Tag Archives: children
Back-to-school excitement picks up
Back-to-school excitement picks up Muaz Shabandri / 25 August 2013 Malls and shopping stores are lining up deals and offers for school essentials as students gear up to return to schools after a two-month summer break. MY FIRST SCHOOL BAG… A mother shopping for her son at Geant Supermarket in Ibn Battuta Mall in Dubai on Saturday. — KT photo by Grace Guino The sale of uniforms, books, shoes, bags, lunch-boxes and stationery products peaks during this time of the year as the school season gets under way. More than 225,000 students in Dubai will be back in classrooms soon as the yellow school buses hit the roads once more. For parents, this time of the year usually involves budgeting for education expenses and going the extra mile to support their child’s learning needs. Pamela Robinson’s son, who attends Greenfield Community School, will be among the thousands of kids going back to school next week. She said she planned to go shopping and help the 10th grader prepare for an important school year. “As your child gets older, the expenses change and they also learn to make their own choices. They want new gadgets, the latest technology and the expenses keep changing. It’s good to have back-to-school promotions because they offer value for money sometimes. Over the next few days, I will definitely be buying books and other school essentials for my child to get ready for school.” Parents shopping for back-to-school essentials with their children at Geant Supermarket in IBN Battuta Mall on Saturday. — KT photo by Grace Guino Malls and department stores have special discounts on most student-related products — with some even offering discounts on popular gadgets like the iPad. Mridula Pande, an English teacher at Indian High School and a mother of two, believes in giving children time to get adjusted to their routine. “As soon as I came back from our annual vacation, I headed straight to the uniform store and finished buying new uniforms and shoes. The children always want new things and it’s something which gets them excited for school. As parents, it is our responsibility to give them enough opportunities to relax and unwind while building an atmosphere of excitement at home for going back to school.” Mridula encouraged parents to create “small exciting moments” at home which would make it easier for teachers to help keep the children engaged in learning better. “Sometimes parents do not show an interest in their child. For example, some students join school after a week of reopening and they have already missed classes. Simply put, if a parent doesn’t value school, children will also not value the opportunity to learn.” Parents shopping for back-to-school essentials with their children at Geant Supermarket in IBN Battuta Mall on Saturday. — KT photo by Grace Guino Mohammed Rehan Hameed is another busy parent preparing his two sons and one daughter to return to school next week. His daughter, the youngest of the children, will be joining a nursery. “I will be paying Dh18,000 for the nursery’s yearly tuition fee and it is almost twice what I had paid for my eldest child who is now in Grade 8. The cost of education is steadily increasing and parents usually don’t have much of a choice.” He added the prices of school essentials were also on the higher side. “Stationery products and books have become expensive. Unfortunately, most schools have a monopoly over textbook and uniform sales also. A parent has to pay whatever price has been asked by the school’s supplier, leaving little option when it comes to budgeting for school-related expenses.” For retailers and school goods suppliers, the next few weeks will mark an increase in profits as parents will dash to fulfil every little wish of their little ones. – muaz@khaleejtimes.com Continue reading
GMO’s Jeremy Grantham on Climate Change and Investable Ideas
By Nick Summers August 08, 2013 Photograph by Harry Gould Harvey IV for Bloomberg Businessweek What was a 74-year-old asset manager, who oversees $100 billion, doing at a Keystone XL pipeline protest outside the White House? The biggest issue confronting us is the deterioration of the environment, particularly damage to the climate. It’s one thing to warn in a quarterly letter about a carbon bubble and another to maybe get arrested for it. Why did you take that step? Within the U.S., the biggest problem is coal and tar sands. If we burn half or more of what we have in two areas in North America, there is no chance of avoiding very dire consequences. Rising water levels displacing hundreds of millions of people globally, destabilizing global politics, acidification of the water almost certainly destroying most of the coral reefs, and possibly threatening the bottom of the food chain in the ocean. In November, you wrote that scientists must sound a more