Thumbay Group Wins Four Honors at the Prestigious Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Awards 2018
First Group in SKEA History to Achieve this Feat
Dubai: based diversified global conglomerate Thumbay Group has become the first business group in the history of the prestigious Sheikh Khalifa Excellence Awards (SKEA) to win four awards in a single assessment cycle.
At the 16th Sheikh Khalifah Excellence Awards (SKEA) ceremony held under the patronage of His Highness Sheikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the UAE Armed Forces, at the at the Emirates Palace in Abu Dhabi on 21st February 2018, the awards were presented by H.H. Sheikh Hamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Chairman of Abu Dhabi Crown Prince’s Court, to Dr. Thumbay Moideen, the Founder President of Thumbay Group.
The awards were won by the following entities owned by Thumbay Group
Gulf Medical University, Ajman – Gold Award
Thumbay Hospital, Dubai – Silver Award
Thumbay Hospital, Ajman – Silver Award
Thumbay Hospital, Fujairah – Silver Award
Dr. Thumbay Moideen said that Thumbay Group was proud to be honored at SKEA. “It is a matter of great pride that we have been honored at the prestigious SKEA awards, not once, but with four awards won by our entities in education and healthcare. I thank the SKEA jury for recognizing our efforts and our commitment to quality.
I congratulate my team and I also take this opportunity to thank our customers for the trust they’ve invested in us, during the course of our two decade long journey. We have always striven to set new standards in education and healthcare, two of our core sectors, and ingrained innovation as the underlying function of our operations across all 20 sectors of business that we are involved in.”
Mr. Akbar Moideen Thumbay, the Vice President of Thumbay Group’s Healthcare Division said that the multiple recognitions for the healthcare division recognized not only the high quality of care that is received by patients at Thumbay Hospitals, but “It also emphasizes the fact that our high standards of patient care and service delivery pervade all the departments in all our hospitals.” He further said, “We take tremendous pride in the fact that people from over 175 countries place their trust in our hospitals in the UAE and Hyderabad-India.”
The SKEA awards are given to both government and private companies and organizations that set and follow best all round business practices in various fields, every year.
About Thumbay Group
Founded by Dr. Thumbay Moideen in 1998, Thumbay Group is a diversified international business conglomerate with operations across 20 different verticals including Education, Healthcare, Medical Research, Diagnostics, Retail Pharmacy, Health Communications, Retail Opticals, Wellness, Nutrition Stores, Hospitality, Real Estate, Publishing, Technology, Media, Events, Medical Tourism, Trading and Marketing & Distribution. Headquartered in Dubai, the group presently employs around 5000 people, which is projected to increase to around 25,000 by the year 2022, with the completion of ongoing and upcoming projects.
Currently, Thumbay Group is focusing on its strategic long-term plans which will see the group scale its businesses almost ten times and expand its operations globally.
The Gulf Medical University (GMU), Ajman is a leading private medical university of the Middle East region, attracting students from over 80 nationalities and employing staff from 25 different countries. The Thumbay network of academic hospitals is now the largest network of private academic hospitals in the Middle East, treating patients from around 175 nationalities.
The hospitals, presently located at Dubai, Ajman, Sharjah and Fujairah in the UAE and in Hyderabad – India, are also among the biggest JCI-accredited private academic hospital networks in the region. Thumbay Group’s healthcare division also operates a chain of family clinics (Thumbay Clinic) and multispecialty day care hospitals (Thumbay Hospital Day Care) in the UAE as well as diagnostic labs (Thumbay Labs) and pharmacies (Thumbay Pharmacy) in the UAE and India.
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Texas halts H-1B visas at state universities, agencies; to affect Indians
Houston (US) (PTI): Texas Governor Greg Abbott has ordered state agencies and public universities to immediately halt new H-1B visa petitions, tightening hiring rules at taxpayer-funded institutions, a step likely to impact Indian professionals.
The freeze will remain in effect through May 2027.
The directive issued on Tuesday said that the state agencies and public universities must stop filing new petitions unless they receive written approval from the Texas Workforce Commission.
The governor's order, in a red state that is home to thousands of H-1B visa holders, comes as the Trump administration has initiated steps to reshape the visa programme.
“In light of recent reports of abuse in the federal H-1B visa programme, and amid the federal government’s ongoing review of that programme to ensure American jobs are going to American workers, I am directing all state agencies to immediately freeze new H-1B visa petitions as outlined in this letter,” Abbot said.
Institutions must also report on H-1B usage, including numbers, job roles, countries of origin, and visa expiry dates, the letter said.
US President Donald Trump on September 19 last year signed a proclamation ‘Restriction on entry of certain non-immigrant workers’ that restricted the entry into the US of those workers whose H-1B petitions are not accompanied or supplemented by a payment of USD 1,00,000.
The H1-B visa fee of USD 1,00,000 would be applicable only to new applicants, i.e. all new H-1B visa petitions submitted after September 21, including those for the FY2026 lottery.
Indians make up an estimated 71 per cent of all approved H-1B applications in recent years, according to US Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), with China in the second spot. The major fields include technology, engineering, medicine, and research.
Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) is the second-highest beneficiary with 5,505 approved H-1B visas in 2025, after Amazon (10,044 workers on H-1B visas), according to the USCIS. Other top beneficiaries include Microsoft (5,189), Meta (5,123), Apple (4,202), Google (4,181), Deloitte (2,353), Infosys (2,004), Wipro (1,523) and Tech Mahindra Americas (951).
Texas public universities employ hundreds of foreign faculty and researchers, many from India, across engineering, healthcare, and technology fields.
Date from Open Doors -- a comprehensive information resource on international students and scholars studying or teaching at higher education institutions in the US -- for 2022-2023 showed 2,70,000 students from India embarked on graduate and undergraduate degrees in US universities, accounting for 25 per cent of the international student population in the US and 1.5 per cent of the total student population.
Indian students infuse roughly USD 10 billion annually into universities and related businesses across the country through tuition and other expenses – while also creating around 93,000 jobs, according to the Open Doors data.
Analysts warn the freeze could slow recruitment of highly skilled professionals, affecting academic research and innovation.
Supporters say the directive protects local jobs, while critics caution it could weaken Texas’ competitiveness in higher education and research.
The order comes amid broader debate in the US over skilled immigration and state-level interventions in federal programmes.
H-1B visas allow US companies to hire technically-skilled professionals that are not easily available in America. Initially granted for three years, these can be extended for another three years.
In September 2025, Trump had also signed an executive order ‘The Gold Card’, aimed at setting up a new visa pathway for those committed to supporting the United States; with individuals who can pay USD 1 million to the US Treasury, or USD 2 million if a corporation is sponsoring them, to get access to expedited visa treatment and a path to a Green Card.
