The appointment of a Punjabi to serve in the British cabinet — the first time in history that this has ever happened — is a cause for celebration.

But for many British NRIs, Sayeeda Warsi is a Punjabi originating from the wrong side of the border and they have responded with indifference to last week’s announcement that she will serve as Minister without Portfolio in the new Conservative/LibDem government headed by David Cameron.

Yorkshire-born Warsi, 39, is a lawyer by profession and the daughter of bus driver Safdar Hussein, who migrated to Britain some 50 years ago from his home village of Pukka Khoo in Gujjar Khan, south east of Rawalpindi.

Although Warsi’s admirers in the UK describe her as a liberal prepared to stand fast against those Islamic extremists who preach the politics of hate, her social and political outlook is liable to come across as confused. For example, she is a self-declared campaigner for women’s rights, yet she herself had an arranged marriage at the age of 19. She has also been alleged to say that she enjoys wearing the burqa when visiting Pakistan.

Her influence on British government policy, especially when it comes to foreign policy issues like Kashmir, has yet to be measured. But one delighted Pakistani website quotes her as saying that although she lives in the UK, her heart remains in Pakistan.NRIs to whom I have spoken are inevitably concerned about how Warsi’s inclusion in the British cabinet could affect London’s bilateral ties with both New Delhi and Islamabad. But those prophets of doom who anticipate a tilt in British government perspectives away from India should also consider what would have happened if the Labour party had stayed in power.

There is ample evidence that the Labour Party was reviewing its previous unqualified support for India on all key issues. One measure of that changing perspective was provided earlier this month by Dennis MacShane, a Labour MP and former Minister of State in the Foreign Office.

In an article written for one of the daily English broadsheets published from London, MacShane noted how “Pakistan has to put up with a condescension and patronising sneers from a pro-Indian establishment in London, India's failure to create peace on its border with Kashmir rarely if ever gets criticised.”

He goes on to argue that “India should do more to bring stability to the region by seeking to become part of the solution to Kashmir instead of remaining part of the problem.”

MacShane’s words echo those of former Labour Foreign Secretary David Milliband, who many foresee as a future Labour Prime Minister. "Resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms and allow the Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders,” Milliband wrote in a magazine article while the Labour party was still in power.This is the same Milliband who had a disastrous visit to India last January. He was “aggressive in tone and manner” during his meeting with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and patronising in meetings with Pranab Mukherjee. Veterans of the External Affairs Ministry in New Delhi still wince at memories of Milliband addressing Mr Mukherjee as “Pranab” in their first encounter.

For his part Cameron has written of the need to develop a new special relationship with India. “I attach the highest priority to Britain’s relationship with India,” he wrote shortly after visiting Delhi in 2006. While the details of that special relationship have yet to be worked out, the broader South Asian community in the UK is still trying to digest the implications of the recently concluded General Election.

To start with there are more MPs of South Asian origin (14) than ever before elected to the new House of Commons. Among them are five women MPs, the first time any South Asian women have been elected to a British parliament.

Four out of the five women MPs are members of the Labour Party, including Shabana Mahmood, Valerie Vaz, Roshanara Ali and Yasmin Qureshi. Priti Patel is the sole Conservative. Three of the women are Muslims, the first Muslim women ever to be so elected. After the election results were announced, Oxford-educated Mahmood commented, “The image of the voiceless Muslim woman who cannot leave the house is just not true: they are interested in politics. Parliament is for the people -- all of the people -- and the ethnic minority population should claim it.” But there is still more to be registered in the record books.

Valerie Vaz, a non-Muslim woman MP elected from Walsall, is the sister of fellow Labour MP Keith Vaz. The two of them mark the first time ever that a brother and sister have been elected to Westminster on the same party ticket.

Another political record has been created in the shape of Paul Uppal, the newly elected Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South West that was once thought of as a whites-only constituency. For many years this was the constituency of the late Enoch Powell, who was associated with the racist ideology of English right wingers that permeated the UK in the 1960s.

So for Wolverhampton South West to be won by Uppal, a clean-shaven Sikh of East African Asian ancestry, is an especially sweet victory.

Before the election there was widespread speculation that in the event of a Conservative victory, there would be at least one brown face in the new council of ministers. At the very least, so it was thought, the Conservatives would need to match Labour’s previous record of selecting three South Asians, Keith Vaz, Sadiq Khan and Shahid Malik, to serve as junior ministers.

That pre-election expectation has now been realised with Sayeeda Warsi’s appointment. On the day she was appointed, Lady Warsi deliberately drew attention to her ethnicity by wearing a pink salwar kameez as she posed for photographs on the steps of 10 Downing Street. Years from now, when more South Asian-origin cabinet ministers would have become a fact of British political life, that image of Sayeeda Warsi in her pink salwar kameez will endure and never fade.

Islamabad, May 22
The Pakistan authorities were today caught on the wrong foot as an anti-terror court hearing the 26/11 case was told that the Interpol was yet to be approached for a Red Corner notice for Ajmal Kasab, weeks after they claimed the matter had been taken up with the Paris-based agency.

The Rawalpindi-based anti-terrorism court conducting the trial of LeT chief (operations) Zaki ur Rehman Lakhvi and six other suspects in the Mumbai attacks adjourned the case till June 5.

Judge Malik Mohammad Akram Awan adjourned the trial after hearing arguments by the prosecution and defence on whether Kasab and Fahim Ansari could be made part of the trial.

Kasab, the lone terrorist arrested alive during the Mumbai attacks, was given death penalty by a Mumbai court earlier this month, while Ansari, who was also an accused, was acquitted for want of evidence.

