AN PRESENTATION

MAY, 2011

VOL 2 - ISSUE 14 SHAPING THE FUTURE

FLAIRP-23P-28 NEW GEARA HOUSE FOR MODERN ARTP-11

ON A ROLL IN BAUSHER

3EDITOR’S NOTE

Hi Everybody,

Ambition and passion are keys to an indi-vidual’s success. And so often, when such individuals attain their goals, the benefi-ciaries include society. Jihad Al Zadjali, 25, has always had a pas-sion for quad bikes and five years ago he had just two of them. But he had a feel for business and dreamt big. Today he has 50 bikes and his firm lends them to Omanis and tourists at the sand dunes in Bausher and other places in the Sultanate.Some sports are intertwined with topog-raphy. Skiing for example can be done only where there are mountain slopes and snow. Quad biking is therefore a sport naturally suited to Oman’s topography. And it is very likely that once skills near competition class, there will be sponsored championships on the sands of the Sultan-ate at regular intervals.Also, as this sport gets popular and more and more bikes throng the sands, care must be taken to see that riders wear safety gear like helmets and have enough skills with the bike before they are on their own, so as not to suffer injuries.In the article Fun and Sand we get to hear from Al Zadjali and the others what makes them go up and down and round those sand dunes.

PRACTICE OF LAWJustice Felix Frankfurter wrote that the function of an advocate was to seduce and seize the judicial mind to a pre-determined end. It takes intelligence and years of hard work to acquire that ability. Only after years of studying law, statutes and judge-ments, will one develop the skill and endurance to analyse enormous amounts of information and find ways to a desired conclusion. And when there is more than one way to reach that pre-determined end, a good advocate will chose the track on which the bench is likely to hurl the few-est hurdles. And in court, whenever there is a different view or a question thrown, there ought to be facts and precedents and analyses of law at hand. It comes with thorough prepa-ration. That is, not just by studying a case, but also thinking about it.And if all this is enabled by an orderly mind, elegant prose and the clever epi-gram, it will be because of the study of not just law, but also literature, history, philosophy and so on.But today there are so many other tasks

that lawyers take up and Sahar Askalan, who is both advocate and solicitor, gives us an impression of the types of work law-yers do today in an article in the Career section titled Sense of Justice.

OPINION POLL In last month’s Opinion Poll, readers said that while assessing an individual what they looked for first was Wealth, followed by Education, Attractiveness and Taste. That is perhaps why at times we can hear people whom we meet for the very first time, say to themselves: “He has money. He will not want anything from us. We can be friends”. It appears to be a precaution-ary measure. And then, to become friends, we also consider, the person’s educa-tion, taste and attractiveness in varying degrees.

That’s for now.Do keep in touch via campus@happening-media.com

Jeta Pillai

OPINION

POLL

What takes

the largest

share of your

expenses?

SEND your response ‘a’ or ‘b’ or ‘c’ or ‘d’ tocampus@happening-media.comor SMS to 99255965 by April 28, 2011.

EDITOR’S NOTE

a) Books.

b) Restaurant bills.

c) Clothes.

d) Movies.

AN PRESENTATION

APRIL, 2011

VOL 1 - ISSUE 13 SHAPING THE FUTURE

FLAIRP-23P-28 NEW GEARHOUSE OF ARTP-11

ON A ROLL IN BAUSHER

APRIL 2011

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COVER STORY

STAR WORLD

LAST PASSAGE

NEWS & EVENTS

TRENDS

DIFFERENT STROKES

PERSONALITYRIDING A DREAMLaila Qassim Al Balushi, tells us what it took to become a fine rider.

FUN AND SAND Quad biking is attracting more and more youngsters to its fold, and the sand dunes of Bausher is a place where they like to show off their skills.

FOR KIDS, BY KIDSTwo boys, with a little help, set up a parent-monitored social-networking site.

DESTINATIONLOST IN HAWAIIWe get to know of the least frequented beaches on the islands.

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CAREERSENSE OF JUSTICEWe learn about opportunities for young lawyers in the Sultanate in an article based on an interview with advocate and solicitor Sahar Askalan.

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CONTENTS

CONTENTS4

Founder & ChairmanMohammed Bin Suleiman Al Taie

Editor-in-ChiefAbdul Hamied Bin Suleiman Al Taie

Editorial ConsultantNeville Parker

EditorialZoher Al ArabiZuhair@alwatan.comJeta PillaiVinod Raghavanvinod@happening-media.com

TranslatorSuleiman Ameen, Ahmad Abdul Hamid, Maisara Hassan

Design & LayoutFaisal Moideen

PhotographsZoher Al Arabi, MCT News Service, Wikipedia, Rajan, Agencies, and Archives.

Cover photo: Coming down a slope in Bausher (Photo: Zoher Al Arabi)

Marketing:

Talween Al Alamiah LLCP O 1570, PC 130Al AzaibahSultanate of OmanTel: 2461 3618. Fax: 2461 3619Email: info@happening-media.com

Business HeadNikhil Nigamnikhil@happening-media.com

Advertising ManagerHussein Hashimhussein@happening-media.comMobile 99255965

Advertising & MarketingManoj Issac manoj@happening-media.comMobile 99255891

Publisher Omani Est. for Press Printing, Publishing & Distribution LLCP.O. Box 463, PC 100, Muscat, Sultanate of OmanTel: 24491919, Fax: 24613619

MIND YOUR LANGUAGE19

15 COUNSELLOR

ON THE ROAD

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ART11

APRIL 2011

MANAGEMENT12

FLAIR

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LIFE34

READERS’ CORNER14

NEW GEAR28

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6 DIFFERENT STROKES

APRIL 2011

The home of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle is the “most flirtatious

city” of the modern world, a study showed. Athens topped a “World Flirtation League,” which ranked cit-ies by the number of online flirtations initiated per month by the average user on online social network-ing site Badoo.com (www.badoo.com).Moscow came second, Rome was placed 8th and Madrid 31st, Paris 38th, London 57th, Berlin 79th, and New York 89th in the study of nearly 200 cities across the world in which Badoo ana-lyzed 12 million flirtatious contacts made during a month, with 108 million us-ers chatting and flirting in 180 countries. The Lonely Planet Encounter Guide to Athens author Victoria Kyriakopoulous said the results are hardly surpris-ing as the Greek capital is a seductive city, with a hedo-nistic lifestyle. “Athenians love to party and they love to talk,” she said. “Flirt-ing and sexual banter are not just a means to an end but part of social interac-tion.” Tunis, birthplace of the “Jasmine Revolution,” is among three Arab cities (with Kuwait and Beirut) to make the world top 10.

Athens flirting

Names can matter, thinks one Australian town named Speed – which renamed itself “Speedkills” in an effort to promote road safety.

Speed, an outback town in rural Victoria with a population of just 45, will change its name for the month of March to reduce rural road accidents and increase awareness of the dangers associated with speeding. “Our underpinning business objective here is to make the issue of speeding socially unacceptable,” said a com-munity leader. In an effort to broaden its message, the tiny town took its message to television and social networking sites such as Facebook, saying that the name change would go through if it got 10,000 supporters – a number hit within 24 hours.

Three-year glitchSpeedkills

The “three-year glitch” has replaced the “seven-year itch” as the tipping point, where couples start to take each other for granted, according to a new survey. Weight gain, stinginess, toe-nail clippings on the bathroom floor and snoring are a few of the passion-killers that have led to

a swifter decline in relationships in the fast-paced 21st century, said the study commissioned by Warner Brothers to promote the release of comedy film Hall Pass in UK cinemas. The survey of 2,000 British adults in steady relationships pinpointed the 36-month marker as the time when relationship stress levels peak and points to a new trend of “pink passes” and “solo” holidays away from partners and spouses that many Britons resort to in order to keep romance alive. “Longer working hours com-bined with money worries are clearly taking their toll on modern relationships and we are seeing an increasing trend for solo holidays and weekends away from marriages and relationships in order to revive the romantic spark,” said pollster Judi James who oversaw the survey.

7DIFFERENT STROKES

Abbey Road Studios in London, where the Beatles re-corded most of their hits, has launched a global anthem competition to mark its 80th anniversary this year. The

studios, opened in 1931 by composer Edward Elgar with a per-formance of his patriotic song “Land of Hope and Glory,” are looking for original, undiscovered writers, who will compete for the chance to record their compositions at Abbey Road.The winning anthems will be recorded in Studio One, home to the recording of the “Star Wars” movie title sequence and The Beatles’ live satellite performance of “All You Need Is Love.”Composer Eric Whitacre will conduct the London Symphony Orchestra and as yet unnamed singers, and musical arrangers will be on hand to help entrants in order to open the competi-tion up to the wider public. “We want to find the great anthems of our time,” Whitacre said in a statement. “It is an honour to be involved in the selection process and to record the winning entries. I encourage all writers/composers to submit their mu-sic; inspire us.” Entrants were asked to submit their anthems by July 15.

Song for Abbey Road

Fish spa pedicures have become a popular alternative to exfoliation in recent years, but health officials say they are now investigating the pam-pering treatment on concerns it may spread infection. The procedure in-

volves customers placing their feet into a water tank filled with toothless Garra rufa fish – also called doctor fish – which suck the dead tissue off their feet to leave them feeling softer. Officials at Britain’s Health Protection Agency said they were launching an investigation into possible infection risks associated with the exfoliation treatment after receiving enquiries from local environmen-tal health officers. The HPA said it would assess all of the latest evidence on risks before issuing guidelines for the spa treatment.

Something fishy

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8 DIFFERENT STROKES

APRIL 2011

A new poll shows young drivers are more likely to use cell-phones while driving, and that

30 per cent of them have recently texted from behind the wheel, US transportation officials said. The poll comes from the magazine Consumer Reports, which is working with the US Department of Transportation on creating awareness about the dangers of cell phone use while driving. Among the findings are that 63 per cent of respondents under 30-years-old reported using a handheld phone while driving in the past 30 days. And 30 per cent of the drivers texted from behind the wheel in the same time period according to the survey, which had a total of 1,026 respondents. Older drivers were less likely to talk on the phone behind the wheel, and only 9 per cent of those over 30 years-old reported they had recently texted while driving.

Text-driving

The owner of a suburban Philadelphia pizza shop has been arraigned on charges that he schemed to plant live mice in competing

pizza parlours in the hope of putting them out of business. Nickolas Galiatsatos, owner of Nina’s Bella Pizzeria in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania, is accused of putting bags of mice at nearby competitors, according to police. The owner of Verona Pizza watched Galiatsatos go into his re-stroom carrying a bag but emerge empty-handed, and alerted two patrol officers who were in the restaurant. The officers found a bag of mice and footprints on a toilet seat, suggesting someone had been trying to reach the ceiling tiles. The officers then found Galiatsatos near another pizza place, Uncle Nick’s, where he was seen putting something in a trash can. There, police found a bag containing five mice. Galiatsatos claimed his shop had been infested with mice, and he blamed his competitors for the problem.

A rat in the parlour

Vinny gets a tieAn accused gangster nicknamed “Vinny Gorgeous” became even more dapper,

when the judge in his murder trial lent him a tie after jailers had refused him one. Vincent Basciano is charged with murder and racketeering, crimes he allegedly

committed on behalf of the Bonanno crime family in 2004, according to court documents.Basciano, known for his sartorial style, appeared in Brooklyn Federal Court for jury selec-tion without a tie. His discomfort was quickly noted by Judge Nicholas Garaufis, who lent him his own tie, said defense attorney George Goltzer.

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APRIL 2011

TRENDS

When Zachary Swauger asked his mom if he could sign up for

Facebook, she told him no way – too much exposure for a 12-year-old.But with help from their tech-executive dad, Zachary and his little brother Joshua have developed an alternative: JackieFame.com, a parent-mon-itored social network designed for pre-teen kids.Launched in January, it already boasts more than 500 members, ranging from students at the boys’ Denver, North Carolina-area schools to family friends, relatives and acquaintances as far away as California and China.“We wanted to create a fun, safe social network where kids could interact,” says Zachary. “With a little help from my dad, I thought we could pull it off”.Now that they have, adds nine-

year-old Joshua: “Most of my friends say it›s pretty cool”.Their parents, Kurt and Michelle Swauger, see it as a real-world lab to teach their boys about building a busi-ness, even as they gain the digital know-how to navigate an increasingly Web-centric world.“It’s been quite an eye-open-ing experience,” says Kurt Swauger, an Internet entrepre-neur and vice president for a technology firm. “I’m seeing it grow like crazy every day”.He tapped his Web-developer friends to create the site and help his sons get it up and running. But the ideas about the content in the site come from the boys and the friends they’ve quizzed on digital preferences.The boys named the site JackieFame because, as Joshua explains, Jackie could be a boy or a girl, and fame can be

about not only becoming fa-mous like an athlete or movie star, but also being your best in school or volunteering or family relationships.Kids on the site can do every-thing adults do on Facebook. They can post comments, upload pictures and videos, do real-time chats, play games, listen to music, even blog.The big difference: All content kids want to post gets checked out by parent monitors before it advances to the site.“The most critical part for us is the safety piece,” Michelle Swauger says. “There’s so much exposure and inherent danger in social networks”.Like Facebook, kids on Jackie-Fame.com must “friend” other kids before they can commu-nicate with them; Joshua and Zachary say they only accept friend requests from children they know.The site asks any potential

new member to give their birthday, and automatically rejects anyone younger than 13. Parents must sign up for them. Adults randomly moni-tor chats, trying to make sure no creepy adults are trying to talk to kids.The site also rejects more than 3,500 words automati-cally, including expletives and derogatory terms that could be used for bullying. Kurt Swauger says no social net-work can guarantee complete safety, but given the increas-ing importance of the Internet in daily life, the site can help teach kids digital literacy skills under the watchful eye of their parents.If nothing else, the project is giving the brothers valuable lessons about business and technology. They help run Google analytics on the site, studying their audience for clues about what they like.

