Category: Dubai
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Expo 2020 Dubai: Organisers Expect A Stronger Event In 2021
Expo 2020 Dubai and its 190-plus participating countries have re-affirmed commitment to working together to achieve shared goals and making strong progress with preparations for the global event, which will begin on 1 October 2021. Organisers, members of the Expo 2020 Dubai Higher Committee and BIE representatives, plus participants, commercial partners and government officials from…
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TASWEEK eyeing India’s ‘smart cities’
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Dubai based TASWEEK Real Estate Development and Marketing, has announced that it is exploring the possibility of engaging in ‘smart city’ projects in India in collaboration with local partner MAMS Holdings Group, reports Asian Lite one of the leading newspapers in UK read by British Asians. This is in support of Indian Prime Minister Narendra…
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Yusuffali praises Modi’s 2015 budget
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“Instead of offering soaps, the budget shows maturity of a growing nation which aims to become the next global super power,” Yusuffali, the winner of Prvasi Bharatiya Puraskar, told Anasudhin Azeez Prominent NRI businessman MA Yusuffali, the richest Indian in the Gulf, praised 2015 budget presented by Finance Minister Arun Jailtley and said the budget will…
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Modiji wasted 8 months in power!
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We gave Modi 8 months to deliver; we received nothing but grand theatrics, swept streets but Modi government showed neither leadership, nor vision for change…writes Sanyia Kirpalani Congratulations Aam Aadmi, you have won the trust of the capital city of India. A landslide victory of 67 seats (vs.the duck of Congress and the apologetic 2…
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Indians prepare to celebrate UAE National Day
Indian expatriates residing across United Arab Emirates (UAE) are set to celebrate the 43rd UAE National Day Dec 2. The UAE celebrates its National Day Dec 2, which marks the unification of the seven emirates and the founding of the country in 1971 under Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, the first president. Various Indian…
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Prince Harry to play polo in Abu Dhabi
The Sentebale Polo Cup presented by Royal Salute World Polo is set to take place for the first time in Ghantoot Racing and Polo Club, Abu Dhabi, today. The event will see Prince Harry lead out the Sentebale Huntsman team alongside former England captain and Royal Salute Polo Ambassador Malcolm Borwick. Amongst the guests attending…
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Sushma pushes Make in India in the UAE
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India’s External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj sought investment from foreign and Indian entrepreneurs in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), highlighting her government’s “clear policies to facilitate business environment, transparency and speed” to “make India an investment and manufacturing destination”. “Our focus is growth with good governance and transparency with an eye on manufacturing, infrastructure and trade,”…
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MY DIWALI DELIGHT
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Happy Diwali to all readers of Asian Lite ….BIKRAM VOHRA I have received 23 I-cards or E-cards on the net with diyas in them and you’ll be surprised how quickly the novelty of exulting over the same flickering electronic flame wears off. After you have ‘oohed’ and ‘aahed’ over the first two or three and…
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I AM NOT GOING ANYWHERE
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Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Tell you how rumours start. I was asked by an editor friend a piece on whom and what I would miss in the Gulf if I were to leave seeing as how I had completed 30 years in the country. The incisve name names piece was duly published and some…
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Lulu inks deal with East India Company
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Abu Dhabi-based LuLu Group signs a multi-million deal with the East India Company….reports Kaliph Anaz London has witnessed the beginning of a new business partnership. Godfather of Arabian retail sector signed a deal with Patron Saint of global trade – the East India Company at a glittering ceremony held at prestigious Mandarin Hotel in London.…
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Biden apologises to UAE
US Vice President Joe Biden has apologised to Turkey and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for comments made at a conference wherein he suggested that the two nations had contributed to arming and financing terrorists in Syria. The White House Monday said Biden clarified his comments over the weekend via telephone calls he made to…
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Indian envoy appeals to expats
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Send aid for J&K through PM Relief Fund As the devastating floods ravage India’s Jammu and Kashmir state, the Indian mission in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has urged expatriates here to refrain from sending relief materials due to logistical issues and instead contribute to the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund. “Our suggestion is that they…
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Holy Gaga rocks Dubai
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The eccentric pop star Lady Gaga buried her wild past to deliver a subdued performance at Dubai. This is her first-ever performance in the Arab world. “They used to tell me I was crazy, I would never come to the Middle East. They were wrong, they were the judgmental ones,” Gaga told her legions of fans…
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THE SAGA OF THE 6 STAR SHAVING CREAM
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Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Let me hear it from all you folks who are globetrotters and keep putting your profiles on Facebook showing yourselves in airport lounges and reclining in first class cabins. Clearly, you stay in swank 6 star hotels. So tell me, their rooms have these amenities, right? and they are all…
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WHY THE BROWN IS THE NEW BLACK?
