Law outlines procedures for expropriation, calculating compensation, and appeal
The law also creates an ‘Expropriation Committee’ to oversee all matters related to expropriation of property. The chairman of the Dubai Ruler’s Court will issue a decision on the formation of the committee, its members, decision-making processes and expropriation procedures.
Dubai: A new law regulating procedures for expropriating property for public use in Dubai has been issued.
His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE, in his capacity as the Ruler of Dubai, issued Law No. 2 of 2022 on the expropriation of property for public use in the emirate.
The law aims to ensure that the rights of owners of expropriated property are protected and that they are afforded full and fair compensation as per a clear set of rules outlined by it.
According to Ashu Sood, director of Brisk Avenue Dubai, the provisions of the law will apply to the expropriation of property across Dubai. The law, which covers special development zones and free zones including the Dubai International Financial Centre, regulates the terms and conditions under which buildings and facilities can be expropriated, including those that are completed and under construction. It also sets out the terms for providing compensation to the owners whose properties are expropriated, as per a decision issued by the chairman of the Dubai Ruler’s Court.
According to the law, if only a portion of a property is expropriated and the remaining part becomes unfit for use as per Dubai’s construction rules and regulations, full compensation will be provided if the owner does not want to retain it to add it to an adjacent property.
The committee is tasked with reviewing requests for expropriation including requests to assess the viability of expropriating a property to meet the objectives of a project. The committee may propose alternatives to expropriating a property for a project, including land grants. It will also assess whether a proposed project requires full or partial expropriation and evaluate the compensation for expropriated property.
Orders issued by Sheikh Mohammed to expropriate property in Dubai supersede the authority of the committee.
In case the expropriation affects a property that belongs to a local or federal government entity, compensation will be provided as per legislations and procedures approved by the committee.
Expropriations of property conducted before the issuance of the new law should follow all procedures and provide compensation as per previously existing terms and conditions within a year of the effective date of the new legislation. The chairman of the Dubai Ruler’s Court is authorised to extend the deadline by six months. If the deadline is not met, compensation will have to be provided under the terms of the new law.
The law outlines comprehensive procedures for expropriation of property, calculating the value of compensation, and appealing against the expropriation.
The new law annuls clauses of the resolution issued on January 1, 1964 regulating expropriation of private property for public use. The law also annuls any other legislation that may contradict it.
Which countries are the top data producers? After all, with data-fueled applications of artificial intelligence projected, by McKinsey, to generate $13 trillion in new global economic activity by 2030, this could determine the next world order, much like the role that oil production has played in creating economic power players in the preceding century.
While China and the U.S. could emerge as two AI superpowers, data sources can’t be limited to concentrations in a few places as we have with an oil-driven economy — it needs to be drawn from many, diverse sources and future AI applications will emerge from new and unexpected players. The new world order taking shape is likely to be more complex than a simple bi-polar structure, especially since data is being produced at a pace that boggles the mind.
Building on our pastwork mapping the digital evolution and digital competitiveness of different countries around the world, we wanted to try to locate the deepest and widest pools of useful data. This is essential to run the myriad machine learning models critical to AI. To do so, it is useful to make a distinction between the raw volume of data and a measure that we shall call “gross data product” – our version of the new GDP. To identify the world’s top “gross data product” producers, we propose using four criteria:
Volume: Absolute amount of broadband consumed by a country, as a proxy for the raw data generated.
Usage: Number of users active on the internet, as a proxy for the breadth of usage behaviors, needs and contexts.
Accessibility: Institutional openness to data flows as a way to assess whether the data generated in a country permits wider usability and accessibility by multiple AI researchers, innovators, and applications.
Complexity: Volume of broadband consumption per capita, as a proxy for the sophistication and complexity of digital activity.
There are several nuances to note. For one, we recognize that the digital trace that is generated by computers around the world spans a very wide range of activities, from sending an SMS text message to making a financial transaction. To enable an apples-to-apples comparison across the world, we use broadband per capita as a measure of such breadth and complexity (in some ways, mimicking the use of per capita income as a proxy for overall prosperity).