Their parents have bought T-shirts, caps, watches and shoes emblazoned with the Jackie-Fame logo, all for use in their marketing efforts. Anyone who invites 100 “Fame friends” to join the site, for instance, gets a pair of Reebok sneakers. (Zachary’s written to Reebok in hopes of a sponsorship deal; he’s waiting to hear back).Kurt Swauger says he’s in-vested “a lot of money” in the site, but says he’ll be happy if it makes enough to cover expenses and perhaps offer donations to the family’s favou-rite charities.The family has no illusions about overtaking Facebook anytime soon.“It’s not about getting to 500 million people,” Swauger says. “It’s about trying to create an alternative solution for kids to have a safe environment to communicate”.

MCT News Service

FOR kIdS, By kIdSJackieFame.com is a parent-monitored social network site developed by two brothers, writes Eric Frazier

With some help, Zach-ary Swauger, (left) and his brother Joshua, have launched a parent-monitored social networking site for pre-teens.

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APRIL 2011

ART

Since its foundation in the early years of the 20th century, the modern art

collection belonging to the city of Milan has changed its name and moved premises so often that at certain moments even the Milanese themselves would have been hard pressed to say what it was called and where to find it.

After many vicissitudes, during which it sometimes ended up in storage, the collection, constant-ly expanding thanks to dona-tions and purchases, has come to rest in a splendid location in the central piazza next door to the Duomo.

The new institution was definitively labelled Museo del Novecento, or Museum of the 20th Century, more than a decade before it finally opened its doors in Dec. From an inter-national viewpoint, the choice of title may seem an odd one. The Italian words for designating centuries are used in English in the specialised context of Italian art and literature only until the “cinquecento” (the 1500’s, or the 16th century).

There is even an element of ambiguity in the title for Italian speakers, given the existence of the art movement of the 1920s and 1930s called, “il novecento italiano,” or simply “il novecento.” There are works from this movement – which paralleled the “return to order” trend in France, away from the avant-garde – in the Museo del Novecento, but they form only a small part of the contents.

But the “italianissimo” name may have some logic, given that this is not a museum of modern art but specifically of Italian modern art, particularly of that created and collected in Milan.

“Futurism was born in Milan and the city remained the single most important centre for in-novative art in Italy throughout the last century,” said Marina Pugliese, the director of the mu-seum, who, as it happens, was born and educated in Genoa.

“Among the museum’s aims is to enable the people of Milan to rediscover the artistic story of

their city,” said Pugliese, a gifted communicator of her own pas-sion for modern art. The museum occupies the shell of the Palazzo dell’Arengario, a classic Fascist-era edifice begun in the 1930s but not completed until the 1950s. The interior has been radically remodelled by the architects Italo Rota, Fabio For-nasari and their team to create 5,000 sqm of galleries displaying a permanent collection of around 400 pieces, with additional spaces for temporary exhibitions and a screen for film shows.

The most striking feature is a 140-metre-long, or 460-foot-long, ramp encased in glass that spirals upward, offering visitors a series of increasingly spectacular views of the piazza, the Duomo and the surrounding cityscape, culminating in a chic (and pricey) restaurant with one of the most enviable panoramas in the city.

Just before the ramp reaches the entrance to the first of the gallery rooms, it passes a kind of secular shrine housing Giuseppe Pellizza da Volpedo’s “The Fourth Estate,” an enormous, romantic, oft-reproduced canvas of an advancing phalanx of workers led by two bearded men of the people and a young mother with her symbolically naked infant. It was completed in 1902 and acquired for the city by public subscription in 1921.

In a side room off the first gal-lery is a space containing the only canvases in the museum by foreign artists: Braque, Kan-dinsky, Klee, LÃ|ger, Matisse, Mondrian and Picasso. The rest of this first section is devoted to the leading Futurists Giacomo Balla, Carlo Carrà , Fortunato Depero, Gino Severini, Mario Sironi, Ardengo Soffici and Um-berto Boccioni, of whose works the museum has the finest pub-lic collection in the world.

At the end of this hall is Carrà ’s 1917 “Still-life with Set-square,” painted in his Metaphysical phase. This leads on to the gal-leries illustrating subsequent developments more or less chronologically, with alternat-ing sections given to individual artists, like Giorgio de Chirico,

Arturo Martini, Giorgio Morandi, Fausto Melotti and Lucio Fon-tana; and artistic genres and movements, beginning with the Italian Novecento and moving on to Landscape, Monumental Art, Post-Impressionism, Archaism Realism, Abstractionism, Milan in the Fifties, Arte Povera and so on.

About halfway through the itinerary there is the instant-overview “Museo in una Sala” (Museum in a Room), which contains about 20 works that look backward at what we have seen and forward to what we are to encounter next. The first work, Luigi Russolo’s “Self-portrait,” dates to 1908; the last,

Franco Grignani’s “Centrifugal-Centripedal Structure,” to 1965. This room showcases some memorable pieces, like Gerardo Dottori’s bold 1923 “Aurora Um-bra,” an Aeropicture triptych of the sun rising over an Umbrian hill town.

The original towerlike structure of the Palazzo dell’Arengario clearly presented challenges in transforming the building into a modern gallery, but these have been met and turned to an advantage. For example, a lofty hall at the front of the tower is used effectively to show some key pieces by the influential Lucio Fontana, including a large neon work, a

copper sculpture and a 1950s ceiling rescued from a demol-ished hotel on Elba; while his slashed canvases are displayed on a suspended mezzanine floor above. The gallery has gained vital extra space with the con-struction of a bridge linking the museum to the second floor of the Palazzo Reale next door, the lower stories of which are now used for a variety of temporary exhibitions. The last sections of the Novecento Museum located here cover movements like Programmed and Kinetic art, and artists until the 1980s. (For later works a new museum of contemporary art is planned, and scheduled to open in 2013.) IHT-NYT News Service

Roderick Conway Morris on the Museo del Novecento that has just opened in Milan

A HOUSE FOR mOdERN ARt

Museo del Novecento in Milan.

12 MANAGEMENT

APRIL 2011

With a degree in finance from the Wharton School at the

University of Pennsylvania and a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard Business School in Massachu-setts, Ahmed Ali Al Hammadi, a Qatari national, had his choice of careers in the West.Yet in 2007, he chose to return to Doha to work in banking.“Ninety nine per cent of those who study abroad come back to work in Qatar,” said Ham-madi. “The opportunities are huge here, both to move up the corporate ladder and in compensation. It rarely makes sense not to return.”For years, economic growth of nearly 20 per cent has at-tracted educated professionals like Hammadi to the Gulf. But if jobs are relatively plentiful

and high-paying, local options remain limited for those who seek higher business degrees.“The majority of those who can, leave to go to the US or UK to earn college or graduate degrees,” Hammadi said. “But many cannot leave. Women cannot travel as easily.”“To get an international MBA, Qataris have to go abroad,” he said. “There is no other option.”But that appears to be chang-ing.In the past year, working with the local authorities, two international business schools, Insead and HEC, have started executive MBA programmes specially designed for the local population and to attract regional talent.The two new programmes follow a pattern in the Gulf

states, which have, since 2006, supported higher education to further their goal of strength-ening their local economies. Although they remain tight-lipped about actual budgets, they have for the most part called on the expertise of international institutions and educators to address shortcom-ings in the region.While homegrown programmes have for several years sought to meet the area’s educational needs, the new programmes are seeking to make the region far more attractive to prospec-tive executive MBA students.Following the inauguration of its permanent Abu Dhabi campus last autumn, Insead, the business school based in Fontainebleau near Paris, opened the Middle East section of its global executive MBA

programme. “Generally, execu-tive education programmes are about hands-on, immediate impact on local businesses,” said Miklos Sarvary, dean of executive education at Insead. “But they are not a platform for a more educated population. Our global executive MBA cre-ates such a platform.”Though its global executive MBA is new, Insead itself is a veteran among international business schools in the Gulf. Since 2007, when it first set up an education and research centre in Abu Dhabi after an agreement with the Abu Dhabi Education Council, Insead has been involved with local busi-nesses providing short-term, custom-designed, executive education programmes.“Until now, we were devel-oping our understanding of

the region by working with local companies and doing research,” said Javier Gimeno, dean of Insead’s executive MBA programmes from Abu Dhabi. “We needed to under-stand the context.”“There are two pressing needs here,” he added. “The local population needs to develop its own capabilities and the large expat population needs career development tools.”Sarvary added that the absence of business training is mostly felt in two areas.“In general, junior managers lack leadership training, and senior executives lack the nec-essary skills to run sophisti-cated multinationals,” he said. “Their responsibilities run faster than their experience.”Officials say one reason for focusing on the local popula-

Search for homegrown MBAsThe Gulf wants local managers to be trained well enough and take over from expats, writes Nazanin Lankarani

Al Ain Men’s College, UAE, offers courses in business and management.

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APRIL 2011

MANAGEMENT

tion is the precarious situation created by too much reliance on a transient, contract-based, expatriate labour force – as many as 80 per cent of the re-gional workers – that occupies top positions in the public and private sectors.“A large number of expats run businesses and even govern-ment agencies,” Sarvary said. “It is not a sustainable system.”“For these reasons, there is both a general policy and a willingness of local govern-ments to develop the skills of their own people,” Sarvary said.Insead’s Middle East global executive MBA, a part-time programme that lasts 15 months, includes four weeks at the school’s campuses in Singapore and France. All core courses are offered in Abu Dhabi, where it is required that a student has been living in the area for 12 weeks before enrolling.“Our new programme is suited for those who have already committed to a company here and want to stay,” Gimeno said.What Insead has done differ-ently is design courses that are taught over longer periods, intended for local residents but also for a diverse student body from Europe, Asia and Africa that is willing to stay in Abu Dhabi.“Ours is not a weekend pro-gramme for locals,” Gimeno said. “We have chosen 10-day modules to attract a diverse, regional group of people living within a three-hour travel range who can fly in and stay awhile.”Insead’s programme is an alternative to executive MBA programmes designed for the weekends, available in nearby Dubai and similar to pro-grammes at the London Busi-ness School or Cass Business School in London.Another institution focusing on a local population is the HEC School of Management in Paris, which opened its execu-tive MBA programme in Doha last month, in partnership with the Qatar Foundation.

The Qatar Foundation for Education, Science and Com-munity Development is a private, non-profit organisation founded in 1995 by Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, the Emir of Qatar, with a mis-sion to develop a knowledge-based economy to reduce the emirate’s reliance on fossil fuels. The Qatari government, through Qatar Foundation, has made significant investments in higher education through agreements that provide money to foreign universities in exchange for educational and research programmes in the Emirate.

“We work with Qatar Founda-tion to develop local talent in Qatar and drive the develop-ment of companies here,” said Joshua Kobb, HEC’s director of International and Strategic Partnerships from Abu Dhabi.While Kobb would not “go into specifics about the nature of the partnership nor aspects re-lated to financing” by the foun-dation, he said: “This is not about being in a fast-growing market. It is about contribut-ing to the growth process.”HEC is situated in one of the skyscrapers along the palm-tree lined streets of the West Bay Zone, a business district in the capital. West Bay is a few miles from Education City, the foundation’s flagship educational project, a multi-campus site just outside Doha

that houses branches of six international universities – Northwestern, Georgetown, Virginia Commonwealth, Texas A&M, Carnegie Mellon and Cornell – but no business schools.“Our executive MBA targets senior executives who wish to pursue higher education but do not wish to go abroad,” said Mohamed Abu Elgasim, direc-tor of development at HEC’s Executive Education for Qatar and the Middle East.HEC’s Executive MBA, the first in Qatar, is a part-time 16-month programme that meets four days a month, to allow flexibility for local and regional attendance.“We have 32 participants from nine nationalities,” Kobb said. “Fifty per cent are Qatari.”

