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TALLAHASSE, Fla. (AP) -- May 27, 2012

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is celebrating her wedding in the Cayman Island this weekend.

Sen. Paula Dockery posted pictures on Facebook of the wedding party on their flight to the islands and later posted a picture of Bondi serving punch to friends. Bondi's wedding to Tampa ophthalmologist Greg Henderson was a small ceremony with close friends and family.

Gov. Rick Scott and his wife were also in attendance.

Bondi was a Hillsborough County assistant state before being elected attorney general in 2010.

The Republican is a tea party favorite and has been a popular commentator of Fox News over the years. She told the Tampa Tribune that she and Henderson would be legally married once back in the United States in a private ceremony.

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Florida AG Pam Bondi Celebrates Wedding In The Cayman Islands

REVIEW

James C. Scott writes powerfully in favour of marginalised peoples' refusal to be subjected to extracting rulers in The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia.

THE ART OF NOT BEING GOVERNED An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia by James C. Scott 337 Pages. Yale University Press

At the same time, Scott pinpoints the difficulties of states that have tried to wrest control over people constantly on-the-move. The anthropologist and political scientist draws extensively on works done by other scholars before him. But original and a source of the author's pride is his development of "friction of terrain" _ or the ruggedness of hill peoples' choice of environment and remoteness _ as a major constraint for state-making in pre-modern societies.

Looking back 2,000 years from the time of the Han Chinese state up until World War II, Scott covers people living in a mountainous area stretching from Central Vietnam across Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma and four provinces in the southwest of China to India and Bangladesh.

He credits William van Schendel with being the first to call this area Zomia in a paper published in 2002. He dwells at length on Edward Leach's 1954 study of minorities in the highlands of Burma, and pays tribute to Pierre Castre's 1987 paper on frontier peoples in South America. Duly cited is Thongchai Winichaikul's opus on the mapping of Siam.

In Southeast Asia, Scott says the upland peoples evaded rulers "to avoid incorporation into state structures" and escape "peasant status". Those on the move in Zomia included egalitarian Hmong or Miao, as well as the hierarchai Tai or Shan, who were widely dispersed through the area.

He says his discussion of the limits set by hill peoples' choice to stay distant from centres of power and in terrain difficult to reach is intended to generate a new way of understanding state space.

James C. Scott

Scott refuses to refer to the 80 to 100 ethinicities in Zomia as tribes "in the strong sense of the word". The book's longest chapter _ called Ethnogenesis _ spells out why as it elaborates on the hill people's origins and practices. Scott is witty and cites examples that should make sense to specialists and generalists. He emphasises the "symbiosis" of hill and valley peoples, and in particular, their mutual benefits in trade.

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The ultimate freedom

New Delhi, May 27:

A sharp plunge in rupee value to near Rs 55-56 levels against the dollar may be bad news for the markets and the economy, but the currencys depreciation may bring cheer to some including, NRIs remitting money from abroad and expats drawing salaries in dollars.

Amid a fall in rupee and stock markets, concerns are rife about a slowdown in economic growth momentum. However, a weaker rupee could mean good news for the Non-Residential Indians (NRIs) and others remitting money from abroad to their families back in India, experts said.

The rupee has not only lost sheen against the US dollar but also against other currencies. One dollar gets a little over Rs 55 now, which is nearly 12.67 per cent more than what it did on March 1. Similarly, a British pound brings Rs 86.73, (up 10.62 per cent), euro brings Rs 69.30 (up 5.83 per cent) and Australian dollar Rs 54.02 (up 1.75 per cent), a forex expert said.

India has one of the largest NRI diaspora in the world after China estimated to be around 30 million. According to World Bank data, India received remittance worth $ 64 billion in 2011 - the top recipient among developing nations.

Windfall gains could also be reaped by expats working in India with income in foreign currencies like the US dollar but incurring expenses in rupee, they added.

