers of a wealthy nations can misread developing societies many thousands of miles away.

Coming from the relative placidity of my native Mumbai – then known as Bombay – I wasn’t prepared for the tumult and turbulence that I would encounter in a country that I’d never before visited. America was alluring, to be sure, but it was also completely alien. What I’d seen in the movies produced by Hollywood wasn’t quite the reality I’d encounter. The weather was unpredictable, I had no friends, and, as an only child, I missed my parents terribly. I missed the color and clangor of Mumbai. I missed the ethos of India.

It wasn’t easy to acclimatize myself to a new country that would eventually be my permanent home – although I would have had no way of knowing it at the time – and it wasn’t easy being at Brandeis University near Boston, a campus of ambitious, politically hyperactive, and sexually libertarian students and faculty. Much of my time was spent covering the huge war protests in and around Boston for the campus newspaper, The Justice – named after the man in whose honor my nonsectarian university had been established in 1948, Louis D. Brandeis, an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, a great legal scholar. Little wonder that my newspaper articles sparkled more than my grades.

But that was where my professional life as a journalist began. I went on to be a foreign correspondent at The New York Times, then at Newsweek International and Forbes, and later as a producer of documentaries for public television, an author of 14 books, and as the founder and editor of The Earth Times, a newspaper on the environment and sustainable development. I don’t mean to seem facetious, but I am what I am because I skipped those stimulating classes at Brandeis and opted to attend antiwar rallies and write about them for The Justice. This also offered ample opportunities to meet women whose personal and political passions nicely intertwined.

I looked for some of those women at my class reunion, but none was there. There were those with whom I hadn’t enjoyed liaisons, but I could scarcely recognize. The years hadn’t been biologically kind to most of those who attended. Many of my classmates – both women and men – had gone on to great distinction in fields as varied as the law, the sciences, medicine, the theater, and academe, of course. We took a lot of pictures, some with cameras, most with our eyes. It will be the last such album that I will preserve.

That’s because when the past is gone, it is gone; no amount of imagery can truly reconstruct it. Before I made the journey of 10,000 kilometers from my current home in Dubai to Boston for the class reunion, I knew full well that one could never recapture the past. I did not realize that one couldn’t really relive the past either. Forty years is a very long time – two full generations have been born and graduated since my college days. None of the professors who taught me is still around at Brandeis. My parents aren’t around either; they aren’t there to write home to about my travails in what was then an alien experience. Two larger-than-life figures in Massachusetts who welcomed me into their homes and hearts – Selma Feinstein and Charles Noble – are long dead, and I didn’t even know about their demise; my failure to keep in touch with them may have been one of omission and not commission, but it certainly showed that I didn’t bother to nurture my past.

There is no way that I can translate my regret into something more meaningful. My past was lived in a different time, and although it will linger on in my mind I don’t think that I will revisit it through another punishing physical journey. With every word I write, that past recedes, it moves away beyond my grasp. Perhaps just as well.

(Pranay Gupte is a veteran international journalist and author. His next book, on India and the Middle East, will be published at the end of 2010.)

THE PASSAGE OF YEARS

2010-05-29T23:50:00.001-07:00

The Passage of Years

By Pranay Gupte
(Published in The Hindu, India, May 29, 2010)

I was not quite 19 when I left shores of my native India for the promise of America, an only child of accomplished parents whose ambitions for their son did not necessarily embrace the possibility of his going away from home forever.

But that’s what happened. It wasn’t as though I never returned to India – but those were occasional visits, mainly on journalistic assignments. I was, however, never to make Mumbai my home again. Never again would I live in my parents’ apartment overlooking the Arabian Sea, never again would I wander aimlessly through the clangorous byways of the city where I was born not long after the British Raj ended. Whenever I visited, there would be a purpose – a story to be pursued, a book to be researched, perhaps an important birthday of a close friend, and, saddest of all, the deaths of my father and mother in the same year, a quarter of a century ago.

The choice to move my home was, of course, entirely mine: I completed college in the United States, I began a career as a reporter and then a foreign correspondent at the New York Times, I became a columnist for Newsweek International, I wrote profiles and investigative stories for Forbes, I produced documentaries for public television, and I published a newspaper on environmental and sustainability issues for more than a decade.

That choice was driven by an ambition to succeed, no doubt a characteristic that I’d absorbed watching my mother develop into an acclaimed academician and a widely published author in Marathi – one of India’s major languages – and my father apply his legal training in the field of banking. There’s a major square in Mumbai named in honor of my mother, and whenever I’m in my native city I make it a point to walk past the plaque in silent admiration of the sheer courage that it took Charusheela Gupte to lift herself out of poverty into the limelight of a public career.

I realize in those moments, and also at other times, that while I am her son, that while I am also the progeny of my father, Balkrishna Gupte, that’s where the linkage stops. They had far fewer privileges than I did while growing up, they had far fewer opportunities to traverse the world, and while their own lives exemplified the enduring values of tolerance and understanding, they never quite got the chance to study intensively how those values played out in societies such as the United Arab Emirates – where I currently live – which exquisitely embroider diversity into their national fabric.

So it would be fair to say that I’ve been far more fortunate than my parents. But it would also be fair to ask, has my life been as fulfilling as theirs? To what extent has my work in journalism and public diplomacy been a catalyst for change in the societies where I’ve lived and worked? Has my life made a difference to those around me?

There are surely those who’d contend that my presence in their lives was less than salutary. My painful divorce would be testimony to that argument. The estrangement between my son – an only child – and myself would also suggest that my parental behavior might not have been a role model. Along these many years since I first left the shores of Mumbai, so many friendships were lost – lost not necessarily on account of disputes but because of disregard. I rarely apportion blame to others, but I readily accept responsibility for my actions.

I reflect on these matters now because I’m about to attend a very big reunion of my college class in America. I haven’t kept up with very many of my classmates – my loss entirely, to be sure – but I have, from time to time, marveled at the temporal triumphs of some of them. I also confess to dismay over not having sustained the narrative of our collective youth.

That youth was tested and tried in the cauldron of major social and political upheavals in the United States: my college years coincided with those of the waning years of the war in Vietnam and Cambodia. The bodies of young Americans sent to a senseless conflict were being brought back in coffins; I covered that conflict not in the jungles of Southeast Asia but from Boston Commons, where students staged massive protest rallies. The anthem of our college years was “Fire and Rain,” that haunting composition by James Taylor that has been the soundtrack of my life in the years since.

Where did those years ago? I know where I’ve been, but did I sufficiently recognize the places that I visited, particularly those lodged within myself? Did I ask the right questions, especially of myself? What explained my judgment calls, notably those that proved unwise. Did I love enough? Did I care enough? Did I give enough of myself to those who extended themselves for me? Was I kind enough? Was I considerate enough? Did I show up on those occasions when my presence would have provided solace for those in distress?

So many questions swell within me as my class reunion approaches. But my former classmates aren’t going to be able to address them; they, too, would have their own inner demons and danseuses that inevitably gather force with the years.

I realize that when I see the men and women I went to college with all those decades ago, even more questions will arise about the life I – and they – have led. I realize, too, that no one but myself will be able to offer the answers, at least about myself. There may well be time to put off those answers until another big reunion comes our way. But, at my age, I also realize that I’m really not so sure about that either.

(Pranay Gupte is a veteran journalist and author. His next book is on India and the Middle East.)

Reporter's Notebook: What next for Navin Ramgoolam?

2010-05-08T15:28:00.000-07:00

REPORTER’S NOTEBOOK: WILL NAVIN RAMGOOLAM COME INTO HIS OWN?
(Published in The Hindu, India, May 9, 2010)

By Pranay Gupte

For an island-nation of barely 1.3 million people who live on a speck of verdant but craggy territory in the Indian Ocean, Mauritius is more riven by the politics of communalism than one might expect in a tiny democracy. Last week’s parliamentary election showed that the enthusiasm of voters for the ballot box notwithstanding, the challenge of governance is going to be to ensure that the fragile social fabric is not shredded.

That question will dominate the new – and second consecutive – five-year term of Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam, who led a three-party alliance to win 41 of the parliament’s 60 seats. And the question, in turn, prompts another one that is widely whispered, if not openly discussed, in Mauritius: Will Mr. Ramgoolam finally step out of the shadow of his late father, Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, the founder of this 42-year-old polity?

Sir Seewoosagur is a national legend; like him, his son is a physician by training – Navin Ramgoolam also possesses a law degree. There’s a bronze statue of Sir Seewoosagur on the promenade of the capital city of Port Louis that looks straight down a tree-lined avenue toward a statue of Queen Victoria, whose back is to the parliament. Some symbolism there?

The British colonialists may have left two decades ago, but their laws and etiquettes prevail, as does the Napoleonic Code – a reminder of the heavy French influence in Mauritius where the administrative language is English but most people speak French.

Legendary figures are a hard act to follow, let alone emulate, particularly if they happen to be one’s father. Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam is still a relatively young man – barely 63 years old – and it’s quite possible that he still has a long political career ahead of him, not the least because no clear-cut potential successor has emerged in his Mauritius Labour Party.

But if the prime minister’s personal situation as a son of a national legend is not to be envied, still less enviable is the daunting task of forming a government and reforming national policies that more fairly reflect the country’s ethnic composition: nearly half of the population is Hindu, with the rest comprising of Creoles, Christians, Muslims, and whites of French descent who are known here as Francos.

And while there’s a veneer of social civility in Mauritius – everybody is polite to everybody, except during political campaigns –one senses a strong undercurrent of communalism. At the end of the day, it’s really all about how economics plays out here – a fact of life that can seem often bewildering to a visiting journalist, engendering questions about the seeming outrageousness of political promises and of the uncertain prospects of social and national unity, no matter what politicians aver during elections.

That’s because the Francos and Creoles never fully accepted independence. Freedom from the British meant the inevitability of dominance in government and the bureaucracy by the largest social grouping, the Hindus. And even among the Hindus, there are divisions: the Vaishyas are the ones who generally hold the reins of governmental power; the Tamils and Telugus are the ones who manage finance. The Francos are the biggest owners of Mauritius’ vast sugarcane plantations; whites also control major banking and insurance institutions, and they influence some of the big advertising and marketing companies. The market value of publicly traded companies is just about $6 billion.

Moreover, people of Indian origin don’t seem too keen to get into large-scale entrepreneurship, displaying a caution that’s perhaps hardwired in them; Muslims generally are still small traders. Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Rashid Beebeejaun groused to The Hindu on Friday that Indian companies seem unwilling to participate more aggressively in such potentially promising sectors as the infrastructure, renewable energy, shipping, sewage treatment, and computer sciences.

The economic functions of this country’s ethnic and social classes, of course, also underscore the fact that the market in Mauritius is very small indeed, which perhaps accounts for the fact that there is little local manufacturing of consequence here, and that imports constitute more than a fifth of the GDP of nearly $9 billion. Most consumer and industrial imports are from Europe, or from Africa, with India way down the list. And even though the per capita income is $7,000, unemployment is nearly 8 percent – an unacceptably high figure in view of Mauritius’ high literacy and youthful demography. The restiveness of the unemployed young is palpable here; more than 100,000 people from Mauritius live overseas – in Australia, Canada, Britain, and France, and among other places – and seem reluctant to return to their homeland.

Meanwhile, with social tensions escalating in nearby South Africa, Mauritius has lately been a magnet for rowdy white expats whose public behavior has often caused problems of law and order for Mauritian authorities.

If this country is to prosper, it would need to expand economic opportunity domestically, and widen its marketability internationally; it is not going to be enough to simply rely on European tourism to the “island of pleasure,” as a widely displayed billboard boasts.

Similarly, Mauritius is going to have to be more than a conduit for other people’s money. While Mauritius provides nearly $12 billion annually in foreign direct investment to India – making it India’s largest supplier of FDI – that money is not local but belongs to sometimes questionable sources who route their cash through this country on account of its liberal tax policies.

Beyond routing FDI, Mauritius offers prospects for transforming itself into a platform for high-tech, and for re-export zones. China has recognized this, and is building industrial parks, and a new airport. Beijing’s idea seems to be to use Mauritius as a launch-pad for re-exporting consumer and other goods to Africa and Europe. With such economic aspirations, there will inevitably be political ambitions – something that must surely worry India’s leaders.

The worry for Prime Minister Ramgoolam at the moment, of course, consists of distributing the spoils of victory among the Alliance de l’Avenir, consisting of his own Labour Party, and its allies, Pravind Jugnauth’s Militant Socialist Movement, and Xavier Duval’s Mauritian Social Democrat Party; the latter two had been frequent opponents of Mr. Ramgoolam, but political expediency made them join hands during the election. The man who’s arguably the country’s most charismatic politician, Paul Berenger, a former prime minister who leads the leftist Mauritian Militant Movement, will be leading the opposition, having won just 18 seats. (An Islamist candidate won one seat.) No friend of Mr. Ramgoolam, the 65-year-old Mr. Berenger is certain to keep needling his nemesis.

But the larger worry for the prime minister will be how to project his own leadership beyond the constraints of local ethnic politics and the social confines of Mauritius. Will he be able to capitalize on the country’s traditional non-ideological foreign policy and nonpartisanship in a technology-driven post-globalization age? There are reports that Mauritius may initiate a global think tank to emphasize a solutions-oriented approach to strategic communications and cross-cultural understanding. It’s certainly one way for a small country to acquire a global footprint.

Whether Mr. Ramgoolam is able to look beyond his immediate worries of government and governance to the bigger international picture of global peace and security is a big question. There’s little doubt that the tone and tenor of his leadership will need to be more dynamic in the next five years, and he will need to groom a new generation of political leaders capable of transcending the politics of communalism.

Otherwise, Navin Ramgoolam can look forward to a nice bronze statue after political retirement, perhaps placed next to that of his venerated father, but not much else -- a statue that will still be in Sir Seewoosagur’s shadow, physically and metaphorically.

As a visiting journalist leaves Mauritius after week of covering a colorful election in a stunning beautiful setting, it is impossible not to hope that the avuncular Mr. Ramgoolam would want to start working on creating a positive legacy not only for his community and nation, but also for the larger constituency of the developing world. This is a constituency where leaders of vision, integrity and probity are found all too rarely these days. Navin Ramgoolam possesses all three characteristics in abundance – but whether he envisions himself as a more prominent presence in the global commons remains unclear.

(Pranay Gupte is a veteran international journalist and author. His forthcoming book is on India and the Middle East.)

MAURITIUS WANTS GREATER INDIAN PARTICIPATION

2010-05-07T18:04:00.000-07:00

Mauritius wants more Indian participation in economic development
(Published in The Hindu, India, May 8, 2010)

By Pranay Gupte

Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Rashid Beebeejaun says that Mauritius wants greater participation by Indian companies in developing the infrastructure of this island-nation.

“Our bilateral relations have always been excellent, but we feel that there’s much more room for collaboration,” Mr. Beebeejaun said in an interview with The Hindu yesterday (Friday) at his modest office in the capital city of Port Louis. “We expect more interest from our friends in India in setting up enterprises here.”

Besides strengthening the infrastructure of this Indian Ocean country of 1.3 million people, Mr. Beebeejaun said that Indian companies could assist in such fields as renewable energy, shipping, electricity generation, and sewage-treatment.

“I can personally assure you that Indian companies will be welcome in Mauritius,” the 77-year-old deputy prime minister said. “But they should be more present, and more forceful. Certainly, all Indians who come here are made to feel at home. But that’s only the first step. The second step is that we want them to assist us in our sustainable economic development efforts, and deliver. But hardly any Indian firms are showing much interest so far.”

Mr. Beebeejaun suggested that foreign direct investment from Mauritius into India “could possibly increase.” The current FDI figure of nearly $12million annually is the highest of any country in India, and more than three times that of the next biggest FDI provider, the United States.

The FDI from Mauritius isn’t necessarily indigenous money but funds routed from other sources that take advantage of this country’s liberal tax regulations. India, however, does not figure high on the list of countries from where Mauritius imports consumer and other products. India annually sends about $200 million worth of such goods, including cotton, to Mauritius – barely 10 percent of this country’s total imports. Imports from China exceed $500 million, and more and more Chinese tourists have also been coming here in recent years.

Mr. Beebeejaun spoke a day after winning a tough race in the election for the 60-member parliament. The three-party alliance led by Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam obtained 41 seats, while 18 went to the leftist Mouvement Militant Mauricien, and one was wrested by an Islamist candidate.

The deputy prime minister looked fit and surprisingly relaxed for a man who’d just completed a brutal political campaign. In that campaign, he was maligned by Muslim opponents as not being a faithful Muslim.

Mr. Beebeejaun said that he was not bothered by “false and malicious” accusations.

“Some Muslims resented the fact that I did not say that I was a Muslim first and foremost,” he said. “I am first and foremost a Mauritian. I am a man of deep personal faith. I practice my religion. But I believe in sharing universal values. I believe in nation building. I participate in all national functions. I attend Chinese festivals, I attend Hindu festivals, I attend mass at churches. I feel enriched by such exposure to my country’s diversity and religions.”

“Mauritius is one place where we celebrate our differences,” Mr. Beebeejaun said. “As in India, Hindus and Muslims and Christians and others live together under the banner of one nation. Those who seek divide us pollute minds and create groundwork for a terrible legacy.”

He was alluding to the communalism that has long characterized certain sectors of Mauritian society, where nearly 50 percent of the population is Hindu, followed by other communities such as Creoles, Christians, Muslims and whites of French descent known as Francos.

“We seek to build in Mauritius a nation where every component of society feels part of the national spirit,” the deputy prime minister said. “I belong to a government that represents all our people, and not any one single community.”

Indeed, Mr. Beebeejaun added, Mauritius could point proudly to the fact that, as a nation, it had acquired a reputation for being non-ideological and nonpartisan. Noting the many friendships of his friend and boss, Prime Minister Ramgoolam, with world leaders of different political persuasions, Mr. Beebeejaun said the nonpartisanship of Mauritius in world affairs offered it “independence and flexibility.”

There are reports that these elements may be utilized by Mauritius to amplify its voice on the international scene, perhaps through the establishment of a centre for the global south. Such a centre could consist of a think tank on strategic communications and public diplomacy, and also focus on promoting cross-cultural understanding.

While Mauritius has maintained nonpartisanship sine its independence from the British 42 years ago, it has also sought to strengthen economic links with other developing nations, particularly in Africa, the Middle East, and Asia.

In recent years, Asian giants such as China and India have figured large on the Mauritian radar. China is building an industrial city here to assemble consumer and other goods for re-export to Africa and Europe. Indian leaders visit Mauritius frequently, and Prime Ministers Ramgoolam and Manmohan Singh are known for their warm rapport.

Asked how concerned he was that the growing Chinese economic presence in Mauritius is reportedly irritating India, Mr. Beebeejaun said: “Our relationship with China is not at the expense of India. We believe in friendship and cooperation with all countries who demonstrate good will toward Mauritius.”

MAURITIUS ELECTIONS HOLD PROMISING PROSPECTS FOR INDIA

2010-05-06T19:21:00.000-07:00

ELECTIONS IN MAURITIUS OFFER PROMISING PROSPECTS FOR INDIA
(Published in The Hindu, India, May 7, 2010)

By Pranay Gupte

Now that the three-party alliance of Navin Ramgoolam has won 41 of the 60 seats in the Mauritius national parliament – more than double the number of Paul Berenger’s leftist Mouvement Militant Mauricien – there is general agreement that the 63-year-old former physician and lawyer has obtained a powerful mandate to implement economic and social reforms in his second consecutive term as this island-nation’s prime minister.

Some of those reforms eluded him during his first term, and, indeed, a few unpopular measures that Mr. Ramgoolam introduced – such as a national residential property tax, and another tax on interest from savings – spurred flight of capital in certain circles. The expectation is that such measures will be reviewed and possibly eliminated.

The prime minister has also pledged a more aggressive “democratization” of the economy – ensuring, among other things, that ownership of the vast sugarcane plantations that are currently controlled by the minority whites of French descent is also made accessible to other communities in this country of 1.3 million people dominated by Hindus. Creoles, Christians and Muslims also compromise larger sections of the demographic cohort than the Francos. A special “democratization unit” has been formed in the prime minister’s office, and its workload is certain to be amplified.

Mr. Ramgoolam’s election victory has also brought relief to several business supporters who had been targeted by Mr. Berenger and his financial backers. They had been apprehensive that the Berenger group would subvert, if not entirely destroy, their commerce.

The 65-year-old mustachioed Mr. Berenger, silver-haired and wearing an open-necked blue shirt, appeared at a gathering of followers early Thursday evening and promised to continue “fighting the good fight,” and promised to work toward national unity. He was gracious about the prime minister’s victory – a sentiment not necessarily appreciated by many in his audience – but asserted that the elections were not free nor fair. Mr. Berenger chided the national television network for blatantly favoring the prime minister’s alliance in order to ensure its victory.

The Ramgoolam alliance’s victory, however, will most definitely be welcomed by India, not the least because Mauritius contributes $12 billion in foreign direct investment to India, by far the biggest annual FDI from any country. Mr. Berenger -- a former prime minister himself -- while publicly proclaiming his fidelity to an “umbilical relationship” with India, has been known to privately express a desire for strengthened commercial and political relations with France and other Western powers.

India’s chief election commissioner, Navin Chawla, has been here for the last several days at the invitation of the government. He wasn’t an official observer, of course, but other Indian representatives in Mauritius must feel emboldened now to suggest stronger technical, educational and computer-science links between both countries. They are surely mindful of the disappointment of influential Mauritian business leaders that such ties were not deepened by India in the last few years.

But they are also mindful that Prime Minister Ramgoolam enjoys a warm personal rapport with his Indian counterpart, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Yesterday, therefore, there were renewed expectations that Mr. Ramgoolam’s new term could usher in an era characterized by enhanced bilateral economic and political relations.

Those expectations took into account a public position by Mr. Ramgoolam that the Indian Ocean coral atoll of Diego Garcia – part of the Chagos Archipelago -- would be turned over to Mauritius by the United States, which has maintained a large military base there since a 1971 secret agreement with the British Labour government of then Prime Minister Harold Wilson. That agreement called for Diego Garcia to be leased to the U.S.; the military base has been used by Washington for missile launches and naval operations against suspected terrorist havens in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and also parts of Africa.

Some Indian critics have long felt that the American presence on Diego Garcia represented a form of political hegemony in the Indian Ocean, territory that ordinarily should be viewed as within India’s sphere of influence.

