NEW DELHI: India’s Narendra Modi yes-terday suffered his first major electionsetback since becoming prime ministerlast May, as anti-corruption campaignerArvind Kejriwal won a landslide victory inDelhi state polls. Modi’s Hindu nationalistparty won just three of the 70 seats inthe Delhi assembly in elections held overthe weekend, dealing a setback to hisefforts to consolidate power and pushthrough much-needed economicreforms.

Former Delhi chief minister Kejriwal’sAam Aadmi (Common Man) Party won67 seats, according to official resultsreleased hours after Modi concededdefeat and promised the city ’s newleader his government’s “complete sup-port”.

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LS MPs demand debate on scrapped mega tenders

Five investigation reports referred to Audit Bureau

from the editor’s desk

50 yearsfrom now

myopinion@kuwaittimes.net

By Abd Al-Rahman Al-Alyan

Among the most notable of ideas to comeout of the Government Summit 2015 inDubai this week was those presented by

Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and DeputySupreme Commander of the Armed ForcesSheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahayan.During his keynote address, Sheikh Mohammedurged the Emirates to encourage its “human tal-ent” and to look to education and not oil for thecountry’s future.

I couldn’t agree more. But this opens adebate. How many Gulf countries are actuallycapable of sustaining themselves without oil? Inall honesty, none of them. The truth is that theentire region lives on oil reserves. None of theGulf countries have true and developed manu-facturing industries, with perhaps the exceptionof Saudi Arabia. None of them have a tourismindustry with the exception of Dubai andMakkah for religious purposes. None of themhave enough highly educated and technicallyskilled local people.

Education is paramount in every aspect oflife. Whether you are building an economy orcreating a stable political environment, educa-tion is the key to development and prosperity.Having an educated society would create theconditions for economic and business innova-tion and promote research and development inways to sustain the country away from naturalresources.

Some are working on it, some are nearlythere. The UAE and Qatar are now hosting inter-national events, building research and knowl-edge centers and improving their educationalsystem, medical field, human talent and build-ing tourism industries and finance sectors. SaudiArabia has its factories, and has been focusing alot lately on building its educational system anduniversities. Saudi Arabia has even begunaddressing its social issues and responding tosocietal needs rather than just trying to keepthings the same.

Unfortunately, Kuwait seems to be fallingbehind in all these matters. It’s a known fact thatKuwait’s educational system is grossly outdatedand inadequate and has deteriorated, and theilliteracy level has increased.

Even when thinking of investing money inthe country, official statements are very discour-aging. Every other government announcementsays ‘our budget is going bankrupt’ or ‘our secu-rity is under threat’ or we will remove govern-ment subsidies on a certain commodity, whichobviously will make life more expensive. Theseare all discouraging actions, even for localinvestors. Certain policies and statements seemto be made without thought of the conse-quences or the reaction from the market. Everydiwaniya you go to in Kuwait seems to be com-plaining of the lack of action and the lack of eco-nomic development and opportunities.

We look to our brotherly GCC neighbors andwe feel proud of their successes. But we also ask:Why not Kuwait? Where does our future lie? Andhow will we survive without oil? It’s time to startplanning now for where we want to be 50 yearsdown the road.

By B Izzak

KUWAIT: The National Assembly yesterday demanded adebate on mega tenders cancelled by the government,mainly the airport project, after MPs criticized the actionsof the ministry of public works. The government howeverused its constitutional right and demanded that thedebate be delayed until the next session, scheduled forMarch 10. The Assembly request was triggered by a rec-ommendation by the public works ministry last week tothe Central Tenders Committee to scrap a tender for theairport expansion project after bids far exceeded ministryestimates.

The ministry said that it had estimated the project tocost around KD 1 billion, but the lowest of four bids madecame at around KD 1.4 billion. The ministry’s requestprompted angry reactions from the Assembly, whichmade its public utilities committee to recommend trans-ferring the project from the ministry to the Amiri Diwan.But several MPs yesterday praised the ministry’s move,saying it aimed at safeguarding public funds. The CTC isscheduled to meet ministry of public works officials todayto take a decision on the tender.

