Wednesday, December 23, 2009

The Angel Investing Drought in India?

I attended the Angel Connect breakfast meet today (on the sidelines of the TIE Summit Mumbai), organised by Alok Mittal and team from Cannan Partners (VC guys); where the lead topic of discussion seemed to be "why is their such a drought of Angel Investing in India? The big parallel drawn was with the US, where VC investments last year were apparently $30B and Angel investments were a close 2nd at $26B; and apparently in India, Angel investments are way behind VC investments.

Most people at the meet agreed that Angel Investments are chiefly in businesses that VCs are likely to fund once the model is proven. This is logical because Angels cannot write large enough cheques to carry a business all the way to sale or IPO, thus will need VCs to step in with big cheques after 4 - 8 quarters. Thus one limitation as to what businesses are being funded by Angels is the kind of sectors VC find hot.

Another agreement seemed to be that, since Angels need to spend lots of time on with their investee startup, they like the business to be local; thus Angel activity in India is chiefly restricted to business HQ in Delhi, Bombay and Bangalore.

Surprisingly some Angels differed on the fact that only business that have an exit potential need to be funded by Angel Capital. Some Angels at the meet said they fund businesses that can give them healthy dividends ! I found that quite strange and didn't make sense to me.

From my own experience, Angel investing is growing by leaps and bounds in India, at over 300% a year, with more and more projects Angel invested each year. At Indian Angel Network, since 2006 we have done 19 investments, with 10 of those coming in 2009! At this rate in about 8 years we should see Angel investments reach a very sizeable number, possibly equaling VC investments.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Chrome for Mac - Advantage India


With the release of Chrome for Mac the fun of having yet another bowser for yet another operating system enhances by one more level. So now we have:

Mac: Safari, Firefox 2, Firefox 3, Firefox 3.5 and Chrome
Windows: IE6, IE7, IE8, Safari, Firefox 2, Firefox 3, Firefox 3.5, Chrome
Linux: Firefox 2, Firefox 3, Firefox 3.5, Chrome

Each or these browsers run their own Javascript engines which tend to behave a little differently on each OS, giving way to virtually infinite permutations and combinations. Which means that each time you make a release to your website, 1000s of hours have to go into testing each the minutest of Javascript functionality and tweaking it to make it work across browsers.

This testing largely being a manual effort, it's becoming increasingly expensive to produce web applications in the US and Europe. Which is why it makes sense to setup shop in India to develop your software.

Yesterday I was at IIT Bombay's IDC, where IDEO Design of San Francisco was recruiting. The big news was that they are opening an office in Bombay ! Which makes complete sense looking at how cost efficient it is to produce web applications in India.


Saturday, October 03, 2009

Who do I vote for on 13th Oct?

I have always been zealous about participating in public life, rallied on by Plato "The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men". However, next week on the 13th of October, when I go to elect my state representative, I am devoid of choices. I have to choose between Sachin Ahir of the NCP, who has 5 criminal cases pending against him and Ashish Chemburkur of the Shiv Sena, who is an existing BMC corporator, where he has the track record of of running one of the cities filthiest localities!

But atleast I am informed and while I can fret about the lack of a suitable candidate, unlike the 2004 elections, I can now understand my candidates better, get details of their public records and also upcoming promises. I can even dive into their part manifestos.

All this thanks to MumbaiVotes.com a non profit project dedicated to providing indepth information on each candidate. If you live in Mumbai, and are voting on the 13th of October, please 1st visit MumbaiVotes.com to get a detailed synopsis and video interviews on each candidate.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

Jet Airways: An insensitive strike

As we enter the 6th day of Jet Airways flight disruptions, an airline that prides itself on quality, I can't help but feel a disgust for the pilots that brought this about. Drawing an average of Rs. 600,000 a month ($15,000/month), amongst the highest paid of Indians (where are national per capital annual income average is around Rs. 150,000), these pilots have already caused over $20M in direct losses to the airline, not to mention the Millions more in losses by way of tarnished reputation, and treemdous losses and inconvenience to the passengers of the 1000+ canceled flights.

What makes the strike worse is that global aviation, Indian included, is going through an extremely rough patch, with each airline racking up millions of Dollars in losses. Jet Airways to has been losing money all of last year. Instead of working shoulder to shoulder with the airline management, these pilots can only think of their own agenda. Selfish.

Management books have pages full talking about the need of management to communicate their position to employees. But how many employees make an effort to understand the management position? There has always been way too much focus on management trying to communicate its position to employees, but very little on employees trying to understand management.