Mr. Ramgoolam has also suggested that Mauritius co-administer Tromelin Island, currently a French territory.

But one major issue of concern to India that may crop up during his new administration is that of China’s growing economic presence in Mauritius, and its ambition to widen political influence throughout Africa. For example, China is building a new palm-frond-shaped airport here; it is also creating an industrial city from where goods will be re-exported to Africa and Europe.

It is not that Mr. Ramgoolam is particularly wooing China, although its contribution to the local economy has been welcomed. It is India that has lagged in taking timely advantage of the economic opportunities available in a country of high literacy and aspirations to become a high-tech center for the region.

Such geopolitical considerations, of course, weren’t quite the stuff of the main conversations yesterday in Mauritius as the election results poured in, and the winners celebrated at rallies while losers lamented without seeming to be grieving. Politics, after all, is not only about democracy, it is also about deportment.

There was wide delight that Mr. Ramgoolam’s second term would represent stability and continuity – his trusted lieutenant, Deputy Prime Minister Ahmed Rashid Beebeejaun won from his constituency in the capital of Port Louis, in what had been considered a difficult race.

It was also noted that, in addition to Paul Berenger’s general political loss, the opposition front bench had been considerably weakened by the defeat of three of his closest aides. The craggy old leftist has now only his own shoulders to lean on, at least in parliament. But who said politics was fair?

ON ELECTION DAY IN MAURITIUS

2010-05-05T19:31:00.000-07:00

THE POSSIBILITIES FOR MAURITIUS AND INDIA

By Pranay Gupte
(Published in The Hindu, India, May 5, 2010)

Today (May 5) is Election Day here in Mauritius, and there being no electronic tallying of votes the winners and losers for the island-nation’s 62-member national parliament won’t be known for several hours after the polls close at 6 o’clock in the evening because each ballot cast by 880,000 eligible voters – out of the country’s 1.3 million population – would need to be hand counted.

The campaigning for parliamentary seats in Mauritius’ 21 constituencies legally ended at 6 p.m. yesterday (Tuesday), although long caravans of cars sponsored by the various political parties continued winding their way through the island’s towns and hamlets well past that deadline. There was much noise making, tooting of horns, and the occasional yell in support of favored candidates. Nothing unusual there, of course, it was politics as usual. But even the bright symbols of various parties did not have a patch over the stunning and unspoiled environment of colors that only millions of years of being a volcanic island could produce.

Nothing unusual as the campaign ended on Tuesday -- except for one thing. Some friends of Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam worried that his three-party alliance seemed in a much tighter race against the Mouvement Militant Mauricien, led by the veteran leftist Paul Berenger, who once served for two years as prime minister. Seeing Mr. Berenger’s picture on campaign posters, I was struck by how well he’d aged since I last interviewed him – 31 years ago, when I was a foreign correspondent for The New York Times based in Africa. His rhetoric remains as fiery as before, however; the source of his party’s funding from whites of French descent remains steadfast, too.

Mr. Berenger has promised radical reforms of Mauritius’s political and economic system, although his manifesto is freighted with the sort of political platitudes and placebos that one would expect in a multicultural society where his ethnic group is in a distinct minority compared to the majority Hindus, Christians, Creoles, and Muslims. His only tenure as prime minister was not widely considered a success, and an incipient one might quite possibly bring turmoil that a generally tolerant polity like Mauritius doesn’t need at this time, especially when its economy is rapidly making the transition to the digital age.

Several far-thinking Mauritians – particularly those supporting Mr. Ramgoolam of the Mauritius Labour Party for a second consecutive five-year term as prime minister – also seem concerned that in the unlikely event that the MMM wins today’s election, among Mr. Berenger’s targets may well be business houses and others friendly with Mr. Ramgoolam.

There’s little question that continuity in office presents Mr. Ramgoolam a renewed opportunity to strengthen his country’s relationship with India, especially in light of the fact that China is furiously wooing Mauritius and other African states for better economic positioning. Mauritius is the largest provider of foreign direct investment (FDI) to India – almost $12billion annually – but influential business and social leaders contend that the bilateral relationship can and should be deepened.

Such an enhanced relationship would be particularly important in view of the fact that Mauritius has traditionally looked toward Britain and France for political and economic cues. That’s at least partly because India has yet to assert that Mauritius, given its strategic location off the coast of Africa in the Indian Ocean, has the potential for becoming a Singapore of the region.

Such an assertion – and the concomitant political and economic implications – would widen education and technological ties between the two countries. When Mauritius teamed up with India and opened a state-of-the-art medical center here last August, the hope was that the enterprise would engender other joint ventures in a variety of fields, including engineering, computer science, information technology, medical research, business processing, tourism, and agro-industries.

But that hasn’t happened to the extent that last year’s collaboration seemed to invite. China, meanwhile, has seized the opportunity of expanding its manufacturing presence in Mauritius, and a drive around this 2,040-square-kilometre island’s charming communities shows how steadily the Chinese presence has grown in recent months. In short, China hasn’t created a “ghetto” here: its government clearly has encouraged its formal and informal representatives to mix with the local population.

Such mixing, along with strengthened technical and other ties would be salutary, and readily doable for India. It seems to me that India and Mauritius are natural partners: both are lively multi-party democracies, both have long traditions of cultural exchanges, and both are committed to a post-globalization world that emphasizes better education and heightened economic opportunities for an increasingly young demographic cohort.

The 63-year-old Navin Ramgoolam is certainly a man who sees enormous possibilities in greater cross-fertilization between his country and India. Whether the 65-year-old Paul Berenger shares that view is questionable, not the least because he represents a sensibility of another era. If I were a betting man, I would go with the current prime minister for developing fresh policies that would benefit two countries of shared heritage and longstanding friendship.

(Pranay Gupte is a veteran international journalist and author. His next book is on India and the Middle East.)

THE FLURRIES OF VOTING ON ELECTION DAY IN MAURITIUS

2010-05-05T19:26:00.001-07:00

THE FLURRIES OF VOTING DAY IN MAURITIUS
(Published in The Hindu, India, May 6, 2010)

By Pranay Gupte

When I covered politics for The New York Times a very long ago in the United States and in other countries that allowed for adult franchise, a wise old editor would often caution against making projections, particularly on Election Day. Of course, those times were before smart pollsters brought their sophisticated techniques to gauge exit polls and voter sentiments, and well before television stations flashed informal results before candidacies were declared successful.

The TV stations here in Mauritius do no such thing; there are few, if any, reliable polls; votes are hand counted; and as this island-nation’s 880,000 registered voters cast their ballots yesterday (Wednesday), it wasn’t even clear just how many Mauritians showed up at the booths set up in schools and public institutions. Radio stations broadcast differing percentile figures throughout the day. Although Wednesday had been declared a national holiday to encourage voters to trek to the polls, it was clear that enough of them chose leisure over the obligations of citizenship.

So clear, in fact, that Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam – who’s leading a three-party alliance that he hopes will give him a second successive five-year term – took to the radio waves himself and appealed to his fellow countrymen to overcome their ennui. In the afternoon, he walked from door to door in his constituency urging people to cast their ballot.

It wasn’t something that prime ministers are wont to do, but the 63-year-old Mr. Ramgoolam is that rare breed of politician who actually knows many of his constituents by name, and makes it a point to stay in personal contact even when election season is over. So visiting constituents’ homes was generally perceived as something less than political opportunism.

He shares that characteristic with his political nemesis, Paul Berenger, the former prime minister who leads the left-wing Mouvement Militant Mauricien (MMM). In an interview with The Hindu, Mr. Berenger said that he was energized by his tour through his constituency and those of 19 others; these constituencies, plus one in the neighboring island of Rodriguez, send 60 victors to the national parliament.

But Mr. Berenger acknowledged that Mr. Ramgoolam’s alliance had “far more money, many more cars, and lots more party workers.”

Still, he said, he was confident that the MMM would win. Asked about the general perception that his French ancestry made him tilt in favor of the economic and other interests of European nations such as France and Britain, Mr. Berenger seemed unperturbed. He sensed the subtext of my question.

“Look,” Mr. Berenger said, “India need not worry if I became prime minister. I have always said that the relationship between our two countries is umbilical. It cannot be broken, it can only be strengthened.”

One way of interpreting his remark is that even under a leftist government led by a representative of a minority Franco community in an island-nation of 1.3 million that’s dominated by Hindus – with Creoles, Muslims, Chinese, and Christians added to the mix – Mauritius would find it disadvantageous to strain its relationship with India. After all, Mauritius channels nearly $12 billion in foreign direct investment to India annually, making it the latter’s biggest supplier of FDI. Rest assured that much of this money isn’t indigenous: it comes from somewhere else, and Mauritius surely gets a percentage of the take. Would Mr. Berenger really want to re-shape that reality?

“My reality is good governance,” Mr. Berenger said, in his deep French-coated voice. “My concern is electoral and political reforms that would bring more justice in our system.”

I was tempted to ask why such reforms weren’t undertaken when Mr. Berenger served as prime minister from 2003 to 2005. But I anticipated his answer: Not sufficient time. Besides, it would have been unkind to pose such a question, even to a veteran politician, on a day that he was so earnestly trying to drum out votes for his party.

I put a different sort of question to Nita Deerpalsing, a parliamentarian and spokeswoman for Prime Minister Ramgoolam’s Mauritius Labour Party. Was she satisfied with voter turnout?

“Very satisfied,” Ms. Deerpalsing said.

Did she plan to speak to the prime minister about her hunches concerning election results?

“I’m concentrating all my energies in my constituencies,” she said, somewhat sharply.

Will the three-party alliance win when the election results are formally announced by midday on Thursday?

“Of course.”

That seemed as good a thought with which to gracefully exit the conversation.

To put it another way, as my wise old editor would say, never project, never predict, never prognosticate. Tomorrow is, after all, another day – and a single day can be an entire lifetime in the politics of clangorous multiparty democracies, even if they are tiny island states whose main claim to global fame was the fact that the long extinct dodo bird was spotted nowhere else in the world but here, by Dutch settlers more than three centuries ago. The dodo bird may have been long gone, but Mauritian politics has taken full flight. Stay tuned.

(Pranay Gupte is a veteran journalist and author. His forthcoming book is on India and the Middle East.)

THE FLURRIES OF VOTING ON ELECTION DAY IN MAURITIUS

2010-05-05T19:26:00.000-07:00

FROM MAURITIUS: THE ISSUES NOT IN THE ELECTION

2010-05-03T20:35:00.000-07:00

By Pranay Gupte

PORT LOUIS, Mauritius -- Navin Ramgoolam of Mauritius, who’s leading a three-party coalition in the national parliamentary election that is scheduled for May 5, is determined to win a second consecutive term as this island-nation’s prime minister.

Anecdotal observation suggests that he’s likely to win and that, in his next five-year term, the 1.3 million people of Mauritius expect him to lead a government that will heal the growing rifts between the country’s majority Hindus – who are divided along their own internecine provincial lines -- Christians, Muslims, Creoles, and Europeans of French descent, known here as Francos. The 63-year-old prime minister – who’s a trained physician, a lawyer, and the son of the country’s venerated founding father, the late Prime Minister Seewoosagur Ramgoolam – has created a salutary slogan for the campaign: “Unity, Equality, Modernity.”

That slogan should be viewed in the context of the communal rifts that underscore social and political complexities that belie the bucolic environment of this land of vast sugarcane plantations, dainty streams, flawless beaches, and craggy mountains. But while healing the ethnic wounds may be a prime election issue for Prime Minister Ramgoolam’s campaign, there’s a huge issue that hasn’t quite made its appearance on the hustings.

It concerns India, and it involves China.

India, of course, is widely regarded as the mother country of Mauritius, since a lot of Hindus, and many Muslims, too, can trace their ancestry to indentured laborers who were brought to this Indian Ocean paradise by its former British rulers. Mauritius, in fact, has become the biggest provider of foreign direct investment (FDI) for India – more than $11 billion annually, or more than half of the overall amount that typically comes into India from foreign sources.

Of the total $81 billion foreign direct investment that has come into India since April 2000, $35.18 billion was routed through the Mauritius route, according to figures available with India’s Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion.
Though India has a “Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement” with some 65 countries such as the United States, Britain, Japan, France, and Germany, Mauritius is the most preferred route for FDI inflows, according to a recent report in the Delhi-based newspaper, Mint. Indeed, the money routed to India from here is nearly quadruple than that of the next biggest provider of FDI, the United States, whose FDI was around $8 billion since 2000, followed by Britain, with $7.72 billion, and Germany, at $2.14 billion.

It is not that the investors who route their money through this country to India are necessarily based in Mauritius. But because of a bilateral agreement between Mauritius and India that doesn’t penalize FDI with taxes, many investors – including nonresident Indians who form the 22-million-strong global Indian Diaspora – prefer to use the facilities offered by Mauritius.

This situation has become a bone of contention between India and Mauritius, which imposes corporate taxes of less than 3 percent and therefore is a tax-haven of preference for many multinational companies. When India’s Home Minister P. Chidambaram was finance minister, he was determined to alter the terms of the bilateral agreement so that foreign investors would pay around 20 percent in taxes.

It took personal discussions between Prime Minister Ramgoolam and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to essentially put the issue on hold. But it rankles many Mauritians that in times gone by when India desperately sought FDI, it offered all sorts of incentives – such as no-taxes – for those who channeled FDI into India. But now that India’s foreign-exchange reserves are touching $300 billion, exports are increasing, and FDI – as well as foreign money for domestic equities – is pouring in, India seems bent on imposing taxes.

The subtext to this issue isn’t just the FDI routing; rather, it’s the source of the cash. The BJP and Communist Party of India (Marxist) have claimed that $1.5 trillion has been stashed outside the country by Indians, and that this black money is being conveniently channeled back into India for legitimate use as FDI through a legitimate path. Of course, not much has been offered by way of proof – not an uncommon occurrence in the political cauldron of India.
The other large issue that looms over the Mauritius election but hasn’t found expression in the campaign rhetoric is the growing presence of China here, and China’s incipient economic and political ambitions in Africa. These ambitions would pit the world’s biggest country against its largest democracy, India. Mauritius’s strategic location makes it a geopolitical prize, which would explain why officials at India’s Ministry of External Affairs are more and more concerned about the fact that China is building large industrial re-export complexes here and in a dozen other African countries.
But that will be a topic for another column.

(Pranay Gupte is a veteran international journalist and author. His next book is on India and the Middle East.)

The Politics of Ethnicity in Mauritius / By Pranay Gupte

2010-04-11T17:38:00.000-07:00

By Pranay Gupte
(Published in Khaleej Times, April 12, 2010)

Take away the stunning greenery and jagged mountains from Mauritius, take away the rolling pastures, take away the vast sugarcane plantations, and take away the bustling hamlets with their narrow twisting roads – and one could be forgiven for feeling that this is Dubai-in-the-Indian-Ocean, a clean place where waves wash gently on the shores and enterprise is encouraged.

Both entities have populations of about 1.5 million each, heavily dominated by people of South Asian origin. Whereas in Dubai, the nationals – the Emiratis – constitute a fraction of the demography, in Mauritius it is the original French settlers – known locally as the Francos – who are in a distinct minority. Yet it is they who own significant property, including the plantations, and it is they who dominate the economy.

One would think that such economic domination translated into political power. Not so. In Mauritius, an island-state that gained independence from the British 42 years ago, it is the Hindu majority – descendants of indentured laborers brought across by the British scores of years ago – that has a lock on government and the bureaucracy. The minority Muslims, Christians and Creoles have little say in the way Mauritius is run, although there’s general agreement that the government of Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam has been clean and also relatively sensitive to the needs of various ethnic communities.

The 65-year-old prime minister – who heads the Mauritius Labor Party – is now running for a second five-year term. A physician and a lawyer, Ramgoolam is the son of the country’s founding father, the late Dr. Seewoosagur Ramgoolam. A canny politician, he understood that his party needed key allies in order to secure victory in the country’s 20 constituencies in the May 5 election. So he’s brought in former political opponents into his election alliance, the Mouvement Socialiste Militant and the Parti Mauricien Social Democrate. “This alliance represents stability at this juncture,” Dr. Ramgoolam said the other day, promising a vigorous but transparent election campaign.

But the election campaign has already turned raucous. And it’s only a part of the drama roiling Mauritius. Because some of Prime Minister Ramgoolam’s close friends happen to be Muslims – including Deputy Prime Minister Rashid Beebeejaun – some publications backed by Franco interests have escalated attacks on those friends’ business interests. A former wire-service writer has been imported from France to lend ferocity to local journalism; leading financial officials in the French-influenced private sector have engaged in innuendo about some Muslim entrepreneurs, particularly those with multinational operations.

All this could ordinarily be dismissed as being part of the hurly burly of politics. But the social fabric of Mauritius is very delicate indeed, and when the politics of electioneering is converted into the politics of ethnic vitriol, that creates a dangerous precedent. It is not that this island – which sits atop a volcano – is about to erupt and spew political lava. But the current spate of attacks poisons the atmosphere in a way that would make governance difficult for Prime Minister Ramgoolam in his second term.

Dr. Ramgoolam has coined a new mantra for governance: “Unity, Equality, Modernity.” He knows that in order for the country to address its 8 percent unemployment rate – despite ostensibly being one of Africa’s most successful economies, with a GDP of nearly $10 billion – Mauritius needs to build new bridges to Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, and to strengthen its economic ties to France, traditionally the biggest trading partner of the only country where the now-extinct dodo bird was sighted by early Dutch settlers.

That bridge building means enhancing the financial-services and insurance sectors. It means serving as a platform for investments in the huge markets of Africa and Asia. It means attracting financial interest from the petrodollar countries of the Middle East, especially the United Arab Emirates. It means streamlining traditional industries such as hospitality, and encouraging new ones such as health tourism.

One recent example of Dr. Ramgoolam’s bridge building is the new Apollo-Bramwell Center, an Indo-Mauritian venture that’s universally seen as a model for attracting patients from the region and from afar who seek top-quality medical care amidst a bucolic environment. That venture, created by Mauritian businessman Dawood Rawat – a Muslim – and the Indian medical entrepreneur, Dr. Pratap Reddy, a Hindu, has also been held up as a model of cross-cultural collaboration. (Disclosure: this writer is friendly with both Rawat and Dr. Reddy.)

The bridge building also means carving a niche for Mauritius in the growing knowledge economy of the global commons. There are those who have suggested that the country’s location, its healthful climate and its non-ideological foreign policy make it ideal to serve as an incubator for a center for education concerning strategic communications and for generating fresh ideas and solutions concerning intercultural understanding. Indeed, both Prime Minister Ramgoolam and Dawood Rawat have brainstormed about this.

But Dr. Ramgoolam also recognizes that his new mantra for governance may come to nought if he does not deal forthrightly with the politically troubling ethnic divisions that have long characterized Mauritian society. He recognizes that, with the exception of Paul Berenger, a politician of French origin, the other three prime ministers of Mauritius – himself included – have been Hindus. And he recognizes that minority ethnic communities cannot be relegated to traditional cultural or socio-economic roles in a country that wishes to accelerate its development in a world of galloping globalization.

It is never prudent to predict the outcome of elections, but Dr. Ramgoolam appears to be headed toward a second term as prime minister. That would also give him a second chance to act as a social emollient, hopefully persuading the attack dogs of Mauritius that their personal attacks and political biting isn’t in the national interest – that, in the final analysis, Mauritius simply deserves better because it can serve as a model for multi-cultural amity in a world fraught with ethnic violence.

(Pranay Gupte, a US national, is a veteran journalist whose forthcoming book is about India and the Middle East.)

The Politics of Hope in Mauritius

2010-04-01T22:05:00.000-07:00

The Politics of Hope in Mauritius
(Published in The Hindu, April 2, 2010)

By PRANAY GUPTE

PORT LOUIS, Mauritius – When Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam of Mauritius dissolved the island-state’s 70-member National Assembly late Wednesday evening and called for new elections on May 5, there seemed to be an element of political drama to his announcement.

The drama, of course, was deliberate, but it had little to do with the election announcement itself: everybody in Mauritius knew that polls would be held soon, not the least because Dr. Ramgoolam is widely perceived as an effective leader. He has brought record foreign direct investment to his Indian Ocean country; he attracted more than 9,000 offshore entities, and he has engendered progress in information technology, health care, and telecommunications.

It was natural, therefore, that the 65-year-old prime minister – who is also the leader of the Mauritius Labour Party – would want consolidate his political position and focus on what he has increasingly said in recent weeks would be his new mantra for governance: “Unity, Equality, Modernity.”

Who could quarrel with such a sweeping and benign mantra? But there’s more to it than bromides that almost any developing-country leader could adopt without spawning controversy. The subtext of Dr. Ramgoolam’s election slogan reflects the ethnic composition of Mauritius, a country of barely 1.3 million people: Hindus are in a majority, followed by Christians, Muslims, and Creoles; Mauritians of French origin are the biggest landowners, sugarcane plantations cover 25 percent of the island’s 2,000 square kilometers, and the Francos – as they are called here – own a significant portion of that coveted land.

Political parties tend to reflect this ethnic composition, as does the grumbling and grousing of some communities: Muslims and Creoles legitimately complain that they aren’t adequately represented in the country’s civil service, let alone government. The French continue to have an economic grip that began when they arrived here nearly 300 years ago; but political power for them ended just prior independence from the British in 1968.

Few politicians in Mauritius are as shrewd as Dr. Ramgoolam. Politics, after all, is in his blood, as is medicine – his late father, Sir Seewoosagur Rangoolam, was also a physician, and was the country’s first prime minister and founder. And so in making the election announcement, Navin Ramgoolam demonstrated that he was being both a formidable political player and an emollient political physician.

As a political player, he understood that his Labour Party needed key allies in order to secure victory in the country’s 20 constituencies and thereby obtain a second five-year as prime minister of this 42-year-old nation. So he’s brought in the Mouvement Socialiste Militant and the Parti Mauricien Social Democrate into his grouping for the elections. “This alliance represents stability at this juncture,” Dr. Ramgoolam said on Wednesday, tacking on generous words about some allies who’d been his opponents in the recent past.

