The Financial Times newspaper’s US economic editor, Krishna Guha, is leaving to join the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
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Author and writer Anjana Gosai was named Beauty Journalist of the Year at the annual Beauty Journalism awards last week.

The 32 year old writer from north London said: “To be recognised amongst my peers, including beauty editors whose work I have admired for years and to have my work commended by top people in the industry makes me feel very humbled.”

She won the award for an article on skin lightening written for fashion mag Asiana. She has also written for a range of national newspapers and magazine.

Anjana’s first book, The Ultimate Guide to Beauty, was published last year.

by Poorna Shetty
Freelance Writer

Call me nostalgic, but there’s something about the process of producing a magazine that I’ll always love.

When I was editor of Asiana, it was a combination of frantic scrabbling during deadline week while the printers yelled on the phone for pages, culminating in the moment that made it all worth it – the first delivery of magazines smelling of freshly-minted paper containing all our hard work.

Going freelance was a choice not a byword for voluntary redundancy, and since then I’ve managed to travel the world and write for The Guardian, The Sunday Times Travel and The Daily Telegraph. Working in your pyjamas with all of the money and none of the office politics – no regrets.
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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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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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The new edition of the long-running fashion quarterly Asian Woman magazine hit newsstands this week. And this time it sported a different name in the editor’s page.

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Modelling agencies fleecing Asian women across the country are likely to face strong penalties with new government legislation.

The government is planning to announce that modelling agencies would be banned from charging up-front fees.

The plans were aimed at “unscrupulous agents”, a minister said, who asked women for fees in advance of any modelling work.

In most cases the work never comes through and women pay extortionate fees for being on the register.
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Young journalist Angela Saini has been jointly named Junior European Science Writer of the Year for 2009, by the respected Euroscience Foundation. The science has written for New Scientist, Wired, Science and The Economist in the past and is a regular science and technology reporter on BBC World Service.

She was nominated by the European Union of Science Journalists’ Associations. The judges said she had “already become a very versatile and promising science journalist”.

She told AIM Magazine: “I know its cheesy, but since I went freelance last year I’ve honestly felt that my job is its own reward – I love being a science journalist. But to be recognised by your peers, especially early in your career, is brilliantly encouraging.”

The Council of Europe is next week hosting the 3rd International Journalism and News Conference in Strasbourg, France, to discuss diversity in the media industry across Europe.
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B4U Network, which airs the B4U and B4U Music television channels are launching a yearly magazine.

The broadcaster told AIM Magazine this week that it would be offered as a ‘yearly edition of B4U in print media’.
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The Evening Standard newspaper this week announced that the former BBC employee would start writing a weekly sports interview column for the London paper.

Mihir Bose recently left the BBC under a cloud when he abruply said he was resigning from his position as sports news editor.

“We are absolutely delighted that Mihir will be writing regularly for the paper and be bringing his incisive and brilliant writing to the sports pages,” said the Standard’s managing editor Doug Wills.

The London Evening Standard has been forced to retract its claims that Farah Damji’s book had been boycotted for review by the Spectator magazine because it was “rude about friends of Speccie’s head honcho, Andrew Neil”.
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Former Another Generation magazine editor Farah Damji is imminently due to be sentenced for a new series of offences she pleaded guilty to last week.

At Blackfriars Crown Court last week the prosecution said Ms Damji had £17,000 worth of benefit fraud and made false representations to two separate landlords for properties in London
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Independent News & Media, owners of the broadsheet paper The Independent, today announced that it was reducing its media investments in India.

The company was one of the first major media groups in the UK to consider investing in Indian newspapers a few years ago. It was quickly followed by Associated Newspapers and Reuters.
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The street magazine Big Issue, famously sold by homeless people to help them earn an income, is to launch in Lahore, Pakistan.

Its founder John Bird said: “Nowhere in the world needs The Big Issue like Pakistan right now.”

The Big Issue is already sold in nine countries including England, Scotland, Australia, the Republic of Ireland, South Africa, Japan, Namibia, Kenya and Malawi. It was was founded in 1991 by John Bird and Gordon Roddick, husband of the late Anita Roddick, the late founder of The Body Shop.

It has grown to become one of the UK’s leading social businesses.

Is media freedom being strangled across Commonwealth countries? That is the subject is a debate next week at Portcullis House in Westminster.

The event, organised by the Commonwealth Journalists Association (UK), why journalists are not better protected and media laws being ignored in many countries around the world.
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As part of the GG2 Leadership & Diversity Awards Dinner 2009, the Asian Media and Marketing Group (AMG) are launching a hunt to find the country’s best young journalist from an ethnic minority background. The only criteria other than ability and talent is that they must be under the age of 30.

So if you know of a young talented journalist who deserves to be recognized, please nominate and help inspire the next generation of young journalists. The winner will receive a bursary cheque of £500 from the Daily Mail and will have the chance, if appropriate, of a week’s work experience on the newspaper. Closing date is Friday July 24th 2009.
Email: Minaxi Mistry / More info: GG2 Awards

The Guardian Newspaper has ended the fortnightly column of its sole regular Muslim columnist. Noorjehan Barmania (pictured) started writing for the paper in August 2007 for a special series called ‘This Muslim Life‘, for its G2 supplement.

It was positioned as a light hearted take on a woman “searching for her place in British society”.
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A BBC scheme to develop a diverse talent pool of journalists ends next week.

The BBC Journalism Talent Pool is designed to speed the recruitment of journalists by finding and assessing talented people from a range of backgrounds in advance of vacancies.
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The Council of Europe has launched a new campaign to challenge ethnic and race-based discrimination across its member states.

The Strasbourg, France, based organisation is comprised of 47 member countries across Europe and has already launched ad campaigns across various countries.

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Journalist Deepa Shah has left The Times newspaper after working as commissioning editor on its Body & Soul supplement. She also worked as an editor on its new Weekend section.

Before The Times, Ms shah freelanced as a writer or editor for Look, Woman, at Daily Mirror supplements and on magazines launches for News International and IPC. She was also a senior writer at Closer magazine, a reporter for the Evening Standard, The Sunday Times, The Observer and the Mail among others. She started her career at Eastern Eye where she was eventually News Editor.

On 7th January the Sun newspaper splashed with a front-page story alleging that Muslim extremists on internet forum were drawing up a “hit-list” of prominent British Jewish figures, including businessman Alan Sugar and musician Mark Ronson.

But it may turn out the story isn’t true after an investigation by political bloggers alleged the ‘extremist’ in question may actually be the expert quoted in the original Sun story.
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Zee TV will host its annual Zee Carnival from 13th to 15th February at Olympia, London, despite worries that the recession will hold back Asian visitors.
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