And what is the use of unions in India? The newspapers are full of stories of corrupt union leaders who lead unions as a way to gain personally. A recent story on Pervez Pestonji Saher, a senior laundry operator, showed how he is amongst the Taj Hotels highest paid employees, at Rs. 1.5 cr a year ($300,000/year), just because he is the leader of the hotel's union. In the past there have been stories on how famous union leader Datta Samant amassed a huge amount of wealth and power due to his position.

Instead of forming unions, people should try and better understand the company they are a part off. The reaslisation that there is no master and no workers, just a team, trying to make ends meet for everyone, is the key.

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Frustrated with FireFox

Firefox is turning out to be the new headache in town.

On our site Remindo, FF 3.1 does not render pages fast, when all other browsers including IE, Safari and Chrome do so. The problem appears to be that because our site is fully HTTPs, it 1st loads the entire page and then outputs it! Instead of outputting the page in small chunks. Users thus are left staring at a blank screen for a few seconds before the page appears.

With new versions 3.5, 3.5.1 and 3.5.2 this problem has been solved, and the page outputs in chunks, like it should, but a new even more serious problem has been introduced. It seems that
3.5, 3.5.1 and 3.5.2 are using a new Javascript Engine, Tracemonkey, which causes the page to freeze and keystrokes miss if your page is running a HTTP bind operation. Our page runs an HTTP bind every 4 seconds because of the Instant Messaging feature. This creates great difficulty for the user in keying in anything.

Not just Remindo, every site is negatively affected by FF
3.5, 3.5.1 and 3.5.2, when you open a page and its downloading, while you can see it page, the page scroll locks, so one has to wait for the whole page to load before one can scroll though the page.

These are shocking usability issues, but Mozilla Corporation is bent on stonewalling the issue. They refuse to acknowledge these as bugs, and keep asking users to disable add ons. Well I have disabled all my addons and there is no improvement!

For a browser that has as much as 30% marketshare, this is pathetic! Mozilla Corporation in the hurry to outdo Chrome and other browsers seem to have slipped up on the basics!

Update: Techcruch also blogs the issue: Earlier in the week Techcruch reported that FF 3.5 was not playing well with Twitter and other sites. Many comments chipped in with similar woes
http://tcrn.ch/6RWd

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Why Obama wants to split Pakistan


When this classified US map leaked last year, showing Baluchistan as a separate country, it created an uproar in Pakistan. Rightly so, because no nation would want see a large part of itself carved out into a separate country.

Yet, it is the consistent foreign policy of superpowers to carve up countries in smaller multiple countries, so as to keep them under control and weak.

Under the Clinton administration, Yugoslavia was carved up into 3 countries: Coratia, Serbia and Montenegro.

Under the next Presidency, the Bush administration, Iraq was carved up into 3 autonomous regions, Basra, Kurdistan and Central Iraq

Now under the Obama administration we are likely to see Pakistan carved up into 2 countries, or at the very least 2 autonomous regions: Baluchistan and Pakistan.

But wait, isn't the US Pakistan's ally, giving it millions of dollars of aid every year? Yes it is.

But Pakistan's sin appears to be its growing proximity to China:

-
Hu Jintao has described relations with Pakistan as "higher than the mountains and deeper than the oceans"

- Lately, military cooperation has deepened with joint projects producing armaments ranging from fighter jets to guided missile frigates. The MBT 2000 tank and JF-17 Thunder Fighter Aircraft are some of the recent products of this deep co-operation.

- Since 1986, China and Pakistan have been co-operating on Nuclear Technology, having setup a 300MW power plant in Punjab in 1999, building another to go live next year; and widely suspected to have supplied critical knowledge and components for Pakistan's military nuclear program.

The US would thus like to move very quickly to carve up Pakistan, so that it always has atleast one part under its control and Baluchistan, by the sea is just perfect.

So why does the US need yet another base in Central Asia? After all it has Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, is landlocked, making it a fairly poor US base, thus a fairly ineffective staging area against Iran or China.

Baluchistan, with one edge sitting on the Arabian sea and its borders nicely touching Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan, is the perfect base in Central Asia both for Military purposes and as a vital transportation link of the vast oil and natural gas reserves of Central Asia. An added bonus: Baluchistan itself is rich in gas and oil!

