Salaam Paris

Tanaya Shah longs for the wonderful world of Paris, the world that she fell in love with while watching Audrey Hepburn in Sabrina—so when a proposal comes along for an arranged marriage with a man who is living in Paris, Tanaya seizes the chance. But once she lands in the city, she shuns the match. A stroke of luck turns Tanaya into a supermodel, and soon the traditional girl is cavorting with rock stars and is disowned by her family. In her new whirlwind life, she is reintroduced to the man she was supposed to marry, the man she now realizes she should have never walked away from, the man who is her only connection to the family she longs to reconcile with, if only it’s not too late.

The first critical analysis of contemporary arranged marriage among South Asians in a global context Arranged marriage is an institution of global fascination—an object of curiosity, revulsion, outrage, and even envy. Marian Aguiar provides the first sustained analysis of arranged marriage as a transnational cultural phenomenon, revealing how its meaning has been continuously reinvented within the South Asian diaspora of Britain, the United States, and Canada. Aguiar identifies and analyzes representations of arranged marriage in an interdisciplinary set of texts—from literary fiction and Bollywood films, to digital and print media, to contemporary law and policy on forced marriage. Aguiar interprets depictions of South Asian arranged marriage to show we are in a moment of conjugal globalization, identifying how narratives about arranged marriage bear upon questions of consent, agency, state power, and national belonging. Aguiar argues that these discourses illuminate deep divisions in the processes of globalization constructed on a fault line between individualist and collectivist agency and in the process, critiques neoliberal celebrations of “culture as choice” that attempt to bridge that separation. Aguiar advocates situating arranged marriage discourses within their social and material contexts so as to see past reductive notions of culture and grasp the global forces mediating increasingly polarized visions of agency.

This report focusses on the FCO's financial situation and the implications of the Spending Review 2010 for its work and performance, and that of its associated body, the British Council. The FCO is one of the major departmental 'losers' in the Spending Review. Reductions in spending on the FCO, if they result in shortfalls in skilled personnel and technical support in key countries and regions, can have a serious effect in terms of the UK's relations with foreign countries, out of all proportion to the amounts of money involved, especially in relation to the UK's security and that of its Overseas Territories. Cuts to the core FCO budget of even 10% may have a damaging effect on the Department's ability to promote UK interests overseas. The FCO will also face cuts of 55% to its capital budget. The target of raising £50 million per year through selling existing buildings may be difficult to achieve, and may not secure savings in the long-term. A further reduction in the opportunities for more junior UK-based staff to serve in overseas posts, and a consequent diminishing of experience and morale among FCO employees, could over time have a damaging effect on the quality of British diplomacy and the effectiveness of the FCO. The British Council, facing a 25% cut in spending, should give detailed information on its strategy for implementing the cut, which may well trigger fundamental rethinking of the role and work of the Council.

FIFTEEN-YEAR-OLD INDIE KONKIPUDDI HAS ALWAYS DREAMED OF BECOMING A FASHION REPORTER. She'd do anything to land an internship with glamorous Celebrity Style magazine -- even babysit publisher Aaralyn Taylor's two-year-old son. Indie's neurosurgeon dad can't understand why Indie would want to spend her weekends picking Play-Doh off of someone else's Persian carpets, and pretty soon she starts asking herself the same thing. Then Indie finds out that (1) Celebrity Style is in trouble, and (2) Hollywood's hottest star is having her wedding dress made in a village in India. Indie's sure she's scored the juiciest gossip in town -- the kind of story that will put the magazine back on the map and finally land her the internship! But when things don't pan out exactly as planned, Indie wonders -- will Aaralyn ever see her as anything more than just the hired help?

Addendum accompany some numbers.

The book is organized in Folklore Units. Each Folklore Unit has Context and may have one or more Metacontexts with citations of works of great philosophers or writers; hence, the title of the book is Metafolklore. The book covers the life of immigrants from the USSR in the U.S., remembers life in Russia, and gradually concentrates on the modus operandi of the KGB, FBI, CIA, NYPD, NSA, ECHELON, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, Al, and ISI. It covers frontiers of legal theory of surveillance. What distinguishes this book is the intensely personal account of the events and issues.

While contributing to social inequality and environmental degradation, recent global transformations have also strengthened civil society groups opposing these trends. Yet, as they need to transform the existing social order from within, groups struggling for social justice face various strategic dilemmas. The articles in this volume examine these dilemmas and discuss possible solutions. Issues addressed include North-South disparities in what has been called "global civil society", and the precarious division of labor between local grassroots organizers and transnational coalition-builders.