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Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Back in 2006, Joe Biden, then a Senate candidate ran into trouble for a remark that “you cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent.” Gaffe-prone Biden got away by explaining that it wasn’t a racial slur but “was meant as a…
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Indian Uni to honour Sharjah Sheikh
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The Aligarh Muslim University will honour distinguished Muslims at its convocation for which Emir of Sharjah, Sultan Bin Mohamed Al-Qasimi, has been invited to deliver the convocation address. The emir will also be the chief guest at the Sir Syed Day, it was decided at a meeting of varsity officials presided over by Vice Chancellor,…
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SPLIT SONG by Bikram Vohra
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So I braille through the FB search thingee and find out an old friend’s address and phone number and I call him and he answers and I say, yo, voices from the past, old son, three guesses who it is and he can’t so I give my name and he shrieks with joy (well, not…
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WHY ARE WE SCARED OF BEING IN OUR OWN COMPANY
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Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Oops, I have just had a thought. Not one of those cosmic, celestially illuminating, lightning strikes the empire thoughts but one of those ‘what do you know’ variety where something vaguely hits you and it has been there for years tucked away in the recesses of the mind except you…
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Brits, Indians shops Dubai property
Indian, British and Pakistanis ranked top three foreign investors in Dubai’s real estate market with a combined share of Dh20.83 billion for 9,739 transactions in the first half of the year, according to the Dubai Land Department. The DLD’s list included the amount of real estate transactions conducted by foreign nationals, with investors from India,…
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DAMN WE EAT BADLY
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Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Have you ever made observations that not only get you into trouble but also earn you the undying wrath of people who hear you. Like I was at a few airports earlier this week waiting for planes with that stoic sense of surrender when I said the human race is…
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THE LADY AND THE LOST LENS
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Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra On a flight recently, I chanced to sit near a crusty old man reading a novel and a lady of some thirty-five years, who had evidently come straight from a shopping spree to the airport and charmed her way past security with half a dozen duty free bags, a carry-all…
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The risk of seeking remedy on Internet
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Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra Most of us are compu-Doctors. We feel so good when we are unwell. To compound this felony we have, thanks to the Net become experts. I turned into a compudoc about three years ago and am now convinced that I have the symptoms of at least 37 ailments of the exotic…
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UAE expats to abide Sharia Law
The Foreign Office has warned expatriates living in the United Arab Emirates they could face Sharia courts in divorce or child custody cases, BBC reported. UAE personal status law provides expatriates, even if they are not Muslim, with the right to have their case heard under the Islamic law. It comes after a British mother lost…
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DID YOU TAKE THE RIGHT ROAD?
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Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra It doesn’t matter how wealthy, healthy, successful or on top of the heap you are. In all our lives there was one turning we did not take, one that would have changed our lives completely. I don’t think there is anyone who hasn’t come to that crossroad and made that…
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THE GREEK JUSTICE
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It sounds like Greek to you but it doesn’t sound like that to the Greeks. To them this is justice. Never have the scales of justice been so blindsided as they were yesterday when a Greek court set free four countrymen who were accused of shooting (with real guns) 28 Bangladeshi workers who were protesting…
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THE AFTER PARTY AFTERMATH
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra See that car. At the STOP light. Next to yours. With the man and the woman in it. She is leaning to the left. He to the right like disjointed windshield wipers. They are a husband and wife and they are returning from a party. You can see the ice…
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Cotton-wool Children
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra This is the world we live in. A woman sent her 7-year-old son to the nearby park to play and because he was ‘unsupervised’ adults at the park called the police and the mother has been arrested in the USA. She is fighting back and saying, “We pay enough taxes…
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Daily Dose – INTIMIDATED
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DAILY DOSE by Bikram Vohra I am so totally intimidated by certain things. Cutlery and sit down dinners. Five star hotel staff who have that supercilious sneer. Expensive stores like you know where they sell their cheapest watch for $5000. A gold shop because they know you are the disco necklace type what are you…
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PEACE IN PLASTER
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra This is just the sort of stuff nobody reads because nobody wants to face their role (or complete lack of it) in doing nothing to make the world a better place…ergo ,the satire sails into the distant horizon unnoticed and unsung. Went visit Peace in the ICU. He was all…
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WHEN TV FEEDS INDIA’S FOOLS
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra I have come to a conclusion. Indian TV provides a platform for crackpots and encourages them to bask in 15 minutes of fame, however sour the limelight. Take that BJP twit in Telengana, Dr K.Laxman who made some absurd remarks about Sania Mirza being a Pakistani daughter in law and,…
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DON’T BLAME THE WIFE
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra Why is it when a young man marries a woman and stops stepping up to the plate as a son and brother everyone in the family blames the minted wife. A distant relative of mine has done the dirty to his aging parents and being a complete pratt which is…
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DOWN WITH ENGLISH!
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra Now that we have this hostility to English as a language in India, soon, very soon, English will be a mark against you socially and we will explode our bridges over the rivers of the world and isolate ourselves because, like it or not, English as we have reworked it…
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HEY, WHERE ARE THERE?
