I didn’t realize this but apparently even the U.N. has a union. Specifically the U.N. Staff Union. Yahoo News is reporting that the UN staff are preparing to cast a historic no-confidence vote against Nobel Prize winner and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

UN staff are expected to make an unprecedented vote of no confidence in Secretary-General Kofi Annan, union sources say, after a series of scandals tainted his term in charge of the world body. The UN staff union, in what officials said was the first vote of its kind in the almost 60-year history of the United Nations, was set to approve a resolution withdrawing support for Annan and senior UN management. Annan has been in the line of fire over a series of scandals including controversy about a UN aid program that investigators say allowed deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to embezzle billions of dollars.

Okay, but this kind of news will eventually be found all over the mainstream press. Why are we reporting it? Well apparently the oil for food scandal wasn’t the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Staffers said the trigger for the no-confidence measure was an announcement this week that Annan had pardoned the UN’s top oversight official, who was facing allegations of favouritism and sexual harassment.

The union had requested a formal probe into the official, Dileep Nair, after employees accused him of harassing staff and violating UN rules on the hiring and promotion of workers.

Dileep Nair is an official from Singapore who denies any wrongdoing of course. The U.N. workers aren’t buying it though, and haven’t forgotten previous things they were upset about. Continue reading →

That is thankfully not the name of a new Hollywood movie. Prince Charles it seems has taken exception to the Blair government’s praise of the Indian and Chinese education systems. Specifically, Gordon Brown who is Blair’s Finance Minister, said last week:

“Within a decade, five million US and European jobs could be outsourced. And all the time China and India are upgrading their [IT] and science skills. They are producing 125,000 computer science graduates a year, and the UK [is producing] only 5,000,” Brown said.

Just last week the government agency e-Skills UK criticised the IT training industry for being unequal to the task of filling the UK technology skills gap.

Brown added that to “fail to confront or complacently side-step” global competition would cause the UK to be left behind.

In response,

Britain’s philosopher-Prince Charles has hit out at the Blair government’s envious warning refrain on the sheer volume and calibre of India’s academic successes, by accusing educationists of seeking to turn students into “better robots”.

Continue reading →

Voice of America features a news story about the community of Artesia, California known for its very visible Indian population, and their bid to post a highway sign designating Artesia with the nickname “Little India.” The full story can be viewed here and a transcript can be read here.

Artesia, California – population 16,000, was settled as a farming community by Portuguese immigrants in the 19th century. Today Artesia’s rural past is a faint memory, its main street paved, the shops along it owned for the most part by merchants from the Indian subcontinent. But plans to officially recognize the city’s altered social landscape have received unexpected resistance from many in the community.

What’s the resistance about? Well despite the Indian community’s overwhelming visibility, they only make up 5% of the actual population. That rubs some the wrong way. Says the leader of the local Portuguese Cultural Center:

“Artesia is composed of Hispanic, Portuguese, Dutch, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Filipino, all sorts of diversity as you can see, including Indian. Now the Indian community does have quite a few shopping centers in Artesia, but it’s only a small percentage in the whole big picture of all the shopping centers.”

Assemblyman Rudy Bermudez is more reasonable:

“This sign is not about celebrating just one culture, one community. It’s about celebrating the vast diversity of this city. And it just happens to be that one of the richest destinations in California, Southern California, is here on Pioneer Boulevard – and it’s “Little India.”

Damn. Unable to find love here because women simply don’t understand me, I had planned on making my next trip to India count. I had intended to find myself a bride while over there. Now it seems there will be people running a background check on me first. I got to say this is long overdue, even though a background check is sure to eliminate me. From the Times of India:

The Union ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs will appoint volunteers abroad to carry out a background check on ‘eligible’ bachelors settled in foreign countries.

At the forthcoming Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD), the ministry is planning to appoint non-resident Indian (NRI) volunteers who will represent it in foreign countries, to make discreet inquiries about bachelors who have set their sights on the Indian marriage mart. The PBD is to be held at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Nariman Point, Mumbai, from January 7 to 9.

The idea is the brainchild of Jagdish Tytler, minister of state for Overseas Indian Affairs. Speaking to TOI en route to Kenya and South Africa to promote the PBD, he said, “This is being done to prevent the exploitation of gullible girls and their families by so-called bachelors.” There are 10,000 cases in Punjab alone of NRI husbands abandoning their wives. In Gujarat about 12,000 cases have been reported, Tytler said. Figures for other states were not available with him.