Those words can certainly be interpreted as emollient. Dr. Ramgoolam knows that in order for the country to address its 8 percent unemployment rate – despite ostensibly being one of Africa’s most successful economies, with a GDP of nearly $10 billion – it needs to build new bridges to both Africa and Asia, and to strengthen its economic ties to France, traditionally the biggest trading partner of the only country where the now-extinct dodo bird was sighted by early Dutch settlers.

That bridge building means enhancing the financial-services and insurance sectors. It means serving as a platform for investments in the huge markets of Africa and Asia. It means attracting financial interest from the petrodollar countries of the Middle East. It means streamlining traditional industries such as hospitality, and encouraging new ones such as health tourism. One recent example of Dr. Ramgoolam’s bridge building is the new Apollo-Bramwell Center, an Indo-Mauritian venture that’s universally seen as a model for attracting patients from the region and from afar who seek medical care amidst a bucolic environment.

The bridge building also means carving a niche for Mauritius in the knowledge economy of the global commons. There are those who have suggested that the country’s location, its healthful climate and its non-ideological foreign policy make it ideal to serve as an incubator for a center for education concerning strategic communications and for generating fresh ideas and solutions concerning intercultural understanding.

But Dr. Ramgoolam also recognizes that his new mantra may well be dismissed as being one of political expediency if he does not deal forthrightly with the politically troubling ethnic divisions that have long characterized Mauritian society. He recognizes that, with the exception of Paul Berenger, a politician of French origin, the other three prime ministers of Mauritius – himself included – have been Hindus. And he recognizes that minority ethnic communities cannot be relegated to traditional cultural or socio-economic roles in a country that wishes to accelerate its development in a world of galloping globalization.

Such recognition hasn’t come about through osmosis. Beyond his own intuitiveness, and his own sense of history, Prime Minister Navin Ramgoolam is fortunate to have the benefit of canny counsel from people of various communities, including his deputy prime minister, Dr. Rashid Beebeejaun, a Muslim. They have emphasized that taking pre-emptive steps through the creation of wider economic opportunities for all is the best insurance that any leader can buy against social upheaval.

By signing on to this sensibility, Navin Ramgoolam has shown that he is much more than his father’s son – he’s a leader of rare political enlightenment in a world that’s marked far too frequently by the politics of cynicism. He wants to establish a legacy that will far outlive his next administration, and he knows that for that to happen he needs to create afresh the politics of hope in Mauritius.

(Pranay Gupte’s next book is on India and the Middle East.)

Magazine - The National Newspaper

2010-03-15T11:37:00.000-07:00

Magazine - The National Newspaper

The Last Of The Giants: Sheikh Mabarak of Abu Dhabi

2010-02-25T12:06:00.000-08:00

SHEIKH MABARAK: AN APPRECIATION

By Pranay Gupte

He was the last of the giants, those tough men of the Bedouin desert who formed a new nation out of a harsh environment, those visionaries who created a country that would occupy a special place in the global firmament.

Sheikh Mabarak bin Mohammed Al Nahayan, who died on Wednesday, occupied a special place himself in the hearts of fellow Emiratis. He was the first Minister of the Interior of the United Arab Emirates, and he helped start and sustain what’s arguably one of the foremost security infrastructures in the world. Even before his federal role, which began when the UAE was established in December 1971, Emiratis knew him as the head of the Abu Dhabi Police, which he established in 1961. Most of all, they knew him for his dazzling smile and his endearing warmth, and they knew him for being accessible at all times.

They knew him, too, for befriending Indians who had started to come to the UAE to participate in what seemed to be an implausible task of nation building at the time. He nurtured those friendships, even when he was felled by a stroke in1979; his grateful Indian friends – such as the Sindhi businessman Mohan Jashanmal – would visit him virtually every day at his majlis.

I, too, was among those privileged to be welcomed to his majlis in Abu Dhabi. Tea and coffee would be served, and on a high-definition TV screen, photographs of the evolution of the UAE from a desert territory to a modern nation would roll. Some of them depicted Sheikh Mabarak as a young man – tall, almost statuesque, fiercely handsome, possessing a chiseled face that, of course, always seemed to be smiling.

His long illness may have sapped his strength – but not his spirit. He held out his hand for all visitors, gripping theirs firmly, and imbued them with his special energy. I always touched his feet when I met him: how could I not? He was, after all, a living legend. Sheikh Mabarak was the embodiment of the enduring values of adventure and equitable development on which this remarkable nation has been built.

He was also the UAE’s unsung hero; his close friends, Sheikh Zayed and Sheikh Rashid, are widely recognized as the UAE’s founders. But, in his own unobstrusive way, Sheikh Mabarak was right there with them, constantly consulted by both men, their respect for one another deepening with every incremental stride that the Emirates took toward social and economic progress.

Those photographs in Sheikh Mabarak’s majlis capture some of the regard those extraordinary men had for one another – their body language tells a special story of joy in seeing an ancient society make the transition to a technologically driven state. They speak of the founders’ own proud wonder at seeing their children and grandchildren grow up in a far more hospitable environment than that of their youth, one that opened endless possibilities for competing in the global commons with the skills bestowed by education and enterprise.

Sheikh Mabarak encouraged the promotion of those skills, just as his son does so vigorously now. The son I’m referring to is Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan, the UAE’s Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research. He, too, is a living legend.

He is that not only for his stellar record in education and science. Sheikh Nahayan’s devotion to his father in itself constitutes a legend. Ever since an accident in London incapacitated his father – and that was more than 30 years ago – Sheikh Nahayan tended to his father in a way that was preternatural, in a way that went way beyond anything demanded by filial duty. He would rise with his father for prayers at dawn, he would have breakfast with his father, he would join his father for his majlis. And then, before the sun had set, Sheikh Nahayan would himself drive his father around Abu Dhabi.

Watching father and son together in such tenderness, it was impossible not to be moved, it was impossible not to reflect on the meaning of that most atavistic of relationships.

The nexus between father and son had a common narrative besides their dedication to their beloved country. That other narrative encompassed their generous view of Indians and other Subcontinentals as being integral to the prosperity and progress of the United Arab Emirates. It would be fair to say that in a nation whose leaders have always welcomed men and women from South Asia, Sheikh Mabarak and Sheikh Nahayan offered a unique hospitality.

That is why Sheikh Mabarak is being mourned not only in this nation on the Arabian littoral. The prayers are also resonating elsewhere in the region, and in lands just three hours away, places familiar to both father and son from their many visits.

Those prayers are of grief, of course, and they ask for salvation for Sheikh Mabarak’s soul. But they are also prayers celebrating a man who led a long and full life, a man who left many smiles over many miles, a giant who dreamed of an entire new society and lived to see it happen during his lifetime. They are prayers celebrating a man of tolerance who showed that whatever one’s faith, a warm welcome to strangers almost always results in enduring friendships. I will miss his majlis, and I will miss that smile.

(Pranay Gupte’s forthcoming book is on India and the Middle East.)

Nation mourns Sheikh Mubarak - The National Newspaper

2010-02-24T19:29:00.000-08:00

Nation mourns Sheikh Mubarak - The National Newspaper

No one deserved record more than Tendulkar

2010-02-24T14:20:00.001-08:00

No one deserved record more than Tendulkar

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Questions For My Father / February 25, 2010

2010-02-24T12:26:00.000-08:00

QUESTIONS FOR MY FATHER: A MEMOIR

By PRANAY GUPTE

Twenty-five years ago on this day, my father died in Mumbai. Had he lived, he would have turned 100 today.

I was not with Balkrishna Gupte when he died after a long illness that, to this day, remains mysterious to me. Some physicians said it was cancer of the esophagus, others said it was complications from a botched surgery of the alimentary canal. Still others offered other reasons – unpronounceable medical conditions with fancy names that only doctors could decipher. In the end, no matter what those conditions or how multi-syllabic those names, my father’s heart stopped beating.

I was thousands of miles away at my home in New York when that happened. It was an unseasonably sunny day, but as I worked on a book that had unforgiving deadlines, I felt out of sorts, as though something ominous was going to happen that morning in February 1985. I knew that my father was grievously ill because I had just returned from visiting him in India, but I hadn’t been persuaded that he was close to death. Or perhaps it was that I didn’t want to accept that possibility; it was a son’s denial of the inevitability of a parent’s departure. As if on cue that winter morning, a friend called from Mumbai to tell me that my father had passed away.

In that last meeting with my father, I gently stroked his face, kissed him on the forehead, squeezed his still-strong shoulders, and said that I would be back soon. His voice had left him by then, so my father just smiled gently and spoke with his eyes. He said that he loved me and that I would always be his son. He said that his love was unconditional, even if mine sometimes seemed predicated on proximity.

The next time I saw him, my father’s eyes were closed. His body was still, it was wrapped in white linen in preparation for a traditional Hindu cremation. As a son, I expected that he would open his eyes and reach out to me with his sinewy hands as he always did, that he would bathe me with affection and offer his protection. As a world-weary adult, however, I knew that he was gone.

Gone? My father? That tall, sturdy man who’d been the bulwark of my life, always a calming spirit? He who had coaxed my mother to overcome her opposition to her son leaving home to study in the United States because he felt that I needed to understand the world? He who was always open-minded about faith, always strong in his secularism, and never compromising about his values – honesty, loyalty, kindness, generosity and, yes, humility and humor? That man gone?

Gone? My father? Not even the body in repose in the living room of my parents’ Mumbai apartment persuaded me that my father was dead. But then I looked at my mother, and then I knew. It had always been the three of us – and a beloved uncle who lived with us until his death in 1982 – but from here on, it would be just the two of us. On December 31 of that year, 1985, my mother died. This time the doctors said that she died of heart failure. They were wrong again. I know that she died of a broken heart.

The world has honored my mother since her death: there’s a major square in Mumbai named after her – Prof. Dr. Charusheela Gupte Chowk (“square” in the local language of Marathi). Articles have been written about her vast accomplishments as an author and an academician and a social activist for downtrodden women and dispossessed children. Her students still write to me about how much she influenced their lives and careers. And those colleagues that are still living send me, from time to time, warm remembrances of their association. Whenever we meet in India, we exchange anecdotes and reminisce about an era that ended so long ago.

About my father, very little has been said in the public arena. He wasn’t a public figure, of course, nor did he lead his life publicly. He led a quiet life as a banker and lawyer. He attended weddings and christenings and religious ceremonies and lectures on history and spiritualism, often taking me along when I was growing up; if I were to draw a map of all the fascinating people and places he took me to see, I’d need the help of a cartographer.

I would also ask such a cartographer to chart the landscape of my father’s emotional life. It would be a formidable task, of course, and most certainly not within the competence of conventional cartographers. My father did not leave behind books or learned essays or plays or poetry. He left diaries, to be sure, but the notations were mostly in shorthand that only he knew. During his illness, he wrote me a note saying how proud he was of what I’d done in my life.

My life? But what about his own life? What animated it? Why did he prefer the anonymity of being a largely unseen consort of a highly ambitious spouse, my mother? What gave shape to those inner strengths that energized and comforted her and me and so many others who came into the ambit of my father’s life? What explained his integrity, even when he could have taken short cuts just as easily in a corrupt society led by corrupt men? What about his unflinching tolerance of all faiths and beliefs, his refusal to denigrate those who might disagree with him? What about his many unheralded kindnesses to needy people who scarcely bothered to remember? What about his acuity, his keen perceptions about the frequently uncharitable ways of the world? How had his parents influenced him, an only son like his own? What formed his steadfast conviction that good would always triumph over evil, even if sometimes only in the long run?

So many questions, so few answers. I wish now that I had been with my father in those final days, holding his hands, asking him about the architecture of his life. Would he have set aside his innate modesty and told me what I wanted to know? Would he have been his own cartographer, mapping out his life for his journalist son? With his voice gone, would his eyes have communicated his story in its entirety? Or would he have asked me why I had waited until the winter to pose my questions? There would not have been any reproach in his question, but there would be sadness.

He could have told me so much. But I never asked. And now – and now it is 25 years later, my father is gone, and I have more questions about his love and his life. I can pose those questions, perhaps more sharply now than ever before because I am in the autumn of my own full life. Who will answer them? I know that I will have to wait until it’s the three of us together again – and my beloved uncle. But I wish that there were some way I could say to my father before that reunion how very sorry I am that I never asked while I was much younger and he wasn’t quite 100 years old.

(Pranay Gupte is a veteran journalist and author or editor of 11 books. His most recent book, “Mother India: A Political Biography of Indira Gandhi,” was published in October 2009 by Viking Penguin. His next book, on India and the Middle East, will be released this year.)

Celebrating this welcoming haven of peace I am proud to call home - The National Newspaper

2010-02-22T08:08:00.000-08:00

Celebrating this welcoming haven of peace I am proud to call home - The National Newspaper

American Apologies: Colin Powell’s Is the Real Thing

2010-02-22T07:41:00.000-08:00

American Apologies: Colin Powell’s Is the Real Thing

Follow me on Twitter and Facebook

2010-02-22T00:17:00.001-08:00

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/PranayGupte

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Paul Goldberger on Dubai's Burj Khalifa, World's Tallest Tower

2010-02-01T08:16:00.000-08:00

Paul Goldberger, arguably the world's most respected architecture critic, has written a splendid essay on Dubai's Burj Khalifa. It can be found at: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/skyline/2010/02/08/100208crsk_skyline_goldberger

CLASSIC "DEAR JOHN" NOTES (Woman to Man):

2010-01-29T08:18:00.000-08:00

CLASSIC "DEAR JOHN" NOTE NUMBER ONE: (Woman to Man)

There is something the matter. I sense your distance. I sense that this relationship has become a burden for you. Financially, it always was, I guess. But now it is more. Each time we talk, you accuse me of having ill-treated you. I am left feeling guilty that you would come to me but for the fact that my behavior with you has been erratic, neurotic. I accept.

You may think I am stupid, but I understand these things. I have been here before, and not too long ago. I have tried to be quiet because I am swamped with work, and also I know your book is on the boil.

You have brought me untold happiness. I will always be grateful to God for sending you in my life when He did.

The only thing I understand about love is that it does not last. The words that stood a moment on your tongue, the love that stood a moment in your eyes, is one with all that in a moment dies, a little undersaid, a little oversung. I accept.

CLASSIC "DEAR JOHN" NOTE NUMBER TWO: (Woman to Man)

I need space. You are suffocating me. You are a good guy, but now I must. Thanks for all the good times.

CLASSIC "DEAR JOHN" NOTE NUMBER THREE: (Woman to Man)

Get lost, and don't bother getting in touch.

Ram S. Varma's new book on The Ramayana

2010-01-17T00:23:00.000-08:00

By Pranay Gupte

Some professional writers – particularly journalists -- will tell you that writing is a breeze. All you need to do is get your facts straight through relentless reporting, sit in front of your computer, and the words will flow. There’s a story – and it happens to be true – of the late R. W. “Johnny” Apple Jr. of The New York Times dashing out a 7,000-word cover story for The Times’s Sunday magazine in three hours; Johnny was legendary for his deadline-writing abilities, his felicitous style, and for his consumption of vodka and foie gras while at work.

I happen to be one of those journalists who’s been blessed with the gift of writing speedily on deadline. Perhaps that’s because I came of age in journalism at the knees of mentors and great models such as Johnny Apple and A. M. Rosenthal, the late, great executive editor of The New York Times. That said, however hard I tried to emulate their writing style, I could never achieve the distinction of their style. (Maybe the reason was that I am a teetotaler.)

Notwithstanding giants such as Apple and Rosenthal, most professional writers will tell you that writing simply isn’t easy. Reporting isn’t easy. Getting facts right isn’t easy. Getting the correct context isn’t easy. And the words don’t necessarily flow easily. The muse is usually not easy to summon.

Ram S. Varma is not a professional writer, but he seems to have no trouble at all in summoning the muse. Perhaps the muse comes to his side because Ram is something more than a professional writer. He’s a writer’s writer. Whether it’s his columns in newspapers, or his novels, or his verse, the words seem to come to him effortlessly. I’ve always wondered what he has for breakfast. Ram writes exactly as he speaks – precisely, poetically, prolifically.

The prolificacy may be understandable in view of his background. For long years, Ram served in the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS). He was, among other things, Chief Secretary of Haryana State. To this day, his integrity and efficiency serve as benchmarks in the IAS. His bureaucratic memos are models of analysis and synthesis. His ability to conjure up creative solutions to seemingly intractable economic and other problems made him highly sought after by various leaders in Haryana and elsewhere.

Truth be told, I had never heard of Ram, quite possibly because I have lived outside India much of my adult life. One summer evening in 2008, a mutual friend named Babu Lal Jain invited me to meet him in New Delhi. The man I met was tall, extremely fit, with a warm, even dazzling, smile. His eyes, while penetrating, had a sweet sheen to them.

That didn’t impress me all that much, quite possibly because the hostess whose home I was visiting to meet Ram was hugely attractive and hyperkinetic. I also thought that she was a tad rude, paying more attention to the table setting than to the new arrival. (Alas, middle-aged, plump gentlemen like me all suited and booted – don’t seem to be the fashion du jour.)

But when Ram began talking about his book on Ram, my interest was instantly piqued. Here was a unique way of re-telling The Ramayana, I thought. Here was Indian mythology re-examined provocatively. Here was lyrical prose, at least the way Ram articulated his story. Here was a manuscript that certainly needed to be published. Here was a book that most definitely would gain wonderful notices and great sales.

And so Ram, and his daughter Vandana Sehgal, an architect, artist and professor, proceeded to produce the book. (No, she wasn’t the hostess I referred to earlier, although Vandana is also hugely attractive and has a formidable intellect. It seems that both her sisters share those characteristics.)

What else to say about Ram and this book?

Only one more thing: Read it. I promise you will enjoy it.

And yes, I never did ask Ram if he consumed vodka and foie gras while he wrote. I suspect that he’s too disciplined to imbibe while writing. Which is another way of saying that Ram Varma gives professionalism a whole new and appealing meaning. May more books flow from his computer (pen?). Then he’d certainly be entitled to a chhota peg of malt whiskey. Or, more likely, fresh orange juice from Haryana.

The Power of "Yes!"

2009-06-28T08:36:00.000-07:00

The Power of “Yes!”

By Howard Leedham, M.B.E.

(Note: Howard Leedham, M.B.E., is Chief Executive of Burj Holding in Dubai.)

During the 1980’s a British Bank used to run a television commercial using the catch phrase that it was the “The Bank that likes to say Yes”! Of course while many who watched British TV through those times can doubtless remember the phrase, probably only a few can remember the bank, which was TSB (later merged with Lloyds).

What is interesting about the slogan is, that in the period when in was aired the banks in the UK were limited to six crusty main street institutions that were forced to a “Yes” sea-change in lending attitude, by the likes of TSB and Royal Bank of Scotland. During the next 25 years the banks moved from the sublime to the ridiculous. In the eighties they tended to lend money only to those who essentially didn’t need it. By 2008 banks were lending money on a global scale to individuals who neither qualified nor could repay it!

The lending spree and the magnitude of banks saying “Yes” led to a preponderance of high-risk mortgages, packaged into Special Investment Vehicles and then debt was transferred by the likes of Credit Default Swaps in the quoted to be in the magnitude of “Quad-Trillions” of Dollars with essentially no true underlying value. But despite the current global crisis, which the World shall surely suffer before it survives; its adaptation and change to a more US style of banking presented the average person with opportunity. The word “Yes”, or even expectation of it, in business is the vital ingredient to capitalism and, whether it be in Science, Finance or any other sector it important to note that the only way to make progress is to make change.

It’s difficult to know for sure whether the Ruler of the UAE in the 1980’s was aware of the monumental changes in the banking industry, but one thing is for sure and that is that he positioned the country for change without revolution or conflict in a way in which history has no compare. Abu Dhabi tapped its natural resources but was wise and frugal, Dubai looked for another natural resource and, whilst underpinned by the senior Emirate. It found it in the human spirit and refined that resource to set an example to the world and forever change the image of the region.

What is perhaps most remarkable is that use of such human spirit through history has invariably achieved great things, especially when it is used for shear creation. But it is often that which is most obvious that eludes us. One only has to consider that a man stood on the moon before someone figured out that instead of carrying a suitcase we could put wheels on the short side and pull it by a handle! It should not therefore be surprising that the obvious option of embracing the human spirit in order to turn sand into money came down to one Ruler recognizing where to put the wheels on such spirit; proving once again that it is only he who can see the invisible who can achieve the impossible.

Now fast forward twenty or so years and take a seven hour flight on an Airbus A-380 double-decker aircraft from where that bank first nodded its head to the UAE and wonder, not at the “vision” that is so often quoted, but look and behold the modern power of “Yes!”

For the UAE is perhaps built on many verbs; vision, determination, tenacity and imagination, but it is its ability to say “Yes” to recognizing the cultural differences of those that it needs in order to have done what it has achieved in just 15 short years.

The attitude of tolerance and the unbiased acceptance of color and creed permitted the UAE to achieve what it has when so many around it would say “No” to the same. The developmental acceleration of the UAE created a perfect storm that combines and synergized the willingness of the banks to provide leverage and simply making the UAE attractive to motivated and ambitious human beings. The result is the development of a country in unprecedented speed, and the power of “Yes” certainly provided it with more developmental power that of oil itself! The resulting, massive influx of expatriate expertise has lined and refined almost every aspect of the business spectrum to which the UAE puts its hand.

That the UAE has been able to achieve such milestones is a reflection its leadership and their conscious awareness is that the greatest leaders in history have been generalists as opposed to specialists. But what is unique to the Emirates is its top-to-bottom proliferation of such attitude that has permeated the citizenship of the Emirates to use expatriate expertise to provide the quid-pro-quo of presenting opportunity to all who reside, and transfer of practical business and skills to all who hold Emirati Passports. It has achieved this by prolific use of this one simple word what has eluded so many nations who instead of embracing international skill, have rejected it. The UAE has created a multi-cultural, multi-national society that lives in complete harmony, a first in the history of mankind. But the real genius of saying “Yes” is that by doing so the UAE has demonstrated that there is one commodity that is far more valuable to all of us than any other; and that is “Time”.

What is again remarkable is that the true value of time, is something that is dear to all our hearts. In Cairo I was told that, “Man fears time, but time fears the Pyramids” and surely the lesson to be learned here is that mans fear can compel him to do great things if it is only harnessed and incentivized. Time on the other hand is happy to let you do nothing perhaps because it is too busy waiting for the pyramids to blink.