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra Every now and then I get a little bit angry. But it is not because of an eclipse of the heart. More because I feel like that guy in the boat who was left stranded midstream. That is what Indian media does, they leave you grasping for oars to get…
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WAIT TILL DAD GETS HOME
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra When we were kids and we misbehaved my Mum would say, wait till your father gets home. It was like the biggest threat going, the sharpest knife in the toolbox and we would then sit in delicious dread waiting for the Man to come home and set us right.It counted.…
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FRIGHTFUL STUFF
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra So I am catching up with my email having left it all unplugged these past four days and there is the usual dross and spam and I notice that my old friend Joanna who wants to meet me terribly has been joined by Esmerelda and Ibo, both of whom share…
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BACK TO NORMAL…WELL, ALMOST
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra You know the part about being ill is that you get well and then all the sympathy you have been garnering disappears like a mist. Zip, gone. Misery is addictive. You were wallowing in it. Everyone was at your beck and call. They asked you what you felt like eating.…
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HOW TO STEM SPORTS DEPRESSION?
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra All this hype about sports has a downside. For the past three months it has been running our lives, isolating the men and some of the women, the whole texture of normal family life disrupted, even socializing predicated to the timing. IPL. Wimbledon. The World Cup. Suddenly, it is all…
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FAMILY WARS – Indian Style
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Daily Dose BY BIKRAM VOHRA Have you noticed how we spend most of our children’s early years teaching them to walk and talk and then the rest of it telling them to shut up and sit down. In thousands of home these wars are fought every day. Why? Why what? Why should I sit down.…
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FINDING NAMO – An Open Letter to Modi
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Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra I remember the good old days in Ahmedabad when I was editor of Indian Express and Narendra Modi was a fledgling politician and we were old buddies and we would meet and chew the fat and eat dhoklas and bhajiyas and go to the club to play tennis and all…
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MIDDLE AGED SWINGER
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra Have you noticed how when wives say I don’t want to upset you to their husbands that is precisely what they intend to do. I don’t want to upset you, says my wife, but I have something to say. Go ahead, I say, I won’t be upset. You have become…
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TROUBLE IN THE TOILET
DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra Most men have five or six items in their bathrooms. Toothbrush, toothpaste, shaving foam, a razor and a ragged towel and maybe a talc and a cologne. These could all fit into a travel bag. The stuff women have could fit into a tent and still there’d be some sans…
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THE BIG SLEEP OH DON’T BE FATUOUS
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DAILY DOSE BY Bikram Vohra You’d think it was the betrayal of the state, that India had been sabotaged because Rahul Gandhi closed his eyes for 22 seconds during the price line debate in parliament. The way the TV channels have blasted into him you’d think he’d led an attack on the house. Arnab Goswami,…
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THE GREAT INDIAN PROBLEM IS US
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra Everyone in India is either a philosopher, a mentor, a critic, a cynic or an opinionated twit. The last come on TV in panels where they are royally screwed over by the anchor or so called mediator and yet they keep on coming and making fools of themselves and being…
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WHAT A COWARDLY THING
DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra So I am reading this book in which the hero is being given a lie detector test before he joins the FBI or the CIA and the question is: have you ever been a coward? And I think to myself, hmmm, interesting, have I ever been one? Not in the…
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MIXING WITH THE MONEY MANDARINS
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DAILY DOSE BY Bikram Vohra I wasn’t very good at money matters when I was a youngster. And I wasn’t very good with money matters when I was middle aged. Now, as I totter into antiquity I am still not very good with money matters. Guess I am constant. In fact, I was well into…
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MEMSAHIBS AND MANNERS
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It is one of those ‘we live abroad so when we visit we notice it’ things for which us NRIs get a lot of stick. But some things do sort of hit us differently. Like whenever I come home to Delhi I am appalled at the way people speak to domestic help, part time, full…
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NOT READY FOR DEPARTURE
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra So we are in the holding area and the boarding for the flight is announced and the disembodied voice says rows 15 to 30 please board first, the rest please await the next announcement.Naturally, this is ignored. What part of that do passengers fail to understand? It is 15 to…
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Masala Library arrives in Dubai
Venkatachari Jagannathan says Masala Library is opening branches in Dubai, London and New York Come August and Masala Library by Jiggs Kalra, the legendary Indian foodie’s maiden foray overseas, is set to begin commercial operations at Dubai’s Radisson Royal Hotel, a top company official said. It’ll serve up pan-Indian food with an Arabic twist. Zorawar Kalra,…
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DON’T GET EVEN, GET SMART
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DAILY DOSE By Bikram Vohra A friend of mine wants revenge. Someone he trusted has done the dirty on him and he is hoping mad because he feels cheated, betrayed, let down and that is just for starters. Told him, waste of time and energy, enjoy the scenarios but don’t carry them out. Why not,…
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HEAVY STUFF FOR A MONDAY MORNING
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Daily Dose by Bikram Vohra “Leave the ones going away from the wicket,’ said this famous cricketer, “And just block the ones that are coming on the stumps.” Every now and again he would repeat the advisory. Don’t knock it till you have tried it. Not just good advice for cricket but also for life.…