Rajeev has made incidental mention of third-world functionaries latching on to the 'generous mammaries of the UN welfare state'. I would like to mention that as a graduate student in the USA in the mid-sixties (when geting green cards was a little iffy), we were well-aware of the wonderful babu jobs in the UN, World Bank and the IMF. However, you needed a little 'pull', besides a US graduate/doctoral degree (with apologies to people such as Tharoor who may have got in without the pull). You retained your Indian citizenship, and you were paid in tax-free dollars, and had numerous fringe benefits such as getting domestic help from India. Furthrtmore, you worked in a bureaucracy with little accountability, and you could coast for the 25 or so years before getting your pension. Those of us who felt that we did not have the pull joined US multinational corporations and did very well. However, we were held accountable in our jobs and had to work very hard, and could not coast to pension-time as those amongst us who had joined these organizations. Bravo Rajeev, smash babudom whether it in India, or it is international.