If a visitor ever wants to see the spirit that built Dubai and that now builds Abu Dhabi then visit a local bar. For the UAE is probably the only place in the world where you can walk into such a place, view the expatriates and say, “100% of the people in this place came here (the UAE) to improve their lives!” All left their home and their country, many left their families, but every single one of them stepped on a plane with a one-way ticket promising themselves that they were going to better their lives and giving themselves a timeline to do it. By doing so these people also say “Yes” to opportunity and actively seek it in a consolidated manner to create a drive and energy that is simply unrivalled in any other place I have ever known. There is no time for a clash of cultures or prejudice along any lines, there is no time for crime, there is no time to dwell on minutia, no time to impose political or religious beliefs on someone who doesn’t share your view, just an acceptance that with 200 nationalities in one city, all with a common aim, to improve their lives and do it as quickly as possible. It is a win-win for the UAE and the individuals who choose to live and work here.

The UAE is undoubtedly a remarkable testament to what man can achieve if he puts his mind to it and decides to make it happen! History tells us we should not be so surprised. The seven wonders of the ancient world were built by harnessing imagination, the will to achieve, determination and tenacity. Of these seven wonders, three were achieved in countries that are members of today’s Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)! Perhaps it is also interesting to note that earthquakes destroyed two out of those three wonders. Of the remaining wonders two out of three were destroyed by man, it is interesting to note it was either one or the other, perhaps there is a lesson here, but we will discuss an aspect of destruction later in this article.

If “Yes” is the key to setting the UAE apart, it also a currency. To that end its value will fluctuate like any other currency and, like currency, it is perhaps valued on the credibility of the issuer and amount of its kind in circulation.

Because it’s not all a bed of roses and one also has to assess the value of “Yes” in the UAE. In fact it is the value of “Yes” that must be gauged and assessed before entering in any culture or metropolis. For example, I have often said that I like doing business in New York because of the obvious “yes/no” valuation in that city. I had my baptism of fire there in the financial sector and discovered a new meaning of bluntness and lack of courtesy in the New York business culture. I resentfully grew to have a healthy respect for the often rude, no-nonsense, “this is business-not personal” approach. A “Yes” is worth 8/8ths in New York! But the real beauty of that crudely blunt city is the value of a “No!” In New York a “No” has the value of 5/8ths of a “Yes”, and you can always seek a path to ascertain whether you can change the ingredients of a deal to change the 5/8ths into 8/8th. On the other hand, in the UAE we are blessed (and sometimes cursed) by the regional custom to be courteous and well mannered in business, especially to visitors.

Therefore, to say an outright “No” to a proposal is generally seen as over aggressive and rude which can result in the word “Yes” to mean 5/8ths of a “No”; and herein lies a business problem. If you receive a positive response in a business meeting, you can’t very well say, “How can I improve the ‘Yes’ to an 8/8ths!” The only gauge you can use is through gathering regional experience; who gave you the Yes? Where was it given? (Please don’t say a hotel lobby) and most importantly how is the follow-up? When emails dry up or cell phones are sluggish you just got 5/8ths of a “No”. But even this negative has turned out to be a positive for the UAE, because the Yes’s, no matter what their strength provide hope and optimism and, even if at times false, they contribute to the influx and to make the overall development happen. The fact is that exposure to opportunity is so great in the UAE that one almost becomes nonchalant towards it. It is a fact that small businessmen and entrepreneurs like myself get sight of deals the likes of which we would never see were we living with the giants on Wall Street or in Canary Wharf, and although it is at times challenging to fly by the seat of ones pants in converting opportunity to fruition, perseverance is invariably rewarded.

So it is important to remember that while a newcomer to the UAE might be wooed by the positive feedback he receives at every meeting, achieving deal flow and execution remains an equal challenge but with subtle differences to those in the west. Real progress for the individual expat in Dubai and Abu Dhabi relies on personal relationships and timing. It is simply not enough to buy into the “build it and they will come”. Experience in the region will provide the cultural value of the location of a meeting and the requirement to produce truly energized and productive opportunities.

Just as our respective cultures are respected by the Emiratis it is important for the expatriates to also understand and respect the lineage and traditions of the UAE’s citizens. It is always heartening to drive through the desert at night and see the 4x4 vehicles parked at the side of the road and the young Emiratis sitting around a fire until late at night exchanging experiences and stories. Such behavior and respect for timely exchanges has been handed down from generation to generation and permitted the continuation of a high content–low context culture that permeates the people of the deserts around the world. In this sense we then move to another stark business contrast with the US and more latterly Europe where time is always money and niceties are forgone to high context-low content. If one were to have to provide an example I am reminded of the story of a man who walks into a room to find a dead man lying dead in a pool of blood. There are two men, one of whom is American, standing by the body and the man who has entered the room asks, “What Happened?” The American points his finger at the other man and says, in just three words, “He shot him!” (High context-low content).

Rewind that scene and replace the American with a Bedouin. The same man enters the room, sees the dead man and asks the same question. The Bedouin replies, “Well, three weeks ago my sister went to fetch water..” and then proceeds to provide over an hours commentary on precisely what happened in the ensuing weeks that lead the mans death. After two hours of linking every part of the story together, he then says, “and so he shot him!”

In the culture of Wall Street, it has not important how you get there, but just get there! In the culture of the desert it is important to relate the process as much as end result. It is the journey not the destination that comes first. It is my hope that the UAE never loses this attribute because it absolutely refrains the vulgarity of get-in and get-out business practices that make life less pleasant. It is also interesting to consider that if the analogy of the journey is further endorsed when one considers that aspiration to excellence is just such a parallel journey and certainly not a destination.

So if good things happen quickly then great things happen overnight and in not much more than 5,500 nights the UAE has created fabulous cities at an unrivalled pace, and it chose the precisely the right period from an economic perspective to achieve such. Its currency has been pegged to the dollar, so it effectively adopted US monetary policy at a time of high expenditure reasonable currency strength. It has seen the gradual and then accelerated value of oil with which to under pin its seven Emirates. It has remained a haven of stability despite three major Gulf Wars (I include Iran –Iraq), and it has been integral in educating the western world on the values of it regional culture as opposed to more radical mind-sets. The UAE has done this by utilizing and optimizing its political and decision-making process to achieve what no other country has achieved in such a short period of time. It certainly tests the saying by Winston Churchill when he claimed, “Democracy is the worst system devised by wit of man, except for all the others.” For the UAE could not have achieved what it has in such a short time were it a democracy. In order to achieve such rapid development decisions have to be made and acted on at pace simply unachievable by democratic deliberation and, just as the economic timing of the UAE’s development has been almost flawless, it has realized that the pace of development would be inversely proportional to excessive broadening to Churchill’s “worst system”.

Of course, with success comes criticism and Dubai is constantly under the skeptics’ gun, but let’s face it. If detractors weren’t criticizing Dubai then it really would have fallen short to quote the words of Elbert Hubbard, “The man who is anybody and who does anything is surely going to be criticized, vilified, and misunderstood. This is part of the penalty for greatness, and every man understands, too, that it is no proof of greatness”. And that lack of proof is where Dubai must beware. In business a company is only as good as its next transaction (i.e. you won’t get good opportunities if your not performing) and Dubai has forced itself into what appears to be a rather undiversified portfolio using Yes as its currency to set the pace for the development of the region. Concurrently, Abu Dhabi, with its stunning islands and more cautious approach to development with a budget that is not dependent on development, is now well on track to become the golden city of the Middle East within five years. Meanwhile, the development of the second man made Palm Island at Jebel Ali demonstrates that such initiatives are only limited by imagination and the will to make it happen from top to bottom.

The economic stimulus, and federal assurance that Abu Dhabi brings to the UAE’s table is stunning given the fact that the UAE is the size of the State of Maine in the USA and yet, thanks to its natural resources, it has budget surplus of the likes that most countries, including the US, can only dream of. The wealth accumulated by the oil production and reserves of Abu Dhabi has reached estimates running into the trillion Dollar plus mark. Indeed it is rumored that there is over a $1trillion seeking investment from the Abu Dhabi government alone. But what is humbling about Abu Dhabi and its leadership is it absolute humility in its relatively recent wealth and that it has blended each of the Seven Emirates to have its own character to meet their respective customs and cultures.

Abu Dhabi, though senior to Dubai has watched with cautious pride as Dubai used its only plentiful resource (Yes) to build its silver city and prove that the “build it and they will come” will happen. The ongoing developments at Al Rass and Reem Island to mention just two in Abu Dhabi threaten to create the new Monte Carlo of the Middle East. The additions of the Guggenheim and Louvre as well as the Formula 1 track merely underline the class of intentions within the leadership of the Nation and the Senior Emirate. These contrasts in city character and their very different development and tastes serve to create a pot-pouri of living styles and standards to suit almost any taste, and the recent emphasis on the creation of low-budget housing will be further encouraged by the current financial environment. The parallels in ambience, style and relationship between the way Abu Dhabi and Dubai are developing and those that exist between the two very different characters of Washington DC and New York in the US is perhaps demonstrative of how the two sibling cities in the UAE will co-exist. In fact there is every chance that the challenges imposed on the UAE will lead to greater synergy between its cities, where the “Vive le difference”, as the French would say, will provide additional stimulus during the global recovery.

So how will the UAE cope during the current global crisis? I believe the answer is several fold, but I am of the strong view that opportunity invariable comes to those who have been in the right place at the right time. The UAE enjoys a record surplus, while the USA has record deficits, so despite the rapid decline in the price of oil it is merely profits that have declined and the country remains in positive cash flow. During this summer the world was being crushed by the $150 dollar a barrel, which is now proven beyond all doubt as speculator-driven. This period, in terms of checks and balances will now prove crucial for the UAE and with prices now having dropped by over $100 dollars, it is interesting to see analytic forward pricing trend towards $60-$80 per barrel during 2009. If this pricing comes to fruition it will be a net result for 2008/2009 in the region of $100 per barrel across this period, which is relatively positive by any measure. There is little doubt that Dubai is in an over-exposed position in the property sector, but to achieve what it has by this means was absolutely necessary. The property development and the living environments that have been created have been crucial to developing the UAE as a cosmopolitan center of business and leisure. Without such development and corresponding exposure, what would Dubai or the UAE be today?

The answer lies in neighboring comparisons. Its investment in real estate that has housed the human sprit in its droves and the property sector will doubtless need restructuring of its debt and a lowering of growth expectation. Be under no illusions the development and its pace has been essential in how it physically represented the image of the UAE to the World and in terms of how it has been recognized and envied as such. Perhaps there could have been more preparation and holding of reserves in respect to a market correction, which was long anticipated in its coming, but just not with such speed from global effect. So Dubai will now retrench a little but one must put this into perspective. The property boom really has served its purpose so far as the nation is concerned, and will continue to do so, even if the short-term forces reduced expectation. It is interesting to observe that as the property market goes through its correction purchasing will decrease but demands for rentals are increasing.

It is also of note that the internal mortgage business is nowhere near the distressed condition of the US or Europe. It estimated that only 40% of properties in Dubai are mortgaged so the domestic effect of a correction in prices should not radically impose a negative-equity situation on the majority of property owners. Also, the appreciation of property beyond the previous 6 months leaves most owners with enough margins to still sell at profit despite a radical slowdown in buyer turnover. By slowing or halting new developments Dubai ensures that its growth is controlled by itself rather than outside forces and its adjustment of supply to meet demand must be quick and decisive. This will aid the recovery of its most critical sector. Concurrently, lessons will be learned and as borrowing is restructured and redistributed then some of the basics of diversification will be important to prepare for the next surge. Where oil is not in plentiful supply investment in gold to underpin the economy will be vital and investment in renewable energy and advances in technology while the market is cheap will be just two aspects that should be aggressively addressed. At my own company we are actively seeking to encourage companies that are developing the next generation of radically reduced carbon footprint gas turbine engine to relocate to the UAE.

During the great depression of 1929 the US President, Herbert Hoover, made the mistake of taking no corrective action and choosing to “ride it out” by doing nothing. He was unfortunately unable to obtain the information that should have made him do the contrary in order to put energy into his stunted economy. President Obama on the other hand, not only has full access to information that will impact his decision making process, but by not being in power during this time of crisis, he has been able to formulate a plan of action without being forced to trickle down bail outs as a knee-jerk reaction. Following his inauguration he will also doubtless enjoy a honeymoon period of cooperation from the Congress and Senate in terms of implementing a recovery. He has already demonstrated that he will be the opposite of Hoover and has specifically has pledged to increase M1, (the amount of physical money in circulation) in order to stimulate the US economy.

This raises an interesting specter for the UAE, with the currency peg to the dollar and, therefore, US Monetary Policy. It is likely the UAE will take the prudent measure to move proportionally with the US and increase M1 of its own currency to maintain true spending and value parity with the US Dollar. The effect is likely to be noticeably positive for the UAE, not least because the Emirates are nowhere near the distressed depth or size of the USA, and like a speed boat compared to a supertanker the UAE can be turned due to its decisive leadership being unhampered by lengthy political wrangling. The increase of M1 will create greater spending power, but with the potential downside of having to control the effect of rapid inflation once the global recovery is start to take place. This can be countered by precautionary measures taken at action-on-node at the occurrence of specific local economic indicators. But in the immediate effect of the slowdown will have one positive effect on the UAE. Its inflation, which has been a burden over the past tree years (at 9 to 13% per annum) will be reduced and with careful management of M1 the return to increased inflation might actually be less than it has been over the boom years!

The seriousness of the current crisis cannot be overstated, but the asset value of a monetary surplus at this moment in time is probably at its most valuable in the history of the world. We have entered a new age and the rules of the game have been turned on their head. Those who are individually over exposed must be careful about making strategic decisions on the behalf of others, the well being of the UAE is there for the keeping and its potential to increase its global ranking and standing, through a balanced medium term portfolio is has the potential to place the country on its strongest footing in its 37 year history.
Conversely on the other side of the world the USA now admits it has been in recession for two years! At least now the debt addiction has been admitted and the rehab can begin; but it has been a long time in coming and it is of note that it took Lehman Brothers to be caught with the overdose that brought all the other credit addicts out of the closet.

What is interesting is that the words of Joseph Schumpeter, probably one of the most acclaimed economists of all time, ring true when he argued that capitalism exists in the state of ferment he dubbed "creative destruction," with spurts of innovation destroying established enterprises and yielding new ones. Hence the process of creative destruction is an essential fact about capitalism. In fact Schumpeter’s theory goes beyond economics. It is a sobering thought that the only thing all Empires have in common is that they all fall! Creative destruction is time’s political and capitalist tide.

Capitalism is by nature a form or method of economic change and not only ever is, but never can be stationary. The movement of creative destruction translates into the migration of opportunity and following the global melt down we can now see clearly that the migration of opportunity from west to east is well underway. It is likely to continue with the top league of nimble developing nations (like the UAE) leading the way in path-finding the recovery. The leviathans may have a more challenging time but the advantages of natural resources combined with traditions of cheap labor will aid the migration of opportunity’s relative speed of development as asset capture to increase. When the US emerges from the recession the global business landscape will be very different. Be under no illusions, we are in the equivalent of a financial ice age and when the big thaw occurs there will be financial mountains and valleys where there were previously none. The UAE is well placed to be a mountain of significant proportion if it continues to use the combination of its resources to control its debt and its wisdom in its regard to its surplus and its agility in the domestic and global market place. Destruction is an essential part of capitalism and the UAE will feel some internal pain as a price for its growth, but it has the resources to emerge to be more of a mountain than it perhaps ever thought it could be.

But has and is the UAE driven by greed and lust for power? In part I suppose the answer is “Yes”, but I would argue that this is not overwhelming ingredient to what has and will happen in the country. This year has seen the leadership of the UAE take fast and decisive action against those who financially abused their positions of considerable privilege. It is immensely reassuring to see that the statements regarding the adoption of good business practice are being implemented and enforced. Individuals in positions of corporate responsibility must be subject to the regulatory and legal scrutiny that is fitting of such executives, not least because their actions threaten the very stability of local stock markets and the country’s very reputation. It is a sad fact of human nature that power brings with it incidents of dishonesty and corruption. In the words of the disappointed and departing Cleopatra’s lover, Mark Anthony, “Power is a liar and a cheat unless controlled.” That the UAE has moved rapidly to punish and deter such behavior with equal and consistent hand is of reassurance to every honest businessman in the Emirates.

Perhaps one of the most regrettable lines in any movie in history was that spoken by Michel Douglas when he played Gordon Gekko in the 1987 movie Wall Street when he claimed at a shareholders meeting “Greed is Good.” He went on to say, “Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.” Gordon may be right to an extent, but it’s my view that whilst greed has its place as a human fuel, it has a limited shelf life; and we surely are seeing the result of greed right now in the global economy. The meltdown has been undoubtedly caused by overwhelming greed in the world’s largest economy. I believe that when compared to man’s vision and his ability to think in new productive process then “greed” pales into insignificance as a series of short term plays that serve to create the perception of wealth in so much as it is term limited by an over-reach of greed.

Such creative production processes have developed the UAE as the physical and financial hinge between the US & EU to India & China. The development of Emirates and Etihad airlines was not to create airlines for airlines sake, it was part of a strategic plan to create a global hub in Dubai and Abu Dhabi and expose travelers to their rapid development. The airline has done just that and the construction of the UAE’s new airports say it all. Dubai’s new airport will be the largest airport in the world with 4 parallel runways and, having broken ground just one year ago, will be complete in two years time. Abu Dhabi is building a new airport and, in a time friendly stroke of genius, is converting its city airport from the military to a corporate jet centre.

Additionally, the development of the Dubai International Financial Centre (DIFC), in part, sees the fruition of intent to create a financial centre that meets various aspects of financial operation whilst meeting international financial standards, under its very own laws and courts of law. This structure permits 100% foreign ownership in any DIFC registered company. The Dubai Financial Services Authority provides the regulatory credibility required by international investors, and the DIFC has attracted many major financial names, and many small ones. In the current environment it is important for the UAE to combine its three stock exchanges and permit greater foreign investment across the board. Liquidity is key and investors will place their money with those countries that have the potential to lead the journey to global recovery, the UAE is without doubt one of those countries. Additionally the creation of an Emirates International Financial Centers (EIFC) of which the DIFC becomes a part will permit an accelerated foreign investment process throughout the UAE under one internationally recognized regulatory standard. This will further enhance and build the mountain under the ice for the benefit the entire nation come the financial thaw.

We should perhaps consider one more quote from Greedy Gordon as a warning, “It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, and somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another.” This has been the US case; the problem then arose when someone tried to put a Net Asset Value on that perception at Lehman Brother’s and the world, whilst reaping the benefits of greed now feels the pain. In comparison the overwhelming federal trend in the UAE has not been to let greed consume the surplus, but reserve it for the today’s “rainy day”.

So, to be frank, if there is anywhere an opportunist, entrepreneur or ambition would want to be right now, then it is difficult to think of somewhere as poised as the UAE. There remains significant, if not maximized, opportunity in the UAE as a trading hub for mergers and acquisitions, not least because it can take advantage of being part of the bargain hunting that will ensue by implementing small energizers and taking conservative positions to get the job done and build its mountain. Now more than ever in corporate terms it’s not good enough to be a visitor. The one common thread is that a company must have a footprint in the UAE in order to achieve traction, but why wouldn’t you? The days of the carpet-bagger are over, you must have skin in the UAE game and be on the field of play to score a touch-down and the only difference in business between the big guns and the little guns is that the big guns were the little guns who kept shooting! The positioning of businesses to adjust to the predicted 7% growth in the UAE’s GDP during 2009 will see a tightening of the belts and there will be casualties. But the reduction of inflation in a tax-free environment will do much to soften the blow compared to the situation in the UK and US.

As the economy slows the UAE the government will doubtless move fast to deal with the negatives that come with slower growth. It has grown used to 100% employment within its country! If employees are currently laid off within a sector, due to visa restrictions and a 30-day exit policy there is no contingency for the individual to have enough time to find another job. Extending the visa termination by 90-days in this case will permit the individual to job seek within the UAE with a reasonable chance of success rather than simply return to his/her country of domicile. This measure will also help to stabilize the property market in terms of maintaining demand for accommodations amongst the 85% expatriate population of the UAE. We will doubtless see many such initiatives from the UAE to adjust to the new rules of the global financial game, because when it moves it does so with speed and decisiveness in policy and implementation.

My father used to tell me, “It’s important to experience bad times so that you can appreciate the good times,” and that, “Everything is relative.” The modern UAE that has been built on the power of “Yes” is without doubt in the top tier in regard to its placing and condition to cope with the global crisis. What the UAE has achieved in the previous 5,500 days has not been achieved by most countries in as many years! I for one believe the next period will have its challenges, but that the UAE will emerge stronger for the experience. It retains a global and motivated workforce of highly professional expatriates who are aware of the privileges they enjoy and are time sensitive to getting the job done.

The average living standards are a step up from their country of domicile and the environment remains energized because the people are determined to make it work. This has resulted in the UAE being arguably one the best places to live and work in the current global financial crisis. And all this built not from oil as the single vital ingredient but from two generations of leadership that has embraced and understood the will of working men and women from all cultures to succeed. So they welcomed and respected such cultures with which few other countries can compare. They made the expatriate expertise welcome not just by words but by their deeds and proved the power of the word “Yes”, when well directed, is greater than any other in order to build their nation for all who call the UAE “Home."

His Highness Sheikh Mohammed's new Facebook Page

2009-06-25T13:00:00.000-07:00

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.

NYT's David Rohde Escapes the Taliban

2009-06-21T01:11:00.000-07:00

June 21, 2009
Times Reporter Escapes Taliban After 7 Months

By THE NEW YORK TIMES
David Rohde, a New York Times reporter who was kidnapped by the Taliban, escaped Friday night and made his way to freedom after more than seven months of captivity in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Mr. Rohde, along with a local reporter, Tahir Ludin, and their driver, Asadullah Mangal, was abducted outside Kabul, Afghanistan, on Nov. 10 while he was researching a book.

Mr. Rohde was part of The Times’s reporting team that won a Pulitzer Prize this spring for coverage of Afghanistan and Pakistan last year.

Mr. Rohde told his wife, Kristen Mulvihill, that Mr. Ludin joined him in climbing over the wall of a compound where they were being held in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan. They made their way to a nearby Pakistani Frontier Corps base and on Saturday they were flown to the American military base in Bagram, Afghanistan.