This is because in the short term, these employees are set to gain from a weaker rupee as they earn more rupees from their dollar-denominated salaries, an HR expert said.

The rupee on Thursday hit a record low of Rs 56.38 against the US dollar. While some recovery was seen on Friday but the rupee remained above the 55-level. The rupee has slid by a whopping 13 per cent since March 1, while market barometer Sensex has tanked by nearly 8 per cent in this period.

Besides, for those people who are planning a visit to India now, have a lot to cheer about as they will get good bargain for their home country currencies now.

This translates to having more spending power in India as compared to other favourite destinations like Singapore and Thailand. Each US dollar now costs 1.28 Singapore Dollar, and 31.63 Thai Bhat.

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Weak rupee may help dollar earning NRIs, expats

'Expats'

Before she even considered marriage and children, Kate Moore had established herself in an exciting and fulfilling career.Then, after falling in love and starting a family, she began to slowly give up aspects of her work that were far from conducive to successful home life.But now she is about to leave the working world completely when her husband is offered a lucrative new position in Luxembourg, in Chris Pavone's "Expats."

Starting a whole new life in a foreign country feels strange, but Kate is determined to establish routines and a circle of expatriate friends.However, she soon becomes distrustful of her new acquaintances and eventually her husband, and she will need to call upon old contacts as well as old skills to keep her family safe.

"Expats" gradually unveils Kate's past and present by jumping the narration between time periods.At first it seems a bit jarring, but also establishes a quick pace from the very first page.This is a great thriller but it also presents an unexpected and interesting look at domestic life.

An average field day at her son's private school becomes much more when Grace sees the school building burst into flames and she realizes both her children are inside, in "Afterwards" by Rosamund Lupton.

Desperate to save them, she runs into the smoke and heat.Her heroic attempts to get her kids to safety place Grace and her daughter in comas.However, while their bodies are fighting for life, their spirits are free to roam the hospital and Grace begins to discover that the fire was not an accident and her children are still in grave danger.

Lupton's new novel is a bit reminiscent of her best-seller from last year, "Sister."The narration follows a similar voice as a woman tells her loved one about her attempts to safeguard her family.But "Afterwards" also feels a bit like "The Lovely Bones" by Alice Sebold as Grace's spirit self investigates the events that placed her beyond the veil.

This is a great second novel for Lupton and a great choice for a wide variety of readers.

Carla Zollinger is a librarian with the Provo City Library. Email her at carlaz@provo.lib.ut.us.

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Book Buzz for May 27

Experimental approach to app development... Westpac CIO Clive Whincup.

A little more like Google, a little less like a bank, say chiefs.

Despite cutting several hundred jobs and being accused of planning to offshore the majority of its IT operation, Westpac technology chiefs say the development of new mobile applications and innovative solutions for the banking group must be handled in-house.

Chief information officer Clive Whincup and chief technology officer Jeff Jacobs used a technology media briefing last week in Sydney to unveil two new iPad apps developed in Australia by a team of about 50 staff. The team, comprised primarily of former St George Bank developers and additional personnel, bases app features on insights garnered from consumer and user behavioural research.

The Broker App is to be used by mortgage brokers to evaluate customer's eligibility for loans and to calculate repayments, while Tabula is exclusively for the use of board members now that the banking group no longer issues paper documents ahead of board meetings.

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Westpac chief technology officer Jeff Jacobs.

"We've grown the team quite rapidly with our own staff. We're not relying on contractors. We think a lot of the innovation comes from the intimacy between the developer and the business community and the customer workshops we run. You can't get that when you ship (a brief) overseas," he said.

Westpac axed around 150 IT jobs in January and March, after sending roles offshore. According to the Finance Sector Union, since 2007, more than 6200 jobs have been relocated offshore by Australian banks and financial companies.

But only last week, Westpac-owned St George reneged on a plan to outsource another 200 IT jobs to IBM, the leading outsourcing vendor in Australia, according to Gartner.

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Westpac to develop technology in-house