A day in Doha

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: From the time I landed at the Doha International Airport, I could see wealth all around. From the luxurious taxies, to the roads, to the buildings, to the residents of Qatar, and to the...damn, even the Mallu driver of my Chevrolet Caprice taxi — the most expensive and luxurious model of the Chevrolet full-size American sedan — was wearing a Tissot Touch and a pair of high-end Ray Ban sunglasses. And well, it ought to be like that, with Qatar having world’s highest GDP per capita. Even as Dubai is hard hit by recession, its real estate prices falling by half, Qatar remains the fastest growing economy in the region.

Doha, established in 1850, is small. Roughly 5,00,000 people stay here. If placed in Delhi, it would get lost somewhere between South Extension and Connaught Place. And yet, amazingly, the city and its suburbs house over 80% of the country’s population. I couldn’t help but notice the very unusual demography of Doha. The majority of residents I saw, anywhere, were expatriates. And the largest portion of expatriates looked either South Asians or Filipinos. So Hindi, Urdu, Malayalam, Punjabi and other languages seemed to echo from almost all directions.

With just a day in hand, I wanted to see the famous Education City. Bypassing the Sports City, where the 2006 Asian Games, the largest-ever, took place, I reached the outskirts of Doha in about 20 minutes to enter the Education City. And immediately connected with the words of my fellow flight passenger, a Qatari businessman, “While oil and gas will probably remain the backbone of Qatar’s economy for some time to come, the country seeks to develop a knowledge economy.”

The Education City is the result in that direction. With the support of the Qatar Foundation, chaired by the Emir’s wife, Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, some American universities have opened branch campuses in the Education City. Many others are on the way. I attended the World Innovation Summit for Education and briefly met up with Allan E Goodman, President and CEO of Institute of International Education, who explained how Education City is the largest enclave of American universities outside the US, and can be called the local Ivy League. I also discovered that educational opportunities for women are getting better and Wiell Cornell Medical College is Qatar’s first co-educational institution of higher learning.

Time for coffee