Second, there are differences across countries in terms of how private data is shared across agencies and whether there are digital identity frameworks that can help connect individuals to their digital activities. These institutional factors could make a difference to how data could eventually be pieced together. We do not call out these distinctions. We chose the countries included in our analysis based on a few considerations: 1) Countries that are the most significant contributors to the global digital economy either because they are high on our earlier digital evolution index score or because they have strong momentum in their digital activities; 2) Countries that represent a reasonable spread in terms of region and socio-economic position; and 3) Countries that provided us with a solid data and evidence base to do the analyses.
Finally, an important consideration in determining accessibility is privacy. Privacy concerns and data protection regulations can help or hinder the abilities for algorithms to develop new capabilities. We take the position for this analysis that an established framework for ensuring privacy and data protection and openness to the mobility of data is a net benefit and a positive contributor to the development of AI over the long term. As an example, consider the problem of fraud detection in financial transactions. Applications that draw upon insights from diverse geographic locations and multiple usage contexts help establish patterns of trustworthiness and help flag security risks; such applications benefit from systems that meet the accessibility criterion. That said, we acknowledge that in the near-term there could be some countries – China being the pre-eminent example – where data-sharing between public and private sector agencies with very little mobility beyond the national borders could violate privacy and openness norms and yet yield a temporary advantage in training algorithms inside a “walled garden.”
Which of these criteria should be used in assessing a potential new world order, based on data? We believe accessibility should remain a foundational criterion. If one were to take the point of view that the biggest and highest impact AI applications are the ones that serve the greatest public purpose, access to data is key. In its recent study of AI for the public good, McKinsey cites access as one of the principal barriers: of the 18 bottlenecks identified by McKinsey, six relate to data availability, volume, quality, and usability.
This chart below shows what happens when the 30 countries we studied were mapped using two of our criteria:
While the U.S. scores well on all three criteria – and this might seem counter-intuitive to prevailing wisdom — China operates with a handicap if global accessibility of the data is considered essential for creating successful AI applications in the future. If the EU (currently including the UK) were to act as a collective, it represents a key producer that could rival the U.S. Besides, China, other BRIC nations, Brazil, India, Russia, could emerge as strong tier two contenders, largely on the strengths of raw data they produce; however, they too would be handicapped by accessibility concerns.
A different set of implications emerge for smaller countries, such as New Zealand, or those unaffiliated with larger economic unions, such as South Korea, but with high openness and mobility in data flows; such countries would benefit from establishing trade agreements in data with other “open” countries and thereby overcome their natural limitations, either in terms of number of users or in terms of total broadband consumed within the country. The forms such trade or data-sharing agreements might take is yet to be determined; however, we can envision that they could be a distinct possibility especially when we recognize that gross data product has value just like any other product that is freely traded today.
Of course, the direction of high-value AI applications is still emerging. There is also a risk of AI itself being over-hyped, misunderstood, and set up for disappointments down the road. But it’s clear that many important applications are already in use and more are coming. Our analytical framework is flexible enough to account for such fluidity. If we use a different set of criteria as being more relevant for driving successful AI applications, we find a different picture emerging. The chart below offers one such possibility, where only complexity and accessibility are considered.
When viewed in this manner, there is a more linear structuring of this “new” data-driven world order. The high broadband consumption per capita and institutionally open countries (in the top right hand portion of the graphic) emerge as the clear winners. One can imagine a scenario where the high complexity and mobility of data flows in the top-right of the graphic allow for a more productive “free-trade” zone, where countries mutually benefit from tapping into each other’s data reservoirs.
Finally, we considered a scenario where all four criteria ought to be considered important. If we assign equivalent weights to all four, a ranking of “new” data producers and an updated world order emerges.