While the HEC and Insead programmes are attracting international interest from elite applicants, a number of the region’s homegrown insti-tutions continue to reach out to a broader base of the local population while maintaining an international flavour.One such institution is the Bahrain Institute of Banking and Finance that, with the support of the state, develops international educational part-nerships in the banking and insurance sectors.For the last year, the Bahrain Institute has been running a business leadership pro-gramme in partnership with the Darden School at the University of Virginia and the Saudi Arabia Institute for Banking, with classes taught

in Manama, Riyadh and Char-lottesville.Another is the Qatar Finance and Business Academy (QFBA), which now offers a 12-month, certificate-based programme that includes courses in Qatar, Abu Dhabi and South Africa, and a six-month internship in Britain with a global financial services company.Staffed with instructors from HEC, Wharton and Insead, QFBA was set up by the Qatar Foundation to provide Qataris with an international educational experience in a homegrown setting.“The programme supports the local ‘Qatarization’ strategy to train future strategic leaders,” said Susan Lansing, director of corporate development at QFBA. “The idea is to reach out to Qataris and help them develop skills for positions typically held by expats.”“We are trying to build some-thing that comes from the region,” she added.Still, despite the new and exist-ing programmes, challenges remain for the ultimate suc-cess of Gulf business schools.“There is a lot of demand for executive and traditional MBAs here,” said Ham-madi. “But costs are very high. Schools come here in part because their programmes generate a lot of revenue.”“We do not have the same classroom atmosphere nor the alumni network here,” he said. “It is still not possible to repli-cate in the Gulf the experience of an MBA programme abroad. But it may happen one day.”

IHT-NYT News Syndicate

A courtyard in the Dubai Marina. Gulf managers prefer to settle in their home countries after getting qualified abroad.

Lecture halls at the Weill Cornell Medical College campus in Education City, Qatar, which does not have a business school.

14 READERS’ CORNER

APRIL 2011

tHE HOStEL LIFEA hostel is a place where students live during

their time in college. Hostels are supervised by the administration. Living in the hostel is

called hostel life. Life in the hostel is different from living at home. The following essay will shed some light on some aspects of life in the hostel. It will discuss things such as student’s emotions and other interesting things about hostel life. Also, students’ feelings during exams and how they manage their time. Finally I will talk about some advantages and disadvantages of life in the hostel.

Moving from one place to another creates different emotions for students. We can describe it as emo-tional confusion. Often the way we lived before is not accepted or considered normal in the new place. This happens for many reasons. First of all students leave their families, so they miss them. Also, their life changes from the way they lived in their homes to the way they live in the hostels. Secondly in the hostel, they have to depend on themselves. Third their personality changes be-

cause they meet new friends and also live a serious life especially at the first level of hostel life. So they will be disheartened by the deceptive look and re-alise that all that glitters is not gold. Moreover, for a while, they have been used to living by themselves in one room, and when they come to the hostel, they find two to three girls in the same room. Imagine how they will become after four or five years.As we know, during exam time, students prepare very well to get high grades. But what if students are in an unusual place? There is no family, no friends and everything in their life has changed. Yes it is a fact. It is hostel life. It is difficult because students live far away from their families. However, if they live cleverly and think positive, they will achieve their ambitions and get high grades. In addition, living in hostel helps students study. They give special opportunities for the students to study properly. However they should organise their time by making time tables and a daily list, to be successful. Living in hostels is very significant. A student living in a hostel can study with full concentration because all the time they are free. She doesn’t have to perform the normal household chores, she doesn’t have to prepare her own food and other things. This helps her to study without thinking about anything else.

There are many advantages and disadvantages of hostel life. I’ll describe some of the advantages. Hos-tel life teaches students to be patient, because they live far away from their families and friends so they have to adapt to a new life. Furthermore, hostels teach students to be independent and learn to do things themselves. For instance cooking, cleaning and ironing. Hostel life gives them self-confidence to move along in society. On the other hand hostels have rules. Students can’t go out of their hostels so they lose their freedom and independence. That also happens in the room because students have to be considerate and respect other students by being kind. Also, the food in hostels is unhealthy, because there is only fast food available. In addition if students become ill, they will really miss their loved ones, because there is no one to take care of them.In conclusion, although the life in the hostel is dif-ficult, students who live there can make it easy, by being patient. In addition, making new friends may turn it into a piece of cake. Finally, students should always smile to overcome suffering and sadness. If they do that everything will be fine.

Fatma Al Ajmi,Rustaq College of Applied Sciences.

When asking a group of people to give examples

of communication, the first answers include: speaking, telephone, email, letters and text messages. More often than not, it takes a bit of a push to get them to include body language, which is in

fact one of the most detailed and expressive types of com-munication. Body language is a form of non-verbal com-munication which implies that we are able to transfer a message from sender to re-ceiver without using words. We do this by using hand gestures, body stance, facial

expression and eye contact.Hand gestures form an important part in most greetings, for example the handshake, wave and salute. These are welcoming signals that reveal that the other person is not holding a weapon. When speaking, our hands often flop about

subconsciously in an effort to further clarify what we mean. Experts on the subject say that when a person’s hand movements start at the body and move out, that the person in question is being open and honest. Oppositely, if the hand movements start further away and go towards the person’s body, they are not being entirely truthful. Do you agree that we, as observers, can make such assumptions? Fidgeting is a clear sign of nervousness, while hands that don’t move at all indicate restraint and possibly lying. When travel-ling or doing international business, one must be cau-tious and aware of the dif-ferent hand gestures around the world. For example, in Oman, to squeeze the tips of one’s fingers together means ‘wait’, ‘be patient’ or ‘slow down’. The same gesture in South Africa is very rude and offensive, and could even result in a fight. The way we sit or stand is just as significant to our re-ceiver. Shoulders back and head held high indicates that a person is confident and will not back down if challenged. However, when a person is hunched over, curling in to themselves, they are protecting them-selves. They are insecure and will more than likely not stand up for themselves. Crossed arms clearly reveal that the person is closed off to what is being said and they will not be persuaded.

Stand tall, you will be noticed.Facial expression and eye contact are the most impor-tant non-verbal communica-tors. Our facial movements represent our emotional state the most vividly. We are often able to tell what is going to happen next in a situation just by looking at someone’s face. We can see when a person is concentrat-ing, angry, mischevious, grouchy or happy. When one smiles and genuinely means it, their eyes and whole face will smile. And what a powerful tool a smile can be. The way you look at the person you are address-ing, will let them under-stand you better. Do they look directly into your eyes, stare, keep looking away or looking from side to side? To find out what this all means and more, join Modern Gulf Institute in launching their new course.

Modern Gulf Institute, Director, Deidre Harvey

BOdy tALkDeidre Harvey

Salim Al Saidi is a career adviser.

After reviewing the definition of the Curriculum Vitae (CV) and how to prepare one that distin-

guishes the candidate, in previous ar-ticles, we must touch on some common mistakes that are made when writing a CV. They can be committed by many jobseekers, as a result of incorrect ideas on how to write a CV that stands out and sells you.

One of these errors is to think that the same CV can be presented to several authorities or for different posts. Of course this is not true. The CV should be directed at a particular job, and its contents should fit the requirements of the expertise and skills the job re-quires. Writing a general CV will cost it its quality and creativity and could lead the job seeker to apply for dozens of vacancies without any reply.

Some of us write the CV in detail, in the belief that mentioning as many details as possible will make the CV worth reading and attention grabbing. They do not realise that the CV is read in a few seconds and filling it with unimportant details will make it boring and could upset the reader.

Another error is that of using the CV of a friend in the same field of study after some amendments. Fresh graduates think it as a kind of cooperation and are not aware that a CV that proves successful, is one that distinguishes the candidate from others with the same educational qualification.

Spelling errors in a CV, especially when written in a language other that the mother tongue, is seen as a sign of neglect and apathy. There can be no excuse for weakness in English. The candidate can always take the help of those who are more experienced than

him to review his CV.

Some jobseekers try to highlight their CVs by printing on coloured paper or by using strange fonts, or even scented paper. The distinction should be in content and substance. We should also take into consideration the official style of writing and organising the CV.

Failure to order the contents of the CV and the omission of important information such as different training

opportunities or graduation project can weaken the chances of getting the right job. The candidate should update his CV and constantly enrich it with everything possible to increases his chances.

CV writing is not easy, you should take advice and inquire about the best ways to write it and make it a distinct one that reflect the candidate’s abilities.

E-MAIL:als3idi@hotmail.com

Make no MiStAkeThe same CV must not be submitted for different posts

READERS’ CORNER

Campus invites readers to send short stories and poems that they may want to publish in its pages. They can also send paintings, sketches and works of photography. Campus reserves the right to decide which of these can be published and edit material before publication.

We are keenly awaiting your response.The Editor.

campus@happening-media.com

15

APRIL 2011

COUNSELLOR

16 COVER STORY

APRIL 2011

FUN ANd SANdRolling up and down the Bausher sand dunes on a quad bike is a favourite pastime of hundreds of youngsters and the sands are now attracting tourists, writes Vinod Raghavan

Quad bikers on Bausher sand dunes.

17

APRIL 2011

COVER STORY

The sand dunes of Oman are buzzing alive these days with the vroom-

ing sounds of quad bikes and hundreds of youngsters. And both boys and girls are turn-ing up to get a taste of the adventure. The sand dunes of Bausher are becoming the hub for this new craze among youngsters, as they just love to cruise in the dunes on these powerful and mean machines. Also, it is now becoming a tourist attraction, as tour operators are tying up with companies providing quad bikes for this sport.Jihad Al Zadjali, owner of the Bike Planet (Asso) Company, which is providing quad bikes for such adventure sports, said, “Everyday we are getting more and more youngsters for biking in these sand dunes. Our clients are mostly college going students, but yes there are families and tourists from all across the globe as well. Omani youngsters have a passion for adventure and sports and that’s why this business gets more than 100 adventure sports lovers a day at Bausher alone.“Many tour companies have also tied up with us, as quad bike riding is part of the tour-ists’ itinerary. Tourists from across the globe, including, Germany, UK, France and from the Asian countries, come here and enjoy biking in the sand dunes,” he said.The Craze For AdventureIt is not just boys, even girls are trying their hands on these quad bikes. One such quad biker, Ayub Al Balushi,

a ninth standard student who has been riding for the last two years said, “Oh this is just awesome, I love going up the dunes and moving on sands on these bikes. My friends and I come here whenever we get a break from our studies.”“I used to come with my father, who also enjoys riding the bike and of course I learn from him. Now I come here with my friends at least twice a week and pick my favourite 350cc bike and enjoy the thrill of riding on the dunes. Quad bike riding makes me tough and macho, as I gain confidence and courage to face the real world,” he added.Ayub got injured twice while riding, but it has not stopped him from his favourite activ-ity and wants to become a bike rider. Ahmed Al Arabiya, a tenth

standard student said, “It’s fun going up the sand dunes on these bikes. I love to take the risks and going up the dune gives me excitement. Climbing down the dunes is also a breathtaking part of this adventure biking.“We don’t mind spending money on such a lovely ad-venture. We save our pocket money to utilise it for this sport”. Another tenth standard stu-dent Amaan Naushad came with his parents and younger brother Anaan. He rides the 300cc quad bike, once a fortnight. “Earlier I was scared, but thanks to the Bike Planet staff, I got rid of my fear. I now comfortably ride the bike on top of the mountain in full gusto. I enjoy the views from the top of the sand dunes, while the breeze blows gently and the yellow sands shine

in the blazing sun, giving a great feeling of being on top of the world,” Amaan said.Twenty-five-year-old Basheer Bin Ali Al Mawali, who has been coming for the last four months has made it a point to come regularly. “I enjoy the vrooming noise of the bike and the sand thrown in the air. It is a treat for the eyes and soul,” Basheer said.Basheer helps beginners learn biking and wants to see youngsters on their own.What Are Quad Bikes? The quad bikes have engines ranging from 50cc to power-ful 700cc. Bikes with less power are usually given to children as they don’t go that far in the dunes.And well for all those who want to buy a bike for them-selves, these machines can cost you from 500 to 4000 rials, depending upon the size and power of the engine.

CostsIt costs 10 rials for a one hour ride on the soft sand dunes of Bausher. Don’t worry if you are a first timer, as an instructor will go along with you. Biking starts usually around noon and goes on till sunset. The best time for quad biking is from the month of Oct. till March, as it is not so hot during this time.SafetySafety is not neglected and everybody is required to wear helmets and gloves before taking a ride. If someone gets hurt, Jihad has a first aid kit with him. “Nobody gets hurt in the sand, but still we have all the arrangements for first aid with us as a precaution-ary measure”.Maintenance of these bikes is not easy. Jihad has his own workshop and mechanics to keep these quad bikes in run-ning condition.The Story So FarFive years back Jihad just had a passion for bikes and thought of doing something new. He started off with just two quad bikes and a few dreams. Today Jihad owns 50 such bikes and is one of the big names in the business. He says, “It was my passion for bikes that landed me here. My family always supported me in starting this business. Today I own 50 bikes and I have my own office and a team of six people to help me in my business. My team also operates in Wahiba Sands, Musannah and Al Ibriyat.Young DreamsJihad feels a lot needs to be done to develop Bausher sand dunes. “We have a dream of

About to roll.

