A new television series featuring short clips called Indique - Untold Stories of Contemporary India (below), has been created by Blood Orange Media, a US based company. Indique is airing on PBS in the US, with select segments of the show airing on international airlines, including Northwest Airlines, Virgin Atlantic, and Jet Airways. The Indique Youtube clip below was created by Asia Society.

Narrowstep Inc, an internet based television company has launched a channel specifically aimed at the worldwide Indian diaspora, called Watch India. Watch India allows viewers to access popular Indian programming in TV-like quality over the Internet. This new channel features an assortment of video content powered by Narrowstep’s Internet TV platform, telvOS™.

Karachi Uncovered / BBC2, August 13th 10pm
Be prepared to be very surprised. This is Pakistan but not as you we know it. From fast cars to Supermodels, Karachi Uncovered uncovers Pakistan’s burgeoning and talented entertainment industry and the effect it is having on the aspirations of the nation.

The Muslim Jesus / ITV1, August 19th 11.10pm
A one hour film about the story of Jesus and Mary as narrated in the Quran. “A good script and a bloody good film” was what Melvyn Bragg said after he recorded the voice over.

A two-part documentary called ‘Way Back Home’, by filmmaker Supriyo Sen, tells the story of his parents who had to leave their small town in East Bengal and went to Calcutta after partition. After 50 years, Sen takes them on an emotional journey back to their birthplace. During the course of the journey, they talk about their home, their neighbours, their flight and their new life in independent India.

The film is being premiered on the Communty Channel next week. It was winner of the Golden Conch at the Mumbai International Film Festival and the 2003 BBC Audience Award for best documentary at Manchester’s Commonwealth Film Festival. The film documents modern India’s history, but is also a statement on the plight of the refugee – raising the issue of whether refugees can ever make a way back and return to their home country.

15th Aug & 16th Aug at 11pm on the Community Channel
The 24-hour channel broadcasts on Sky 539, Virgin TV 233 and from 6pm-9am on Freeview 87.
www.communitychannel.org

Actress Indira Varma is starring in a new ITV1 series called The Whistleblowers. There is no yet date on when the fast-paced thriller will be aired. She stars alongside Daniel Ryan.

Indira was last seen on BBC2 in a series parodying 24 hour news channels.

Filmmaker Ahmed Jamal and British journalist Amit Roy have been nominated for the prestigious Emmy Award for their latest documentary, The Journalist and the Jihadi: The Murder of Daniel Pearl. It will be for the 28th annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards.

The awards will be presented at a black tie ceremony to be held on Monday, September 24 which will be attended by more than 1000 television and new media industry executives, news and documentary producers and journalists.

The 79 minute documentary, screened on cable channel HBO, tracks the comparable lives of the passionate journalist and British-born jihadi Omar Sheikh, a shrewd terrorist who set Pearl up for slaughter. Through archival footage, interviews with Pearl’s wife, Marianne and his family and friends and insights from acquaintances of both men, the film follows the parallel course of their lives: from their early years in California and London, to the defining event that led to radically divergent career paths and their final, fatal encounter in Pakistan in 2002 that ended in Pearl’s horrific murder.

National Geographic TV, is producing a one-hour documentary on scientific research on stress and public health. We are looking for civil servants and office workers to speak with us on camera about how the everyday stresses of working in an office environment affects their health.

They are looking for people who have experienced cardiac or other health problems which were later attributed, all or in part, to stress. Or senior level civil servants or managers who are in good health. Interviews will be conducted when and where it is most convenient for participants, between July 28th and August 2nd.
If you’re interested in participating, email jasbirsaund@gmail.com

A BBC3 documentary series is on the lookout for people with weird and wonderful eating habits. Do your friends think your problem with food is nuts? Are you addicted to one food and one food only? Are you terrified of eating certain foods and the thought brings you out in a sweat?

Is a food phobia taking over your life? If you or someone you know needs help with their food issue, then we need to hear from you. Please contact freakyeaters@bettytv.co.uk or phone 020 7907 0898

TV Chef Anjum Anand grew up in London but has worked across the world in restaurants such as Café Spice in New York, the Mondrian Hotel in Los Angeles, and the Park Royal Hotel’s Indian restaurant in New Delhi. She rejects the assertion that Indian food is heavy and difficult to cook and is determined to make “cooking an Indian” as common as rustling up a stir-fry.

Her new TV series, Indian Food Made Easy, started on BBC2 on Monday, July 9. A book of the same name will accompany the series published by Quadrille on August 3.