1. United States
2. United Kingdom
3. China
4. Switzerland
5. South Korea
6. France
7. Canada
8. Sweden
9. Australia
10. Czech Republic
11. Japan
12. New Zealand
13. Germany
14. Spain
15. Ireland
16. Italy
17. Portugal
18. Mexico
19. Argentina
20. Chile
21. Poland
22. Brazil
23. Greece
24. India
25. South Africa
26. Hungary
27. Malaysia
28. Russia
29. Turkey
30. Indonesia
Of course, these segmentations provide insight into where the major data producers are based on a set of assumptions about what will be important for the highest-value applications in the future. Our purpose was to acknowledge the uncertainties and show how alternative assumptions yield different scenarios for the world order. A different segmentation and ranking would emerge if were to ask a different set of questions focused on the outcomes, such as economic or geopolitical value through AI that might be assigned to each country or how countries rank in terms of ease of doing digital business currently as they prepare for such a future. We are developing these in future research projects.
Data is the fuel of the new economy, and even more so of the economy to come. In declaring back in 2017 that the world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data, The Economist said: “Whether you are going for a run, watching TV or even just sitting in traffic, virtually every activity creates a digital trace — more raw material for the data distilleries.” Algorithms trained by all these digital traces will be globally transformational. It’s possible that a new world order will emerge from it, along with a new “GDP” — gross data product —that captures an emerging measure of wealth and power of nations. It is time we identified what the field looks like now that new competitive and collaborative opportunities are developing.
The bill may allow holders of such currencies a transition period to exit the asset class before its anticipated ban.
NEW DELHI : The proposed cryptocurrency bill may allow holders of such currencies to exit the asset class before its anticipated ban but may put a heavy penalty on its conversion to a legal asset.
“The bill is yet to be finalized. The form and manner of declaration and how existing holders of the cryptocurrency should dispose of it will be prescribed either in the law or through the rules to be notified later,” a finance ministry official said on condition of anonymity. The Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021 is scheduled to be tabled in the ongoing budget session of Parliament. The bill is intended to “create a facilitative framework for the creation of the official digital currency to be issued by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The bill also seeks to prohibit all private cryptocurrencies in India. However, it allows for certain exceptions to promote the underlying technology of cryptocurrency and its uses,” the Lok Sabha secretariat said in a bulletin.
The bill is likely to make mining, holding, selling, issuing, transferring, and using of cryptocurrency a punishable offence with a heavy fine or imprisonment or both.
“Certain media reports suggest that the government has decided to ban all private cryptocurrency and other key players of the industry. We would like to receive an intimation from the government on this. We would like to reiterate that the government of India is yet to release the draft of the proposed bill. As an exchange, we remain hopeful that the ministry of finance will definitely engage with the community before taking any harsh measures,” said Sumit Gupta, founder of cryptocurrency exchange CoinDCX.
Investments worth $24 million went into crypto firms in 2020, up from a mere $5 million in the previous year, as per data from analysis firm Venture Intelligence. Crypto firms in India have also experienced a successful year since the lockdown in March 2020. Crypto trading in India has become a formalized sector over the past few years, because of the rise of various crypto exchanges.
Amid increasing popularity of virtual currencies in various parts of the world, the Reserve Bank of India on Monday said it is open to exploring the possibility of a digital version of fiat currency. Host of private digital currencies, virtual currencies and cryptocurrencies have gained popularity in recent years, though Indian authorities continue to remain sceptical about them.
In India, the regulators and governments have been sceptical about these currencies and are apprehensive about the associated risks. “Nevertheless, the RBI is exploring the possibility as to whether there is a need for a digital version of fiat currency and in case there is, then how to operationalise it,” the RBI said in its booklet on ‘Payment Systems in India — Journey in the Second Decade of the millennium.
Central bank digital currencies is a legal tender and a central bank liability in digital form denominated in a sovereign currency and appearing on the central bank’s balance sheet. It is in the form of electronic currency, which can be converted or exchanged at par with similarly denominated cash and traditional central bank deposits. Innovations are changing the payments space rapidly.
This has made central banks around the world to examine whether they could leverage on technology and issue fiat money in digital form,” the RBI’s booklet said. It further said the RBI has already established a framework to capture the location and business details of commercial bank branches, ATMs and banking correspondents across the country. It is envisaged to extend a similar framework to capture and maintain information about point of sales terminals and other payment system touchpoints, the booklet said. The booklet covers the journey of the Payment and Settlement Systems in India during the second decade of the millennium — from the beginning of 2010 till the end of 2020.The RBI said it captures the transformation of India in the sphere of payment and settlement systems. It describes, inter-alia, the legal and regulatory environment underpinning the digital payments systems, various enablers, payment options available to consumers, extent of adoption during 2010 to 2020, it added.