And who is helping Obama goto Baluchistan? None other than that lovely excuse to take over any country: Osama bin Laden. He's in Afghanistan, take it over. Oh, now he's escaped to North West Pakistan, bomb the place; now he's escaped into Baluchistan, enter Baluchistan. Love it, what a simple and wonderful excuse - and people called the Bush Administration stupid!


Ofcourse the Indian perspective in the matter is that it will be all the more happy with a carved up Pakistan, the smaller the better, easier to dominate and control.

Oh, but please note, China is not letting go so easily. It's helping build a deep sea port in Baluchistan at Gwadar at this very moment, so it has already established its direct presence in the region.

So folks, with Pakistan, US, China and India jostling over Baluchistan, and Iran probably entering the fray soon, the great game continues, get set for a bloody 7 years to see it through!

Friday, July 24, 2009

A July tale of 2 investments

July '09 will go down as a very interesting month in memory for me. For the 1st time one of my investment companies has attracted keen interest from several VC firms, so exciting times for us there. I am so proud of the founder and his hard work.

On the exact opposite end, another one of my investments, this time a web media business, which was not going anywhere in the 1st place, the founder copied all the data and users of the original website to start a parallel website! How sad! I guess some people just don't have it in them when it comes to building something.

More to come in later posts on the business that is attracting VC investments...

Monday, July 13, 2009

UH? Udaipur voted World's best city ahead of even NYC!!!


How do they do these thing? How does boring Udaipur win ahead of New York (which came in at no. 8).

I was in Udaipur for friend's wedding a few years back. We landed at a tacky airport and drove for 1.5 hrs through dusty roads to get to our "Palace" hotel: A brand new hotel designed like Palace.
We had a great time because the whole hotel was taken over by our gang and 2 days we didn't venture out. There was a man made island in Udaipur lake (yes Dubai, the maharajas beat you to it by a 1000 years), where there is a pleasure palace(no other word for it), which took centerstage. We rocked 48 hrs non stop and loved it.

But I saw the place on my way in and out, not worth a 2nd visit and not worth a visit unless your'e going with a big group and staying in one of the Palace hotels.

Not sure how a place like Udaipur comes in at No. 1, read the link and find out !

Monday, June 22, 2009

3 important reasons Bing is good for us

and all begin with the same word: Choice
1. Choice for users: Bing is the 1st real competitor to Google. For 10 years Google has dominated the search scene with its fabulous search engine. But I felt the last 5 years, the search engine has stangnated. It didn't add any new interesting functionality, it didn't improve its image search and its video search is quite basic. Now the choice exists. I now prefer Bing's Video search (remarkably better) and have also started checking search results on both Google and Bing.

2. Choice for advertisers: Rates on Google for many spots were getting quite absurd (thus the superhigh profits earned by Google!). Because Bing is bound to get good market share over the years, advertisers will have a choice, which will drive down ad rates.

3. Choice for websites: People tend to forget that search engines are nothing but a collection of data from all websites. The problem with Google has been is that websites, such as my Flora2000.com have had to remain pretty stagnant from a content perspective because the search engine with 70% of the market, did not adopt any new ranking methods for the last 5 years! Now with Bing, hopefully things will change and each Search Engine is sure to outdo the others and release new features. Websites can now choose to release features keeping in mind that it will show up on one search engine but may not on the other, which is ok, if both have decent market share.

I really admire Microsoft for coming from behind once again with a strong product. I'd watchout if I were Google, because MS beat the leader in the Spreadsheet (Lotus), the wordprocessor (Wordperfect), the Browser (Netscape), the Gaming Machine (Nintendo, Sega), to dominate the space.

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Differance between Delhi & Bombay

After a few weeks in Delhi last month and then going out a few times in Bombay, realised that the key difference between the 2 cities is how everything is stated.

In Delhi on each occasions when we went out for dinner our friends would be typically attired in a Cartier watch, Versace jeans (with belt strategically under the label), Gucci shoes, Louis Vutton bag and carrying a Vertu phone. The conversation would be about how much they spent on renovating their new farmhouse (with ear & eye popping numbers) and how they took their 3 maids with them on holiday to Monaco (Miami, London, etc). If they bumped into someone at the restaurant, their friends would be similarly turned out. The dinner was inevitably in a 5 star restaurant where there would be lots of fuss with the staff on the meal and the chef would inveitably visit our table. Later they would leave in Range Rover piolted by a chauffer in white uniform with a cap to match. We would always feel underdressed attired in rolled up sleeves with no watch and having arrived in lowly rental car.