The BBC’s attempt to revive Jade Goody’s career through an interview with Piers Morgan, for You Can’t Fire Me, I’m Famous, will be broadcast next month. The new series was originally pushed back until Autumn.

It will feature Morgan talking with Goody about the events surrounding this year’s crisis-hit Celebrity Big Brother. Morgan is seen as largely sympathetic towards Goody during filming and sources say he blamed much of her situation on her upbringing and the public’s obsession with celebrity. Goody frequently breaks down in tears during the interview.

Earlier this year television producers told AIM magazine it was ‘a scandal’.

A London television production company is developing an enquiring and quirky documentary to be shown on British TV about people in the UK who share a bed every night, looking at the myriad of behaviours we deal with while falling asleep, staying asleep and waking up each morning beside a partner.

Mixing light-hearted humour and serious analysis, it’ll explore the daily routines and realities of sharing a bed with another person, revealing much that is important - and much perhaps that isn’t so important - about sleep, relationships and modern British society.
To find out more, go to www.bedsharing.co.uk

BBC Birmingham - Inside Out West Midlands is looking for contributors for a film about skin lightening products. Do you know anyone who has used these creams and has had a bad experience? Or do you know of anyone who is using these creams and is very happy with the results? If so contact researcher Holly Bradbury on 0121 567 6184 or email holly.bradbury@bbc.co.uk.

Top Indian broadcaster NDTV has flown London-based chef and author Manju Malhi to Delhi where she will present a series offering “bland” British dishes to the local over spiced palates.

From Welsh Rarebit and Neeps and Tatties to Cod Roe and Chips, can the international image of ‘tasteless and unimaginative’ British grub be blitzed by well-known TV cook Manju’s influencing crusade in the kingdom of curry? “The proof of the pudding will definitely be in the eating,” she says. NDTV broadcasts on Indian cable TV to a potential audience of 50 million viewers.

A one-off comedy starring Sanjeev Bhaskar and Nitin Ganatra will air on ITV this Wednesday (30th May).

Bhaskar stars as shy accountant Kenny Gupta, a resident of mundane middle-class English suburbia who is reluctantly packed off to India to transform the fortunes of his boss’s newly acquired call centre in Mumbai. Unfortunately for him, it already has a manager in the form of devious Dev (Nitin Ganatra), a man more interested in using the business to fund his own numerous profitable sidelines than making profits for its new Brit owner.

Written by Laurence Marks, Maurice Gran and Sanjeev Bhaskar, this culture-clash tale also includes a cameo appearance by Sixties style icon Twiggy.
10pm - 10:30pm, ITV1.

This week’s Media Guardian’s podcast features its editor Matt Wells giving Andy Duncan, Channel 4 chief executive, an absolute grilling. Listen from here, it is worth it.

Fancy a career directing, researching, writing or being part of a film crew? Or just know TV is for you, but not quite sure where to start? Then TVYP could be the experience you need. Television and Young People (TVYP), now in its 17th year, hold a FREE five day event every summer for anyone aged 18+ who wants a job in television. You will work with some of the best talent from behind and in front of the camera and gain invaluable advice, skills and contacts. You don’t need any previous experience, just a passion for television.

Go to www.tvyp.co.uk for further info. Deadline: 14th May.

Some upcoming television and radio programmes of interest

Hindi Urdu Bol Chaal 1-10
Ten-part language series teaching basic spoken Hindi and Urdu for beginners. The course is ideal for all who work with the Asian community in Britain.
Time: 2am - 6am; Tuesday 15th May on BBC 2

A Family in Lahore
The Khawaja family represents a growing number of successful professional Pakistani families, living in the suburb of Lahore with servants, and children at private school. The programme interlinks their day with a look at the busy and historic city of Lahore.
Time: 10:50am to 11:10am; Tuesday 15th May on BBC 2

Dispatches: Afghanistan Unveiled
Five years ago, Dispatches revealed the plight of women living under the Taliban in Afghanistan. Beneath the Veil uncovered evidence of women being denied employment, education and any kind of freedom, imprisoned in their own homes. In this film, journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy returns to Afghanistan to find out how life has changed for women in the five years since the invasion by America and its allies and to investigate whether women have been “liberated” as President Bush has claimed.
Time: 9pm - 10pm; Thursday 17th May on Channel 4