The Reserve Bank of India had earlier come out with booklets on payment systems in 1998 and 2008. This third booklet in the series is expected to This third booklet in the series is expected to serve as a reference document for those interested in knowing more about payment system developments in the country, the RBI said.
“This booklet is a narrative of how the carefully thought-out steps taken by the RBI have resulted in transforming India into a country riding the crest of a wave in the evolution of digital payments,” said RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das in the ‘Foreword’ of the booklet. While realising that ‘well begun is half done’, Das said the RBI is mindful of the challenges ahead. Various initiatives are underway to realise India’s vision on payment systems.
The RBI seeks to usher in a payment ecosystem that enables safe, quick and affordable digital payments to everyone across the country as well as in cross-border payments and transactions, he added. The factors inhibiting the digital push are connectivity issues, inadequate acceptance infrastructure, lack of familiarity with newer, alternative payment methods, delay in getting complaints resolved and security and privacy concerns.”RBI has acknowledged the same and to address these issues has put in place systems like, consumer awareness programmes, ombudsman schemes, etc,” the booklet said. It further said that such is the development of digital payment in the country that it has started expanding beyond boundaries.Implementation of successful Indian practices in developed countries of Europe and the U.S. is testimony of India being perceived as the leader in payment systems now, said the booklet.
From having a handful of tech companies to dozens and thousands of innovative new ventures, India’s startup ecosystem has grown immensely in the past decade
India has witnessed launch of more than 55,000 startups to date with more than 3,200 startups raising $63 Bn in funding in the last five and half years alone
Home to 34 unicorns, and 52 soonicorns with a potential to become unicorns by 2022, the world’s second largest startup ecosystem is poised for disruption
In just over half a decade (2014-2019), India has shown a great appetite for technology, data and the internet. The internet paved the way for thousands of startups to rise over the past decade, address unique problems, transform entire industries and create new segments!
From having a handful of tech companies to dozens and now thousands of innovative new ventures, India’s startup ecosystem grew immensely in the past decade. From 29K startups in 2014, the number has grown exponentially from 2015-2018 and will touch 55K startups by the end of 2020.
With overall funding skyrocketing to touch $63 Bn between 2014 to H1 2020 alone, India has seen entry of 34 startups in the unicorn club having a combined valuation of $115.5 Bn.
Celebrating the success of the startup ecosystem in the last decade, we are happy to announce the launch of the second edition of our flagship report – The State Of Indian Startup Ecosystem, 2020.
The report will act as a go-to-guide for just about everything one may want to understand about the Indian startup ecosystem. With deep, data-driven insights to influence strategic decision-making in governance, investments, growth, and other core aspects driving the Indian startup ecosystem.
The State Of Indian Startup Funding
It won’t come as a surprise to anyone that 2020 has brought some very unprecedented changes in the business world. For Indian startups, the funding winter this year has begun in the middle of sweltering summers. While the ecosystem has come a long way since 2014, going through the golden period of funding between 2015 and 2017, after a couple of years of slow but mature growth, 2020 has been a year of decline.
Over the years, the growth of startups has brought in more international investors and boosted their confidence towards India. Fundraising reported by SEBI-registered (Category 1) venture capital funds grew from INR 326 Cr in 2014 to over INR 2,703 Cr in 2019 – an 8x surge in five years. Also, the share of actual capital raised to commitments in 2014 was 35% compared to 61% in 2019, indicating the growing investor interest towards investment opportunities in India.
With such huge money at play, the Indian startup ecosystem has a lot to lose due to the pandemic. It has already left millions of people jobless and created a liquidity crisis in many places. Covid-19 has created a new market in almost every sense, for instance, once-lauded metrics such as the gross revenue and total addressable market has been usurped by sustainability-focussed goals like EBITDA and economies of scale.