In Bombay, out for dinner our friends would turn up for dinner similarly attired as us, usually with no watch and non descript outfits. The place we'd meet would normally be a club, or a low profile resteraunt with excellent food, where we'd be going for years and where the owner is well known to us. If the conversation ever moved to material things, then it would always be about how much they saved in doing the deal, if they bought a house for Rs. 10 cr ($2Million), you could never hear that from them, you'd hear something like "oh I got it for Rs. 2.5cr, because I knew the developer really well and he gave me a special discount", which would leave everybody at the table fuming and jealous on the bargin struck. If they went on holiday to Dubai or New York, it would be about all the art galleries visited or how they got an amazing deal at the place they stayed. They would leave in their self drive Honda or Toyota cars, or a vintage Mercedes.

In Delhi one always overstates to show how successful one is; in Bombay one always understates to show how smart one is!

Saturday, May 23, 2009

India's shameless silencing of citizens

Today's newspapers carried stories of how Sapna Pereira was arrested after protesting for not receiving a MHADA flat as part of the lottery. She had been applying for many years but did not receive an apartment; and because she is a widow with small chilren living with her inlaws where she is constantly ill-treated, in frustration she started shouting and tearing her clothes and tried to strangle herself. The answer of our self righteous government officials: arrest her and slap charges on her of creating a scence (sec 332), damaging property (section 427), et al!

2 days back, noted RTI activist Krishna Raj Rao, along with 10 other activits went to meet the Maharashtra Chief Information commissioner, Suresh Joshi, when he did not listen, they started singing the National Anthem. The government immediately silenced them and arrested them, on grounds of "tresspass" and sent them to jail for 2 days! Truly shocking.

Is this anyway to treat the frustrated and protesting citizens of our country? This is government gone all wrong. Is India turning into a Police State where no one can raise their voice against the government?

On the other hand you have politicians who incite violence which even gets people killed and they walk around free.

I was in Amsterdam a few years back when there were street protests against the government and I was happy to see that despite citizens shouting abusives at the government, the police stood by and simply maintained order. This is how our governernment needs to behave, respecting frustration and and venting of anger by our people.

May these protesters never silence due to the intimidating acts of our government. May those in power respect our people and act on the frustrations expressed.

The message the government is sending out "Don't protest, don't express frustration, don't oppose, only live in fear"

STOP THIS SHAMELESS BEHAVIOUR.

Sunday, May 17, 2009

BJP denies India a credible 2nd alternative


Once again the BJP has lost, and their numbers are even worse than they were 5 years back in 2004. Once again the BJP fought this election with a strategic emphasis on communal divide. They then went all out to promote this, with aggressive campaigning across India, running newspaper advertisements, making TV appearances, running large scale online banner campaigns; and they even gave social media marketing a go via Facebook and Orkut groups; and their leader LK Advani even aggressively promoted his blog, the 1st of a major Indian politician. So interms of marketing execution they were A++.

It is their product that was faulty that cost they yet another election. They are trying to push a communal strategy where they hold one religion superior over others, to a youthful India (60% of India is under 25) who has grown up on a live TV & Internet diet of MTV, Reality Shows, Soap Operas, Travel Shows, Discover Channel, Fashion TV, Tabloids, Social Networking, Blogging, Wikis, Gaming and 20/20 cricket; who have been indulging more and more in cross community marriages; and work in corporate cultures where all are welcome, where skill is the only thing that counts! Are the youth of India interested in one community greater than the other? Ofcourse not! They are interested in buying house, nightclubbing, playing tennis, travelling and running up the corporate ladder. This is now no longer a theory, it has been proven at great cost of 2 national election losses for the BJP.

I am however sad that the BJP product is faulty. It takes away from the people a credible 2nd alternative to the Congress, who have scored a homerun once again, up 41% from the last election! With no credible 2nd alternative, we have no choice but to vote for the Congress; there is no alternative party that presents a merit based agenda of development that we can choose from. Its sad for the country.

I would love it that India has 2 strong political parties which present an option of development agendas, so that we may choose amongst them.

The BJP may have lost, but its far from a spent force, it has the national presence and millions of party workers. It needs to shed the communal divide plank and solidly base itself on development. It should do this as soon as possible, so that in 5 years it provides India with a choice. Ofcourse it has other ills such as lack of youth in their party, but that is not as large an issue as their core positioning as a communal party. Lets hope someone in there wakes up!

Ps. its interesting to see that independents went up from 5 last election to 9 this time, possibly showing that people are looking for alternatives.