Throwing up some sand.

18 COVER STORY

APRIL 2011

THE GENTLE MASTER

SAMI AL BALUSHI, WHO HAS BEEN WORKING FOR THE LAST THREE YEARS WITH BIKE PLANET AS A GUIDE, KNOWS EACH PART OF BAUSHER SAND DUNES, LIKE THE PALM OF HIS HAND. IT IS A CLASS ACT WHEN HE RIDES HIS 700 CC BIKE WITH EASE TO THE TOP OF THE DUNE WITHIN 5-8 SECONDS. AND ON THE WAY DOWN PERFORMS ACROBATICS. ACCOMPANYING HIM ON THE REAR SEAT WAS A GREAT ExPERIENCE AS WE COULD SEE THE BEAUTY OF THE DUNES AND THE YELLOW SANDS SHINING IN THE BLAZING SUN. SAMI IS ALWAYS THERE TO GUIDE PEOPLE THROUGH THE NITTY-GRITTY OF QUAD BIKE RIDING. HIS GENTLE NATURE MAKES THE LEARNER COMFORTABLE AND WHEN YOU ACCOM-PANY HIM IN THE REAR SEAT, HIS ADVICE IS TO JUST HOLD HIM TIGHTLY AND HE WILL SHOW YOU THE TECHNIQUE OF HAN-DLING THE MACHINE. INTERESTINGLY HE TEACHES THE TECHNIQUE OF HANDLING THE BIKES ON TOP OF THE DUNE, AT A HEIGHT NOT LESS THAN 1000 METRES. BUT IT IS WORTH THE MONEY TO CLIMB THIS DUNE. THEY ALSO HOLD COMPE-TITIONS FOR RIDERS. WIN-NING OR BAGGING PRIZES IS NOT THE MOTTO, BUT PARTICIPATION IS IMPOR-TANT.

putting up a sitting place for the elders who accompany their children, a colourful caf-eteria and a small rest-room for the tourists who come all the way to our place to enjoy the mountain ride,” he said.His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said recently announced jobs for local people. “We also, in a small way are help-ing the nation by providing jobs to our people. They take care of the tourists and keep the vehicles in top condition.”

Jihad also wants to see that this sport reach great heights not only in Oman, but across the globe.

The Little ChampYakub, a chubby class-four student, is one of the young-est quad bike riders, but he beats many others twice his age.Yakub, a student of Libda School, is a regular visitor and has made many friends because of his riding skills

and his smile. He rides the 350cc bike, and many a times, he has been warned by the staff to go slow, but he hoodwinks them and man-ages to race the bike at full speed.“My father is also a sports lover, he also rides on week-ends with me, but I am a step ahead of him when it comes to spending time on this big machine,” Yakub said.“I don’t spend my pocket money on anything else other

than riding and feeling on top of the world”.Though Yakub is small, he aims high and wants to par-ticipate in competitions. Twenty-three-year-old Ahmed Rawahi, a former student of Majan College, is a proud owner of a 750cc quad bike and is a regular visitor not only at Bausher sand dunes, but along with his friends goes as far as Wahiba Sands, and has participated in num-ber of competitions.

Ahmed is madly in love with this sports for which he has spent nearly 3,000 rials to buy a 750 cc brand new quad bike.As quad bikes are not allowed on public roads, Ahmed also purchased a trolley to carry his bike safely to various places.Many of his friends also own quad bikes and during week-ends they make it a point to see that they spend time with them.

Sami Al Balushi.

19MIND YOUR LANGUAGE

Dr PN Ramani

Getting it rightIn one of my earlier pieces

in this column, I had re-ferred to George Bernard

Shaw’s attempt at reforming English spelling. Some readers then asked me about spelling rules. Let us look at English spelling rules and conventions (i.e., accepted practices) in this piece.

A person may be a fluent speaker of English, but may have serious difficulties with spelling when he sets out to put down his or her thoughts in writing. Incorrect spelling shows itself in one’s writing. If you look at the history of the growth of English, you will find that confusing and inconsistent spellings became more and more apparent with the invention of printing. When printing was introduced in England in the 15th cen-tury, printers used multiple spellings for many words. For instance, they added an extra e here and there to words, or swapped an i for a y to reduce the blank spaces in a line.

English spelling has evolved over centuries of history. About 85 per cent of English words may be said to follow spelling rules, but it’s the remaining 15 per cent of words that cause difficulties to

users and learners of English. To this day, English spelling remains inconsistent in many ways, which is puzzling to most of us. You can notice multiple spellings for the same sound – e.g., meat, meet, key, brief, receive, people, police, amoeba and faeces. You can also notice words with the same spelling but with different sounds – e.g., cough, dough, plough, rough, through and thorough. Look at a few other sets of words that have a similar spelling, but are pronounced differ-ently: bone/done; but/put; clerk/jerk; cow/low; done/gone; dull/full; food/flood; fork/work; form/worm; four/flour; laid/said.

Sir Thomas Smith was the first to publish a book on English spelling in 1568, but the book was in Latin. Several other scholars in the 16th and 17th centuries followed him and by late 18th century people were not seriously worried about spelling rules or conventions if a writer was understood and his meaning was clear to the reader. In the 1840s, Sir Isaac Pitman proposed a scheme for spelling reform and his grandson, Sir James Pitman, introduced the Initial Teaching Alphabet, a teaching method

(not a spelling reform system) in 1961. In the 20th century, spelling reform was attempted by the Simplified Spelling Society and writers like Robert Bridges the poet and Bernard Shaw the dramatist. In gen-eral, British spellings follow those of Dr. Samuel Johnson’s famous dictionary of 1755 and American spellings mostly conform to the spellings of Noah Webster’s dictionaries of 1806 and 1828. In general, American spelling is said to be more standardised than British.

All varieties of English (e.g., British and American) use certain rules or conventional practices in spelling. There is, however, variation in the extent to which these are applied. Let us examine some of the spelling rules and their exceptions.

In many words in English, the letters e and i occur together, either as ei or ie. When the combination of e and i pro-duces the sound ee, “i comes before e except after c”, as in: belief, chief, field, grief, niece, relief, retrieve, thief and tier (there is no c before the i);ceiling, conceive, deceive, per-ceive and receive (the vowel sound is preceded by c).

This is one of the most com-mon spelling rules taught in school. There are, however, exceptions that include coun-terfeit, seize and weird (all words with an ee sound). The words either and neither can be added to the exceptions if they are pronounced with an ee. Remember that these two words can also be pronounced as eye; in that case, they are not exceptions to the rule.

Most nouns ending in s take es for the plural, including lens/lenses and summons/summonses. This rule ap-plies even when plurals of surnames ending in s are required; they should also be treated as normal nouns, as in Jones/the Joneses (‘the Jones’ is wrong). While some nouns ending in –us take the –es plural (e.g., circus/circuses; hiatus/hiatuses; lotus/lotus-es and octopus/octopuses), others take an –i ending (e.g., bacillus/bacilli; cactus/cac-ti; focus/foci; fungus/fungi; locus/loci; nucleus/nuclei and radius/radii). The plural of iris is irises.

Nouns ending in ch, sh, ss or s form their plurals by adding es, as in church/churches, cross/crosses, flush/flushes and fox/foxes (ox/oxen is an exception). Words ending in –is also make plurals ending in –es (e.g., analysis/analyses; basis/bases; crisis/crises; emphasis/emphases; thesis/theses; synthesis/syntheses and antithesis/antitheses). Nouns ending in ix or ex have varied plural forms: Annex/annexes; apex/apexes or apices; appendix/appendi-ces; index/indexes or indices; matrix/matrices. Some nouns ending in on take a in their plural (e.g., criterion/criteria and phenomenon/phenom-ena), while others take s (e.g., lexicon/lexicons; neutron/neutrons; polygon/polygons). Note that most of these words are scientific or technical terms.

Advertisers and others have been using trimmed spellings such as donut, lite, nite, sox and thru. People who com-municate on the internet and via SMS use a repertoire of curtailed or reduced spellings, such as U (for ‘you’), b4 (for ‘before’) and F2F (for ‘face to face’). Personally, I don’t feel comfortable using such spell-ings. What about you?

Email ramanipn@gmail.com

British spellings follow those of Dr Samuel Johnson’s famous dictionary of 1755 and American spellings mostly con-form to the spellings of Noah Webster’s dictionaries of 1806 and 1828

APRIL 2011

A competitor at the National Spelling Bee contest.

20 CAREER

APRIL 2011

SENSE OF JUStIcE

Sahar Askalan

Lawyers at a meeting.

21

APRIL 2011

CAREER

If you have witnessed in a courtroom, the force of lucid exposition, the win-

nowing of the vital from the marginal, and the demolition of the opposition with both facts and law, the idea of becoming an advocate would have crossed your mind.

There are other reasons why youngsters would want to become advocates. Take the case of Sahar Askalan, who has been practicing as a law-yer in Muscat for more than two years now. She set up her own firm, Sahar Askalan Legal Advocacy & Consultancy, in 2009 – the first woman to do so in Oman.Askalan had wanted to be a lawyer since she was a child. She said, whenever she wit-nessed unfairness or injustice, it made her very angry. After completing school in Muscat she attended Boston Univer-sity in Massachusetts, and after graduating from there, studied law at BPP Law School in London.

STUDYING IN OMANBut one does not have to go abroad to get a degree in law. Students after high school can join the College of Law at Sultan Qaboos University and get the CCB Degree in Law. In the UK too, you can join a law programme after high school, but in the US, it is a post-graduate degree.Askalan said that getting trained in Oman is as benefi-cial as anywhere else. As soon as you graduate, you can join the chamber of a senior law-yer to start mastering skills like the drafting of pleadings, briefing on a case before a court hearing, court room advocacy and research skills. If it is a firm of solicitors and advocates, then you can also learn drafting of contracts, joint venture agreements, work on mergers and acquisi-tions, advise mutual funds, etc.

THE CRAFTA good lawyer would have intelligence, ability for critical thinking and mental stamina. Askalan said the first is in-herited, but the others can be

developed with hard work. On whether the ability to argue was a gift or could be taught, she said, “I am not sure, as I am argumentative by nature, for me it has been there from the beginning”.But she is an admirer of her firm’s head of litigation, Louay Abdul Kareem Al Rahmani, “for the logic and fluency of his arguments in court and the thoroughness with which he prepares. In court, he will have all the relevant authorities and case laws with him and there is order in his presentation. He is very convincing”.She said, over the last 40 years, enough cases have been decided in Oman’s tribunals, for lawyers here not to depend on judgments from other countries. The case laws are from our Supreme Court, Court of Appeal and other tribunals”.She said it is very important for lawyers to give their clients a very realistic as-sessment of where their case stands. “Lawyers must listen to understand what their clients want and then give them advice and as-sessment that is realistic. It should not necessarily be what the clients want to hear. Again, never say no to a client. A good lawyer must empathise with others.”

HARD WORkBecause of the vastness of the field and the many skills

that need to be honed, it often takes a few years before law-yers start earning ‘enough’. Askalan said, “You should become a lawyer only if you are happy to work hard, study a lot, learn new ways of think-ing and new language. All this can be at the cost of your social life. “You should not be think-ing of money. If you practice law for money or name you are unlikely to connect with people or succeed. Take up law, if you like to research or bury yourself in books, and guide people through the legal skills gained ”.“Again, if you get high grades in law school, you will be paid better as a solicitor, but for a barrister it takes a little longer to make a name”. Also lawyers must be pre-pared to be able to make a mark, when a major case comes their way. “You have to keep a good watch and see what is happening”.Before returning to Muscat, Askalan worked with inter-national law firms like Allen & Overy (London), Clifford Chance (Paris) and Richard Butler (Abu Dhabi), where she gained experience in project finance, joint ventures, real estate and litigation. Today, project finance is her main area of work. “When I joined Allen & Overy in London, they put me in the project finance department. I liked it and stayed in it. I wanted to be both a solicitor and advocate,

and I did.”Although, at law school in England, she had the highest grade in criminal law, she found “meeting prisoners and dealing with them emotion-ally draining and stayed away from it”.Askalan said she has not had heroes. “You have to know what type of lawyer you want to be. But I learnt from associ-ates and partners in Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance – things like drafting, negotia-tion, opinion writing and deal-ing with clients. What I like most is negotiation, drafting and opinion writing”.“These days, I also do pro bono in my office (work with-out payment) for deserving individuals”.She does not do court room advocacy as much as she would like to, because it takes most of the day. Arbitration, Askalan says, “is gaining in popularity. In Oman, once an arbitrator makes an award, it will get automatically enforced in 40 days, unless challenged in court”.Askalan said, she too finds that the profession is becom-ing a trade. The “reputation of lawyers is going down, because they are making money without doing the work. They should do the work and then charge fees. Even if I lose a case, I will be satisfied if I do by best. Always, when you give your best, satisfaction will inevi-tably come with it”

If you practice law for fame or money you are unlikely to succeed, Sahar Askalan tells Jeta Pillai

Looking for case laws in the library of a law firm.

