DEWA recently got SAP implemented and this shift of systems actually made it difficult for them to raise bills for monthly consumption as regular practice in Dubai. The bills eventually arrived with 38 days billing cycle.

The billing system in DEWA now works on consumption slabs with energy conservation making your wallets heavier on regular basis while more consumption means you pay more. Here is the catch now, with 38 days billing cycle as against 30-31 days for most users consumptions have jumped one slap higher (for electricity 20fils/kWh to 24fils/kWh; 24 -> 28; 28 -> 33).

Logically speaking DEWA should have proportioned this consumption figures of 38 days to 30-31 days cycle as fair practice. Instead they billed consumers at 38 days and this has resulted in nett extra of 1-12% for consumers. As simple for me it increased by 2% as compared to regular billing cycle consumption pattern.

Are consumers to pay for system upgrade of DEWA through such routes?

Have you noticed in recent times that mobile calls drop too frequently, landlines give humming and internet lines keep blinking on connectivity? Have you tried shifting your internet, land line connection with Etisalat with your shift of house?

I have been eagerly waiting for last 18 days for internal transfer of my land line. Regular follow ups with Etisalat call center 101 bring me standard answer “it is in progress”. The executive on other side can’t answer what it means and when it would be cleared. Time frames indicated are “as soon as possible”.

All this at the cost of shifting charges, wastage of money while calling from mobile to land lines within city (land line to land line within city is free otherwise).

When we show grudge against Etisalat inefficiency and monopolistic practices, complaint is recorded and a no. is given but without any actions until few more follow ups are done by customer against the complaint no. too. In my recent experience “which is still in progress”, even regular follow ups and complaints are falling on deaf ears.

I remember this used to happen in India about 20 years back; is UAE heading towards 2 decade old India in customer orientation and service?

It is almost 6 months now swine flu made its presence felt in American continent first. The spread of virus was global within short span of time due to increased world air travel. WHO took little time to declare it pandemic when spread was non-controllable. The virus has been mutating all along and vaccination is still not in sight. Albeit some world pharma majors have been working relentlessly to get the first vaccination hit the market very soon. Why not? Based on WHO guidelines it would be administered to whole world population and that too without any clinical trials or without even holding back the pharma companies for side effects.

This makes me believe that probably H1N1 is a hype created worldwide with vested interests of few. Clearly it is winner on one side that people have kept economy as topic of discussion on sidelines. Pharma companies are making huge profits through new medication, masks and test kits which otherwise were non-existent. These are probably the reasons countries like UAE have decided to do away the testing of any influenza case and straight away go for medication.

Come winter in most of world now and there is going to be definite rise of flu cases as the norm. All of these cases if treated with H1N1 medication would probably create resistance in virus for these medications. If the threat comes true then the same medications would become ineffective.

Advice: precaution is best.

Being in Sales and meeting people from all types of backgrounds and exposure helps me get that extra drop of sense in making entries successful. I get this question many a times from friends and relatives that what business they should get into looking at middle east as market. I always say, whatever you can export or trade; only condition is either it should be exclusive item where you have ready buyers at good prices or offer something which would make the buyer actively think on buying from you as against existing suppliers.

What is that new business entrants or entrants into new markets can do to make their ventures successful? It is proven fact that as a present buyer of anything that you wish me to buy, buyer would prefer to get it from known sources because of

1. buyer knows the existing supplier and its modus operandi

2. the product is tested, services are known

3. buyer is comfortable with the prices

But buyer can change if point 2 above is substantially higher than the present one and point 3 is substantially lower than present one. This gives a kind of moral boost for buyer to decide on something which is not prevalent. Anything which can offer more value for money would be accepted by buyers.

This strategy can be well utilized for items which are general traded. If the seller is in the business of special items then things become bit easier in terms of getting prices while product and services still need to be proven.

Living in ultra modern places like Dubai bring their own issues. Here in Dubai which boasts of being highest per capita waste generating place on earth, retailers add their bit too. Consumer durables are sold with warrantees but have you ever came across availing those warrantees? Have you faced situation of getting post warranty after sales service in Dubai?