PPs. The CPI+CPM's anti development policies of the last 5 years gave them a thumping defeat, down 62% from the 2004 elections! This again shows that India wants a pro development government.

Saturday, May 16, 2009

Air France fined in India for racism

Air France was fined Rs. 40,000 per passenger by an Indian court for racist behavior against its Indian passengers and did not serve them meals onboard their flights. A few years back when flying Lufthansa I too observed a very unfriendly attitude by the ground staff in Frankfurt towards many Asian flyers.

I also saw a very unfriendly attitude in the air by Air Austria staff and extremely rough behaviour at Vinenna Airport where flights were delayed due to winter weather, but there was inadequate information to passengers.

Personally, I have experienced lousy service by Lufthansa's Miles & More program, where due to errors they had missed 14 of my flight! Even after writing to their program director, he refused to give me credit while accepting that I had indeed flown those flights, but because in their computer my name (there was a mistake in the way they had entered my name) did not exactly match the name on my tickets he would not give me the credit! Disgusting!

I really don't know what Indian passengers choose to fly these rude European airlines and I can imagine its obviously due to price. I guess that is why every advertisement by Lufthansa and all these other airlines is about cheap tickets! Not exactly the best way for them to stay in the black.

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

My Tweet Cloud

Ok, I've been Tweeting away this month, so what have I been Tweeting about? My cloud shows that Good, Remindo & Dubai are amongst my top words! See below.



Click the cloud to see a larger version and build your own cloud

Monday, January 12, 2009

Raju's jail song

Found this on the Internet today posted in a comment:


What Raju is singing
by cool bloke on Jan 12, 2009 08:59 PM


my name is Ramalinga Raju
main Satyam ka founder hoon
khaate hai khaali, balance sheets jaali
satyam employees ki hai lagne waali
.
.
jisne bhi yaad aaye, ga**d marne chale aaye
jisne bhi yaad aaye, ga**d marne chale aaye
.
.
Hyderabad ki police chowki, jholi(ssorry...kholi) number 420

Arrrrrest me please!!!!!!

abhi abhi jail ke andar ek company kholi hai
investors ne bhi lagayi bad chad kar boli hai
jailor bhi raazi, qaidi bhi raazi
kab tak chalegi yeh jaalsaazi
.
.
jisne bhi yaad aaye, ga**d marne chale aaye
jisne bhi yaad aaye, ga**d marne chale aaye
.
.
Hyderabad ki police chowki, jholi(ssorry...kholi) number 420

hahahaha

Friday, January 09, 2009

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

The differance between 2008 Jan & Now

On this day, 1 year ago......... .. RBS paid $100bn for ABN Amro.

For this amount , today one can buy.......

1. Citibank $22.5bn
2.
Morgan Stanley $10.5bn
3.
Goldman Sachs $21bn
4.
Merrill Lynch $12.3bn
5.
Deutsche Bank $13bn
6. Barclays $12.7bn

And still have $8bn change...... with which, one would be able to pick up

GM,
Ford,
Chrysler and
the Honda F1 Team............

Sunday, January 04, 2009

Dubai - An insider's view of the Bubble

Dubai Marina

When in Dubai it's very rare that one gets a chance to interact with a UAE national, also known as Emirati's or "Locals" to the Expat community. Probably because they are extremely few in number, just 2%, when compared to the total population.

So, it was with much delight that I read the comments on Dubai by an Emirati with a PHD, who identified himself as Fairplayer1 in comments on CBSNEWS.com. I am reproducing in Full his (or is it Her?) comments dated 3rd Jan 2009:

"
As a UAE national with PhD in law I have to admit that Sheikh Mohamed has failed to put in place a transparent judiciary and has concentrated more on self PR by anouncing unrealistic project"

" As someone who lives and breathes real estate since its first days here in Dubai, I feel it is necessary to see the cause of the boom and only then we may be able to make some calculated estimates of the future market condition.

1. Dubai real esate growth was based on a promise of freehold, residence permit, tax free benefits for nationalities who have certain restrictions in their countries and saw dubai as a safe secure investment opportunity.

2. Government of dubai removed the residence permit guarantee by buying a property. So automatically no tax free status, coz if you are not a resident of Dubai you can not open bank account & you are still liable for taxes in your country.

3.Nakheel/emaar/dubai holding factor: All these companies hate each other and therefore fight for the attention of sheikh mohammed, which means the greed and ego overtake logic and feasibility!!! result: Excessive lands/properties/ mega projects without proper planning & infrastructure in place.