“They just walked over the wall of the compound,” Ms. Mulvihill said.

The driver, Mr. Mangal, did not escape with the other two men. The initial report was that Mr. Rohde was in good health, while Mr. Ludin injured his foot in the escape.

Until now, the kidnapping has been kept quiet by The Times and other media organizations out of concern for the men’s safety.

“From the early days of this ordeal, the prevailing view among David’s family, experts in kidnapping cases, officials of several governments and others we consulted was that going public could increase the danger to David and the other hostages,” said Bill Keller, the executive editor of The Times. “The kidnappers initially said as much. We decided to respect that advice, as we have in other kidnapping cases, and a number of other news organizations that learned of David’s plight have done the same. We are enormously grateful for their support.”

Since the men were abducted, there had been sporadic communication from them and from the kidnappers. Ms. Mulvihill expressed relief at the end of the ordeal and gratitude to the many people — official and unofficial — who offered information, advice and support.

“The family is so grateful to everyone who has helped — The New York Times, the U.S. government, all the others,” Ms. Mulvihill said. “Now we just hope to have a chance to reunite with him in peace.”

“We’ve been married nine months,” she added. “And seven of those, David has been in captivity.”

Both Mr. Keller and Mr. Rohde’s family declined to discuss details of the efforts to free the captives, except to say that no ransom money was paid and no Taliban or other prisoners were released.

“Kidnapping, tragically, is a flourishing industry in much of the world,” Mr. Keller said. “As other victims have told us, discussing your strategy just offers guidance for future kidnappers.”

Mr. Rohde, 41, had traveled to Afghanistan in early November to work on a book about the history of American involvement there when he was invited to interview a Taliban commander in Logar Province outside Kabul. Mr. Rohde, who years before had been taken prisoner while reporting in Bosnia, had instructed The Times’s bureau in Kabul about whom to notify if he did not return. He also indicated that he believed that the interview was important and that he would be all right.

His father, Harvey Rohde, said that while he regretted that his son had made the trip, he understood his motivation, “to get both sides of the story, to have his book honestly portray not just the one side but the other side as well.”

“I guess that personifies my son,” Mr. Rohde said.

As security has deteriorated in Afghanistan, kidnappers have increasingly singled out affluent Afghans as well as foreign contractors, aid workers, church members and journalists. Last fall, Melissa Fung, a reporter for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, was held captive in a dank underground hole for nearly a month until Afghan authorities pressured her kidnappers to release her. Mr. Rohde’s captivity was one of the longest in the country.

Mr. Rohde joined The Times 12 years ago after winning a Pulitzer Prize in international reporting in 1996 for documenting the massacre of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica.

He is known by colleagues as an intrepid yet unassuming reporter who conducts himself modestly around the office, predictably attired in neatly ironed Oxford shirts and, often, his weathered Boston Red Sox cap. Affable and soft-spoken, he is not one to regale colleagues with war stories, instead saving his storytelling for articles.

“David Rohde is one unbelievably dogged reporter who brings an open mind and big heart to every story,” Mr. Keller said.

Mr. Rohde’s keen interest in Afghanistan was ignited in the intense three months he spent there after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and cemented during his tenure as co-chief of The Times’s South Asia bureau from 2002 to 2005. He continued to travel to Afghanistan after he returned to New York, where he is a member of The Times’s investigations department.

Mr. Ludin, 35, the Afghan reporter who was assisting Mr. Rohde as an interpreter, has worked with The Times of London and other news organizations. A Pashtun originally from Zabul Province, he fled with his family to Quetta, Pakistan, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. He attended high school there, learning English, before returning to his country and settling in Kabul, where he is now the father of seven children under the age of 8 and the sole breadwinner for an extended family of 17.

Mr. Mangal, 24, who had regularly driven Mr. Ludin, ran a car service with his brother.

Mr. Rohde, who grew up in a tight-knit New England family, majored in history at Brown University. Mr. Rohde’s big opportunity as a reporter came in the mid-1990s, when The Christian Science Monitor sent him to cover the conflict in the Balkans. His tenacious reporting played a crucial role in exposing the ethnic cleansing of Muslims in Bosnia.

Mr. Rohde had been the first Western journalist to travel into Bosnian Serb territory to search for evidence of mass graves. What he found seemed to confirm the suspicions: blood and human feces in a soccer stadium where Muslim prisoners had most likely been shot; bulldozer tracks leading to three rectangles of freshly turned dirt; empty ammunition boxes; and a decomposing human leg. But Mr. Rohde did not think his findings drew sufficient attention to the massacre, said Faye Bowers, his former editor at The Monitor. He decided to venture once more into rebel territory, this time secretly and alone.

“I got a long e-mail saying that he couldn’t live with himself if the massacre went unheeded so he was going back for more evidence,” Ms. Bowers said.

Shortly after sending the e-mail message, Mr. Rohde vanished.

During the trip, he had discovered additional grave sites and photographed piles of clothing and human bones near an earthen dam. But he was detected by a plainclothes watchman and turned over to Bosnian Serb authorities and imprisoned.

It was late November 1995, and Mr. Rohde’s editors joined 11 of his relatives on a trip to Dayton, Ohio, where the Bosnian peace talks were being held, to urge American diplomats to demand his release. After 10 days of imprisonment, during which he was interrogated relentlessly and deprived of sleep, Mr. Rohde was freed. When he arrived in Boston, he was greeted by a phalanx of cameras at the airport, which made him cringe, said his older brother, Lee.

“He’s old school,” Lee Rohde said. “The last thing he ever wants is to be the story. He’s supposed to be the storyteller.”

Watching The Iran Drama

2009-06-19T22:31:00.000-07:00

By Pranay Gupte

It all seems terribly familiar, the chaos and uncertainty in Iran these days -- the daily headlines that highlight protests, the television images of vast crowds in a state of agitation, the truncheon-wielding cops plowing through swarms of people, the vague sense that some major social upheaval is being generated, however inchoate.

It may be premature to call today’s angst a full-scale revolution, but in my mind, at least, there are haunting resonances of what happened 30 years ago when the mass movement – led by the middle classes, the bazaaris, and the mullahs -- toppled Mohammed Reza Shah Pahlavi and brought Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his theocrats to power.

I was there when the Iranian revolution began, although now, long years later, the names and faces have changed, and there are different external players in the theater of global politics. I was there in those cool November days when militants seized the American Embassy and took 52 hostages and kept them mostly blindfolded for 444 days.

Just as is happening today, in those days the hopes of a population reconciled to the capriciousness of an isolated ruling class were raised by newcomers to governance who promised deliverance from the dynasty whose secret police had long terrorized Persia. The “newcomers” this time, of course, are political figures who weren’t necessarily around back then, but are now challenging the establishment – precisely for the same reasons: that those in power have failed to deliver on their promises of progress and social equity in Iran.

Iran occupies a special place in my heart. It was my first big story as a foreign correspondent for the New York Times. The year was 1979, and my son had just been born, and I was with my then wife’s family in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad celebrating Jaidev’s arrival. The phone rang.

It was Joseph Lelyveld, then the deputy foreign editor of The New York Times. Would I go to Iran immediately, Lelyveld said. I had an Indian passport in those days, there was an Iranian consulate in Hyderabad and India enjoyed friendly ties with Iran, so getting a visa wouldn’t be a problem. That, at least, was Lelyveld’s reasoning. The birth of my son didn’t figure in it.

Lelyveld was right in that the Iranians immediately granted me a visa. The consul general cheerfully insisted on offering tea and savories. There was no e-mail in those days, so he sent off a telex to the authorities in Tehran about me. When my Air France flight from Delhi landed in Tehran, there was a welcoming committee at the airport. I was graciously guided through immigration and customs, and deposited at the Intercontinental Hotel, where most foreign correspondents covering the revolution were staying.

They were anxiety ridden. They were not sure what was going on. They weren’t certain who actually ran government. They weren’t even confident that the new revolutionary regime would let them stay on. Some of the trepidations weren’t warranted. In those days, at least, local officials didn’t much bother what journalists were writing and who they were meeting. Diplomats like Humayun Kabir, the Bangladesh ambassador to Iran, became very popular – not the least because he offered delicious spicy snacks to his visitors, a welcome relief from the bland cuisine of the Intercontinental.

In the event, all foreign journalists were given laminated badges, and we could travel the length and breadth of Iran at will.

Such travel wasn’t without its perils, of course. James Walker, then of ABC News, and I once found ourselves in the remote eastern city of Zahedan when tanks opened fire on protestors; James and I were caught in the crossfire. Needless to say, we lived to tell the story, although our nerves were certainly shot to shreds.

It took nerves to cover the 1979 revolution because several things were going on simultaneously. There was the hostage crisis, and big crowds assembled day and night outside the American Embassy chanting “Death to America!” There was the bureaucratic struggle between the holdovers from the Shah’s regime – mostly experienced Western-educated men whom we quickly gave the moniker of “neckties,” because of their suits and smart ties – and the “turbanheads,” the young conservatives who were being rapidly inducted into government by the ayatollahs but who – at least then – had no clue about the rudiments of administration.

And it took nerves because one never could tell when members of the Revolutionary Guards – the Pasdaran – might knock at the door of your hotel room, and proceed to search your belongings. In all fairness to the Pasdaran, they never seized any of my notes. My Smith-Corona portable typewriter survives to this day.

It took nerves because of the randomness with which justice was administered in the courts by temperamental ayatollahs. I remember one presiding mullah who sentenced several young men to death because, he said, they weren’t being respectful enough in his courtroom. Another young man was given a life sentence because a judge didn’t like his name. Life in those days was as capricious as that.

It also took nerves to cover the Iranian revolution because one’s friends sometimes vanished overnight. The minister of justice, Sadegh Ghotbzadeh – who was quite accessible to foreign reporters – was suddenly arrested one day, and put to death. The president, Abolhassan Banisadr, found himself impeached by the majlis – the Iranian national parliament – and escaped the country by shaving off his slightly comical mustache, dressing like a woman, and boarding a plane piloted by a friend. He now lives in a heavily guarded house in the Parisian suburb of Versailles.

The courageous Shapour Bakhtiar wasn’t so fortunate. He was the last prime minister under the Shah, and spoke out against what he correctly sensed was the mushrooming authoritarianism of the new theocratic elite. He managed to flee to France, but was assassinated in 1991. His murderers were never caught, but the suspicion was that they were associated with Tehran.

And so, as I follow developments in Iran in these tumultuous days – privately lamenting that I’m not covering them as a journalist -- a cavalcade of images from my personal history cascade through my mind. Was it really three long decades ago? It seems like it all happened just yesterday. There may or may not be another revolution like the one I covered in 1979. Iran has a great history, and a warm and wonderful culture, and one cannot but wish that everyday Iranians will find the security and social stability that they seek – and deserve. But I’ve wished this before, and it did not happen.

(Pranay Gupte is a veteran international journalist and author who has worked for The New York Times, Newsweek International, and Forbes.)

Prince Michael of Kent Visits Dubai

2009-04-20T03:45:00.000-07:00

HRH Prince Michael of Kent Visits Dubai
(Published in Khaleej Times)

By Pranay Gupte

His Royal Highness Prince Michael of Kent is very upbeat about Dubai. Indeed during a presentation given to him Wednesday by Dr. Nasser Al Saidi, chief economist of the Dubai International Finance Center, the latter was struck by the incisiveness of the prince’s questions, and by how positive he felt about the city-state and, indeed, by the economic progress of the United Arab Emirates.

“I’ve been coming here for more than eight years,” Prince Michael later said in an interview over lunch. “I’ve always been intrigued and heartened by the vision of Dubai’s rulers – and by how Dubai has gone about implementing that vision of economic growth and a livable city.”

That is not to say that he doesn’t recognize the fact that global financial difficulties have washed on to Dubai’s shores. “Perhaps the perception of Dubai among some people – specially in the foreign media – is not what it used to be,” the tall, hirsute prince said. “It’s very easy to criticize Dubai for its success. So when things seem to slow down, that criticism is magnified. But I find it very encouraging to come here, however. In fact, I find it a pleasure to be here.”

The pleasure was evident during a two-day visit that included presiding at an auction for the Prince of Wales Humanitarian Charity, and The Red Crescent, and tours of the celebrated GEMS schools and of City Hospital. He is a first cousin of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II, son of King George V and Queen Mary, and a godson of US President Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

British royalty is often perceived as phlegmatic and aloof. But Prince Michael came as close to exuding bonhomie as bluebloods might allow themselves. In the company of Sunny Varkey, chairman of the Varkey Group – which runs GEMS – he was positively beaming.

So what explained that good cheer, beyond the fact that Britain and the UAE have longstanding historical, education, trade and health-care ties?

“I’m impressed by the quality of education that’s offered here,” the 67-year-old Prince Michael said, as he went around GEMS’s Wellington School, escorted by one of Sunny Varkey’s sons, Jay, a graduate of the University of Edinburgh. “Coming from Great Britain, where we are currently facing some well publicized challenges in some aspects of our school system, it’s a huge pleasure to see how well schools are run in Dubai, how committed the teachers are, and how eager to learn the students can be. The international dimension of these schools is extraordinary.”

The prince asked questions of students, he asked questions of their teachers, and he asked questions of some parents who happened to be on the premises. They seemed surprised that a member of royalty would want to listen more than lecture. There was a technical reason why Prince Michael peppered them with so many questions, of course – he’s been a longtime patron of GEMS. And education has been a lifelong cause for him, ever since his days at Eton and Sandhurst.

“It’s a tribute to Dubai how well it has sustained its multicultural nature,” Prince Michael said. “This is a city with a young and dynamic population. It has clearly recognized that education is the key to greater productivity, and to strengthening Dubai’s place in the world community as a truly global city.”

His comments must have surely heartened Sunny Varkey, who hosted the lunch at the Capital Club. His comments also seemed to resonate well with several local luminaries such as John McGaw, chief executive for the Middle East and Asia of Killik & Co., the London-based securities firm, and his wife Eva, who is active in social causes and who represents the investment company Golden Oryx in the UAE. In fact, the McGaws showed Prince Michael around the sprawling DIFC complex, taking the opportunity to guide him to the Killik office, where Mr McGaw’s colleagues, Kashif Arbab and Layla Makdsi, could scarcely stop beaming.

But perhaps more than Prince Michael’s comments, it was his questions that offered an insight into how he assessed the places that he visits. What do the statistics mean, and how are they gathered? Are the figures verifiable? What are the comparative growth rates of Dubai’s economy in terms of specific time periods? How has the recent policy mix of a fiscal stimulus, monetary-policy easing and increased liquidity helped? How do educational and financial programs actually benefit everyday people?

The prince concentrates deeply when the answers are forthcoming, while his private secretary, Nicholas Chance – formerly with the Financial Times – adds his own questions, and takes notes. Prince Michael visits several countries each year in behalf of more than 100 charities with which he’s involved as president or patron, also represents “Best of British,” an enterprise aimed at furthering British commercial and tourism interests internationally.

During these visits, he obviously projects the archetypical British personality, one that embodies dignity and a canny sense of the world. Which is why it seemed only natural to ask Prince Michael what more Dubai should be doing to becalm international investors’ nerves about its domestic financial situation.

“You would want to encourage the world to come and see Dubai,” he said. “The further you live from Dubai, the more likely it is that you’d believe the myths and mischievous propaganda about Dubai. The more exaggerated Dubai’s problems may seem to you. But if you visit this place, then you can see for yourself that life goes on, that Dubai is vibrant, that the place has a strong infrastructure and a strong regulatory environment, that its vitality is very much here.

“You would want more professionals to come here to live and work, people with no axe to grind,” Prince Michael continued. “After all, Dubai has a diversified economy, and it needs to continue building on a very strong foundation that its rulers have created. In every sense of the term, Dubai is an international city for the new millennium. So it would be in Dubai’s best interests to promote that image. The world should really know more about this place.”

Don'r Rule Out Dubai Comeback / By Roula Khalaf

2009-04-08T22:12:00.000-07:00

The wild ride is over but don't rule out Dubai comeback
By Roula Khalaf

Published in the Financial Times: April 9, 2009

Traffic is thinner, housing prices are in freefall, and hotels are more affordable. Schools that once furiously turned students away are suddenly welcoming, and snobbish sports clubs are unexpectedly friendly.

This is the new Dubai - a city that, for the fortunate ones who are holding on to their jobs, now feels a lot more pleasant.

The gossip among expatriates - and they form the vast majority of the population - is about how the global financial crisis has arrested the city-state's wild ride and driven some of their friends away.

Even the most cynical residents admit Dubai is down but not out and that it will eventually make a comeback as a less exuberant and, above all, as a more liveable place.

It will take determination, however, to endure the economic downturn and to shift Dubai's mindset from insatiable ambition for bigger and glitzier towers to more modest aspiration and cautious crisis management.

It took months for the government to admit the emirate had overleveraged and overextended itself as it rushed to build the Middle East's leading business hub. Even today, Dubai remains obsessively keen to keep its problems out of the public eye.

Yet Dubai is also starting to act. It swallowed its pride and borrowed $10bn (with as much available still) from the federal government of the United Arab Emirates - in effect, its richer neighbours in Abu Dhabi - to help refinance its debts and to assist government-affiliated companies to pay their bills.

And it has started to restructure and to consolidate its sprawling government-affiliated conglomerates, which had thrived on competing against each other, feeding the construction frenzy that has now ground to a halt, and leaving contractors fuming about unpaid bills.

The Dubai model was based on thinking big and accomplishing the impossible, but the city-state has been forced to scale back as projects are put on hold or scrapped.

In the short term, there is more pain in prospect. Everyone in the city is waiting for the end of the school year to see how many expatriates leave. The government claims there are still more people moving in than out but some banks forecast the population will shrink by as much as 17 per cent.

To limit the pain, Dubai will have to act even more vigorously on two fronts. First, it has still to convince the markets it is capable of engineering a fundamental restructuring.

The emirate likes to be known as an outwardly, cosmopolitan city, but it has not come to terms with the responsibility alongside that - crucially, the need for transparency.

"We don't have a problem about Dubai repaying its debts. Our question is: can they implement what they have to?" says a senior banker. "They're not providing information and it's a badly timed silence."

Second, Dubai should find some way to allow expatriates who lose their jobs (and therefore their residency visas) to stay on in the city.

Lay-offs leave residents in a legal limbo, if not actually a legal nightmare, and the jails are filling up with people accused of bouncing cheques, which is a criminal offence.

The scale of the problem has even prompted Dubai's police chief to call for a change in regulations.

"Dubai doesn't have legal infrastructure. But now that contractors are not being paid, employees are being laid off [and consequently] Dubai as a financial centre faces a big test," another banker points out.

If these central problems were to be tackled, then Dubai could, as its officials are hoping, be among the first to rebound when the global economy recovers. Dubai as the region's main business centre remains viable.

Even neighbours that secretly rejoice at its present distress will admit that. Despite the misguided focus of recent years upon real estate, the economy has solid foundations. Dubai, after all, is the region's main trading hub, with ports and airports unmatched in the Gulf. Tourism, too, will recover, and the emirate will probably remain the favourite finance base for the Middle East.

As one eminent businessman expresses it: "By [forming] a service economy, Dubai has become a clearing house for this part of the world, where suppliers of goods and services meet buyers." The city-state will endure two bad years, he forecasts. But he concludes by insisting: "[Even as] a scaled-down version, it will still work."

UAE's Bold Steps in Education / By Bernd Debusmann

2009-04-08T15:23:00.001-07:00

April 8th, 2009

Arabia and the knowledge gap
By: Bernd Debusmann
(Published by Reuters)

Think big. Think global. Spare no expense. That could be the motto for an ambitious effort by the United Arab Emirates to close the knowledge gap with the West and eventually restore Arab learning to its former glory.

Headlines from Dubai, the second-largest and most flamboyant of the seven emirates that make up the country, have been dominated by the bursting of a spectacular property bubble and an exodus of foreigners who lost their jobs as the global recession slowed down the economy. One thing that is not slowing –an education drive without parallel in the Arab world.

“Our commitment to excellence in education remains undiminished despite the economic crisis,” the UAE minister of higher education and scientific research, Sheikh Nahayan Mabarak Al Nahayan told a meeting this month that brought together some 1,000 students from 120 countries to discuss subjects that ranged from educating deaf students to improving global financial stability by better regulation.

Around the world, education is a tempting target for budget cutters in times of financial distress. But the UAE education budget has been increased by 12 percent this year and now takes up almost a quarter of overall spending. Expensive? Yes. But, as one speaker at a panel discussion put it: “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”

The 1,000-student get-together in Dubai, more famous for over-the-top opulence than as an educational center, is known as Education Without Borders and takes place every two years, as does an event dubbed Festival of Thinkers that brings together Nobel Prize Winners and well-known public intellectuals with students from the UAE and neighboring countries. The next one is scheduled for November.

“What’s been happening here,” said Jamil Mroue, a Lebanese newspaper publisher who now makes his home in Abu Dhabi, “is that the Emirates have turned into an incubator for new ideas and fresh thinking. The ancient seats of Arab learning - Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad - have nothing new to contribute.”

It is somewhat ironic that a country as young as the UAE - at 37 years old, a mere toddler of a place - is seen as an example for the heavyweights of Arab history to follow. Few members of the founding generation had any formal schooling. In 1972, when Ras al Khaimah joined six other emirates to complete the United Arab Emirates, the new country had just 45 university graduates, five of whom were women.

WOMEN OUTNUMBER MEN

Now the UAE has 60 colleges and universities and female students comfortably outnumber men. At the largest institution of higher learning, for example, the Higher Colleges of Technology, the ratio of women to men is 10,000 to 6,000.

Three out of five students in the public education system - which is free for Emiratis - are women, a remarkable achievement in a Muslim country. Gender equality is enshrined in the constitution and while health care and education attract a considerable share of educated women, the UAE air force admitted four female pilots last year. Women also serve in the police and make up about a fifth of the diplomatic corps.

So, how close is the UAE to the aim announced two years ago by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum, UAE prime minister and ruler of Dubai, “to build a knowledge-based society throughout the region and enhance the standing of scholars and intellectuals in the Arab world.”

Still a way to go. At the time, Sheikh Mohammed pledged $10 billion to the project and announced plans to re-establish the Arab House of Wisdom which flourished in Baghdad in the Arab World’s golden age, from 800 to 1,500 AD, and had no rivals in the study of philosophy and science. Discoveries ranged from algebra to optics. Arabic was the language of international scholarship.

