It was akin to watching a train wreck. Not because of the human fascination with the moribund, or with carnage. No, most people watch a train wreck because they implicitly know what's about to happen, and watch just to confirm their worst impulses.

And so it was with Obama's oratory;...

Over a couple of weeks have transpired since the assassination of the purported rock star of the Al Qaeda world. The champagne has been guzzled, and the mild mannered Joes next door in New York have reverted to type after a day of macho beer guzzling and frenetic...

Barely had the pundits and populace come to grips with the Tunisian revolution that the existence of Palestine Papers was declared. Al Jazeera, the Qatari based television channel, has released a number of documents pertaining to the Israeli Palestinian peace process into the public domain, together with UK publication The...

The UAE -- and Dubai in particular -- has been an utterly fascinating place to be in 2010. Obstinate denials of the recession not having an iota of impact gave way to a tacit admission that the model of ostentatious ambition needed a re-think.

2010 saw many a hack...

In a corner of the multi-verse, natives of a world ardently believe a unicorn driving a black Camaro is responsible for pulling the sun around the sky. They arbitrarily decide the entire burden of proof for the existence of the unicorn lies on a random person -- Dan -- who...

If there was one common narrative within the intermingling stories of success and failure narrated at the recent Celebration of Entrepreneurship 2010 event at the Madinat Jumeirah Dubai, it was that enterprise is a state of mind.

Entrepreneurs from Arif Naqvi of Abraaj Capital, Rabea Ataya of Bayt.com and...

The importance of public transport for urban development cannot be overstated.

There are obvious benefits; commuters do not waste productive hours stuck in traffic, ecological footprints shrink from their vapid enormity, and snarls of honking cars subside to slowly moving streams. It's instructive to take Dubai as a case study,...

An event revolving around the UN Millennium Goals, TEDx Change Dubai, recently gathered three hundred participants at the creek side Dubai Chamber of Commerce. Melinda Gates, wife of billionaire philanthropist and once Microsoft overlord Bill Gates, asked a pertinent question while streaming live from New York.

How is it that...

Contrast is a wonderful thing, and the deplorable situation in Pakistan, with 20 million plus displaced via deluge, is nothing if not a study in it.

In the face of millions swathed in suffering and a government response at best apathetic and at worst merely pathetic, civil society, columnists...

Cities, those ubiquitous models of development, are collectives of people sharing space. In urban structures, space is a commodity commanding high rents. On the other hand, space lying vacant is not living up to its potential. It remains dormant, with no value to either the government or its people. It...

As cities become more efficient, productive and open, the nature of production and creation shifts. Larger firms remain pertinent, generating hundreds of jobs. But the spotlight moves to also encompass localized entrepreneurs and micro-firms that are highly responsive and sensitive to community needs.

Several commentators have written about how the...

Dubai trades in inspiration and produces ideas worth spreading.

A key issue with established discourse is that it marginalizes details. Such is the nature of the human mind that not only does it dislike randomness but absolutely adores a narrative. This means that disjointed facts will only stick in memory...

An interestingly divisive article on Dubai's penchant for jailing kissing couples while allowing open prostitution has been published in the Observer UK, here. It can be found on page 23 of the print version, as per twitter sources.

The piece draws a stark contrast between being jailed for...

For want of time, and the desire to explore new mediums, I am experimenting with podcasts. It is not easy uploading directly to the Huffington Post, so I have placed a broadcast on another site, and am linking in.

The 18th amendment is, amusingly, a contradiction. It is a...

Painters- traditionally male, have had muses- usually female, for inspiration. But does an author or a poet have a muse in that parochial, matriarchal sense?

This question was posed by Paul Blezard to authors Yann Martel and Bahaa Taher and poet Imtiaz Dharker at the Emirates Airlines Festival of Literature...

"Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."
-John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1859.

But sovereign are we, over our blogs and the contents and comments therein?

We are bloggers. We want freedom. But who are we?

Are we mere individuals, exercising our right to...

Bollywood may be a cacophony of music, sound, laughter, tragedy and bathetic sentiment, but for some it's not enough. If Bollywood isn't sufficiently Bollywood for you, you should attend Mahim Junction, a play by writer and director Sohaila Kapur, who happens to be the sister of international film director and...

The Bustan Rotana Hotel, until a month ago, was known among Dubai residents as a destination for good sushi and old fashioned entertainment. It was the quiet yet classy option; an old gem mingling with a plethora of newer glitzy caravanserais. With a few decent restaurants and functional bars, its...

57.7 percent of Swiss citizens have voted to disallow the building of minarets. Minarets are those stern cylindrical structures intrinsic to Islamic architecture, and they are usually attached to mosques -- places of worship where Muslims commune with Allah, and presumably complain about Swiss intolerance.

Actually, a correction. Not...

Perhaps it's the advent of the hot, humid summer. Perhaps a function of excessive water-logging perpetuated by the seasonal monsoons. Or maybe just a collective hallucination engendered by ad nauseum power cuts reducing daily life to a staccato of stills. But there have been disquieting murmurs doing the rounds of...