4. Universal law supply Vs. Demand: nobody realises that the already anounced projects in dubai will need about an extra 6 million people to live in it!!!! (From Lagoons, meydan, dubailand, tatweer, mizin, industrial projects, emaar, bawadi, the world, the universe, palm deira, port rashid, waterfront, arabian canal, dubai world central….)Excuse me thats almost double the UAE population.

5. Loose the Confidence You loose everything: The investors/buyers are wakening up to the reality & there is absolutely no confidence in the market not only because of the global financial crisis but mainly because of the over supply & fear of the crash.

6. Genius Government policies: dubai government is its own worst enemy, at times like this what does dubai do? They launch new mega projects & new development companies like meraas with ambitious projects that will only further dampen market confidence.

7. Investor’s security: Dubai’s judicial system is as good as any underdeveloped country with selective rights depending who the complaint is against.

8. No human rights when it comes to dubai police. infact torture and enforced disappearance has become common in dubai under the umberella of the state security they can attach anything to anyone to reach their commercial targets.

9. Everybody owns 20% of several properties: Paying a few installments does not make you theowner so when the next installments come due and there is no quick sales like the good old days, what happens? Sell below the price or lose your deposit with the developers…. results in what we call “distress sell”

10. Oil prices & Inflation: ofcourse oil prices doubled so did the cost of steel & cement & food & labor accomodation… result abnormaly increase in construction prices on a weekly basis!!!… so an increase in property prices due to rising cost….

11. Decrease in Oil prices: Sudden decrease in everything from food prices, to raw materials….. creating sudden panic as properties are cheaper to build and a fear of further reduction is iminent.

12. There are too many chefs in the tiny real estate kitchen of dubai, have you noticed there aren’t any happy faces in the media anymore!!! what happened to the so called international anouncements about their acquisitions…

13.The Sheikh factor: when the ruling family is desperately getting into everythng from real estate, to owning or managing coffeshops and bakeries, landries…. then the opportunities for the public is becoming less and less which means a lot of unhappy UAE nationals and residents…. which everyone know will not help the already unstable state of dubai.

14. Big brother factor: let there be no doubt Abu Dhabi will eventually overtake dubai for the right reasons. money is not an issue thanks to oil & there is no rush to sell everything just to raise funds for the previously anounced project like in dubai. Dubai’s power in UAE will be reduced due to lack of funds, money talks!!!

15. regulatory body with no teeth: RERA is supposed to ensure that developers/real estate agents/ landlords/ follow the rules and regulations… what happens if a developer or an agent does not follow the law? NOTHING… just a 100,000 fine… comparing to the hundreds of millions at stake its a drop in the ocean.

16. Public Prosecution & Corruption: Everything in public prosecution is relative & variable…. there are cases of misrepresentation by nakheel, for example selling thousands of villas and after 2 years just cancelling the project…. nobody can make a complaint. Likewise several private developers & real estae agents operating in a fraudulent manner are let go off the hook.

"
The laws broken by sheikh maktoum hasher (winner of world scam award 2008) to elevate himself from a poor sheikh to be recognised as a real sheikh:
1. Misrepresentation/ False promotional campaign (showing photos of construction of JBC1,2,3,4,5 for the sales of Ebony Ivory project) while there is no contractoron site, no building permit…. this is a criminal offense under uae law. (But RERA & SHEIKH MOHAMMED HIS UNCLE R SLEEPING!!!)
2. dynasty zarooni who is a real estate broker has been collecting money into their own account this is 100% illegal… infact in some cases they have even sold properties with 100% down payment, imagine the poor buyers when they realise te photos shown in gulfnews were lies!!!
3. ofcourse no escrow/trust account… No construction…
4. Threatening investors and staff of al fajer properties. Investors in JBC1 are forced to move to another building s that sheikh maktoum hasher the wanna be poor sheikh can make a few millions through his friends who will sell the property to new buyers.
5. There is no immunity for sheikh maktoum hasher or his father sheikh hasher maktoum, sheikh mohammed is just too busy counting the money he has lost so he is a bit distracted now. he pretends as if he is above the law, but in reality he is a coward who can only threaten drivers and junior staff in al fajer"

As a matter of interest here is Dubai's strategic vision as laid down by it's Ruler Sheikh Mohammed AL Makthoum. It's interesting to see page 20 where he identifies Trade & Transportation as the main drivers of Dubai's growth.