The knowledge gap that is now being narrowed is between Arabs and the West, where the Arabs’ role in the development of modern science is rarely recognized and largely forgotten.

And how large is the gap? Researchers from the UAE and the United Nations Development Program are working on an Arab Knowledge Report 2009 which should show how far the Arab world has advanced since a devastating 2002 UNDP assessment written not by Western scholars but by Arab experts.

They portrayed the Arab region as living in isolation from the world of ideas and lagging behind the rest of the world on virtually everything, from education to respect for human rights and the status of women. Only six (including the UAE) of the 22 Arab countries were seen as having achieved “high human development.”

There’s a reason for the UAE beyond trying to help wake the Arab world from decades of decline and slumber, and it’s entirely pragmatic: demographics. Fewer than 20 percent of the 4.5 million population are native Emiratis and the economy is almost entirely run by foreigners. According to the official United Emirates Yearbook, expatriates currently hold 99 percent of jobs in the private sector and 91 percent of positions in the government.

“Emiratisation” of the work force has been a key plank of government policies but progress has been slow, partly because employers have been reluctant to hire Emiratis. Confidence in the education system should help diminish that reluctance.

But the 21st century House of Wisdom seems a distant goal.

Profile of Chander M. Rai

2009-04-06T16:55:00.000-07:00

Lunch with Chander Rai
(Published in The National, April 4, 2009)

By Pranay Gupte

NEW DELHI—Chander Rai, who makes his living parsing phrases, can also be said to be a man for all phases. That is to say, his professional life has embraced the dynamics of virtually every stages of growth in the United Arab Emirates, and that he has flourished, failed, and flourished again.

So what’s he doing here in the Indian capital city of New Delhi? This is where Mr. Rai first made his mark at a fledgling newsmagazine, India Today, that has grown into a behemoth. That stint served as a springboard for a career in publishing in the UAE. And, in time, Mr. Rai leveraged that career into a global consultancy in that zone where media and technology converge. Which is why it’s New Delhi today, Abu Dhabi the next, Dubai after that, then a flight to Tokyo, back to Dubai, and then to New York, which, notionally at least, serves as Mr. Rai’s home these days.

This is flying in the fast lane, of course, but it means vivisecting the vocabulary of his clients, who include major technology companies, media giants – well, those giants that are still left standing in these parlous times – and governments. It means anticipating financial developments that may not even be on the horizon. It means always being attuned to fine nuances of the consulting game. And it most certainly means paying special attention to his own personal finances and sometimes offering advice to others – even to titans – about theirs.

“It isn’t that I don’t have a comfortable life,” Mr. Rai said, over a meal at the fabled Delhi Gymkhana, a British-Raj era club that everyone covets to join but whose waiting list extends well into the next decade. “I have experienced the consequences of total financial loss – and, believe me, that isn’t an experience I’d care to want again.”

What experience was that?

“My first lesson in personal finance came in the UAE when BCCI [the notorious Bank of Commerce and Credit International] went bankrupt and I lost all my tax-free earnings. Thanks to the intervention of the UAE government, I was able to redeem most of my losses, but the lesson was loud and clear: Do not put all your eggs into one basket.”

How many baskets, then?

“Today my investment portfolio is not only across different investment products, but also across different countries and currencies,” Mr. Rai said. “I have been converted into owning small apartments in two or three different countries, rather than a large mansion in one. Not only does this make my frequent travel in these countries more convenient, but also gives me an easy option to liquidate one at short notice, if required.”

Of course, liquidating his assets is scarcely on the cards for a man like Mr. Rai, who had the foresight during his early years in the UAE – in the 1980s – to grasp that technology was in the ascendancy and that, for emerging nations in the Gulf – especially those endowed with an abundance of crude oil and natural gas – expertise in the form of managerial consultancies would be essential.

“My most rewarding experience, perhaps, was initiating electronic alliances with international newspapers like The Daily Telegraph, The London Times, The Washington Post and The Financial Times, as well as Asahi Shimbun, New Strait Times and The Indian Express,” Mr. Rai said, referring to UAE and Gulf media institutions that he helped rescue from insolvency or faltering finances. “This meant everything from restructuring the organizations, to buying new presses and equipment, as well as to building new networks. It was absolutely fascinating to strategize the future, to bring in the latest technology and to employ some of the finest personnel from different parts of the world.”

What many people who were associated with Mr. Rai in those years still recall is his insistence on probity and on fiscal prudence. He would often say to them: “If your personal finances are in order, that will translate into better fiscal health of your organization.”

That sort of aphorism may be construed as a mantra, but it has worked for Mr. Rai and for the institutions with whom he has been associated. He is quick to give credit to the aptitude of Emiratis for understanding finance.

“My early experience with the local entrepreneurs was a very gratifying one. They wanted the best talent for the enterprise and were willing to spend on sophisticated equipment provided the returns on investment looked good,” Mr. Rai said. “At that stage there were only a few leading business families, who were heading the change toward a modern business society. And even though the oil money was substantial enough for risk taking, their outlook was fairly conservative with an eye for the long-term future.”

He is, however, a tad disheartened that, after making rapid strides early on, the UAE seems to have slackened with regard to hi-tech, particularly in media.

“As far as the UAE is concerned, I find that we were more abreast of developments in media technology ten years ago than we are today,” Mr. Rai said. “When Dubai Media City was set up, the broadband infrastructure looked good. But now it appears to be falling behind requirements and has become more expensive than neighboring Asian countries. A fair amount of investment would be required to bring UAE mobile technology to the standards of Japan and South Korea.”

So what should the UAE be looking more closely at when it comes to the convergence of technology and media?

“Let me you give you an example. My experience with MIT’s Technology Review, for whom I am the international adviser, has been to always evaluate new technologies affecting the media business. Back in 2000 at the e-Book World Conference, Dick Brass predicted that the last paper edition of the New York Times would appear in 2018. We wonder now whether that prediction was too conservative,” Mr. Rai said.

“Digital development in the MIT Media Lab and one of its more famous spin-offs, e-Ink, is having a profound impact on the publishing industry. Kindle 2 will allow the reader to easily switch between reading and listening, while the iPhone may be destined to be the iPod of the publishing world,” he said. “My own prognosis is that mobile telephony will over take and integrate all media technologies. A harbinger of this is the Qlk, a start-up founded in 2006, which allows people and reporters to broadcast live from their mobiles.

“Advertising related technology is not far behind with the coming of the Semantic Web. That means that software will comb blogs, social networks, and forums for information about the meaning of a page reading it ever more intelligently – and of course better targeting advertisements. These are the kind of developments that folks in the UAE need to monitor even more closely.”

Notwithstanding his lament about the slippage in technology in the UAE, Mr. Rai is encouraged by the attitudinal changes he sees among young Emiratis.

“I believe the young generation today is much more responsible and far more confident than we were,” he said. “They also have much more opportunity for specialized education and international experience than we did.”

Of course, realist that he is, Mr. Rai also expresses some concerns about the young.

“I harbor a certain fear about the younger Emiratis taking up highly responsible positions at such an early stage in their lives. At times, the lack of experience results in steps, which look innovative at the time, but may not have long-term benefits for the organization,” he said. “This is because the UAE is a very young country with opportunities for educated young people to rise suddenly. I am sure this will settle down over the years and decision-making will become less spontaneous.”

The meal at the Delhi Gymkhana had been very satisfying – fish and chips, of course, and mashed peas, in the tradition of the Raj – and Mr. Rai had another appointment. But one more question needed to be squeezed in: What future did he see for Emirati society in the post financial-crisis world?

“I see a great future for the Gulf countries in the post financial-crisis. I think, there will be a more realistic approach to business and to expansion. The property market in Dubai can, in many ways, be likened to the magazine industry in that city. People who had no inkling of either business got into them, because they smelled quick money. I think they will be opting out as quickly as they came in to the detriment of several investors. The large experienced players with knowledge of the business will continue to flourish despite the crisis,” Mr. Rai said.

“The growth rates for the Gulf countries are such that I describe them as the next frontier for business opportunity.,” he continued. “People tend to look only at the BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India and China] economies. To these should be added the fast emerging GCC countries.  The UAE is certainly up there, even though things may look a bit down these days.”

Lunch With Andrew Tarbuck

2009-03-15T08:30:00.000-07:00

LUNCH WITH ANDREW TARBUCK
(Published in The National, March 14, 2009)

By Pranay Gupte

Andrew Tarbuck has one of those visages that don’t lend it to pinning down his age. Of course, he isn’t much older than his early 30’s, but he could jolly well pass off as a younger graduate student at Newcastle University in Britain, or the Chester College of Law, his alma maters.

One thing is for sure: Mr. Tarbuck, whose academic career was lined by vigorous rugby competitions, is very fit, which may explain the boundless energy he demonstrates in discussing the United Arab Emirates over lunch. Another thing: he is very successful. He is a partner at the international legal powerhouse of Latham & Watkins LLP, which was founded in 1934, and has more than 2,100 attorneys in 28 offices around the world, including, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai. During 2007, Latham lawyers handled more than $182.6 billion in debt offerings and $72.7 billion in public equity offerings worldwide, including $32 billion of initial public offerings. You simply don’t get to become a partner at such a venerable legal institution at such a young age unless you are very good at what you do.

What Mr. Tarbuck does in Dubai ranges from advising on corporate finance matters for clients to informally opining on personal finance to, well, most any topic that falls under the rubric of legal practice. In a rapidly developing country such as the UAE, a lawyer needs to be very versatile indeed.

“The law, in any jurisdiction, is the cornerstone by which all of our lives are governed and applies to all manner of human behavior, including personal finance,” Mr. Tarbuck said. “There are so many facets to the law that one of the key attractions is that you can commence your legal career and then follow a myriad of avenues to suit your interests and skill sets. For some, it is the environmental credentials in project finance for wind farms and for others it is pro bono work for charities or NGO's. I was seduced by the cut and thrust of law as it applied to corporate finance and so it has led me into some incredibly interesting areas of global business, including equity capital markets, mergers and acquisitions and, most pertinently, corporate restructurings.”

“Maintaining a sense of realism whilst understanding that the devil is in the detail is a difficult skill to master especially whilst keeping a smile on your face,” Mr. Tarbuck said, with a smile, of course. “One of the great elements to practicing the law is the fact that not one day is ever the same. A lawyer comes to expect the unexpected and a great lawyer know what the unexpected will be.

“So many things can happen to your clients from the good -- winning a court case you never expected to win, and ‘having your day in court’ -- to the bad – receiving an unexpected hostile bid for your company on a Friday afternoon. Deals and transactions follow everyday twists and turns and there are so many small battles to be fought and won. Clients also experience a gamut of emotions during a time of unusual and often turbulent corporate activity.”

So how much of his practice consists of matters involving personal finance? What is most asked of him concerning law and the management of personal finance?

“It is common practice for lawyers to provide informal advice to friends and family on more personal matters including personal finance,” Mr. Tarbuck said. “I could not tell you how many London cab drivers have asked me for advice relating to their mortgage or residential lease. Being a corporate lawyer, you are quite often asked for comment on the state of the markets from a personal investment perspective. Lawyers have to be careful not to give direct investment advice and also be wary of the fact that they are in possession of highly confidential price sensitive information.”

Any anecdotes he’d care to share without breaching lawyer-client confidentiality?

“One night I was nearly diverted to a police station on my journey home in a cab in the early hours having done a late-night stint at work to assist the cab driver in giving ad hoc advice in situ (in a cell) to his rather belligerent brother who had not quite adhered to the Marquis of Queensbury's rules outside a local pub. It is difficult to explain sometimes that corporate finance was not practiced by Rumpole of the Bailey,” Mr. Tarbuck said.

What's it like to practice law in the UAE, a country where nearly everyone is obsessed with personal finance – especially in these times of economic upheaval?

“Practicing law in the UAE throws up many challenges which at times can be frustrating but also very rewarding. A significant majority of corporate documents are governed by US or UK law and so it is commonplace for English law to be practiced in the UAE which has a traditional affinity with English culture and values,” Mr. Tarbuck said. “However, UAE law is based upon civil law principles as opposed toEnglish law which follows a common law approach. The legal system of the UAE is relatively young because, as an independent State, the UAE came into existence in 1971.”

Legal jurisdiction and applicability of the law is therefore of special consequence when it comes to issues relating to personal finance. This can make for a complicated situation in adjudicating disputes.

“Subject always to the constitution of the UAE, each Emirate is subject to the Federal Law of the UAE but retains the right to administer its own internal affairs and enjoys certain other exclusive rights. The UAE legal system is founded upon Civil Law principles and Islamic Shari'a Law, the latter constituting the guiding principle and source of law,” Mr. Tarbuck said. “English law is based upon the Common Law legal system but the UAE legal system is a member of the
Civil Law family of legal systems whereby legislation tends to be formulated into a number of major codes providing for general principles of law with a significant amount of subsidiary legislation which is promulgated by a number of means such as decisions, resolutions and instructions.”

Does that mean that as an English qualified lawyer in the UAE it can be difficult to interpret such prescriptive laws and to understand the principles of Shari'a law?

“Continual learning and adding to one's skill set can be very satisfying,” Mr. Tarbuck said. “Frequent questions that arise concern the enforcement by the UAE courts of court judgments obtained in foreign courts and the ability to initiate court proceedings against government organizations. The adherence to the New York Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards in 2006 by the UAE has given the region a great deal of credibility and has provided increased comfort to those foreign entities looking to invest in the UAE. Although yet to be tested, there is a willingness for the UAE to recognize that to hide behind ‘sovereign immunity’ has a material adverse affect on foreign investors desire to do business in the region and hinders economic growth accordingly.”

Still, there is also an altruistic element to the law whereby the lawyer acts as a conduit between the law itself and the end user, whether in businesses or among individuals, Mr. Tarbuck said.

“It is our job to know the law and then interpret it and advise accordingly so that our clients can make informed decisions and minimize their risk accordingly. Knowing and understanding your clients’ objectives and empathizing are critical skills for a lawyer. These are developed with experience. Experience also provides the lawyer with a reliable ‘nose’ for whether something is legally wrong or right. The accurate execution of the ‘sniff test’ and calm under pressure are key attributes to being a successful lawyer.”

There are, of course, always surprises in the game, even for an accomplished lawyer like Mr. Tarbuck.

“Corporate lawyers conduct transactions as their force of habit but large transactions requiring lawyers are an infrequent event for many company directors who can react and behave in any manner of mysterious and surprising ways,” Mr. Tarbuck said. “There is always the possibility that your client will suddenly fold on a plethora of points in a negotiation when you had steadfastly agreed behind closed doors to protect the ‘crown jewels’ at any cost. This can sometimes be frustrating for the lawyer but it must always be remembered that the client does not have to take your advice, no matter how good it is.”

Clients, to be sure, often look at their lawyers to be able to resolve all of their problems, whether in personal finance or in corporate matters. How does Mr. Tarbuck deal with general sentiment of clients that he will be their savior?

“I am fortunate that I am a partner at a full-service international law firm with a very collegiate culture and so I know that if very specific questions arise, whether it be in relation to an industry or geographic sector or type of transaction, I know that I can always contact someone within the organization with the requisite know how. Knowing when to ask for back-up -- and being humble enough to ask and be prepared to listen -- is also a crucial part of being a lawyer and ensuring that you obtain the best advice for your client.”

“It would be quite simply negligent to think that one lawyer alone can answer every question that a client may have,” Mr. Tarbuck continued. “In some cases there really may not be a clear answer in which case a good lawyer will apply common sense and logic with a degree of commercial wit. Also, in circumstances that are not yet covered by a particular law, a lawyer can pioneer and develop the law and also build market practice. On occasion, private practice lawyers are asked by governments to write new laws or develop existing ones. This is particularly innovative and rewarding.”

Not many days ago, Andrew Tarbuck received a particularly gratifying validation of his skills and status.

“I was honored to be invited to participate in an economic development forum hosted by the Syrian Government and civil service to provide my experience as an international legal practitioner from private practice.”

As his rugby coach in Britain would have said, Well done, sir!

Do Not Believe Reports of Dubai's Demise (Financial Times)

2009-03-11T16:47:00.000-07:00

Do not believe reports of Dubai’s demise

By Afshin Molavi
Published in the Financial Times: March 11 2009 22:11

Dubai must feel a little like Mark Twain, these days. Upon reading his own obituary in the newspaper, Twain wrote: “The report of my death was an exaggeration.”

Dubai has had its share of obituaries as it suffers from a property bust and contagion from the global credit crisis. Headlines from Cairo to London to New York, laced with schadenfreude, proclaim its demise. Newsweek said simply: “Goodbye, Dubai.”

The emirate is certainly stumbling. Many of its state-owned entities drown in debt. Several high-profile property projects have wilted under tight credit, debt and corruption. Its stock market has been in free-fall. Many of its top officials, who once swaggered on the world stage, now skulk in denial.

Still, news of Dubai’s death has been greatly exaggerated. Its fundamentals as a regional hub of shipping, services, people, trade and capital have not changed. “Disneyland Dubai has crashed,” as one Dubai-based banker put it, referring to headline-grabbing property projects, “but the core business model of Dubai remains sound.”

That business model predates modern financial markets and the hyper-globalisation of today. It is not about lavish hotels, skyscrapers and man-made islands in the sea. It is a simple model, reflected in the statement of Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed al-Maktoum, the late ruler of Dubai: “What’s good for the merchants is good for Dubai.” Creating a hub for merchants has been an al-Maktoum family tradition for more than a century. And it is those merchants and migrants, dreamers and entrepreneurs, who built Dubai, who deserve equal credit for its rise and who will help it grow again.

This openness to foreign talent will support Dubai as it faces today’s crisis. Speculators will leave but plenty will ride out the storm, including Arab professionals who have chosen Dubai as the place to achieve their dreams and middle-class Indian mid-level managers who make the city work.

To understand why Dubai will survive, it is important to understand its commercial geography. It is not solely an Arab state – demographically or commercially. It is a commercial and tourist hub for a region that encompasses the growing markets of south Asia, emerging Africa, oil-rich Russia and the Gulf states, Iran, central Asia and the Caucasus, Europe and China. And it works largely because of the heavy infrastructure investment made by Dubai’s rulers and the expatriate traders, service professionals, construction workers, bankers and techies who make up 90 per cent of the population.

Dubai was never, as one newspaper called it, “The Middle East’s economic powerhouse.” Rather, it was and remains a highly successful entrepôt in one of the richest and fastest-growing parts of the world. Like most entrepôts, it feeds from and fuels growth. Dubai companies, for example, have substantively improved east Africa’s transport infrastructure and DP World manages ports in 49 countries.

Though Dubai is racked by debt – $70bn of it – much of that comes from massive infrastructure projects that have positioned it well for the future. Infrastructure spending is old hat in Dubai. When Sheikh Rashid built the Jebel Ali port in 1979, to much criticism, he made a big bet – and won. Today, Jebel Ali helps place Dubai among the 10 largest container terminal port cities in the world. When Sheikh Rashid chose to take on a big loan in the late 1950s to dredge the Dubai creek to allow for larger ships, he was panned. It worked. The ships came, and so did the merchants. The pre-oil emirate grew and flourished.

The same can be said of its airports, airlines, telecommunications and broadband networks, metro system and expanded highways. There is no city within striking distance of challenging Dubai as a hub in a region that extends beyond the Arab world to 1.5bn people. Its airport is among the 10 busiest for international passenger traffic. It is also among the world’s top 15 air cargo hubs.

Dubai’s property bubble popped. Its hubris also (thankfully) popped. Its core business model, however, did not. Property corrections and over-leveraged state entities can be fixed. Becoming a poor environment for trade would be far more dangerous. When the world growth engine restarts, city-states such as Dubai will flourish. In the meantime, Dubai will serve as a vital, if somewhat clogged, artery in world trade. The battered but still battling hub city will rise again.

The writer, a fellow at the New America Foundation, was a Dubai-based correspondent for Reuters and is working on a study of hub cities

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009

I Grieve For The Game

2009-03-06T23:29:00.000-08:00

I Grieve For The Game

By Pranay Gupte

(Note: Pranay Gupte is a former foreign correspondent for The New York Times, a columnist for Newsweek International and Forbes, and an author. His new book, co-edited with Fatema Hadroom Aleghfeli, “Global Emirates: An Anthology of Tolerance and Enterprise,” will be published by Motivate this month.)

I always thought that it was cricketers who “attacked,” that – in this era of big prize money and big television audiences and big sponsorships -- an attacking game meant competing fiercely for trophies. I never thought that cricketers themselves would be attacked by machine guns and grenades by marauders who had nothing to do with the game an everything to do with death and destruction.

I was wrong, of course, I was wrong to believe that the worst that could happen in cricket was hooliganism in stadiums. I was wrong to believe that the worst that could happen was an occasional bout of yelling between irritable players. What happened in Lahore on Tuesday was tragic, it was unexpected, and it snapped me out of what clearly had been a reverie.

I was mistaken to believe that when two countries, each with a long record of domestic violence, play each other, that wouldn’t it be merely a matter of opportunity that cricket would be a prey. In this age of fungible political violence, a time when women and children are taken hostages in schools or gunned down mercilessly in distant places in the name of not even a cause – that in such an age of violence, wasn’t it simply a matter of time that someone, somewhere, would target cricketers – cricketers who have traditionally served as envoys of peace, bearers of good will, carriers of a tradition that pays obeisance to decency and fair play?

Not many people may know it, but that tradition is actually lodged here in Dubai. It is here that cricket’s governing body, the 104-member International Cricket Council, is headquartered. From modest offices in Media City, South Africa’s Haroon Lorgat, the ICC’s chief executive officer, and Britain’s David Morgan, the organization’s president, monitor the conduct and ethical standards of a sport that’s become an industry worth billions of dollars in TV rights, prize money, commercial endorsements, and, of course, stadium attendance. They are not intolerant men, but they enforce rules strictly. And while “decency” and “fair play” may not qualify as coming under the rubric of rules, they constitute the ethos of the game.

And not many people may know it, but the commercial and popular explosion of interest in cricket worldwide – indeed the very transformation of what used to be a slightly dull five-day game played between fewer than a dozen countries into one now played competitively in so many nations that the sun never sets on a cricket match – can be attributed to the determination of some of the UAE’s leaders. Over the last two decades, ruling families and private backers in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah, poured billions of dollars over the past decade into building stadiums, creating big-money tournaments, and encouraging small nations in Africa and Asia and Europe – which had never been part of the cohort of 10 full members of the ICC that play international competitive games known as “test matches” – to become cricketing nations.

