He may have been unsuccessful in winning the Ealing and Southall seat from Virendra Sharma, but Tony Lit is not giving up on his political aspirations.

The managing director of Sunrise Radio has been short-listed and is now among six candidates fighting to be the Conservative Party’s official candidate neighbouring Hayes.

The announcement was made late last week.

Others running against him include Gurmaj Dhillon, a former Treasury official who has advised the Tories on police reform; Lindsey Hall, Westminster councillor and Naman Purewal – Deputy Chairman of Feltham and Heston Conservatives.

A BBC Asian Network spokesperson today admitted to AIM Magazine that its future was in doubt as senior executives carried out a review of services across the corporation.

The uncertainty was sparked when chief operating officer Caroline Thomson said the BBC was finding it difficult to try and “cater for many disparate groups simultaneously”.

She told a communications committee inquiry in the House of Lords that, “one of the difficulties of the Asian service is its concept. It broadcasts in a number of different languages to an audience that varies from younger to older [listeners].”
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The London-based Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA) issued a statement yesterday stating it “appalled” at the Sri Lankan government’s continued persecution of journalists “for committing the ’sin’ of criticizing the ruling party”.

The organisation was also “deeply concerned” at the disappearance of the Sri Lankan journalist Prageeth Ekneligoda.

There has been growing concern and coverage of events in Sri Lanka, where police raided the offices of opposition candidates last week, seizing equipment and arresting staff.
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by Jaspreet Pandohar
Freelance writer

In the current economic climate it may seem a tad risky to start a new business. When that venture happens to be within the unpredictable entertainment industry it’s probably even more of a perilous idea.

But that’s exactly what two daring young Londoners have done by creating a new UK-based film distribution company.

This month will see two new releases by them: The Pool and Made In Pakistan (more details at the end).

A US-India co-production directed by filmmaker Chris Smith, The Pool stars legendary Indian actor Nana Patekar and is a tale of a boy’s obsession with a glittering swimming pool and how it changes four lives in India.
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An enterprising local reporter has offered a date with herself to raise money for Haiti.

Royal Borough’s chief reporter Inderdeep Bains agreed to being the top prize for the charity drive, with the proviso that male readers donate a minimum of £20 each.
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Guardian News & Media are looking for new voices as part of their commitment to the diversity of editorial content and the writers that they use.

If you belong to a minority group through your ethnicity, gender, disability, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, they invite you to apply for a place on a minority writers’ workshop with editors from the Guardian’s G2, Comment and Weekend sections.
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The Mail on Sunday’s parent company has had to pay out substantial libel damages to the Muslim Council of Britain’s Inayat Bunglawala over terrorism related allegations.

Associated Newspapers accepted that Mr Bunglawala did not support al-Qaida after making the claim last year.
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Former magazine editor turned socialite Farah Damji was sentenced to 15 months in prison by Blackfriars Crown Court on Friday morning.

She was remanded in custody on Thursday after a series of postponements which kept pushing back the date of the sentencing.

Damji was due to be in court as far back as July last year.
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The broadcasting union Bectu revealed this week that Ofcom had stopped enforcing commitments made by broadcasters on issues around diversity, even if they breached licence conditions.

The shocking revelation came only through legal action by the union.

Bectu had made a Freedom of Information request in 2007 for Ofcom to disclose ethnic monitoring data it collected for the year 2005. Ofcom refused, claiming the disclosure of the data was not necessary. It also argued the regulatory landscape had changed so it did not have to.
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Music and radio presenter Bobby Friction has been signed up by the NHS blood donation campaign, among other media personalities.

The National Blood Service’s VIP Appeal launched this month and will run until the end of March. The publicity campaign will also include former Misteeq lead singer Sabrina Washington

The ‘VIP Appeal’ campaign is targeting South Asian, Black African and Black Caribbean communities to give blood and help meet the need for rare blood types within ethnic minority communities.

A new Asian entertainment channel endorsed by Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan is due to come to the UK and US.