The College of Law at Sultan Qaboos University. A courtroom at the College of Law.

22 PERSONALITY

APRIL 2011

Women are no longer confined within four walls of their

homes. Overcoming tradi-tions, they have come out and shown extraordinary skills that let them compete with male counterparts. Among the roles they play include: running charitable organisations, to riding hors-es and taking part in many other adventurous sports. Laila Qassim Al Balushi, a young and dynamic woman, is an example for many in the Sultanate. She works for children with special needs, pursues her passion of riding horses and had the privilege of display-ing her horse-riding skills, not once, but twice before His Majesty Sultan Bin Qa-boos Said during the Annual Royal Horse Race Festival and during the Royal visit of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II to the Sultanate for the 40th National Day celebra-tions.“It was a great honour for a common woman like me to be selected by the Royal Cav-alry, to display my horse-rid-ing skills before His Majesty the Sultan and Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II on Jan. 1 and on Nov. 27 in Al Watta-yah and at Al Adiyat, Seeb,” said a beaming Laila.When a motivation comes, it doesn’t stay stagnant; it grows and grows, until it finds ultimate satisfaction. Laila’s fascination with horses started at a very young age. It didn’t stop there. She wanted to turn her dream into reality and she was able to fulfil her passion

of horse-riding in 2005. “I got my basic training at Qurum Equestrian for nearly a year in 2005. As horse-riding training costs a lot, I had to stop it for a while owing to financial constraints. But my love for the sport did not hold me back from pursuing it. So I rejoined the government-owned Royal Cavalry in Seeb. There, they don’t charge and give free training. Really, I am grateful to His Majesty the Sultan for such a wonder-ful training,” says a cheerful Laila.A woman can do wonders, if she is supported by her husband. Laila was greatly supported by her husband in her endeavour. Her husband, a painter by profession, whole-heartedly stood by her as she learnt horse-riding. “I used to take my little sons (twins) along with me at the Qurum Equestrian and rigorously practiced various skills for handling horses and riding for nearly a year,” said Laila.Nothing can be an im-pediment for the one who is determined to do something. “In 2005, I was pursuing my Masters in Advanced Profes-sional Practice (Leadership and Management) from the Cardiff University through distance course and was looking after my family and commuting to Royal Cavalry. All these used to take lot of time, but I din’t give up as I was determined to learn horse-riding,” says Laila.“I used to have rigorous training of more than four hours a day. Even during Holy Ramadan, I did not take

a single break. After break-ing the fast, I used to go for practice as usual.” Hard work and commitment will not go in vain. Laila’s hard work and dedication paid off and the Royal Caval-ry recognised her ability and finesse and short-listed her for the ‘Big Day’, to display her skills before a galaxy of dignitaries.“I couldn’t believe that I was selected to display my skills before His Majesty the Sul-tan. But I was confident that I could do well and was not disappointed,” recalls Laila.

In spite of falling on her back while rehearsing for the big event, Laila was not deterred and went on and performed excellently before the digni-taries, and she was awarded for her extraordinary skills.She has joined an NGO that works for children with special needs. She imparts training to them in horse-riding also.Despite having a tight time table, Laila never forgets to spend time with family mem-bers and enjoys her week-ends with family, in-laws, parents and relatives.

Royal Equestrian and Camel Festival 2011, held at Al Fatah Square in Al Wattayah, highlighted the importance of Omani traditions associ-ated with horses and camels, which was watched by the people of Oman with pride and glory.Horse and Camel races are part of popular sports in Oman. More that 7,000 participants and 2,000 Arabian-bred horses and camels alongside the troupes from 12 Arab and foreign countries, participated in the event.

RIdINg AdREAmLaila Qassim Al Balushi, a mother of four, who displayed her horse-riding skills before Their Majesties Sultan Qaboos Bin Said and Queen Elizabeth II, tells Vinod Raghavan how she made it

WOMEN AND HORSE RACING

Perhaps horse racing, popularly known as the ‘Sport of Kings’ should be renamed as ‘Sport of Kings and Queens’! Women are now known not only as owners of winning horses, but breeders, trainers and jockeys. This sport is played world-wide and more and more women are playing major and competitive roles at prestigious horse racing tracks. At the turn of the last century in 1904, big and exiting changes began to take place in the world of horse rac-ing. There are a few well known female owners, trainers and jockeys that have emerged as competitors during the last one-hundred years.

23FLAIR

APRIL 2011

8 7

6

5

1 Lancer handbags in Bourbon and Mocha colours. ...............469 rials2 Lancel hand bags in red, black and mastic colours. .............425 rials Wallet. ......................................................................................119 rials3. Gold Line prayer beads. .........................................................116 rials4 Montegrappa –Mohammed Ali. Limited Edition. ...............1030 rials5. Mont Blanc – John Lennon. Special Edition. ........................280 rials6. ST Dupont – Collection Premium. 13 diamonds. ...............1081 rials7 Gio Monaco – Poseidon. ........................................................1270 rials8 Gio Monaco – Geopolis. ........................................................1405 rials

(Gold Line products are handcrafted. Each piece reveals the sculp-tor’s design and is inspired by an ancient tradition. Lancel handbags: Is a luxury brand with a very strong brand image, associated with the French legerity brand concept. It is made of lightly tumbled leather with generous folds and sensual curves.)Source: Capital Store. Photographer: Rajan.

3 14

2

24 DESTINATION

APRIL 2011

In the middle of the summer high season, it seems pos-sible to walk from one end of

the beach at Waikiki to the other without ever touching sand or surf because of all the bodies and beach towels.At Kaanapali on Maui, the beaches are fronted by luxury hotels, and a boardwalk moves the hordes from spot to spot, beach to sand to shopping.Finding a beautiful, nearly deserted beach isn›t a tropical fantasy. You just might have to make a long, sometimes bumpy ride or a bit of a hike. But if you long to be alone, buy a good map and head for these places where you can still get lost in paradise.

Kauai: Polihale Beach. A well-developed dirt road takes you to the last part of the drive to the longest beach in the islands, so it’s best to rent a Jeep or SUV – something with a little ground clearance. Officially, most rental car companies say the beach is off-limits – meaning, if you get stuck, you are on your own getting out. But in more than a decade of visiting the beach, I’ve never had a problem with the road if I had the right kind of vehicle. The reward is a beautiful sunset spot with only a scatter-ing of visitors. The road keeps the crowds out, but because it is a state park, there are plenty of benches, bathrooms and barbe-cue spots. The water here is usu-ally too rough for anything more than a knees-and-below dip. Native Hawaiians believe that the souls of the dead jump off into the afterlife from the cliffs at the north end of the beach – the most westerly point in the main islands.Difficulty getting there: medium.Oahu: Army Beach. Finding a good deserted beach on an island known as “The Gathering Place” is difficult. My top choice is on the “other” side of the North Shore, west of Haleiwa – away from Waimea Bay and Sunset Beach. The Hawaiian name for the spot is Mokuleia Beach. But its nickname is Army Beach because an Army recreation centre was located nearby until 1989. There’s a rocky shelf that requires reef walker shoes to navigate. But the beach is

gorgeous and there is usually no one around – which is why they filmed much of Lost on this stretch of oceanfront. The water is calmest in summer. This is the easiest of the beaches on this list to get to. It’s just a few feet off a paved road. But that also means it is sometimes a spot for car break-ins. Put all your valu-ables in the trunk and leave the windows rolled down. That way there is nothing to take.Difficulty getting there: easy.Maui: Hamoa Beach. You have to make the long, twisting drive to Hana and then go on even farther. Regularly voted one of the most beautiful beaches in all the islands, Hamoa is often deserted, or nearly so. It’s just too much of a time and distance commitment for all but the most determined beach enthusiasts. But once you get to the Hana area, finding the beach is easy, with decent parking and a short walk to the water’s edge. There’s plenty of shade in the trees above the surf line. The waters are placid in winter and a little bit more rollicking in summer. A visit is best in the early morning and late afternoon, when the day trippers making the Hana Road drive have yet to arrive or have already left.Difficulty getting there: mediumLanai: Polihua Beach. I love Hu-lopoe Beach on the south coast – it’s one of the most beautiful in the state and a great place to swim, body surf and snorkel. But with the Manele Bay resort on the west end and a popular local park on the east end, it’s usually as full as a beach on tiny Lanai can get. The opposite is true of Polihua, on the north coast. You’ll need a four-wheel drive Jeep in Lanai City. Unlike on other islands, the Dollar rental car agency expects that you will be taking your vehicle onto primitive roads, and the price - $139 a day – reflects the wear and tear on the Jeep. Get a good map and drive north on the dirt roads toward the stone forma-tions known as the Garden of the Gods. From there, it is a steep grade to finally pull up to a wide, golden stretch of sand with views out to Molokai. You’ll likely have it all to yourself except in the late afternoon, when a sund-

owner crowd of locals comes down to TGI whatever day it is. Don’t drive too far onto the soft sand – it’s a long (and expensive) tow out.Difficulty getting there: hard.Molokai: Kaupoa Beach. It’s not hard to find a deserted beach on Molokai, the island with the least developed tourism of the main Hawaiian islands. Even a spot like Murphy’s Beach, popular in most guidebooks, is usually sparsely crowded at best. I’ve never been to Papohaku Beach, which sounds like a prime candidate for this list. My choice is Kaupoa Beach, on the west end of the island. It’s not too far from Hoolehua, the main town on Molo-kai. The beach’s look is right out of Hawaii central casting – with a beautiful white crescent, set off by blue waters and dark brown of volcanic outcroppings that run down to the beach. If the water is too rough – watch out for a quick drop-off – then stick to shore and check out the tide pools. Once you get your bearings, it’s a fairly easy drive and walk to the beach.Difficulty getting there: medium

Big Island: Waipio Valley Beach. Distances are big on the Big Island, and as the youngest volcanic island, the shoreline is almost always rocky. There are a few classic beaches like Hapuna, along with some distant spots like the Papakolea Green Sand Beach near South Point. But they’re usually too crowded or too far to drive. So I’ll go with the black sand beach at Waipio Val-ley at the north end of the island. Be warned: It’s a tough hike in and out. Most visitors come on organised tours to explore one of the least developed traditional Hawaiian valleys in the islands. At the beach, you will almost certainly be alone, with the exception perhaps of a fisherman or maybe a few local surfers. It’s more for strolling and driftwood collecting than taking a swim – the water is often rough and a lifeguard is miles away. You’ll love it until you hit that hill on the way back up to the highway. You’ll work up a sweat for your solitude.Difficulty getting there: very hard.

MCT News Service

LOSt IN HAwAIIGary A. Warner tells us about the most secluded beaches on the islands

LOSt IN HAwAII

The black sand beach is featured at Waipio Valley on the rugged Hamakua Coast of the Big Island. The remote valley can only be reached by a steep, narrow road.

25

APRIL 2011

DESTINATION

LOSt IN HAwAII

Mokuleia Beach, also known as “Army Beach”.