You could even say that the UAE re-invented cricket by giving a sheen to the meaning of sponsorship. In its own canny fashion, Sharjah recognized that if you offered enticing prize money, much in the manner of big-time tennis or boxing, they will come. Recognizing, too, that the large numbers of South Asians in the UAE would find enormous fulfillment in seeing Indian and Pakistani stars actually play on location, Sharjah invited the greats of the game from the Subcontinent. Soon the tournament was expanded to included players from other countries.

And then Abu Dhabi got into the game. So did Dubai. I have seen cricket being played in virtually every Emirate. The size of the crowds may vary, but not the enthusiasm. And however vocal that enthusiasm, it’s never violent.

There’s something else that not too many people may know – which is that, while Britons invented cricket in the 16th century, the founder of the UAE, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, implicitly endorsed cricket’s traditional values by contending that sports can make for good diplomacy. He often told young Emiratis that sports should be above ideology and politics.

That notion – which also suggests that sport should be free of violence directed at players -- came to be so widely accepted that the bitterest of political foes like India and Pakistan often continued playing in the same competition even as their respective governments tossed less-than-polite comments at each other over territorial feuds.

The single – and singular – notion helped revitalize the dynamics of international cricket over the last two decades, especially since they were years that witnessed conflicts spawning unspeakable horrors. If there’s one overriding characteristic of the UAE in the eyes of the world, it is that the Emirates has always promoted peace and universal fraternity among nations.

The notion that sport should transcend national rivalries – has led to celebrated friendships in the world of cricket, a sport followed by more than half the world’s population of 6.6 billion people. India’s former captain, Sunil Gavaskar, is still besieged by autograph seekers in Sri Lanka, more than a decade after his retirement from the game. You will find photographs of Pakistan’s legendary all-rounder, Imran Khan, in homes in India.

So I submit that cricket, which has been played around the world well before the UAE was formed, really embodies the essence of what this federation is all about – tolerance and enterprise. That essence was violated in Lahore on Tuesday. I had never imagined that such a thing would occur. I was wrong, of course, and now I grieve for the game, and I grieve for the setback that the UAE’s spirit of harmony has suffered.

Lunch With John McGaw of Killik & Co.

2009-03-06T23:23:00.000-08:00

Lunch at The Jumeirah / With John McGaw

By Pranay Gupte

Taking lunch with John McGaw means more than indulging in a meal. Between multiple trips to a sumptuous buffet featuring Arabic, Indian, Chinese and Continental cuisine, Mr. McGaw offers tutorials on the complexities of contemporary economics and the special attention one needs to pay to personal finance.

He does so in neat, well-organized sentences, clearly the result of long years of practice in the twinned fields of finance and the law, and of strenuous years at Britain’s prestigious Charterhouse School and Oxford University’s Lincoln College, and the College of Law in London. His discourses are the result, too, of having served as CEO of Killik & Company for the Middle East and Asia for the last three years in Dubai, and of some 25 years in stock-broking, wealth management, investment banking, private equity placements and fundraising in Europe and Asia.

So the tutorials come freighted with deep knowledge of the field and laced with experience, but they are by no means dry. They aren’t wrought either, especially in view of the global financial crunch that’s starting to affect the Gulf, including the United Arab Emirates. Hyperbole and hysteria aren’t part of Mr. McGaw’s style. He is, after all, an Englishman – just the right drollness, just the right dose of wit, just the right modulation of voice, and, of course, just the right anecdote to illustrate a point.

Listen to this one:

“The meaning of long-term investment has taken on a new generational dimension following a report on retail investors. I read about an investor who said she wouldn’t be selling shares at current rock-bottom prices. But, as an additional act of defiance, she would leave her firm with instructions in her will that her beneficiaries could not sell either. This sentiment is not uncommon amongst retail investors though enforcement via a will may be stretching the point.”

And what does this anecdote suggest?

“It reflects a savvy aspect of retail investor mentality and fortitude since history tells us that, whilst markets fluctuate in the short term, in the long run they always rise and outperform most other forms of asset class. The lady investor may have a point,” Mr. McGaw said.

Just as he understands the psychology of investors, Mr. McGaw understands the nature of doing business in the Gulf. Perhaps he understands this more than many of his peers – which may explain his success, and it would certainly explain the fact that John McGaw is welcomed in the highest circles of all of the UAE’s seven emirates. The McGaw Formula: Respect for the local culture, and amiable deference to those in power are a must; so is acquiring the ability of figuring what people are really saying.

Here is another anecdote:

“Not long after settling in to our new home in Dubai. I was shopping in a very large supermarket and realized I had overbought on the tomatoes. Asking one of the ‘I am at your service’ assistants where the vegetable stalls were, he pointed in a direction ‘over there,’ smiling ever so helpfully. After wandering through the maze of shelves, I found myself at the checkout counter where I asked again for the vegetable stalls. I wandered back ‘over there.’ En route, I bumped into ‘I am at your service,’ and asked him, several times as it turned out, why he had sent me to check out. He just kept smiling until I asked him if he understood English -- whereupon he just shrugged.

“Lesson number one was now learnt: ‘Most people mean well and want to please. But do not take anything for granted, particularly questions and requests.’”

Business dealings in the Middle East rest predominantly on friendships, which, in turn, take time to build, Mr. McGaw said.

“Trust, I learned, was paramount. A typical business meeting might only last 30 minutes but most of that time would be spent talking about family and travel. The business purpose would often be lost in a rushed two-minute goodbye and handshake,” he said. “On one trip to Abu Dhabi, the chairman of a bank pointed out to me that our company’s involvement in healthcare and security were the right industries to assist a growing nation and then helpfully advised me that it would take at least three years to ‘break in.’ Not quite what I wanted to hear.”

“One of the main issues facing newcomers to this region can be unreliability at best, and rampant dishonesty at its worst,” Mr. McGaw said. “Friendship takes time in any environment but, unlike in every environment, it can be accelerated and enhanced in this region through business dealings. It is for this reason that one needs to be on one’s guard. I was told, ‘What you see here is not always what you get.’ There is a complex side to the Middle East that can be difficult for expatriates to deal with.”

It may have been difficult for Mr. McGaw at first, but he arrived in the UAE at a time when Dubai was beginning to build its infrastructure at a very rapid pace and was clearly being given snap decisions, particularly when it came to announcing new real estate projects.

“This is what drove the local economy and this is where communication became such a well-worked and professional medium for laying the foundations of ‘Brand Dubai,’” he said.

Mr. McGaw paused. He looked at his watch surreptitiously. It was time to return to his office at the Dubai International Finance Center, a healthful walk from the Jumeirah Emirates Towers Hotel where we’d been lunching. The DIFC hosts a variety of financial institutions ranging from universal banks and large insurance companies to private banks and other financial institutions providing wealth management, stock broking services, financial planning and funds administration.

But there was surely one more anecdote for him to relate? Of course.

“Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Airlines, was on his first visit to the UAE at the turn of the millennium. He had been invited over for a few days to get a feel for what Dubai was in the process of building and achieving in order to encourage him to bring Virgin Airlines to Dubai. Having spent an interesting and informal lunch in the company of His Highness Sheikh Mohammed, who was then Crown Prince, and his inner sanctum of advisors, Sir Richard was invited to attend a presentation in Dubai Media City,” Mr. McGaw said.

“As he entered the conference room, he noticed a can of Virgin Cola next to each place setting, which puzzled him, as he was not aware that Virgin Cola was sold in the UAE. In fact it was not sold then and is not sold now. This was a masterful and ingenious piece of public relations communication and it left a deep impression on me for its sheer genius and was not left unnoticed by Sir Richard. Indeed, the presentation made a charming but meaningful comparison between the Virgin Group and ‘Dubai Inc’ along the lines of ‘anything is possible with a clear vision and a strong will, excellent communications skills and a respect for people.’ After all, David did defeat Goliath.”

(Note: Pranay Gupte, a veteran journalist, author and documentary producer, is co-editor of the forthcoming “Global Emirates: An Anthology of Tolerance and Understanding,” to be brought out by Motivate Publishing.)

Attacking cricket

2009-03-03T13:25:00.001-08:00

Attacking Cricket

By Pranay Gupte (Published in Khaleej Times, march 4, 2009

(Note: The writer is a former foreign correspondent for The New York Times, and an author. Based in Dubai, his new book, co-edited with Fatema Hadroom Aleghfeli, “Global Emirates: An Anthology of Tolerance and Enterprise,” will be published this month.)

You would think that cricket, the sport invented by Britons and one followed fanatically in the former colonies of Britain, would have its administrative base in London. You would be wrong.

Cricket’s governing body, the 104-member International Cricket Council, is headquartered here in Dubai, an Arab emirate that was never quite a part of the British Raj but where the mandarins of London have enjoyed political and economic influence for more than a hundred years. If you thought that cricket’s dramatic transformation from a languorous sport where white-flannelled players played five-day games into a lucrative, even exciting game where one-day matches featuring athletes in multi-colored uniforms brought in huge sponsorships and television audiences was made possible by entities in the UAE – then you would be absolutely right.

Backers in Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Sharjah, poured billions of dollars over the past decade into building stadiums, creating big-money tournaments, and encouraging small nations in Africa and Asia and Europe – which had never been part of the cohort of 10 full members of the ICC that play international competitive games known as “test matches” – to become cricketing nations. Not many people might know this, but perhaps the single biggest sponsor of cricket matches is Dubai’s Emirates Airline: its logo appears on the white smocks of all umpires at cricket matches.

At the heart of the UAE’s effort was a simple premise: Cricket can make for good diplomacy. And if you offered enticing prize money, much in the manner of big-time tennis or soccer or American football or even boxing, they will come.

That’s why the terrorist assault on Tuesday in neighboring Pakistan – where the Sri Lankan team was playing a “test” series against the home team – is potentially a huge economic blow to cricket. Sponsors are likely to rethink their support, especially in this time of worldwide financial travail. Players will most certainly think twice about making appearances in nations where political volatility is often present – like Zimbabwe or South Africa or Kenya or Bangladesh.

Tuesday’s episode in Lahore also strikes at a fundamental notion that the UAE’s founder, the late Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, often articulated: sport should be above ideology and politics. That notion – which also suggests that sport should be free of violence directed at players -- came to be so widely accepted that the bitterest of political foes like India and Pakistan often continued playing in the same competition even as their respective governments tossed less-than-diplomatic demarches at each other over territorial feuds.

That notion – that sport should transcend national rivalries – has led to celebrated friendships in the world of cricket, a sport followed by more than half the world’s population of 6.6 billion people. Pakistan’s former captain, Imran Khan, is a household name in India, where his visits draw more media and popular attention than that of his country’s governmental leaders. England’s former captain, Ian Botham, is still besieged by autograph seekers, more than a decade after his retirement from the game. You will find photographs of Australia’s legendary batsman, Sir Donald Bradman, in homes around the world, even in the United States, where cricket is increasingly catching on in cities with large multi-ethnic populations such as New York and Los Angeles. Cricketers have lent their names and hands to major philanthropic causes in world’s poorest countries, even where cricket isn’t necessarily a national passion.

Those players – whether weekend amateurs or fulltime professionals – have made cricket the new millennium’s new global game, and its richest one. Film stars in India are launching teams for domestic tournaments that feature foreign players. From being a summer game, cricket has become a year-round sport – the sun never sets on cricket’s empire, and it’s all run out of Dubai, where South Africa’s Haroon Lorgat, the ICC’s chief executive officer, and Britain’s David Morgan, the organization’s president, monitor the conduct and ethical standards of a sport that’s become an industry worth billions of dollars in TV rights, prize money, commercial endorsements, and, of course, stadium attendance.

That means the international game is predicated on travel. It is based on the assumption that the host country will assure the safety of visiting players – that the worst assault players could expect would be rotten eggs and tomatoes pelted by irate or overzealous fans. “Bombshell” in cricketing parlance always meant a star player, not a device that killed. “Bullet” was a synonym for a speedy ball that a batsman simply couldn’t handle. “Attack” always meant aggressive play.

But the tragic episode in Lahore on Tuesday changed the very vocabulary of cricket. It’s sadly ironic that both countries – Pakistan and Sri Lanka – are experiencing sustained domestic violence. But it was often violence flowing out of ethnic and political issues. It was sometimes the violence of local corruption. It was, at other times, violence from miscreants targeting those jockeying to govern.

Now the violence that used to be part of a polity’s political arena has claimed its latest victim by entering the stadium of sport. It is difficult to believe that anyone would want to hurt practitioners of cricket, players who act as ambassadors of peace and good will even as they compete fiercely for their trophies. Is there anything sacrosanct left any more? The game has changed, perhaps forever.

Slumdog Millionaire and The Emirates

2009-02-25T11:13:00.000-08:00

Slumdog Millionaire and the Emirates

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 with India, and so Mumbai – or Bombay, as the metropolis used to be called – was a natural draw for Emiratis. The late Sheikh Rashid bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Dubai’s erstwhile ruler, would often speak warmly of the “Indian connection,” and some of his closest friends were businessmen from the Subcontinent. To this day, the “Indian connection” remains intact – just witness the numbers of laborers, teachers, shopkeepers, bureaucrats, journalists and management types who are peppered all over the seven Emirates.

But it isn’t the history alone that should prompt Emirati leaders to go see “Slumdog Millionaire.” The film, a touching tale of hope and enterprise in the world’s largest slum – Dharavi, a part of Mumbai – echoes a theme that’s long been an integral essence of the Emirati ethos: the will to overcome odds. The very story of the UAE’s rise from a barren desert land into a nation of flourishing cities and world-class infrastructure, lends itself to a movie plot. It’s an improbable story, one that many in the West and elsewhere might scarcely have imagined, let alone predicted.

The main characters in “Slumdog Millionaire” demonstrate a resilience that will surely resonate with Emiratis. It is difficult to conceive of a situation where people born into poverty and reared on despair find it within themselves to transform their lives – not with personal gain in mind but the common good of their community. That’s the Dharavi story.

The movie may be fiction, but you only have to ask women like Bakul Rajni Patel, a social activist in Mumbai, or the veteran actress Shabana Azmi, also an activist whose work on behalf of slum dwellers gained her a seat in India’s parliament, and you will hear story after story of the grit and fortitude of the people of Mumbai’s slums. Movie-going audiences around the world may have been surprised by the depictions of determination in “Slumdog Millionaire,” but for residents of Dharavi will-power is wired into their DNA.

It is also wired into Emiratis. Is the rise of Dubai from the desert any less of an improbable story than that of the success of Dharavi’s entrepreneurs and nongovernmental workers? The UAE has raised an entire modern civilization by detouring around the notion of improbability. It has done so by being resourceful, by being canny about the use of its resources, and by entrusting the task of nation building to men and women animated by the public interest.

These are important points to keep in mind as the UAE – like other nations in the region and around the world – is buffeted by financial maelstroms. “Slumdog Millionaire” illustrates that communities cannot be written off because of the vicissitudes of their economic and social circumstances. Because of the innovative efforts of Bakul Patel and others, Dharavi has hundreds of thriving businesses that generate employment for thousands. Granted, these businesses are unlikely to become mega-corporations in the foreseeable future; but it doesn’t matter. Their very existence injects hope and revenues into the community’s social bloodstream.

Many urban sociologists wrote off Dharavi not too long ago, and some even urged that an area accommodating more than seven million people be demolished in the cause of urban renewal. But the people of Dharavi renewed themselves through a variety of measures such as micro-loans, and by electing incorruptible community leaders. Some of them now even have trading links to Abu Dhabi and Dubai and Sharjah. Who knows – one day, Dharavi may even open a “Slumdog Trading Representation Office” in Dubai or Abu Dhabi.

Of course, one cannot compare Dharavi to the UAE. But it’s all in the realm of perception. Many in the international media and some in global financial circles have already started composing obituaries, if not eulogies, for places such as Dubai.

They are ill-advised to do so. Monday’s announcement that the UAE Central Bank has subscribed to the first tranche – worth US$10 billion – of a US$20 billion bond programme launched by Dubai at once alters the economic environment of this country. It assures that Dubai will never default on its debts. It highlights, most of all, that the UAE can be counted on to devise timely solutions to pressing problems, especially when pushed up against the wall of international skepticism.

“Slumdog UAE,” anyone? You bet. This place will prevail, and it will flourish. Like the residents of Dharavi, it has the will, it has the brains, it has the spirit. And it has history on its side as the UAE rededicates itself to building the future.

(Note: Pranay Gupte is a veteran journalist, author and documentary producer. His new book, “Global Emirates: An Anthology of Tolerance and Enterprise,” will be published next month. A version of this essay appeared February 25, 2009 in The National, Abu Dhabi.)

Here's someone who believes in Dubai

2009-02-14T07:31:00.000-08:00

The following came from Dr. Minal Patwardhan:

"How can we influence international media on what they write? We should first get our local media to write about Dubai. The economic crisis has happened all over the world. All the negative issues the media is writing about Dubai, have happened elsewhere too. Why do they pick on Dubai ? Is it envy that UAE and particularly Dubai has progressed to be in the international eyes so rapidly? It is a very young country, and like youth it has a vision and the capability to reach its goals. a few ups and down should be considered as growing pains. The local media should talk to the expatriates and highlight why we prefer this country as a residence to our own. There are obvious reasons, aren't there ? No one is forcing any expatriate to stay here. If it's so bad and negative, please proceed to your home country or wherever else -- it's a individual choice! Where else has one seen such visionary leaders who go ahead with progress and not just keep discussing issues. In times like this we friends of Dubai need to give full backing to the leaders of this country, which has done so much for us and which we love."

-- Dr Minal Patwardhan

Tom Friedman writes from Bangalore

2009-02-11T00:09:00.000-08:00

(c) The New York Times February 11, 2009
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Open-Door Bailout

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Bangalore, India

Leave it to a brainy Indian to come up with the cheapest and surest way to stimulate our economy: immigration.

“All you need to do is grant visas to two million Indians, Chinese and Koreans,” said Shekhar Gupta, editor of The Indian Express newspaper. “We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate — no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans.”

While his tongue was slightly in cheek, Gupta and many other Indian business people I spoke to this week were trying to make a point that sometimes non-Americans can make best: “Dear America, please remember how you got to be the wealthiest country in history. It wasn’t through protectionism, or state-owned banks or fearing free trade. No, the formula was very simple: build this really flexible, really open economy, tolerate creative destruction so dead capital is quickly redeployed to better ideas and companies, pour into it the most diverse, smart and energetic immigrants from every corner of the world and then stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat, stir and repeat.”

While I think President Obama has been doing his best to keep the worst protectionist impulses in Congress out of his stimulus plan, the U.S. Senate unfortunately voted on Feb. 6 to restrict banks and other financial institutions that receive taxpayer bailout money from hiring high-skilled immigrants on temporary work permits known as H-1B visas.

Bad signal. In an age when attracting the first-round intellectual draft choices from around the world is the most important competitive advantage a knowledge economy can have, why would we add barriers against such brainpower — anywhere? That’s called “Old Europe.” That’s spelled: S-T-U-P-I-D.

“If you do this, it will be one of the best things for India and one of the worst for Americans, [because] Indians will be forced to innovate at home,” said Subhash B. Dhar, a member of the executive council that runs Infosys, the well-known Indian technology company that sends Indian workers to the U.S. to support a wide range of firms. “We protected our jobs for many years and look where it got us. Do you know that for an Indian company, it is still easier to do business with a company in the U.S. than it is to do business today with another Indian state?”

Each Indian state tries to protect its little economy with its own rules. America should not be trying to copy that. “Your attitude,” said Dhar, should be “ ‘whoever can make us competitive and dominant, let’s bring them in.’ ”

If there is one thing we know for absolute certain, it’s this: Protectionism did not cause the Great Depression, but it sure helped to make it “Great.” From 1929 to 1934, world trade plunged by more than 60 percent — and we were all worse off.

We live in a technological age where every study shows that the more knowledge you have as a worker and the more knowledge workers you have as an economy, the faster your incomes will rise. Therefore, the centerpiece of our stimulus, the core driving principle, should be to stimulate everything that makes us smarter and attracts more smart people to our shores. That is the best way to create good jobs.

According to research by Vivek Wadhwa, a senior research associate at the Labor and Worklife Program at Harvard Law School, more than half of Silicon Valley start-ups were founded by immigrants over the last decade. These immigrant-founded tech companies employed 450,000 workers and had sales of $52 billion in 2005, said Wadhwa in an essay published this week on BusinessWeek.com.

He also cited a recent study by William R. Kerr of Harvard Business School and William F. Lincoln of the University of Michigan that “found that in periods when H-1B visa numbers went down, so did patent applications filed by immigrants [in the U.S.]. And when H-1B visa numbers went up, patent applications followed suit.”

We don’t want to come out of this crisis with just inflation, a mountain of debt and more shovel-ready jobs. We want to — we have to — come out of it with a new Intel, Google, Microsoft and Apple. I would have loved to have seen the stimulus package include a government-funded venture capital bank to help finance all the start-ups that are clearly not starting up today — in the clean-energy space they’re dying like flies — because of a lack of liquidity from traditional lending sources.

Newsweek had an essay this week that began: “Could Silicon Valley become another Detroit?” Well, yes, it could. When the best brains in the world are on sale, you don’t shut them out. You open your doors wider. We need to attack this financial crisis with green cards not just greenbacks, and with start-ups not just bailouts. One Detroit is enough.

OPEC revenues in 2008, 2009 and 2010

2009-02-10T12:00:00.000-08:00

Based on projections from the Energy Information Administration's February 2009 Short Term Energy Outlook (STEO), members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could earn $402 billion of net oil export revenues in 2009 and $530 billion in 2010.

Last year, OPEC earned $971 billion in net oil export revenues, a 42 percent increase from 2007. Saudi Arabia earned the largest share of these earnings, $288 billion, representing 30 percent of total OPEC revenues. On a per-capita basis, OPEC net oil export earning reached $2,688 in 2008, a 40 percent increase from 2007.