‘Colors’ will be the first branded channel by Mumbai-based Viacom 18 Network. The company is an equally owned joint venture between America’s Viacom Inc and India’s Network 18.
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They say you’re not truly famous until you’ve been parodied. Perhaps Jay Sean, who is making waves across the United States with the hip-hop label Cash Money Records, will view this remix of his hit track ‘Down’ in the same vein.

The parody was published to YouTube by an amateur group calling themselves ‘The Midnight Beast’. It has proved so popular that the parody has been viewed nearly a quarter of a million times.
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British cinema receipts for a Bollywood film have helped it break overseas box-office records.

3 Idiots, starring Aamir Khan, is seventh on the UK cinema charts, taking £331,166 last week across the UK.
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British Muslim women are hitting the road – taking their independence in both hands and putting their foot on the gas.

An entertaining BBC series, starting next week, tells their stories from home as well as their cars over the weeks and months as they build towards their driving test.
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Miss Amarat Sehgal is a graduate in Media Technology and has been a creative writer for over two years. Having experienced the high’s and low’s of many adventurous relationships, she has decided to share her experiences.
You can follow the series exclusively here on AIM over the next six weeks.

by Amarat Sehgal
—

Another hot date with Raj and things were looking really good, we had been dating for the last 3 months. He was funny, charming and very romantic. This time he had even laid out candles on the stairs, I mean I can’t remember the last time a man had even dimmed the lights down for me.

But this time he had cooked for me too, the champagne was going straight to my head and I was enjoying every minute of it. After we ate lamb shanks, he told me how his mother would make them for him as a teenager. Very impressive, a man who could cook too, this was just great.

He put some music on after he fed me dessert with his bare hands, the whipped cream was all over the place but he didn’t care. We moved onto the sofa and then he started to kiss me passionately. I knew this would end up in his room or maybe even on the kitchen worktop.

Just as he unbuttoned his shirt, I heard a scream and then a horrible shout.
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The BBC is likely to stir up a hornet’s nest of controversy over a programme due to be broadcast this week on Sikh history.

An hour-long documentary presented by Sonia Deol titled ‘1984: A Sikh Story’ will ret-tell the story of the year the Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi sent troops into the holiest and most revered of Sikh shrines, The Golden Temple.
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Media Moguls has been appointed by NHS Blood and Transplant (NHSBT) to raise awareness about organ donation amongst South Asian and Black communities in the UK.

It designed and implemented the first ever South Asian Organ Donation campaign in 1998 – 2003 for the Department of Health.
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The former magazine editor Farah Damji will be sentenced at Blackfriars Crown Court on Wednesday 20th January, AIM magazine can reveal.

A sentencing was originally scheduled for 6th January.
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Gurinder Chadha’s upcoming film It’s a Wonderful Afterlife will premiere at the Sundance Film Festival later this month.

The director made the announcement this week.

But the film will screen outside of the competition during the festival, which takes place in Park City, USA from 21st January until 31st January.

She said: “I am delighted to premiere my film at Sundance having had such a long and happy relationship with the festival.”
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On the first day of the year BBC soap Eastenders aired its first Asian wedding in full spectacular style.
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Every year hundreds of interesting and quirky books slip under our radar thanks to information overload. In this series, we highlight books published this year you may have missed that are worth a second look.

How much do we know about what really goes on behind the scenes at our local supermarket?

This forms the subject of journalist Tazeen Ahmed’s fascinating debut book The Checkout Girl, published this summer.
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Every year hundreds of interesting and quirky books slip under our radar thanks to information overload. In this series, we highlight books published this year you may have missed that are worth a second look.

Scottish doctor and author Suhayl Saadi published his third book this year, a fictional ‘magical realism’ story titled Joseph’s Box.
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Every year hundreds of interesting and quirky books slip under our radar thanks to information overload. In this series, we highlight books published this year you may have missed that are worth a second look.

Former journalist Puneet Bhandal published the first and second in a series of Bollywood themed fiction series.
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Author, poet and film-maker Nikesh Shukla has a short story collection in podcast form: titled Wham! Bam! Stories, Man!

Shukla says he was inspired by the oral tradition of griots and felt the podcast format was good instant and current way of bringing his voice to the world.
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Upcoming singer Gunjan, signed with Scottish producers Tigerstyle, is releasing her debut single this week.
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