The numbers make it quite evident that investment activity in startups is slowing down post the pandemic. Therefore, in a scenario (i.e. Case 1) where high ticket value investments in established startups will continue to flow along with greater investor confidence towards the beneficiary sectors such as edtech, fintech, online gaming and OTT, ecommerce and enterprise tech. The total capital raised by Indian startups in 2020 is estimated to reach $11.3 Bn in this case, which can be termed the best-case scenario, an 11% decline compared to the previous year.
On the contrary, in Case 2, high ticket size investments will take a hit and there will be only moderate investor confidence towards the beneficiary sectors. Under this scenario, the total capital inflow in Indian startups is expected to dip in 2020 by as much as 36.2% compared to 2019, to reach $8.1 Bn. In both scenarios the total capital inflow in Indian startups for the year 2020 is expected to be the lowest since 2017.
State Of Unicorns And Soonicorns
From a single unicorn in 2012, 10 in 2016, India has seen 34 startups attaining unicorn status with a current combined valuation of $115 Bn.
In our recent analysis of the Indian startup ecosystem based on the current pace and growth and other factors we have identified 52 soonicorns which have the potential to enter the unicorn club by 2022.
There are 53 startups in India that have the potential to achieve $1 Bn plus valuation by the end of 2022 as per our analysis. Out of which the single highest number of startups (19) is from fintech. This is different from the same in unicorns where enterprise tech startups (7) have the highest number.
The State Of Indian Startup Hubs
As we closed the first half of 2020, Bengaluru the long hailed startup capital of India still has its crown intact with a total funding amount of $28 Bn across 1,876 deals between 2014 to H1 2020.
Lately, in addition to the top three hubs (Bengaluru, Delhi NCR and Mumbai) emerging hubs such as Pune and Hyderabad have recorded a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 45% and 37% respectively.
In the tier segment, Jaipur and Goa have earned their spot in the top 10 startup hubs as of H1 2020 based on the number of funding deals. Interestingly, Jaipur a tier 2 city has outperformed Kolkata- a celebrated tier 1 metro.
The State Of Indian Investor Landscape
With the beginning of a new decade in the 21st century earlier this year, the journey of Indian startup ecosystem has entered a new phase. From a handful of investors and a few startups to over 49K startups and over 2,000 Indian and international investors, the startup ecosystem has come a long way in the past five years. International investors now routinely come to Indian shores to invest in the burgeoning tech ecosystem.
While angels and corporations undoubtedly have played a big role in funding trends, according to DataLabs by Inc42 analysis, 2019 was not one of the better years for venture capitalists.
As per our analysis, till the second half of 2020, there are approximately 4,640 active investors in India. Among these, the majority or 59% (2,751) are angel investors and 18.3% (849) are venture capital firms. Overall there is a downward trend in terms of unique investor participation similar to what has been observed in 2019. However, the frequency of participation by the existing investor is on the rise.
Looking Beyond 2020
While the first decade of the 21st century was all about bringing India’s cities and metros online, the past ten years have been about using the internet to create businesses and startups and take the digital torch to Tier 2, 3 markets and rural India. India is today home to the world’s largest working population and startups are expected to take full advantage of this in the next five years.
After steady growth in 2018 and 2019, in 2020 too, the Indian startup ecosystem was expected to remain stable in terms of funding and investor interest, but the pandemic has changed the game completely. With the funding winter coming in early, there’s a bigger focus on sustainability, which is also expected to play a part in the number of funding deals.
Nevertheless, there are several positives still in the Indian market to give us hope about the future of startups. Growing from a nascent stage to a flourishing ecosystem to the current stage of maturity and stability, Indian startups have some of the best market conditions to take advantage of with digital products and services adoption at an all-time high. Once the medium and long-term pandemic impact subsides, there’s no stopping Indian startups.
By 2025, the number of startups in India is expected to cross 100K, creating more than 3.25 Mn jobs in the process. At the same time, the total funding in Indian startups is likely to increase to over $150 Bn and with the total value creation exceeding $500 Bn.
A total of 29 development projects worth Dh2 billion have been approved in Dubai to add 8 million square meters of green spaces and parks to the Emirate’s residential and commercial areas.