LOSt IN HAwAII Army Beach is gorgeous and there

is usually no one around - which is why they filmed much of ‘Lost’ on

this stretch of oceanfront

Kauai: Polihale Beach. A well-developed dirt road takes you to the last part of the drive to the longest beach in the islands, so it’s best to rent a Jeep

or SUV – something with a little ground

clearance

26 ON THE ROAD

APRIL 2011

The Juke jumped gleefully away from the light on Lemmon Avenue, its

jumbled Picasso front end startling motorists.Welcome to the wacky-jack world of Nissan’s strangest crossover, the 2011 Juke, a highly likable youth pod styled in some dark corner of the universe and bred in a cyclotron, I think.(Actually, the Juke was mostly designed in Europe, but, hey, what›s the difference?)Let›s be brutally honest here: With its polarizing reptilian front end, sloping French roof and excessively styled sides and rear, the Juke looks like some intergalactic organic compound on wheels.I called it Space Toad.But just heed your mother’s advice and look for good beyond the Toad’s – er, Juke’s – bizarre exterior.You won›t have to work too hard for the nuggets.My metallic gray Juke SL, built on a compact Versa sedan platform, is aimed at young men.Beneath the Juke’s conflicted sheet metal, however, you’ll find a sweetheart of a turbo-charged 1.6-litre four-cylinder that produces a happy 188 horsepower (nearly two horse-power per cubic inch).Push it, and you also discover that its mainstream, econo-box platform has been well tweaked, giving it a ride and handling that its clumsy, high-water stance belies.But what you see initially

are large round headlamps mounted slightly below the top of the grille. The blacked-out grille between them is fairly busy, flowing into tall, exaggerated fenders wear-ing turn signals on top that resemble giant chrome-plated garden slugs.Both front and rear fenders bulge up as much as out, thanks mainly to character lines 10 inches above the wheel openings that mimic the radius of the opening.Fortunately, those openings are more or less filled by decent-looking 17-inch alloy wheels wearing 215/55 tyres.In the back, wild tail lamps slide down the sides of the rear window, dipping into a rectangular shape on the pooched-out hatchback.In case you missed it, the Juke is a four-door sedan, with the rear handles hidden in the black trim along the roof pillar.The fun continues inside. The instrument panel, for example, is shaded by a black stylistic wing rather than some pedestrian hood.A round centre stack in shiny black is complemented by oval air vents on the edges of the dash. My favourite feature was the shiny metallic-gray console, resembling the tank on a crotch-rocket.Although the interior is beset with lots of hard plastic sur-faces – typical in a $24,000 car – it is pretty good, well-textured stuff.

Moreover, the front seats in mine were covered in black leather-like material with red stitching and perforated centres in a red tint.You will probably need to be about my size, though, to fit in the back. Anyone approaching six feet is going to find it as snug as a precinct holding cell – not that I know anything about that, of course.While the Juke is hardly large, it is no flyweight, at about 3,000 pounds. When I did the maths on the back of my notebook – and considered the dispiriting effects of the stan-dard continuously variable transmission – I didn’t expect the Juke to jump.But it does. Especially strong between 0 and 40, the Juke can accelerate to 60 in a highly respectable 6.8 seconds – pulling hard through 6,000 rpm.Turbo lag was virtually unde-tectable in the four-banger, which consistently felt larger than its Mighty Mouse 1.6 litres.This is a toad with spring and zip. But you pay a small price for those nimble moves in the ride, which can be flinty on harsh surfaces.It didn›t bother me much. In fact, after driving Space Toad for a week and learning to really like it when it was in motion, I decided it might just be a book whose cover you learned to ignore – or love.

MCT News Service

RIdEA wAcky

The 2011 Nissan Juke SL is targeted at young men, writes Terry Box

2011 NISSAN JUKE SL:

Type of vehicle: Front-wheel-drive, 5-passenger, four-door crossoverPrice as tested: $24,370Fuel economy: 27 miles per gallon city, 32 highwayEngine: 1.6-litre four-cylinder with direct fuel injection and turbocharger, producing 188 horsepower and 177 pound-feet of torqueTransmission: Continuously variable automaticWeight: 2,932 poundsPerformance: 0 to 60 mph in 6.8 secondsSources: Nissan; Motor Trend

27

APRIL 2011

STAR WORLD

FORMER MISS WORLD SARAH JANE DIAS, WHO ROMANCES ABHISHEK BACHCHAN IN “GAME,” SAYS THAT IT WAS EASY TO WORK WITH THE ACTOR BECAUSE HE IS EASY TO APPROACH AND HAS NO HANG-UPS OF A STAR. “ABHISHEK COMES TO SET AS AN ACTOR NOT AS A STAR,” SARAH SAID. SHE

FEELS MOVIES IS A NATURAL PROGRESSION FROM MODELLING. “I THINK IT’S A NATURAL PROGRES-SION. I ALWAYS WANTED TO BE A PERFORMER. WHEN I WAS YOUNG, I DIDN’T KNOW WHICH MEDIUM I WOULD CHOOSE.... AS THE TIME PASSED, I A REALISED THAT ACTING IS WHAT I WANT TO DO”.

‘Abhishek hAs no hAng-ups’HOLLYWOOD ACTOR JUDE LAW, WHO RECENTLY SPLIT

FROM HIS FIANCEE ACTRESS SIENNA MILLER, SEEMS TO HAVE MOVED TO Ex-GIRLFRIEND LILY COLE TO NURSE HIS

BROKEN HEART. THE ACTOR WAS SPOTTED ON A COzY NIGHT-OUT WITH COLE, WHO HE DATED BRIEFLY IN 2008.“JUDE AND LILY WERE AT A TABLE... BEING VERY FLIRTATIOUS. IT WAS CLEAR THEY WERE COMFORTABLE WITH EACH OTHER”.

Jude moves to ex-flame lily

MODEL-TURNED-ACTRESS MUGHDA GODSE HAS TURNED VEGETARIAN AND

SAYS SHE HAS GIVEN UP MEAT BE-CAUSE SHE HAS STARTED PRACTIC-ING THE ART OF ASHTANG YOGA.THE 24-YEAR-OLD ONCE WAS A HARD-CORE MEAT EATER AND INDULGED IN DELICIOUS HOME-COOKED NON-VEGETARIAN DISHES ALMOST EVERYDAY. BUT FOR MUG-DHA, HEALTH WAS ALWAYS A PRI-ORITY, SO SHE DECIDED TO GIVE UP MEAT FOR GOOD, SAID A SOURCE.THE ACTRESS PRACTICES YOGA EVERY MORNING AND MAKES SURE THAT SHE STICKS TO THIS ROUTINE.SHE MADE HER BOLLWYOOD DEBUT WITH ‘FASHION’ AND THEN FEA-TURED IN ‘JAIL’. HER UPCOMING RELEASE IS ‘WILL YOU MARRY ME?’ THAT ALSO HAS SHREYAS TALPADE AND RAJEEV KHANDELWAL.

mughda turns vegetarian

SINGER RIHANNA REVEALS THAT THE INFAMOUS 2009 AS-SAULT BY HER THEN BOYFRIEND HAS MADE HER STRONG AND A BETTER SONGWRITER. “IT ACTUALLY GAVE ME A

LOT OF LIBERATION. WHAT I MEAN IS, I WAS ABLE TO TAP INTO THE PERSONAL PART OF MY MUSIC. I STARTED TO TELL STORIES THROUGH MY MUSIC THAT WERE ACTUALLY MY STORIES”.“(IN) MY ALBUM BEFORE THAT THERE WAS STILL A LITTLE BIT OF PROTECTION, THERE WAS STILL AN INNOCENCE TO ME. AND WHAT THAT TIME IN MY LIFE DID WAS KIND OF WAKE PEOPLE UP - IT’S NOT ALL A BED OF ROSES. MY LIFE IS LIKE YOURS,” SHE ADDED.

assault helped me: rihanna

ACTOR BRADLEY COOPER HAS FINALLY BROKEN HIS SILENCE ABOUT HIS

MARRIAGE WITH ACTRESS JENNIFER ESPOSITO, SAYING IT ‘JUST WASN’T RIGHT’. HE SPOKE ABOUT THE SPLIT DUR-ING A PROBING INTERVIEW ON AMERICAN RADIO SHOW WITH HOWARD STERN. THE ACTOR TOLD THE HOST: “IT WAS JUST SOMETHING THAT HAPPENED. THE GOOD THING IS, WE BOTH REALISED IT... IT JUST WASN’T RIGHT... THINGS HAPPEN”. THE ‘A-TEAM’ STAR WED ESPOSITO IN DEC. 2006 BUT THE COUPLE’S ROMANCE WAS OVER BY 2007.

bad knot: Cooper Courteney feels for davidTHEY MIGHT HAVE SEPA-

RATED BUT ACTRESS COUR-TENEY COx SAYS SHE

STILL HAS STRONG FEELINGS FOR FILMMAKER HUSBAND DA-VID ARQUETTE. “I DON’T KNOW WHAT THE FUTURE HOLDS, AND I GUESS, BECAUSE I STILL HAVE STRONG FEELINGS FOR DAVID ... I’M HIS BIGGEST PROTECTOR. I CAN’T HELP IT.“MOST GUYS AREN’T MATURE, ARE THEY? ... IF YOU KNOW WHO DAVID IS, YOU KNOW WHAT HIS INTENTIONS ARE, HOW HONEST HE IS, AND HOW BIG HIS HEART IS ... YOU CAN’T REALLY GET MAD AT DAVID BECAUSE HE’S NOT A MALICIOUS PERSON”.

APRIL 2011

28 NEW GEAR

A new tech gear/laptop

bag called the Airbak. It uses

an inflatable air cushion sys-tem to protect

a laptop and anything else

in the pack. The air cush-ions not only protect from

damage if the bag is dropped,

but also pad against the

normal jostling of the bag

against the back of the

wearer.

Lensbabies newest lens, the Scout with Fisheye, is an affordable and versatile option compared to many other manufacturers› more expensive fisheye lenses. But what makes this one different from other Lensbabies is that the spot is always in the center since the lens is static and doesn›t bend like the others.

Count on the Nintendo

3DS - with its no-glasses-needed 3D

display - to be popular, along

with a list of at least 18

gaming titles confirmed by the company

with more to follow

soon after.

The Kensington PowerLift Back-Up Battery, Dock and Stand give the extra power every iPhone user needs.

The Swiftpoint laptop mouse is a nice solution if a laptop’s touchpad is not for you. The size enables users to put it on the palm rest or the touchpad (Mac or PC) of the computer in situa-tions where a desktop or flat surface isn’t an option. To use, hold the Swiftpoint in a position like you were using a pen. You can scroll, click, page, zoom or do anything needed with ergonomic comfort just as you would with any other mouse or touchpad.

The WOWee ONE portable speaker produces a wide range of sound and has a unique feature that can make it better if the surface it sits on is right to turn into a sub-woofer in addition to a speaker. The speaker plugs into

any device with a 3.5mm stereo headphone

port, which is just about any device on the market today.

Log-itech’s sleek Wireless Solar Keyboard K750 charges whenever there›s light, even indoors, making both wires and bat-tery hassles things of the past.

29LAST PASSAGE

Just after the ongoing military engage-ment in North Africa began, we heard complaints that the air forces enforc-

ing the no-fly zone were using force far in excess of what was required to meet the aims of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolution.Their action, they said, was harming lives it was meant to protect.We have heard such complaints in the past, when a coalition of air forces helped vacate an aggression or halt genocide.But had such forces been directed by the Military Staff Committee (MSC) of the UNSC, it is possible that suspicions or suggestions of misuse of air power would have been fewer.Although the UN Charter requires that military intervention to enforce a UNSC resolution take place under the direction of a MSC, it does not happen. The MSC consists of military representatives of the permanent five members (P5) of the UNSC. But they neither have contingents that they can command, nor do they direct the forces that eventually take part

in the operations, like the ones to enforce the no-fly zone.Therefore, over the years, an impression that has been gained is that armed forces are made available only when other factors, like natural resources of the affected state, or the influence of allies in that region on P5 members, come into play.As a result, although the UNSC’s actions are meant to preserve the rule of law, it fails at times to satisfy one of its es-sential conditions, and that is, equality before the law.In the UNSC’s functioning, the same members are complainants, prosecutors, judges and executioners. In these circumstances, do we need an international court to decide matters related to breach of law in fairness?

Now, there are countries where parlia-ment is supreme and can pass any law. Where, for reasons of political and social history, people have put unlimited trust in legislators. Where, it cannot be imag-

ined that they will take away through legislation, people’s rights, like that to equality or of expression. There are also countries where legisla-tors are not trusted. Where the rights of people in a written constitution are guarded by the judiciary and therefore cannot be abrogated by parliament.One does not know, if in the coming years, due to developments in the af-fairs of states, a new will among UNSC members both P5 and non-permanent will persuade them to act at all times without fear or favour, affection or ill will. And with time, earn the trust of all the people’s of the world.Again, it may not be right to think that the world will never see such a day. For instance, during the Cold War, that is, during the first four decades of the UNSC’s functioning, it was severely re-stricted by the use of the veto, but since 1990, it has been used sparingly and we have seen military interventions under its authority.

Jeta Pillai

APRIL 2011

Buildings on a street in central Tripoli with Italianate facades.

