Tag Archives: technology
India’s CBSE may open Dubai centre
India’s CBSE may open Dubai centre Muaz Shabandari / 26 September 2013 India’s largest education board has announced plans to set up a new centre for schools in the Gulf. The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) centre will deal with student and school issues in an attempt to provide them with better services. “There is a definite need for a centre and over the next two or three months, we will have a sub-regional office in the Gulf region. The centre will most likely be in Dubai since it has the largest concentration of CBSE schools in the Gulf,” said board chairman Vineet Joshi. India’s Human Resource Development Minister Dr Pallam Raju, who was speaking with school principals in Dubai via teleconference, made the formal announcement on Wednesday. The CBSE chief also announced the board’s plan to start accreditation for all schools affiliated with the board. Inspection teams from India will visit schools in the Gulf region every five years to assess education quality as part of the plan. “We were working on developing this accreditation system for the last two years and we have launched it now. It will be compulsory for all CBSE schools to get accredited. Those schools that fail to receive an accreditation will be given one chance, failing which their CBSE affiliation will be revoked,” said Joshi. “The accreditation system will follow a peer assessor scheme where two assessors from private agencies and one CBSE observer will evaluate the school over a period of two days. A list of recommendations will be presented to the board and it will then be examined.” The educational board has selected 12 private agencies to nominate CBSE school principals who will qualify to be peer assessors after completing an accreditation test. The new system is being implemented to protect student interests and improve teaching and learning standards. “Schools associated with CBSE are not supposed to commercialise and, therefore, education cannot be looked at as a product. There has to be a culture of continuous improvement and the accreditation system will help them in this aspect,” added Joshi. Reports by education regulators have constantly highlighted the need for CBSE to move away from rote learning and the board has responded by announcing a series of changes over the last few years. “We are looking at consolidating the changes we have done since we started implementing them four years back. We value suggestions raised by schools and it reflects some of the issues which they may face.” Each year, the board affiliates 800 new schools and the new accreditation policies are expected to come a long way in improving education standards in Indian schools following the curriculum. muaz@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
Concord Energy, Cool Planet To Bring Biofuel To Asian Pacific Market
Published on Wednesday, 25 September 2013 Singapore’s Concord Energy has signed an agreement with biorefinery developer Cool Planet Energy Systems to establish a joint venture in the Asia Pacific Region for the development of biofuel facilities. Concord Energy is a leading crude oil and refined petroleum product trading company. They have made a financial investment in Cool Planet, which develops and deploys small-scale biorefineries that can convert non-food biomass into high-octane, drop-in biofuels and biochar. “We believe that Cool Planet has developed a unique technology that will revolutionize the production of biofuels and we are delighted that Cool Planet has chosen Concord Energy as its partner,” said John Stuart, chief executive officer of Concord’s Asset Group. Concords extensive operational and development experience in the Asia Pacific is considered key to the J.V.’s plans to establish a presence in the biofuels production market in the region. “We chose Concord Energy because we know they have the strong desire and the technological capability to deploy quickly the Cool Planet technology in East Asia and in Oceania,” said Vital Aelion, Cool Planet’s head of international business development. Commercial facilities for biomass to biofuel Just last week (September 17), Cool Planet also announced another business breakthrough, the second close of“D round” equity raise that garnered them $19.4 million in investments. The round added investors from Hong Kong, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Mexico to a marquee existing investor base, including North Bridge Venture Partners, Shea Ventures, BP, Google Ventures, Energy Technology Ventures (GE, ConocoPhillips, NRG Energy), and the Constellation division of Exelon. The new investors are committing to help bring Cool Planet’s drop-in fuel technology to countries around the world, and Cool Planet is actively developing partnerships to commercialize its technology internationally. Cool Planet now has over $60 million in investments to see the deployment of their technology. A portion of the equity raise will be used to finalize the engineering design of Cool Planet’s first commercial biorefinery in Louisiana in the United States (see related story ). URS Corporation will be the front-end engineering and design contractor for this facility which will begin operations before the end of 2014. The plant will produce 10 million gallons of biofuel a year. – EcoSeed Staff Continue reading
Dubai well-positioned to pay off $20b debt: Ahmed
Dubai well-positioned to pay off $20b debt: Ahmed Staff Report / 25 September 2013 Dubai is not in negotiations with Abu Dhabi to refinance a $20 billion debt that will be due next year, a top government official said on Tuesday. Dubai borrowed a total of $20 billion from Abu Dhabi and the Federal Government of the UAE when the financial crisis hit across the globe in 2009. The debt comprises $10 billion from the UAE Central Bank, which is due to mature in February 2014 and $5 billion each from two state-owned banks in Abu Dhabi — National Bank of Abu Dhabi and Al Hilal Bank — maturing in November 2014. “Dubai companies are doing well and can take care of their own debt,” Shaikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, chairman of Dubai’s Supreme Fiscal Committee, told reporters on the sidelines of the sail-away ceremony to mark the commencement of the delivery of the pioneering Prelude FLNG Turret Modules to owner Shell. According to government forecasts, Dubai’s economy is recovering fast and set to expand 4.6 per cent, on average, between 2012 and 2015, more than twice the growth of the previous four years. The borrowed money was mainly used to support debt restructuring of Dubai World and property developer Nakheel, the builder of the palm-shaped islands. “No, we are not talking to Abu Dhabi,” Shaikh Ahmed, who is also President of the Dubai Civil Aviation Authority, Chairman of Emirates airline and Chief Executive of the Emirates Group, responded to a question if both emirates are holding discussion to roll over the debt. He did not elaborate further. Property market Dubai’s growing population, improving economy and its status as a safe haven amid political and economic unrest in other parts of the Middle East have helped boost apartment prices by 38 per cent in the past 12 months, according to Standard Chartered Bank. Dubai’s government is working on new rules to protect its real estate market and prevent any excessive rise of property prices that could end in a crash, Shaikh Ahmad said. The bursting of the property bubble in 2009-10 caused prices to plunge by more than 50 per cent. “We didn’t create the bubble, it was a global crisis. The real estate challenge is over now,” he said. “We are working on our regulations. Sometimes I don’t see that [high property prices] are a good thing. We don’t want Dubai to become an expensive city,” he added. He did not give details of the proposed regulations. In a July report, the IMF said Dubai might need to intervene in its property market to prevent another boom-and-bust cycle. Last year, the UAE Central Bank tried to introduce caps on home mortgage lending as a way to head off another bubble, but it suspended them after lobbying by commercial banks, which complained their business would suffer. The central bank is now negotiating revised caps with the banks, which are expected to be announced by the end of this year. With inputs from agencies abdulbasit@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