Defence lawyers argued in the Rawalpindi court that persons like Kasab and Ansari, who had been convicted or acquitted, could not be tried again for the same offence. They said Section 403 of the Indian and Pakistani Penal Codes did not permit fresh trial of persons, who had been convicted or acquitted.

However, the prosecution was caught on the wrong foot when the judge asked it whether the government had obtained Red Corner notices for Kasab and Ansari. Judge Awan told the prosecution that he had issued arrest warrants for Kasab and Ansari to facilitate government efforts to obtain Red Corner notices for them.

The prosecution acknowledged that the government was yet to approach Interpol for the notices. Earlier last month, the Special Public Prosecutor had said that Pakistan had approached the Interpol seeking Red Corner notices for arresting Kasab and Ansari.

The defence lawyers also filed an application in the court seeking end to the in-camera proceedings of the trial. 

Washington, May 22
Pakistan has detained a co-owner of an upscale catering company in Islamabad and at least four others in connection with the botched Times Square bombing plot for which Pakistani-American terror suspect Faisal Shahzad has been arrested in the US, a media report said here today.

The suspects, including Salman Ashraf of ‘Hanif Rajput Catering Service’, were taken into custody following the May 1 terror plot, ‘The Washington Post’ reported today.The report came a day after Pakistan’s Geo News channel said six persons had been detained at different places in the country on suspicion of having links to Shahzad.Citing a US embassy alert in Islamabad, the Post said Americans had been warned about the ‘Hanif Rajput Catering Service’ as “terrorist groups may have established links” to it. — PTI

Washington, May 22
In a first, the India and US will hold a four-day strategic dialogue here from June one, which would include an in-depth discussion between leaders of the two countries on critical global and regional issues like energy and terrorism.

“The Secretary (of State Hillary Clinton) looks forward to hosting Minister of External Affairs SM Krishna,” State Department spokesman PJ Crowley told reporters at his daily news conference here last evening.

Leading the delegations of their respective countries, Clinton and Krishna would co-chair the high-level inter-agency discussions on a range of critical issues. — PTI

Washington, May 22
Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf, on a self-imposed exile for more than a year, has said he plans to return home to re-enter politics and did not rule out making a bid for Premiership.

"I am certainly planning to go back to Pakistan and also join politics. The question of whether I am running for the President or Prime Minister will be seen later," Musharraf said. "I have to launch myself politically, formally, which I haven't done," Musharraf said, adding that he is interacting with a lot of politicians, with the people of Pakistan and the Pakistani Diaspora in the US and the Britain.

"We run a parliamentary system there," 67-year-old Musharraf said. "So you have to -- your party has to win in the election. Then only do you decide to run." "Basically, you are heading the party, you are running for the prime ministership," he said. "Because in Pakistan, the chief executive is the Prime Minister, not the President." However, the former Pakistani dictator did not give exact time frame for his return, as clamour grows in Pakistan for allegations that he did not do enough to prevent the assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

A demand has also been voiced to seek his clarification on the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance, which is currently under scrutiny of the country's Supreme Court. Under the NRO, a number of Pakistani politicians and officials, including President Asif Ali Zardari, were granted amnesty from prosecution on corruption charges.

"I have taken a decision in principle to join politics and go back to Pakistan, It is related to the election in Pakistan. I am sure of one thing, that, whether it's end-term elections or midterm elections, I will be there before those elections," he said. "There's no sign of mid-term election. If at all, it will be next year, maybe, 2011," he said. Musharraf conceded that security would be one of the issues when he returns back home.—PTI 

New York, May 22
Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama has said he is a Marxist, yet credits capitalism for bringing new freedoms to the communist country that exiled him — China.

"Still I am a Marxist," the exiled Tibetan Buddhist leader said in New York, where he arrived with an entourage of robed monks and a heavy security detail to give a series of paid public lectures. "Marxism has moral ethics, whereas capitalism is only how to make profits," the Dalai Lama said.

However, he credited China's embrace of market economics for breaking communism's grip over the world's most populous country and forcing the ruling Communist Party to represent all sorts of classes. "Capitalism has brought a lot of positive to China. Millions of people's living standards has also improved," he said.

The Dalai Lama said he felt a "sense of the oneness of human beings," jokingly adding: "If those thoughts are wrong, please let me know!" Although China, which forced him to escape for his life in 1959, is loosening up, he had harsh words for a communist leadership that he said still seeks to rule by fear. —AFP

Kathmandu, May 22
A 13-year-old American boy from California became the youngest summiteer to scale Mount Everest today, moving closer to achieving his dream to climb the highest peaks in all seven continents.

Jordan, California’s eighth grader, reached atop the 8,848-m peak today along with his father Paul Romero and three Sherpa guides from northern side (Tibet), according to a website sevensidedcube.Net.

Jordan left for the peak from the base camp on the Chinese side. He has embarked on an adventure to climb the highest peaks in all seven continents.

He climbed Mt Kalimanjaro of Africa at the age of 10 and scaled Marstensz Pyramid (Oceana) on September 1, 2009. Earlier, he had climbed Denali (North America) on June 18, 2008, Aconcagua (South America) on December 30, 2007, Elbrus (Europe) on July 11, 2007, Kosciuszko (Australia) on July 11, 2007 and Kilimanjaro (Africa) on July 22, 2006. Now, just one peak remains in his quest to climb the highest peaks in all seven continents, Vinson Massif in Antarctica.

On the same day as Jordan, Nepali famous climber Apa Sherpa broke his own record and climbed Mount Everest for the 20th time.

Indian schoolboy Arjun Bajpayee also climbed the Everest as the youngest Indian summiteer. Both Sherpa and Bajpayee climbed the mountain from the southern side. — PTI