My experience says, create waste rather than wasting time to make use of items again by doing even minor repairs. Retailers offer services from Distributors who have kind of service center wherein first thing that would be asked is AED 100-150 as fault locating fee, labor charges separate, spares prices separate. Spares are anyway priced at exhorbitant levels. The monopolistic business policies wherein each product line is entrusted with one single distributor puts additional pressure on service levels.

It is common for service centers to ask to bring the product to them and also leave it with them for long durations. The way out for most seems to be in unauthorised small repair shops who do it in fraction of cost (against authorised) and immediate basis too.

Why is that there are no clear consumer protection laws and mechanisms in place here? I did made some complaints earlier to consumer protection department but never got any positive response from them. My advice if you are buying here, go for trusted retailers.

With board exams being made optional from the academic year 2010-11, a new system of evaluation—Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE)—based on grades has been approved. It comprises formative and summative assessment of the student to be done over two terms—first and second— during the year-long academic calendar

Formative Assessment To evaluate and grade class work, homework, assignment and project work 1 There will be two evaluations each in the first and second terms 2 Each evaluation will carry 10 marks apiece

Summative Assessment Based on the term-end examination 1 There will be one term-end exam for each term 2 The first term-end exam will carry 20 marks 3 The second term-end exam will carry 40 marks

Students of class IX and X will be evaluated on a 9-point grading system. Each grade, given on the basis of both formative and summative assessments, will correspond to a range of marks as indicated below:With board exams being made optional from the academic year 2010-11, a new system of evaluation—Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE)—based on grades has been approved. It comprises formative and summative assessment of the student to be done over two terms—first and second— during the year-long academic calendar

Formative Assessment To evaluate and grade class work, homework, assignment and project work 1 There will be two evaluations each in the first and second terms 2 Each evaluation will carry 10 marks apiece

Summative Assessment Based on the term-end examination 1 There will be one term-end exam for each term 2 The first term-end exam will carry 20 marks 3 The second term-end exam will carry 40 marks

Students of class IX and X will be evaluated on a 9-point grading system. Each grade, given on the basis of both formative and summative assessments, will correspond to a range of marks as indicated below:With board exams being made optional from the academic year 2010-11, a new system of evaluation—Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE)—based on grades has been approved. It comprises formative and summative assessment of the student to be done over two terms—first and second— during the year-long academic calendar

Formative Assessment To evaluate and grade class work, homework, assignment and project work 1 There will be two evaluations each in the first and second terms 2 Each evaluation will carry 10 marks apiece

Summative Assessment Based on the term-end examination 1 There will be one term-end exam for each term 2 The first term-end exam will carry 20 marks 3 The second term-end exam will carry 40 marks

Students of class IX and X will be evaluated on a 9-point grading system. Each grade, given on the basis of both formative and summative assessments, will correspond to a range of marks as indicated below:With board exams being made optional from the academic year 2010-11, a new system of evaluation—Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE)—based on grades has been approved. It comprises formative and summative assessment of the student to be done over two terms—first and second— during the year-long academic calendar

Formative Assessment To evaluate and grade class work, homework, assignment and project work 1 There will be two evaluations each in the first and second terms 2 Each evaluation will carry 10 marks apiece

Summative Assessment Based on the term-end examination 1 There will be one term-end exam for each term 2 The first term-end exam will carry 20 marks 3 The second term-end exam will carry 40 marks

Students of class IX and X will be evaluated on a 9-point grading system. Each grade, given on the basis of both formative and summative assessments, will correspond to a range of marks as indicated below:

India is at cross roads with major education reforms starting with option choice of Grade X board exams. What a respite for children and more than that Parents of Grade X students.

With board exams being made optional from the academic year 2010-11, a new system of evaluation—Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE)—based on grades would be implemented. It comprises formative and summative assessment of the student to be done over two terms—first and second— during the year-long academic calendar.