desperate note. I think they have an ethical responsibility. Did you ever think you would be out in front of scientists? I’m not out in front. What they are reflecting is what we learned in the investment business: the significance of career risk. I made a living pointing out that our No. 1 job is not managing money; it’s keeping our job. Short-term momentum investing dominates because of that. The scientists are protecting their jobs. How they do that is to stay out of the limelight and make sure they’re conservative. What is your opinion of young people? They’re not out in the streets. They are still flocking to Wall Street. They’re not flocking quite so enthusiastically to the financial world. I am prepared to take my optimism wherever I can get it. Obviously, they haven’t responded. It may seem too distant, which is ridiculous because this is happening so fast that this is their lives, not their children’s. How do you start with big observations and get to investable ideas? The only investable idea I have real confidence in is farming and forestry. My family owns some forest, and now we’re closing on a farm. Make the farming more sustainable and the forestry more sustainable, and everyone benefits. Can you talk more about the farm? We’re buying a farm to do comprehensive experiments and broad-based agriculture. What they call “mob grazing”—a high density of cattle, moving them around, making sure that they eat everything that’s there. They trample the seed and so on and they fertilize it. Using goats to eat invasive plants, using chickens to follow the cattle and pigs to eat the leftover vegetables and the fallen fruit, orchards growing fruit and organic vegetables, over 200 acres. Where is this? Maui. My elder son is at Harvard Management Co. He does exotic forestry and farming investments. The second son is a forester. This will give us data and experiments without betting the farm on any one of them. When do you plan to get seeds inthe ground? Immediately. They’ll start small. It will hopefully be a template. They use this offensive word “holistic.” I hate it. It’s the world’s most pretentious word. How long do you let an idea percolate before you commit it to one of your quarterly letters to investors? Sometimes years. I have a decent idea about the exaggerated attention given to debt. I seem to be having writer’s block. What is this big idea? I’m not saying it’s a big idea. It may be very humble. I noticed a series of deficiencies in the data as typically presented. It’s as if only debt matters, only finance matters, only banking matters. We have been manipulated to see ourselves in a world where those things rule the roost and therefore we have to be protective of the big banks. Can the Fed take away easy money without jolting the markets? Who cares? This is the game I’m complaining about. We will prosper by the quality and quantity of our labor and capital. Do not pretend that how they twitch around has any material effect. Many people intuit that climate change is getting worse, but put it out of their heads. Why do you find this interesting? I like to be right. I try not to miss the big ideas, forget the little ones, and try to get them right. End of job description. Continue reading
Etisalat donates Dh3m to Mohammed’s Ramadan Campaign
Etisalat donates Dh3m to Mohammed’s Ramadan Campaign (Wam) / 14 July 2013 Etisalat, on Sunday, announced a donation of Dh3 million to provide clothing for 75,000 needy children around the world as part of its support to Ramadan campaign launched by His Highness Shaikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice-President and Prime Ministerof the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, to dress 1 million needy children. Etisalat has allocated 50 million SMS to support the donation campaign. The initiative will receive further support by sending SMS to subscribers spreading awareness and encouraging them to donate. The initiative plans to provide clothing to 1 million needy children globally. The campaign will continue until the 19th day of Ramadan (July 28) which falls on the ‘Emirati Humanitarian Work Day’ and marks the 9th anniversary of the death of the late Shaikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Ahmad Abdulkarim Julfar, CEO, Etisalat Group, said: “H.H. Shaikh Mohammed’s initiatives have always touched millions of lives in the region and globally reaching out to the needy regardless of race, colour or religion. This kind of important initiatives puts the UAE in the spotlight and highlights its leading position as a global centre for humanitarian action.” Contributions can be made by sending ‘dress’ via SMS to 7040 donating Dh40 to dress one child, to 7,160 contributing Dh160 to dress four children, to 7240 donating Dh240 to dress six children and to 7400 contributing Dh400 to dress 10 children. Continue reading