One does not know, if in the coming years, due to developments in the affairs of states, a new will among UNSC members both P5 and non-permanent will persuade them to act at all times without fear or favour, affection or ill will. And with time, earn the trust of all the people’s of the world

30 NEWS & EVENTS

APRIL 2011

The Career Fair 2011 was inaugurated by Hi-lal Hamed Al Ahsany,

Chief Executive Director, Public Establishment for Industrial Estate-Rusayl and MM Khan, Chairman Trustee Council of WCAS. Salim Al Burtamani, Member of Trustee Council, WCAS, graced the occasion along with several other dignitar-ies.About 40 industrial houses from the Sultanate screened the young students and inter-viewed them at length. “Most of the students are brilliant and brimming with

new ideas. We will definitely be absorbing many of them in our group,” said an official of Omzest, who did not want to disclose his identity. Well-known firms like Sama-tel, Omzest, Sharikah Fanni-yah, Omaniya Muscat, Qatar Airways Call Centre, Oman International Bank, National Aluminium Products Com-pany, Bank Muscat, Infoline LLC, National Telephone Services, Bahwan Cybertek, The Financial Corporation co.,GAVS, Shanfari Group of Companies, Boraq Al Saad Trading, GlobalEdu, actively participated in the day-long

fair, said Prof Sayeed Aulia, adding that the jobs offered by various houses ranged from those in IT, marketing, accounting and also techni-cal jobs.Sree Vidya Vijayan, a new graduate from the WCAS accompanied by her friends Sheeba Pillai of CBFS and Jo-han Joy of WCAS were happy to attend the fair as they had first-hand experience of interviews with reputed companies.Sree Vidya prepared nearly a dozen sets of her detailed CV and is now awaiting replies.“The Career Fair 2011, is a

platform that enhances the options for students to find a suitable job,” Dr Mohan Varma, Dean of WCAS said.Students graduated with Bachelor of Engineering (CS/EC/Biotech), Bachelor of Computer Applications (BCA), Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA), Mas-ters in Business Administra-tion (MBA), and Executive Masters in Business Admin-istration (EMBA). There were students from other colleges in the Sultanate as well, Varma said.Last Year WCAS had conducted its first two-day Career Fair and around 15 leading companies partici-pated in the event. Blossom Christina, Faculty of Department of Management

and member of the Organiz-ing Committee of Career Fair felt that it was a great fillip not only for the students but also for the WCAS as a whole.P. Vijaya, Head of the Department of Computer Sci-ences, WCAS, and Facilities In-charge for Career Fair, told us, most of the compa-nies at the career fair are happy to see the enthusiasm and response from students and will participate in the next fair.Alya Yaqoob Al Hinai, Coor-dinator, Career Fair, felt that this kind of event provides the platform for students to interact with prospective employers and explore job opportunities with them.Vinod Raghavan

The second Career Fair 2011 of the Waljat College of Applied Sciences was a big success, as over 400 newly passed out graduates from all around the Sultanate participated

wALJAt cAREER FAIR A BIg HIt

Students are innovative and so are teachers of the Indian School, Al Ghubra. This was the

scenario at the Science India Fiesta 2011 organised by Science India Fo-rum (SIF) Muscat, at the Indian School Ghubra and Al Falaj Hotel, recently.Students presented a model of geo-thermal water recycling in a power plant and geothermal heating and cooling system, in the junior category. There was also an osmosis project by the students of Class x, Rajiba Nau-shad senior teacher at ISG said. Sneha Kannan, a student of class V, bagged the top position for junior category.

She impressed the audience with her confidence and extensive knowledge of her project “Geothermal water recy-cling in power plant and geothermal heating and cooling system”, Rajiba said.She demonstrated with simulations of geothermal process, scientific prin-ciples, project overview, benefits and various statistical data.Illustrative charts were also displayed highlighting the direct applications, environmental impact, economics, advantages, challenges and develop-ments worldwide. Geothermal emissions contain no

chemical pollutants or waste, they consist mostly of water, which is re-injected underground. Moreover, geothermal energy is a simple clean and renewable energy, she said. The project ‘Osmosis’, by Sadhiya Shi-raj of Class x, ISG, won her the second prize in the senior category. “Osmosis is the movement of water molecules through a selectively permeable membrane down a water potential gradient, more specifically, it is the movement of water across a selectively permeable membrane from an area of high water potential (low solute concentration) to an area of low water potential (high solute concentra-tion),” Sadhiya said. It may also be used to describe a physical process in which any solvent moves, without input of energy, across a semi-permeable membrane (perme-able to the solvent, but not the solute) separating two solutions of different concentrations. Osmosis releases energy, and can be made to do work, but is a passive process, like diffusion, she said.Osmotic power or salinity gradient power is the energy available from the difference in the salt concentration be-tween seawater and river water. Two practical methods for this are reverse electro dialysis (RED) and pressure-

retarded osmosis, Shiksha Laura B. George, who assisted Sadhiya, said.Both processes rely on osmosis with ion specific membranes. The key waste product is brackish water. This byproduct is the result of natural forces that are being harnessed: the flow of fresh water into seas that are made up of salt water.“I have an interest in trying out projects in science and experiments which will help me to study as well as satisfy my own quench for new ventures. It aims at offering visitors a unique experience in the modern scientific discipline from school kids too” Sadhiya said. Whereas Shiksha the assistant sup-port in the experiment says, “I have done projects before with varying degrees of success and assisting and helping Sadhiya inspired me to do more experiments myself and I could interact with quite few students, parents and teachers as well”. However, Sadhiya and Shiksha agree that “Science is a necessary part of an educational system, something indispensable for students. However, it should be taught in a way wherein it does not become a mental load for students. A wonderful way of doing so is to organise exhibitions to promote science.”

ISg StUdENtS BAg ScIENcE INdIA FIEStA AwARd

31

APRIL 2011

NEWS & EVENTS

Researchers from German Univer-sity of Oman (GUtech) and RWTH Aachen University in Germany

found evidence for a land-uplift along the Omani coast and past tsunami that may have occurred in the 20th century and earlier, said a press release. “Along the coast we discovered isolated rocks of more than 20 tonnes that have been moved by sea waves. We are sure that these blocks were not moved by hur-ricanes that affected the coastlines in the past years, therefore we expect that they are of tsunamigenic origin,” said Prof. Dr. Klaus Reicherter, Department of Neotectonics and Natural Hazards at RWTH Aachen University. During their ten-day field-work in Feb.

the researchers were scanning the Al Hajar Ash Sharqi Mountains between Quriyat and Sur with the so-called LiDAR (Light detection and ranging instrument). «With the help of this instrument, we would like to reveal the evolution of the coastline and the moun-tains. In Fins the long-term evolution is documented by coastal rock terraces or raised beaches,” said Prof. Dr. Goesta Hoffmann, Associate Professor at the Department of Applied Geosciences at GUtech. These beaches were formed thousands of years ago and uplifted to more than 100m above the present sea-level. These raised beaches form rock ter-races that are easily recognizable from

the highway between Sur and Quriyat. “They resemble a giant staircase. In some terraces made of limestone, shells and sand deposits indicate the former marine environment in which they were formed thousands of years ago. The group of researchers also found dif-ferent sea shells on top of the terraces, around 2km away from the sea and 100m above the sea level.“The 3-dimensional models showcase the fine details of the surface of the rock terraces,” explained Prof. Hoff-mann.Results of the research showing a 3-dimensional computer model with accuracy of 5 mm are expected by the end of the year. “The final results of our research can be used to mitigate potential damages of future tsunamis in this region. Knowledge of the long-term evolution of the coastline is essential in the context of global warming and associated sea-level changes,” said Prof. Hoffmann. According to scientists

the global sea level may rise up to one meter in the next 100 years. GUtech offers state-of-the-art research facilities where research goes hand in hand with education. “From an early stage of their studies, we involve the students in applied research. They actively support our work and learn dif-ferent kind of research methods,» said Professor Hoffmann. The first batch of BSc Applied Geosciences students will graduate next year. Some of them are interested in conducting their bachelor thesis within the context of the joint research project of the Omani coast. The group of geoscientists has been studying the coastal evolution of Oman. The research project has been spon-sored by the German Research Founda-tion (DFG).GUtech offers a four year BSc study-programme in Applied Geosciences and a part-time MSc programme in Petroleum Geoscience. The language of tuition at GUtech is English.

EvIdENcE OF pASt tSUNAmI ALONg cOASt

Covering 12,000sqm of exhibi-tion space, Comex 2011, the IT, telecom and technology

show promises to deliver the ultimate platform for business professionals to meet and connect and for consum-ers to shop, said a press release. With its theme as “Shift to e” and under the patronage of e.oman, Comex 2011 is set to take place at the Oman International Exhibition Centre from April 25-29. It is expected to receive a record breaking 75,000 visitors. For 20 years, Comex has grown to provide both consumers and business professionals with a gateway to the world’s most empowering digital solu-tions. Last year over 120 firms took part and more than 70,000 visitors came from Singapore, UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India, Jordan and Qatar. Comex has received great response from industry, with Cisco as ICT lead sponsor; Microsoft, Omantel, Telecom-munications Regulatory Authority and Technology Resources Network as lead sponsors; Mansoft Qatar and

Smart Vision Technical Services LLC as gold sponsors; and, Ericsson Oman, United Systems and Huawei Tech Investment (Oman) LLC as platinum sponsors. BUSINESS SECTIONBusiness professionals can meet and connect through Comex Business sec-tion. It will feature the latest IT solu-tions in action as well as offer a wide range of opportunities for visitors and delegates to explore innovative solu-tions and possibilities to boost their business.Serving as an ideal platform for inves-tors, manufacturers, vendors, system integrators and solution providers, Co-mex Business will provide an outlook on the regional ICT industry, allowing participants and visitors alike the opportunity to leverage partnerships, discover the latest developments and encourage joint business ventures and cooperation in Oman and the region. Comex will be enriched with events and special projects of business and government organisations, aiming

to create the most comprehensive information platform for the business sector. For the government sector, the focus will be on the ICT initiatives taken to enable efficient and effective delivery of products and services to customers and citizens by digitalis-ing their life through information technology.SHOPPER SECTION Enthusiasts after the latest trends in technology, hardware, software, gadgets and consumer electronics will be able to explore new technological horizons at Comex Shopper. This year, it will feature a line-up of the latest technology gadgets from audio and media players, digital photography, e.books, gaming and peripherals, home entertainment, home networking, IT components and peripherals, mobile phones, PCs, notebooks and tablets, SatNav, TV and display technology, and much more.Newly added features in this year’s Comex Show incorporate a new and enhanced media centre with many

activities providing information on new technology and entertainment for all visitors. E.OMAN VISIONComex embodies the inspirational vision of e.oman to transform the Sul-tanate into a sustainable knowledge society by leveraging ICT to enhance government services, enrich busi-nesses and empower individuals.COMEx CONFERENCE The 2nd Comex 2011 Conference will be organised to provide participat-ing delegates with an opportunity to learn and explore how the latest ICT trends and strategies can impact their existing and new business models and help their organisations to improve efficiency and achieve the bottom line. To be held on April 26, 27, at the Golden Tulip Hotel, Seeb, the confer-ence will bring delegates up close and personal with people and products that will shape the future of ICT.The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Mobility as a driving force towards business transformation’.

75,000 ExpEctEd At cOmEx 2011

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32 NEWS & EVENTS

The high quality research and teaching at the University of Stirling continues to enrich and

impact in the areas of: enterprise and the economy; health and well-being; culture and society; environment; and sport. With almost 12,000 students from over 90 different nationalities, the University of Stirling lies at the heart of Scotland and Scottish culture. Its mission is to pursue world class re-search and learning in order to inspire, challenge and support motivated indi-viduals who want to shape our world, says a press release.

MUSCAT COLLEGEUniversity of Stirling is proud of its longstanding ties with Oman and since 2005 has been affiliated with Muscat College in a partnership to deliver degree programmes. Around 100 stu-dents per year progress from their SQA HND study at Muscat College to Uni-versity of Stirling four-year Honours programmes taught entirely at Muscat College. Students at Muscat College can study for BA Honours degrees in: Business Studies; Accountancy and Computing Science; Accountancy and Business Studies; and Business Com-puting and several Omani students also go to its Scottish campus to study English Language courses, research and do postgraduate degrees.

QUALITY TEACHINGThe unviersity’s International Summer School presents a unique opportunity to sample student life at the Stirling campus, whilst gaining transferable

credits towards your degree at your home institution. Stirling’s Centre for English Language Teaching (CELT) offers a range of English language courses, including: General English and IELTS Preparation; Pre-sessional English; an English Language Summer School in Aug.; and English-plus Sport for closed groups by special arrange-ment. University of Stirling is an approved university of the Ministry of Oman ALT Trainees, in courses ranging from TESOL to Management and Finance Master’s degrees with our Stirling Management School.