Surprising article on Dubai by Germaine Greer

2009-02-09T07:00:00.001-08:00

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

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 from desalination, which means that it is the most expensive water in the world. Much of that water is being used to create a garden in the desert. All across the sprawling conurbation, labourers can be seen planting out millions, possibly billions, of bedding plants, into sand banks perpetually moistened by drip irrigation. Dubai has been built on the premise that nothing succeeds like excess.

After years of popping in and out of Dubai airport on my way to and from Australia, this time I deliberately managed my travel itinerary so that I had a long layover, four hours of which I spent on the open top of a double-decker bus that wandered from Deira City Centre through the Wafi Mall, round the World Trade Centre, down to the Jumeira Beach Road and past Dubai World, before doubling back past the Mall of the Emirates and downtown Dubai.

Only 6% of Dubai's revenue comes from oil; the city makes most of its money out of inventing, creating, building and trading real estate. Hence Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum's hubristic notion of building an archipelago out of sand dredged from the Persian Gulf, 300 islets arranged in a resemblance of the world map, and calling it Dubai World. Thousands of workers trucked in from poor countries constructed the patches of exposed sand, and the infrastructure that furnishes each with water and power. The islets have since sold for anything between US$15m and $250m apiece. It seems doubtful now that the countries and corporations that have bought into the scheme will have the resources to develop their patches of sand into themed resorts, which might be as well. We can only hope that the Irish company Larionovo, owners of the Ireland islet, never get to build their planned replica of the Giants' Causeway.

What I particularly wanted to see was the tallest building in the world, Burj Dubai, which topped out at 2,684ft on 17 January. As the bus trundled past, I hung out from under the sun canopy, peering up at this needle stuck in the buttock of the Almighty, and I noticed with a thrill of something like terror that there were cranes still working on the top of it, half a mile up in the air, supposing there was any air up there. Burj Dubai was originally meant to be entirely residential; when I saw it, it was entirely empty. The Armani residences are apparently selling at US$3,500 per sq ft and office space for rather more, but I had an eerie feeling no one would ever live there. Soaring up from that tongue of sand, with the Empty Quarter stretching away to the south, Burj Dubai seemed outrageously megalomaniacal, and defiantly worldly, a new Tower of Babel. The developer, Emaar, has lost 75% of its value on the Dubai stock exchange.

While Burj Dubai is a pretty conservative building, Burj al Arab, the huge sail-like luxury hotel built on the lines of an Arab dhow, is entirely innovative. The structure hangs from a steel exoskeleton. From the outside it is unbelievably elegant, light and clean (the interior is anything but). In afterthought, the reference to the tiny dhow seems somehow mocking. The only dhows on Dubai Creek these days take tourists on one-hour pleasure cruises. Though in Dubai you are surrounded by the poor, who labour on every building site, clean the streets and the houses, and wait on the children, they are as invisible as the plumbing. Here, there is no subsistence; here there is only shopping.

Crassest of all the real estate initiatives are the three Palms, off-shore developments of 16 branches emerging from a central trunk, enclosed within a circular breakwater, each intended to house hotels, villas, apartments, marinas, theme parks, sports facilities, and malls. At Palm Jumeira, still largely undeveloped, the water between the branches is stagnating and algae is forming along the man-made beachfront. How this will affect the dolphins that are shipped from the South Pacific to amuse the guests at the Hotel Atlantis, who pay $75 to swim with them, is anybody's guess.

In December, Nakheel, developer of the Palms, cut 15% of its workforce. Dubai's stock market has lost 70% of its value. Half of the 100 Dubai estate agents interviewed for the Christian Science Monitor in December said they had not sold a property in the previous month. Some of the unfinished buildings I saw will never be finished. Many should never have been started. For all its extravagant novelties and its masses of petunias, Dubai is a city with neither charm nor character.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

Heartily recommend Namita Devidayal's "The Music Room"

2009-02-04T20:56:00.000-08:00

Here's the Kirkus review:

"A student’s loving tribute to her musical guru"
THE MUSIC ROOM: A Memoir by Namita Devidayal

Growing up in an affluent Bombay family, Devidayal participated in an increasingly Westernized lifestyle. Nonetheless, her mother insisted she must learn to sing Indian classical music from the best teacher available. At age ten she met Dhondutai, a musical disciple of the great singer Alladiya Khan. Dhondutai’s training was rigorous; she instructed Devidayal to start out singing just a single note for weeks, progressing with painstaking slowness through one raga, or musical mode, at a time. Their relationship enfolded the girl in a priceless tradition, which involved knowledge passed down from teacher to student over centuries. In addition to melodies and rhythms, Devidayal absorbed the stories and legends of an illustrious but neglected heritage. Although the physical location of the music room changed a few times, the sacred space that Dhondutai created within and around their lessons remained constant. The author paints herself in the background of this memoir, rendering her teacher’s story in full color. She balances narrative time between the present and Dhondutai’s past, presumably as reported during years of conversation. She seeks to unfold the mystery of why Dhondutai never attained the popular success that seemed to be promised by superlative talent and well-connected teachers, including the fiery diva Kesarbai Kerkar. Devidayal also relates the history of Indian classical music, a blend of Muslim and Hindu influences, and charts the changing roles of female performers, long considered courtesans and unfit for proper society. She pays homage to the precious knowledge with which she was entrusted, not only of the subtle and powerful ragas, but of the art form’s luminaries and their intimate life stories.

Quietly passionate, edifying and inspiring.

India’s eager young readers | csmonitor.com

2009-02-03T21:02:00.001-08:00

India’s eager young readers | csmonitor.com

Posted using ShareThis

Predictions and Speculations for 2009

2009-01-02T20:37:00.000-08:00

1. Barack Obama will take major steps toward fixing the US economy. But very hard times still lie ahead.

2. Shashi Tharoor will replace Pranab Mukherjee as India's foreign minister.

3. If the Congress wins the national elections in March or April, Indian National Congress Party president Sonia Gandhi will choose Shashi Tharoor as the prime minister.

4. Rahul Singh will get married.

5. Despite the global financial turmoil, the United Arab Emirates will do all right.

Militant Attacks In Mumbai and Their Consequences / By George Friedman

2008-12-01T23:46:00.000-08:00

By George Friedman

Last Wednesday evening, a group of Islamist operatives carried out a complex terror operation in the Indian city of Mumbai. The attack was not complex because of the weapons used or its size, but in the apparent training, multiple methods of approaching the city and excellent operational security and discipline in the final phases of the operation, when the last remaining attackers held out in the Taj Mahal hotel for several days. The operational goal of the attack clearly was to cause as many casualties as possible, particularly among Jews and well-to-do guests of five-star hotels. But attacks on various other targets, from railroad stations to hospitals, indicate that the more general purpose was to spread terror in a major Indian city.

While it is not clear precisely who carried out the Mumbai attack, two separate units apparently were involved. One group, possibly consisting of Indian Muslims, was established in Mumbai ahead of the attacks. The second group appears to have just arrived. It traveled via ship from Karachi, Pakistan, later hijacked a small Indian vessel to get past Indian coastal patrols, and ultimately landed near Mumbai.

Extensive preparations apparently had been made, including surveillance of the targets. So while the precise number of attackers remains unclear, the attack clearly was well-planned and well-executed.

Evidence and logic suggest that radical Pakistani Islamists carried out the attack. These groups have a highly complex and deliberately amorphous structure. Rather than being centrally controlled, ad hoc teams are created with links to one or more groups. Conceivably, they might have lacked links to any group, but this is hard to believe. Too much planning and training were involved in this attack for it to have been conceived by a bunch of guys in a garage. While precisely which radical Pakistani Islamist group or groups were involved is unknown, the Mumbai attack appears to have originated in Pakistan. It could have been linked to al Qaeda prime or its various franchises and/or to Kashmiri insurgents.

More important than the question of the exact group that carried out the attack, however, is the attackers’ strategic end. There is a tendency to regard terror attacks as ends in themselves, carried out simply for the sake of spreading terror. In the highly politicized atmosphere of Pakistan’s radical Islamist factions, however, terror frequently has a more sophisticated and strategic purpose. Whoever invested the time and took the risk in organizing this attack had a reason to do so. Let’s work backward to that reason by examining the logical outcomes following this attack.

An End to New Delhi’s Restraint

The most striking aspect of the Mumbai attack is the challenge it presents to the Indian government — a challenge almost impossible for New Delhi to ignore. A December 2001 Islamist attack on the Indian parliament triggered an intense confrontation between India and Pakistan. Since then, New Delhi has not responded in a dramatic fashion to numerous Islamist attacks against India that were traceable to Pakistan. The Mumbai attack, by contrast, aimed to force a response from New Delhi by being so grievous that any Indian government showing only a muted reaction to it would fall.

India’s restrained response to Islamist attacks (even those originating in Pakistan) in recent years has come about because New Delhi has understood that, for a host of reasons, Islamabad has been unable to control radical Pakistani Islamist groups. India did not want war with Pakistan; it felt it had more important issues to deal with. New Delhi therefore accepted Islamabad’s assurances that Pakistan would do its best to curb terror attacks, and after suitable posturing, allowed tensions originating from Islamist attacks to pass.

This time, however, the attackers struck in such a way that New Delhi couldn’t allow the incident to pass. As one might expect, public opinion in India is shifting from stunned to furious. India’s Congress party-led government is politically weak and nearing the end of its life span. It lacks the political power to ignore the attack, even if it were inclined to do so. If it ignored the attack, it would fall, and a more intensely nationalist government would take its place. It is therefore very difficult to imagine circumstances under which the Indians could respond to this attack in the same manner they have to recent Islamist attacks.

What the Indians actually will do is not clear. In 2001-2002, New Delhi responded to the attack on the Indian parliament by moving forces close to the Pakistani border and the Line of Control that separates Indian- and Pakistani-controlled Kashmir, engaging in artillery duels along the front, and bringing its nuclear forces to a high level of alert. The Pakistanis made a similar response. Whether India ever actually intended to attack Pakistan remains unclear, but either way, New Delhi created an intense crisis in Pakistan.

The U.S. and the Indo-Pakistani Crisis

The United States used this crisis for its own ends. Having just completed the first phase of its campaign in Afghanistan, Washington was intensely pressuring Pakistan’s then-Musharraf government to expand cooperation with the United States; purge its intelligence organization, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), of radical Islamists; and crack down on al Qaeda and the Taliban in the Afghan-Pakistani border region. Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had been reluctant to cooperate with Washington, as doing so inevitably would spark a massive domestic backlash against his government.

The crisis with India produced an opening for the United States. Eager to get India to stand down from the crisis, the Pakistanis looked to the Americans to mediate. And the price for U.S. mediation was increased cooperation from Pakistan with the United States. The Indians, not eager for war, backed down from the crisis after guarantees that Islamabad would impose stronger controls on Islamist groups in Kashmir.

In 2001-2002, the Indo-Pakistani crisis played into American hands. In 2008, the new Indo-Pakistani crisis might play differently. The United States recently has demanded increased Pakistani cooperation along the Afghan border. Meanwhile, President-elect Barack Obama has stated his intention to focus on Afghanistan and pressure the Pakistanis.

Therefore, one of Islamabad’s first responses to the new Indo-Pakistani crisis was to announce that if the Indians increased their forces along Pakistan’s eastern border, Pakistan would be forced to withdraw 100,000 troops from its western border with Afghanistan. In other words, threats from India would cause Pakistan to dramatically reduce its cooperation with the United States in the Afghan war. The Indian foreign minister is flying to the United States to meet with Obama; obviously, this matter will be discussed among others.

We expect the United States to pressure India not to create a crisis, in order to avoid this outcome. As we have said, the problem is that it is unclear whether politically the Indians can afford restraint. At the very least, New Delhi must demand that the Pakistani government take steps to make the ISI and Pakistan’s other internal security apparatus more effective. Even if the Indians concede that there was no ISI involvement in the attack, they will argue that the ISI is incapable of stopping such attacks. They will demand a purge and reform of the ISI as a sign of Pakistani commitment. Barring that, New Delhi will move troops to the Indo-Pakistani frontier to intimidate Pakistan and placate Indian public opinion.

Dilemmas for Islamabad, New Delhi and Washington

At that point, Islamabad will have a serious problem. The Pakistani government is even weaker than the Indian government. Pakistan’s civilian regime does not control the Pakistani military, and therefore does not control the ISI. The civilians can’t decide to transform Pakistani security, and the military is not inclined to make this transformation. (Pakistan’s military has had ample opportunity to do so if it wished.)

Pakistan faces the challenge, just one among many, that its civilian and even military leadership lack the ability to reach deep into the ISI and security services to transform them. In some ways, these agencies operate under their own rules. Add to this the reality that the ISI and security forces — even if they are acting more assertively, as Islamabad claims — are demonstrably incapable of controlling radical Islamists in Pakistan. If they were capable, the attack on Mumbai would have been thwarted in Pakistan. The simple reality is that in Pakistan’s case, the will to make this transformation does not seem to be present, and even if it were, the ability to suppress terror attacks isn’t there.

The United States might well want to limit New Delhi’s response. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is on her way to India to discuss just this. But the politics of India’s situation make it unlikely that the Indians can do anything more than listen. It is more than simply a political issue for New Delhi; the Indians have no reason to believe that the Mumbai operation was one of a kind. Further operations like the Mumbai attack might well be planned. Unless the Pakistanis shift their posture inside Pakistan, India has no way of knowing whether other such attacks can be stymied. The Indians will be sympathetic to Washington’s plight in Afghanistan and the need to keep Pakistani troops at the Afghan border. But New Delhi will need something that the Americans — and in fact the Pakistanis — can’t deliver: a guarantee that there will be no more attacks like this one.

The Indian government cannot chance inaction. It probably would fall if it did. Moreover, in the event of inactivity and another attack, Indian public opinion probably will swing to an uncontrollable extreme. If an attack takes place but India has moved toward crisis posture with Pakistan, at least no one can argue that the Indian government remained passive in the face of threats to national security. Therefore, India is likely to refuse American requests for restraint.

It is possible that New Delhi will make a radical proposal to Rice, however. Given that the Pakistani government is incapable of exercising control in its own country, and given that Pakistan now represents a threat to both U.S. and Indian national security, the Indians might suggest a joint operation with the Americans against Pakistan.

What that joint operation might entail is uncertain, but regardless, this is something that Rice would reject out of hand and that Obama would reject in January 2009. Pakistan has a huge population and nuclear weapons, and the last thing Bush or Obama wants is to practice nation-building in Pakistan. The Indians, of course, will anticipate this response. The truth is that New Delhi itself does not want to engage deep in Pakistan to strike at militant training camps and other Islamist sites. That would be a nightmare. But if Rice shows up with a request for Indian restraint and no concrete proposal — or willingness to entertain a proposal — for solving the Pakistani problem, India will be able to refuse on the grounds that the Americans are asking India to absorb a risk (more Mumbai-style attacks) without the United States’ willingness to share in the risk.

Setting the Stage for a New Indo-Pakistani Confrontation

That will set the stage for another Indo-Pakistani confrontation. India will push forces forward all along the Indo-Pakistani frontier, move its nuclear forces to an alert level, begin shelling Pakistan, and perhaps — given the seriousness of the situation — attack short distances into Pakistan and even carry out airstrikes deep in Pakistan. India will demand greater transparency for New Delhi in Pakistani intelligence operations. The Indians will not want to occupy Pakistan; they will want to occupy Pakistan’s security apparatus.

Naturally, the Pakistanis will refuse that. There is no way they can give India, their main adversary, insight into Pakistani intelligence operations. But without that access, India has no reason to trust Pakistan. This will leave the Indians in an odd position: They will be in a near-war posture, but will have made no demands of Pakistan that Islamabad can reasonably deliver and that would benefit India. In one sense, India will be gesturing. In another sense, India will be trapped by making a gesture on which Pakistan cannot deliver. The situation thus could get out of hand.

In the meantime, the Pakistanis certainly will withdraw forces from western Pakistan and deploy them in eastern Pakistan. That will mean that one leg of the Petraeus and Obama plans would collapse. Washington’s expectation of greater Pakistani cooperation along the Afghan border will disappear along with the troops. This will free the Taliban from whatever limits the Pakistani army had placed on it. The Taliban’s ability to fight would increase, while the motivation for any of the Taliban to enter talks — as Afghan President Hamid Karzai has suggested — would decline. U.S. forces, already stretched to the limit, would face an increasingly difficult situation, while pressure on al Qaeda in the tribal areas would decrease.

Now, step back and consider the situation the Mumbai attackers have created. First, the Indian government faces an internal political crisis driving it toward a confrontation it didn’t plan on. Second, the minimum Pakistani response to a renewed Indo-Pakistani crisis will be withdrawing forces from western Pakistan, thereby strengthening the Taliban and securing al Qaeda. Third, sufficient pressure on Pakistan’s civilian government could cause it to collapse, opening the door to a military-Islamist government — or it could see Pakistan collapse into chaos, giving Islamists security in various regions and an opportunity to reshape Pakistan. Finally, the United States’ situation in Afghanistan has now become enormously more complex.

By staging an attack the Indian government can’t ignore, the Mumbai attackers have set in motion an existential crisis for Pakistan. The reality of Pakistan cannot be transformed, trapped as the country is between the United States and India. Almost every evolution from this point forward benefits Islamists. Strategically, the attack on Mumbai was a precise blow struck to achieve uncertain but favorable political outcomes for the Islamists.

Rice’s trip to India now becomes the crucial next step. She wants Indian restraint. She does not want the western Pakistani border to collapse. But she cannot guarantee what India must have: assurance of no further terror attacks on India originating in Pakistan. Without that, India must do something. No Indian government could survive without some kind of action. So it is up to Rice, in one of her last acts as secretary of state, to come up with a miraculous solution to head off a final, catastrophic crisis for the Bush administration — and a defining first crisis for the new Obama administration. Former U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once said that the enemy gets a vote. The Islamists cast their ballot in Mumbai.

(This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com)

Regional Implications Of The Mumbai Drama

2008-12-01T13:43:00.000-08:00

By Pranay Gupte

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, tens of thousands of tourists who’d made plans to travel to the 61-year-old nation with a 5,000-year-old civilization are likely to change their itinerary. Already, travel agencies worldwide are reporting a cascade of cancelations. Depending on whose statistics you choose to believe, India gets about five million tourists annually; that figure almost surely includes non-resident Indians – the so-called NRIs, who constitute the global Indian Diaspora of nearly 20 million mostly affluent people.

Regardless of the ethnicity of that traffic, a formidable portion comes from the UAE, where there are an estimate 2.5 million people of Indian or Pakistani origin. The traffic from the UAE and the other five countries of the Gulf contributes mightily to India’s travel-and-tourism industry. But most Gulf-based Indians don’t stay in the 1,980 hotels that can cost upward of $300 a night; they either have their own homes, or they are put up by relatives peppered around the country’s 28 states and seven federal territories.

So the occupancy rate of 70 percent in the 109,000 rooms at Indian hotels – of which 27 percent are categorized internationally as five-star, 7.5 percent as four-star, and 22 percent as three-star – is going to be dramatically affected, at least in the immediate future. Contributing to the decline in tourist traffic will be a downswing in business traffic, as foreign dealmakers and entrepreneurs shy away – understandably so in light of last week’s events – from the possibility of suddenly finding themselves hostages.

Moreover, the Taj Hotel and the Oberoi Group’s Trident Hotel in Mumbai are likely to be shuttered for at least a year in order to repair the damage from the terrorist assaults. With a severe shortage of top-quality hotels in India’s commercial and entertainment capital, these closures mean that foreign businessmen will need to find alternative lodgings. But where?

The slippage in tourist and business traffic is certain to be reflected in shrinkage of foreign direct investment in India. Again, depending on whose statistics you believe, India received nearly $20 billion in FDI so far this year. (My own anecdotal calculus suggests about half that figure in FDI.) In addition, NRIs repatriated around $22 billion, about 50 percent of it coming from the UAE.

The latter sum may not shrivel. But a downward trend in FDI was already evident well before the terrorism of last week. This was on account of poor domestic infrastructure, corruption, mismanagement, and an inability of the Indian system to properly absorb foreign investment to grow the economy by creating much-needed jobs in manufacturing and in agro-businesses.

Coupled with a global recession – albeit one from which Indian officials puzzlingly claim immunity, for the most part – it is all but inevitable that India’s annual growth rate of around 9 percent will be adversely affected.

Here, then, is an entirely plausible scenario: India-bound tourist traffic from non-Gulf regions may well be detoured to the UAE. This isn’t to imply that the UAE is encouraging such diversion of tourist traffic from India, a country with whom the emirates have historically enjoyed strong trade and cultural ties. But UAE carriers such as Emirates Airline and Etihad Airways are in the unusual position of finding themselves with a strong natural constituency – Indians – whose visits to their homeland will not be cut back; and they may see an increase in tourist traffic from the United States and Europe, sources of lucrative supply of passengers.

At the same time, the UAE may well find itself receiving more FDI as foreign investors display some timidity toward India, at least in the short run. Investors are typically heartened by the modern infrastructure in the emirates, the relative ease with which new businesses can be established, and the enduring openness of Emiratis to trading with the outside world.

A report by Barclays Wealth, a part of the UK's Barclays Group, that was prepared before the current global financial crisis suggested that the UAE already seemed to be viewed with increasing favor by foreign investors. Total foreign direct investment inflow into the UAE is expected to nearly double from $59.2 billion in 2007 to $108 billion in 2011, the report said. The analysis was based on semi-official data, as the UAE does not ordinarily publish official FDI figures, according toAMEInfo, the much-trusted Dubai-based Web site. In contrast, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) puts FDI inflows into the UAE at $12 billion in 2005 accounting for about 60 percent of total inflows into the Gulf that year.

It would be foolhardy to end this essay by leaving the impression that, however implicitly, the UAE might savor India’s anguish, both economic and societal, because it would somehow be salutary for the emirates. The UAE government, and, in particular, its vice president and prime minister, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum – who is also ruler of Dubai – have offered outreach to Mumbai at this time of shock and grief.

It would be more appropriate to expect that the UAE’s rulers will want to expand trade and commercial relations with India, especially at such a traumatic time. UAE investors and transportation institutions might also want to look more closely at how to revive India’s tourism sectors. If there’s an UAE ethos that the world understands, it is that Emiratis have not only thick wallets, they have very large hearts.

This is a time to open those wallets; this is a time to feel India’s pain. And this is certainly the time to build on those relationships that have deeply enriched both cultures.