Formative Assessment to evaluate and grade class work, homework, assignment and project work

1 There will be two evaluations each in the first and second terms

2 Each evaluation will carry 10 marks a piece.

Summative Assessment Based on the term-end examination

1 There will be one term-end exam for each term

2 The first term-end exam will carry 20 marks

3 The second term-end exam will carry 40 marks

Students of class IX and X will be evaluated on a 9-point grading system. Each grade, given on the basis of both formative and summative assessments, will correspond to a range of marks as indicated below:

I am in Dubai for 5+ years and sand storms in nothing new to me. I have seen Saudi cities getting engulfed with red color due to sand storm, asthama patients having bad times in weather change conditions (which normally bring more sand storms).

Yesterday afternoon brought one big sand blanket to give some respite from scortching heat to Dubai residents, albeit it was not a welcome. Around evening things become worst and visibility on roads dropped to few tens of meters. When we letf home to visit some city malls, the main highway Sheikh Zayed Road, which has most of the skyscrappers including Al Burj standing tall along side it, couldn’t even let us see the buildings. Some photos are below

It all started about 5 years back when Dubai embarked on speedy growth path by virtue of offering freehold and leasehold properties to expats. The basic motive of such move was to ensure that money flow out of the country is restricted as primarily 80% population in Dubai / UAE is expat and largely from Asian continent.

The construction boom which ensued in next 4 years made Dubai one of the largest construction zone in world with about 460 high rise towers under construction at one point of time. The running after assets brought in more people and population growth brought issues like crime, traffic jams, hyper inflation, shortage of accommodation, labor camps with basic amenities missing, violation of basic labor laws etc. Government did best to streamline all aspects and make the place best to live in. Oil boom during same period gave further impetus to this.

Come 2008 and economic troubles which started with USA slowly started gathering pace and engulfed the gulf also in it. Dubai had highest exposure to foreign funds and debts due to its growth story. Suddenly people started finding themselves out of jobs, salary cuts, falling real estate prices and no buyers. The exodus emanates from this. The laws on mortagage are very strict with any default on payment considered criminal and punishable by law. People started finding vanishing overnight as better option than looking forward to jail terms.

As such there is no official indication on actual state of affairs on economic turmoil, one can just guess looking at non-moving cranes on construction sites, mushrooming of “to let” boards on building which were turning away any possible tenent last year, continuous promotions in shops and malls, empty arrival terminal, easy availability of taxis without any increase in nos., reduction in traffic on roads, substantial drop in rentals and property prices. It is estimated that there would sizeable contraction in UAE population this year. Most of the people in construction industry are seeing bleak future for atleast 4-5 years now.

I do note that some of the indicators are bad but eventually Dubai would bounce back, it is matter of some time (may be few months or years).

I had read about companies forming consortium to manipulate business decisions in many sectors, first time I am seeing that happening for education sector in Dubai. Uniquely chamber of commerce is taking lead probably based on encouragement from country’s largest private education provider and forming a group to tackle the policies which in all probability which at times may be putting cap on how much profit the private education businessman can make.

Surprisingly there doesn’t seem to be any mention of other stakeholders in the sector, teachers and parents. This again takes me back to basic question if there are no accountabilities for businessman then how come parents are held responsible for paying for fattening school fee and other expenses which are outstripping the general inflation in the country too?

I was doing some analysis recently and found that on a minimum “for profit” education providers charge atleast 100% more in tuition fee alone as compared to “not for profit” education providers and still crib about not reasonable profits. Here in Dubai all are subjected to similar costs with little bit of variation on either side, then where does the money go? Isn’t it that businessman are entering in this noble sector which paves way for development of future of society with only aim of making unlimited profits without any social responsibility?

When providers start flexing their muscles against regulators and dictating policies, it should sound big alarm to governments. What guidelines interms of profits should be made for education sector which directly affects the future of society and is an issue to be handled on top level?

KHDA commissioned DSIB to evaluate all schools in Dubai to bring parity and easier selection procedures of schools for parents. Presently except Indian, Pakistani and Iranian curriculum schools all other schools are inspected and graded. The complete list of schools and ratings is here

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