Chalo Buddo Chalo

From the Daily Times:

$43b new city near Karachi

ISLAMABAD: The government gave approval in principal on Wednesday for Emaar Properties of United Arab Emirates to go ahead with a $43 billion project to build a model city near Karachi. Emaar, which will have 85 percent equity in the project, will develop two islands, Bundal and Buddo, near Karachi into a city with state-of-the-art facilities, Ashfaque Hasan Khan, an advisor to the prime minister, told reporters. “It will be just like another Dubai,” Khan said. “It will consist of everything. Residential buildings, theme parks, offices, just about everything.” “We want to build it because it will create new jobs, bring in investment, create new housing and a new city,” he added. Port Qasim Authority will hold 15 percent in the form of land, Khan said after a meeting of the Economic Coordination Committee. The project is expected to take about 13 years. Khan said approval in principal for the project had been given after all formalities were completed.

How can you go wrong with it? It will have "state-of-the-art facilities," after all. That's exactly what Karachi needs right now, because we all know that everyone in the city is well-fed and housed and taken care of, so we badly need extravagant luxury projects like this. It's a good thing, too, that foreign investors control so much of the project, because of course local Pakistanis can't handle so much wealth and control. And god knows we need another Dubai in this world. I mean, really - one can never have enough Dubais dotting the globe.

Shazia Sikander Wins "Genius" Grant

Shazia Sikander, an artist from Lahore, has received the "genius" grant from MacArthur Foundation.

The A-List Says No to Section 377

Vikram Seth, along with many other sparkling luminaries, has written an open letter to the Indian government asking for a repeal of Section 377. In addition to Seth, other prominent folks include Pooja Bedi, Nandita Das, Shobhaa De, Barkha Dutt (of Kargil-coverage fame), Soha Ali Khan, Shubha Mudgal, Mira Nair, Amol Palekar, Arundhati Roy, Aparna Sen, and Konkona Sen, among others. Along with the actually-famous people like the above are also a host of "star" academics. Of course none of the HomoFOBs were asked to sign. Guess we're not hip enough.

A full list of the signatories can be seen here, along with the text of the letter.

Our Men in Havana

Musharraf and Singh have made up!

Apparently they went into a room by themselves, without aides, security, etc. Locked themselves inside for an hour. When they emerged, an agreement had been struck to resume peace talks! See, all they needed was some alone time to do the nasty, and all is now well. And to those of you who are grossed out by the thought of either Musharraf or Singh having sex, well, have some compassion for the ugly people on the planet - they need sex too.

Blair most hated by Britons?

While all these negotiations continue - between Blair and other Labourites on when exactly he will leave, between Blair and the LSE - it seems that no one will really miss him much when he's gone. A poll from this month shows Blair with only 1 23% approval rating (that makes Bush's 36% practically a superstar).

Blair was also voted "most hated" by Britons in 2003. Interestingly, that same survey has gay rights missionary and generally misguided fool Peter Tatchell at number 80. You can see the full results here.

Blair School of Government?

Fresh from the news that Tony Blair will resign within a year comes word that Tony is worried about his "legacy." I guess I would worry too if I thought my only legacy was going to be showing the world how to be a good lapdog. Anyway, apparently Blair's people have been in dialogue with folks from the London School of Economics (LSE) about setting up a school of government/public policy named after Blair:

British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chief of staff is in discussions with the London School of Economics over the establishment of a school of government in Mr Blair’s name, the Guardian reported on Friday.

Citing unnamed LSE academics involved in the discussions, which have apparently been ongoing for six months, the newspaper reported that the proposed school would focus on foreign and domestic policy.

Mr Blair has apparently been inspired by Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and former US president Bill Clinton’s foundation, in attempting to cement his legacy.

I've been at academic institutions where some academic divisions are named for prominent politicians, and it's very tricky to try and keep the academic endeavor separate from the very real idetification of the institution with the politician's ideology. Such questions have already been raised at LSE:

There remain questions over whether Mr Blair would actually head the school, the unnamed academics told the Guardian, and the Prime Minister’s chief of Staff Jonathan Powell has also been mentioned as a possible head. The LSE was apparently enthusiastic initially when discussions began, but the newspaper reported that some academics are wary of the proposal, questioning whether Mr Blair’s involvement would compromise the LSE’s independence.

"It would need to be de-Blairified before it could go ahead," one unnamed academic said. Both Howard Davies, the LSE’s director, and Mr Blair’s Downing Street office denied knowledge of such a proposal, though it was confirmed by various academics at the LSE off the record to the newspaper.

If I were the LSE, I would run, fast, in the opposite direction...

Desis United?

As FOBs, we tend not to spend too much time about what it means to be desi in the West. Our psychic identities are firmly rooted in the "homeland," which removes an entire level of complication from our lives. (Having seen some of this complication up close and personal, I'd say this is a huge blessing.) Especially here at HOMOfobia, we share such a close personal and political bond that questions about "who we are" rarely come up.

But every once in a while, I come across a story that reminds me of how fractured the desi diaspora really is. There are, of course, countless tensions and questions that accompany the often-forced and arbitrary transformation of regional and national communities into a geographically-dispersed "diaspora." But increasingly I've been seeing another variation on the theme, which highlights the perceived dissonance of one community with the rest of the diaspora. Here's one such story from the UK, which discusses the increasing economic success of "Asians" in Britain (as South Asians are referred to in the UK). The article talks about the changing class character of the Asian community, which is apparently becoming more prosperous and leaving behind its working-class origins. But then something right at the end of the article caught my eye:

But sections of Britain’s thriving ‘new Asian economy’ complained to TOI on Monday that it might have been better for the new Barclays Bank report to have categorically classified the growth as "Indian rather than Asian because it may be misleading to lump all Asians together".

Tushar Patel, who has a chain of pharmaceuticals, said, "There is such a wide difference between ‘Asian’ groups - Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi - that it would be better to be more specific about who is doing well”. [emphasis added]

Maybe I'm just being naive, but is it really so hard to maintain some kind of solidarity with other desis?