During its busy schedule yesterday, the Assembly vot-ed to refer five investigation reports to the Audit Bureauto complete the legal procedures for sending officials sus-pected of wrongdoings to the public prosecution. A num-ber of other reports were sent to the government toimplement its recommendations, while a report on smug-gling diesel was sent back to the public funds protection

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KUWAIT: Speaker Marzouq Al-Ghanem smiles as a photographer takes his picture during a NationalAssembly session yesterday. — Photo by Yasser Al-Zayyat

Newsi n b r i e f

Emirates aims to hire more than 11,000 staff

DUBAI: Dubai’s Emirates Group aims to increase its staffby about 6 percent over the next year as it adds 20 air-craft to its fleet and expands other operations, it saidyesterday. Emirates Group, which comprises Emiratesairline and aircraft ground handling and flight cateringfirm dnata, aims to hire more than 11,000 staff by March2016, it said in a statement. Nearly half will be recruitsfor Dubai-based cabin crew jobs while it will also fillpositions in flight operations, engineering, airport serv-ices and corporate roles. “Right now we have over75,000 employees in Dubai and around the world,”Abdulaziz Al-Ali, executive vice president of humanresources at Emirates Airline and Group said in a state-ment. The 6 percent growth target takes into accountturnover, the airline clarified later, which means about6,500 employees will be leaving in the coming year. In2014, Emirates received more than 480,000 online jobapplications, it said. Dubai International replacedLondon’s Heathrow last year as the world’s busiest air-port by international passenger traffic, data releasedlast month showed.

Worker abuse at Louvre, Guggenheim sites: HRW

NICOSIA: Human Rights Watch urged the Louvreand Guggenheim museums yesterday to pressurethe United Arab Emirates to end worker abuse on aproject that will host branches of the institutions.Some employers at the Saadiyat Island site in AbuDhabi, which will also be home to a campus of NewYork University (NYU), are withholding wages, con-fiscating workers’ passports, and housing them insubstandard accommodation, HRW said. Severalhundred workers who went on strike at the site werearbitrarily deported, the New York-based rightsgroup said. Abu Dhabi’s Tourism Development andInvestment Company (TDIC) hit back, rejecting thereport’s “unfounded conclusions” which it said were“outdated and based on unknown methodologies”.Saadiyat’s main developer said all workers haveaccess to their passports and 99 percent are provid-ed with medical insurance. However, HRW said thatwhile only “a small percentage” of workers were sub-jected to abuse, the prestigious foreign institutionsinvolved should demand commitments by theUnited Arab Emirates to protect workers and com-pensate them for mistreatment.

By Faten Omar

KUWAIT: Three former Kuwaiti prisoners of war sharedstories about their time in captivity during an event atthe American University of Kuwait on Monday night. Col(Ret) Nasser Salmeen, Col (Ret) Abdulwahed Al-Naqqahand Lt-Col (Ret) Pilot Saleh Al-Jemaz were all taken pris-oner during the Iraqi invasion and occupation of Kuwait(1990-1991). While recounting the horrors of the war and

their imprisonment, the former POWs also recalled a fewamusing incidents.

Salmeen said 278 Kuwaiti prisoners were held in Iraqifor a period of 238 days from Aug 3, 1990 to March 27,1991. “When we were in prison, the Iraqi army used manytactics to force us to join them. They covered our eyesand shot in the air, saying, ‘We killed your colleaguebecause he was not cooperative - you have to cooperate’.

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Former POWs look at lighter side of ordeal

Upstart party wins big in Delhi Blow for Modi • Congress decimated

NEW DELHI: Leader of the Aam Aadmi Party Arvind Kejriwal (cen-ter) waves to the crowd yesterday. — AP

DOHA: More than a million people were given a day offwork yesterday in Qatar to take part in a nationwide day ofsport amid growing concern at obesity levels in the super-rich Gulf state. Although the annual Qatar National SportDay is meant to be a fun event with beach volleyball, jog-ging, fitness boot camps and even a screening of the box-ing movie “Rocky”, it contains a serious message. Qatar, forall its recent association with sport, has a weight problem.

The first results from an ongoing two-year study by theQatar Biobank, a medical research facility, published at the

beginning of this year found that 73 percent of Qatariswere classified as “overweight or obese”. The same research- covering 1,200 Qatari nationals and long-term expats alsodiscovered that 76 percent of men and 70 percent ofwomen are at risk of developing cardiovascular disease.And only two in 10 Qataris do any kind of exercise eachweek. The same research also found that 45 percent ofwomen had gained weight in the past year, though therewas no comparable figure for men.

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Qatar gives day off for sport