RESEARCH LED INSTITUTIONUniversity of Stirling conducts world-class research that is directly relevant

to real world needs. Amongst other world-leading research, the Stirling Management School is leading a study by economists Dr Frans de Vries and Professor Nick Hanley and math-ematician Dr Adam Kleczkowski into rebalancing the relationship between the economy and the environment. The University’s research into the environment and ecology is among the most influential in Britain, according to Thomson Reuters’ Essential Science Indicators database.Development and InvestmentThe recent appointment of our new Principal Prof. Gerry McCormac has seen a focus on growth in research income and capacity. His predeces-sor attended an alumni event kindly hosted by Sheikh Dr Ahmed Bin

Abdullah Al Ghazali, Chairman of Muscat College and spoke of our pride at the innovative nature and high quality of learning that this joint degree programme provides for students in Oman. In March 2011, HRH The Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex, opened the University Library following a £11 mil-lion refurbishment and now, further capital investment is planned into new student accommodation on campus. University of Stirling is Scotland’s Uni-versity for Sporting Excellence, train-ing top athletes in preparation for the London 2012 Olympic Games and the Glasgow Commonwealth Games 2014. A substantial investment into develop-ing our world-class sports science and sports medicine facilities is underway. The project is due for completion in 2012 and will create two new sports performance assessment laboratories and other facilities to be shared jointly between the University and the Scot-tish Institute of Sport.

CONTACT US:Staff from the University of Stirling will attend the GHEDEx FAIR, 19th – 21st April 2011, at the Oman Interna-tional Exhibition Centre. Please email us: international@stir.ac.uk or go to: http://www.stir.ac.uk/study-in-the-uk for further information about the University of Stirling.

Al Ahlam Higher Education Services is a local representative for the University of Stirling. Contact: kate@ahlameduca-tion.com or phone 99473709.

StIRLINg IN ‘pURSUIt OF wORLd cLASS RESEARcH’

BMW has launched its ‘Stay Alert. Stay Alive.’ road safety campaign in Oman to help

raise awareness of the importance of road safety issues. BMW Group importer, Al Jenaibi International Automobiles, participated in the recently held ‘Mommy and Me’ event to promote the use of seat belts and

car seats amongst car owners with children.

More than 300 families took part in interactive demonstrations on the correct installation and use of car child safety restraints, with 200 com-plimentary safety booster cushions given out to children between six

and 11 years and weighing between 22kg and 36kg, the internationally recognised safest weights, said a press release.

BMW Group Middle East launched the ‘Stay Alert. Stay Alive.’ campaign in 2010 in the UAE and is now roll-ing the campaign across the other GCC markets. Working closely with BMW Group importers, the cam-paign focuses on many attitudinal road safety issues, including seat belts and child restraints, speeding, fatigue, driver distraction (such as mobile phones) and reckless driving.

Oman is the first GCC country outside the UAE to implement the campaign as the country has been shown to rank in the top two coun-tries across the GCC for speeding, with 49 per cent of respondents from Oman admitting to holding a child in their lap while riding as a passenger. Child restraints have been shown to reduce infant deaths by approximately 70 per cent, and fatalities by between 54 per cent and 80 per cent in an accident. It is also known that 83 per cent of belted and restrained children remain uninjured in accidents. Booster seats for children aged between four and 11 years old have been shown to reduce the risk of

injury by 59 per cent, compared to seat belts alone.

Commenting on the launch, Rachid Zamani, General Manager at Al Jenaibi International Automobiles said: “As part of our commitment to help improve road safety in Oman, we have launched this initiative to enlighten drivers about safe driving habits and particularly, occupant safety and restraint systems.”

Zamani continues: “It is essential for parents to ensure they use the right restraint for their child’s age and size. There are different seats avail-able and the selection of the appro-priate one is crucial to ensuring that children are effectively protected. By buying and correctly installing the right car restraints for their children, parents can significantly enhance their protection.”

Following an independent survey conducted with BMW and MINI cus-tomers to help identify what prompts drivers in the GCC region to take risks in their vehicles, BMW Group Middle East identified the use of seat-belts, and in particular, appropriate child restraints, as the theme of its first campaign under the initiative that is aimed at increasing road safety awareness across the board.

Bmw LAUNcHES ‘StAy ALERt. StAy ALIvE.’ dRIvE

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wALJAt wINS tOp pRIzES IN ScIENcE cONtEStStudents of Waljat College for Applied Science were on top of the world after

bagging the Gold and Silver prizes in the inter-college Science Technology and Engineering Projects (STEP) competition held recently at the Ibra College of Tech-

nology.

Waljat students, Ashish Kumar Mallik, Azhar Hussein Syed and Yathartha Vijay, from the Department of Electronics and Communication Engineering bagged the First prize in the Project category for their project “Pre-Paid Energy Meter” presented at the competi-tion.

The girls students of Waljat were not to be left behind. Zoya Sheikh, Fatima Zikra and Greeshma Unnikrishnan, from the Department of Bio Technology bagged the Second prize in the ‘Paper Presentation’ category for “First report of production and activity analysis of Amylasein Oman: A commercially important enzyme produced by common fungus”.

A jubilant Zoya Sheikh told Campus that “for the first time me and my friends Fatima and Greeshma participated in a scientific competition and we brought laurels to our college and for ourselves. It’s a great moment for us and also for my institute, which has whole-heartedly supported us in this team effort”.

Zoya alongwith her teammates Fatima and Greeshma expressed gratitude to her Project Guide Dr. Avneesh Pareek from the Department of Bio Technology for guiding the trio to successfully present their ideas and bag the coveted prize.

“We were confident of doing well and we are happy for achieving this feet,” said the trio in chorus. Coincidentally Zoya, Fatima and Greeshma are friends and have been together since their school days and hope to carry the friendship for a long long time, says joyous Zoya.

Ashish, a final year student from Department of Electronics and Communication and his colleagues Ashar and Yathartha were proud to display the award for their project: Pre-Paid Energy Meter, which is a new innovative concept in Oman.

Mallik has been staying in the Sultanate for nearly two decades, so has also Ashar and Yathartha. The trio were influenced by the mobilephone pre-paid system and also at many places in India the pre-paid energy system is working successfully, he said.“With this pre-paid system, no need to go to pay your electricity bill,” says Yathartha.

Ghedex is back this year with a promising educational fiesta under one roof. This one-stop-

centre for information on higher educa-tion institutions is to be held from April 19-21, 2011, at the Oman International Exhibition Centre. In its 12th year, Ghedex promises to provide a rich and diverse networking and enrollment platform, and promises to be more informative than ever. This year, Ghedex is keen to welcome students and educational experts to strengthen academic links with local, regional and international higher education institutions. The three-day event is dedicated to the education sector and endeavours to offer students an opportunity to be acquainted with educational and study options said a press release.

Organised by Oman International Trade and Exhibitions (OITE), the Interna-tional Higher Education Exhibition (Ghedex) is a platform to connect higher education institutions with ea-ger and potential students from all over the Sultanate. Ghedex showcases diverse interna-tional options in higher education for students, young professionals and academic organisations. Ghedex is endorsed by the Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE). In fact, the MoHE has always been playing a vital role in supporting Ghedex since its launch 12

years ago. Ghedex focuses on quality of education by inviting accredited universities and colleges to participate and showcase their programmes and curriculum. “Throughout the years, Ghedex has been able to bring together academic faculty from top ranking universities and varsities around the world on one platform. Ghedex provides an outstand-ing opportunity for students to interact with university representatives and academic faculty and discuss more about the different programmes that are provided by various higher educa-tion institutions. Ghedex has been at the forefront in contributing to the development of the nation’s education system as it plays an important role in

providing students and their parents with the educational and financial requirements of attending higher edu-cation institutions locally and interna-tionally. The event allows international universities, colleges and academic organisations to interact, recruit and connect with students, parents, officials and academic representatives from the region”, said Khalid Al Salhi, Project Manager, OITE.

Universities and colleges accredited by the MoHE can take advantage of the opportunity to showcase their programmes and curriculum during the three-day event. Since its inception, Ghedex has played an integral part in assisting students and professionals in their search for quality higher educa-tion. In line with national objectives, Trainex (Technology Education and Vocational Training) extravaganza and Jobex (Omanisation and Job Opportunities Exhibition) will be organised by OITE alongside Ghedex.

While Trainex endeavours to prepare students and graduates for the job market across industry sectors, Jobex aspires to provide an ideal platform for government and private organisations across all sectors to showcase job va-cancies and attract potential candidates into their workforce. “Trainex 2011 will be a unique event especially after His Majesty Sultan Qaboos Bin Said has granted Omani jobseekers with 50,000 job opportuni-ties. The jobseekers will eventually need to be acquainted with the avail-able training opportunities in order to level up their skills and Trainex 2011 will be the most suitable platform for this purpose,” Al Salhi pointed out. He added, “While gathering local, regional and international institutions under one roof, Trainex will be an excellent

opportunity for individuals looking to upgrade skills and improve employ-ment prospects. It will be dedicated to encouraging individuals to meet train-ing service providers, develop skill sets and demonstrate efficiency in their chosen fields.”“This year, Jobex promises to continue its vision to contribute in pushing Omanisation forward in the country and enhance more employment oppor-tunities. Jobex attempts to deliver the most qualified, competent and talented

candidates to the es-teemed par-ticipating companies to match with their require-ments. The event also

aims at offer-ing valuable information and guidance for candidates interested in developing their career skills and those who are planning to change their career route. The three-day event will ensure to provide visitors with the opportunity to get expert advice on what a career with a particular company might involve and how they can get the job they are after,”said Al Salhi.

For more information on the events log on to www.ghedexoman.com

gHEdEx pROmISES mORE tHAN EvER

NEWS & EVENTS

34 LIFE

APRIL 2011

SUDOKU ARIES Possibility of travel and new connec-tions that could lead to financial gain. Con-sider the views of others before giving your opinion.

TAURUS Discuss holidays with your part-ner. Find ways to improve your health.

GEMINI You could get recognition for your efforts. You will have to take important deci-sions in money matters.

CANCER Pay attention to relations at the work place. You will be more emotional than usual.

LEO You will be able to concentrate better at work. Watch how you spend your money.

VIRGO Study the facts carefully before tak-ing decisions. You will meet interesting people.

LIBRA Your ability to socialize and make friends will come handy. Pay attention to your family.

SCORPIO Take your time while taking deci-sions in money matters. You may not be able to help a friend.

SAGITTARIUS Your associates will seek your advice. Some relatives will feel an-

noyed if you do not give them enough time.

CAPRICORN Try to get habituated to healthy food. There will be a lot of socialising.

AQUARIUS Keep away from disputes. If peo-ple do not show confidence in you, enquire why it is so.

PISCES Communicate in a balanced way, do not get too emotional. Start planning your life.

The number grid should be filled up with numbers 1-9. Each column and row should contain the numbers 1-9. No digit should be repeated within a row or column. Also, in the box, there should be no repetition of num-bers from 1 to 9.

How to solve the puzzle:

While travel may be about freedom and fun even the most spontaneous of explorers often establish some guidelines for themselves. With this in mind the highly experienced travelers and editors of VirtualTourist.com share the standards and practices they’ve set up over the years.

1. IN A LOT OF PLACES TOILET PAPER IS A PRIVILEGE, NOT A RIGHT: The travelers who know this rule learned it the hard way: always keep at least a small amount of toilet paper on hand (the same goes for toilet seat covers, which can be even harder to find). 2. ACT AS A GUEST, NOT A CUSTOMER: Few qualities anger locals more than a stranger with a sense of entitlement. While you may not be used to things like siesta or eating your dinner late at night, a healthy respect for regional customs will make your trip infinitely more enjoyable.3. ALWAYS SCHEDULE IN SOME ALONE TIME: Traveling with friends and family can be a great way to get to know each other better ... and that’s the problem. An hour or two a day during which everyone is on their own can really keep the peace.4. AVOID PEAk SEASONS: Nothing will jack up the price of travel, make finding hotel rooms more difficult, or guarantee long lines like traveling during prime travel seasons. Try to go in the off-season.5. TAkE HALF THE STUFF AND TWICE THE CASH: The fun of travel is getting away from it all and that includes possessions. Taking less and budgeting for more is a great way to truly feel unburdened. 6. kNOW HOW YOU ARE GETTING FROM THE AIRPORT TO YOUR LODGING BEFORE YOU GET THERE: Between jetlag and airport confusion, it can be difficult to figure out how to get just a few miles to your hotel without being ripped off or taken to the wrong place. Take care of this when you first buy the plane ticket.7. ESTABLISH GROUND RULES WITH YOUR BOSS BEFORE YOU LEAVE: Nothing is worse than getting on the road and then realising your boss has no intention of letting you relax. Conversely, the expectation that you will never be far from your BlackBerry may be yours alone. A quick talk when you ask for the time off is a great way to make sure you both stay happy.8. NEVER EAT NEAR THE EIFFEL TOWER: Many feel that if you can see the ticket booth of a major monu-ment from a restaurant, you’re too close. Travel just a block or two in any given direction and you’ll be amazed at the difference in price, quality, and elbow room of the area eating establishments.9. GET ON LOCAL TIME AS SOON AS POSSIBLE: Even if it’s just for the first night, allowing your body to stay on your hometown time makes it very hard to get over jetlag. The sooner you get on the local schedule the better, so even if it feels like two in the afternoon, if it’s time for bed in your new location, hit the sheets!

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top 10 Easy Rules of traveling