From the Editors: Dubai Shopping Festival, 27 years and counting

27 YEARS AND COUNTING: As Dubai Shopping Festival, the much-awaited annual campaign, kicks off today, one can only marvel at how Dubai is able to not only carry on with events such as these year after year, but also innovate with every new edition. With each passing year, the festival only gets bigger and better, whether it’s the shopping or entertainment options that are made available. The 27th edition of the festival this year will be no different. Additionally, with the emirate launching a dedicated winter campaign this year, it’s Destination Dubai all the way. [COMMENT BY: Sharmila Dhal, UAE Editor]

IRAQ HAS BADLY FAILED ITS CITIZENS: Iraq is OPEC’s second largest oil producer. It is a country of about 38 million people, and the monthly revenue from oil sales is a whopping $7 billion on average. But thousands of Iraqis have made the dangerous and often humiliating journey to try and enter the European Union. What is driving these citizens of a country that is in reality fabulously rich to undertake these desperate trips? It is the never-ending security crisis, boundless corruption, nepotism, and mismanagement that impact every aspect of daily life. Hundreds of billions of dollars have just vanished from government coffers. The average Iraqi has to rely on government handouts - for which he needs to have contacts. The end result is that Iraqis feature prominently in the ranks of thousands of other migrants from countries infinitely poorer than Iraq at the frigid borders of European Union, hoping desperately to get it. [COMMENT BY: Omar Shariff, International Editor]

VIRAT KOHLI-ROHIT SHARMA ISSUE: BCCI, IT’S HIGH TIME TO BE PROACTIVE: Transparency is an area where the Indian cricket board has historically never scored much – and the malaise surfaced once again over a media report of Virat Kohli seeking time off from the ODI series which follows the Tests in South Africa. While insinuations began that the Test skipper is not keen upfront to play under the new captain Rohit Sharma – the scenario began changing towards the evening till Kohli himself cleared the air in a press conference. The Indian cricket media was in a tizzy the whole of Tuesday, when all it would have taken was a one-line rebuttal or confirmation as to if Kohli really wanted leave of absence. Silence and ambiguity cannot be the norm for everything – be it an injury update to a sensitive issue of this nature. [COMMENT BY: Gautam Bhattacharyya, Senior Associate Editor]

WEB PLATFORMS FIGHT BACK TO SECURE INDIAN VIEWERS: It’s been a golden run for streaming platforms with the past two years allowing companies such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and DisneyPlus to cash in on the lull in theatrical releases and secure a loyal customer base. Not only are plum projects being produced just for digital roll outs, the window between a cinematic release and its outing on web is getting smaller by day. Mohanlal’s ‘Marakkar: Lion of the Arabian Sea’, which released on December 2 in theatres, will land on Prime Video on December 17; ‘Kurup’ and ‘Sooryavanshi’s theatrical outings in November have already seen the films land on Netflix. With Netflix now slashing its prices in India by 60 per cent to combat competition and lure studios to release content exclusively on the platform, it remains to be seen how this battle plays out. [COMMENT BY: Bindu Rai, Entertainment Editor]