“We are pressing ahead with developing our city, improving the quality of our lives and making the future of the UAE,” said His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai, while announcing the new projects.
In a series of tweets, Sheikh Mohammed also announced Dh4 billion project to produce energy by processing waste in Dubai. The project can accommodate 1,000 garbage trucks per day and generates enough energy for 135,000 homes. “Dubai is a clean city, its energy is clean, its neighborhoods are clean, and its energy resources must be kept clean,” Sheikh Mohammed said.
“We have also approved a project to develop 12 kilometers of Dubai’s beaches over an area of one million square meters from Al Mamzar Beach to Umm Suqeim II at a cost of Dh500 million. We will develop more swimming areas, better running paths and longer bicycle streets. The quality of life in Dubai is the secret of loving life in the Emirate,” Sheikh Mohammed added.
The Vice-President said the UAE is committed to implementing innovative projects that optimise use of resources and solve critical challenges as part of the country’s strategy to ensure environmental sustainability.
A key element in the UAE’s development model, environmental sustainability is reflected in all initiatives and projects launched by government entities, independently or in partnership with the private sector, Sheikh Mohammed said. Sustainability is key to the UAE’s future readiness, he added. “Providing a clean environment is at the heart of our efforts to advance development and provide a high quality of life both now and in the future. We have adopted global best practices and implemented innovative projects to preserve our environment and protect the health and safety of people in the UAE,” Sheikh Mohammed noted.
Sheikh Mohammed’s comments came during a review of Dubai Municipality’s environmental and sustainability projects being developed at a cost Dh6.6 billion. Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of the Dubai Civil Aviation, Chairman of Dubai Airports and Chairman and Chief Executive of Emirates airline and Group attended the review.
Ready when you are
Sheikh Mohammed reviewed a project to build the Dubai Centre for Waste Processing in the Warsan area of Dubai. The Dh4 billion plant, one of the largest in the world in terms of waste processing capacity, will operate without any negative impact on the environment. Capable of processing 5,666 tonnes of municipal solid waste per day and 1.9 million tonnes of municipal solid waste per year, it also has the capacity to generate 200 megawatts of energy annually, which can serve the requirements of 135,000 residential units. The first phase of the project will be completed in 2023 and the entire project will be completed in 2024.
Director General of Dubai Municipality Eng. Dawood Al Hajri briefed Sheikh Mohammed on the new plant that is one of Dubai’s largest infrastructure projects. Created to serve the emirate’s current and future waste management and green energy requirements, the project consists of a waste weighing unit, 15 reception points, five furnaces, a steam and power generation zone, 10,000 gas processing units, 27 gates and a zone for extracting metal from incinerated waste.
Sheikh Mohammed was also briefed on a Dh500 million project to develop public beaches in Dubai. The project aims to develop one million square metres of beachfront area from Al Mamzar beach to Umm Suqeim 2. The project will be implemented in three phases — the first covers 4,250 metres of beachline extending from Al Mamzar Creek beach to Al Mamzar Corniche, the second covers 2,150 metres of beachline extending from Jumeirah Beach to Al Shorouq, and the third phase covers 6,015 metres of beachline in Umm Suqeim 1 and 2.
The project aims to revitalise the beachfront and increase swimming areas. Dedicated areas for water activities and jogging and cycling tracks will be provided as part of the overall plan to promote a fitness culture and healthy lifestyle among the city’s residents.
Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary development project
Sheikh Mohammed was also briefed on the Dh100 million Ras Al Khor Wildlife Sanctuary development project, which seeks to enhance the sanctuary’s ecosystem and biodiversity. The project will increase wetlands in the sanctuary by 20 hectares and expand green cover by planting mangrove trees in a 100-hectare area. Service facilities and entertainment amenities will also be built as part of the project.
Green Dubai Project
Sheikh Mohammed also reviewed a project to develop the first open garden on Al Mamzar Creek that forms part of the Dh2 billion Green Dubai Project. To be implemented over a four-year period extending from 2021 to 2024, the project is set to add 8 million square metres of green spaces. The project forms part of a broader plan to expand the city’s green spaces, increase the percentage of green areas in development projects and raise Dubai’s global ranking in this area.