Poppy Seeds
By Rachel McGill. An aid worker in Afghanistan decides that the fight to contain the opium trade is not working and that a fresh approach is needed. She starts buying opium direct from the farmers, ensuring not only that they obtain a fair price for their crop but also that the product is not bought by drug cartels. Directed by Graham Frost.
Time: 2:15pm to 3pm; Friday 18th May on BBC Radio Four

The Bedouin Of Israel
The ancient culture of the Bedouin Arabs of Israel is rooted in a life on the plains of the Negev Desert. These proud people have become Israel’s new underclass. As Jon Leyne reports, the Bedouin have become the poorest of the Jewish state.
Time: 9:30pm - 10pm; Saturday 19th May on BBC News 24

Dragons’ Den is in its fifth series and continuing to offer entrepreneurs from across the country the chance to make their business dreams come true.

Brixton based Levi Roots secured an investment of £50,000 when he serenaded the Dragons’ convincing them that his Reggae Reggae Sauce was hot stuff. Just 3 ½ weeks after his appearance on the programme he launched his sauce in 607 Sainsbury’s’ stores nationwide with his first batch selling out across the country in the first day. Imran Hakim pitched his I-Teddy, a teddy bear with an integrated multi-media player, securing an investment of £140,000, he has just signed a multi-million pound deal and is preparing to launch later this year.

Of course, not everyone gets investment in the Den but plenty go on to find success. The rules are simple: the entrepreneurs can ask for any amount of investment in return for equity in their business. However, they must get the amount they ask for or they will walk away with nothing. The Dragons are prepared to listen to a pitch for any kind of business but they must be convinced that it will make money.

The BBC is currently searching for Britain’s best entrepreneurs and will be auditioning throughout the coming months. If you would like an application form, email dragonsden@bbc.co.uk or visit www.bbc.co.uk/dragonsden

The Guardian reports today:

The author Hanif Kureishi accused the BBC of censorship last night, after it dropped a radio broadcast of his short story describing the work of a cameraman who films the executions of western captives in Iraq. Radio 4 cancelled a reading of Weddings and Beheadings, one of five nominations for the National Short Story prize due to be broadcast this week, after concluding the timing “would not be right” following unconfirmed reports that kidnapped BBC Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston had been killed by a jihadist group.

Kureishi, whose work includes The Buddha of Surburbia, Intimacy and the screenplay for the film My Beautiful Launderette, said he was angry at the decision, which he described as a result of “stupid thinking” on the part of BBC executives.

“It seems to me that as a journalist, he would be against censorship,” he said of Johnston, who has been missing for more than a month and for whom fears intensified on Sunday when a previously unknown group, the Palestinian Brigades of Monotheism and Holy War, claimed to have killed him.

Channel 4’s editor for religion, Aaqil Ahmed, has re-commissioned a series on suicide bombers. The third series of Cult of the Suicide Bomber, featuring former CIA agent Robert Baer, will look at how the authorities hunt down suspects. The hour-long programme follows the critical success of the first two instalments, in which Baer analysed how westerners became suicide bombers and the growth in female bombers.

Aaqil Ahmed said: “If we don’t understand the complexity of this subject, we won’t know how to come to terms with it. It has been important to understand the subject area. To just demonise these as acts of evil is just not good enough.”

Racism: A History (Part 1 of 3)
Series looking at how racism impacts on people’s lives. This edition examines how ideas of racial difference have evolved in response to historical events.
9pm - 10pm / Wednesday 21st March on BBC 4

Question Time: Iraq
To mark the fourth anniversary of the Iraq war, David Dimbleby chairs a special debate from London with a panel including senior figures from Britain, the United States and the Arab World.
10:40pm to 11:40pm / Thursday 22nd March on BBC 1

Hardeep Does Race
Funny-man Hardeep Singh Kohli is proud to be British, but he is only too aware that not everybody in this country wants him to be. As a Glaswegian Sikh is he any less British than a white person? He doesn’t think so, but some people disagree. Hardeep undertakes a personal mission to ask the awkward race questions.
10pm to 10:30pm / Monday 26th March on Channel 4

Child Slavery
Documentary report by Rageh Omaar exploring the global story of child slavery today, in which 8.5 million children are estimated to be caught up.
9pm - 10:30pm / Monday 26th March on BBC 2

Desi DNA
Asian arts and lifestyle magazine. Has multiculturalism brought us closer together or has it turned Britain into an apartheid state? Writer Benjamin Zephaniah and academic Kenan Malik go head to head to air their views for and against the debate. Also featured are the Muslim artists who are using traditional Islamic influences to help them create avant-garde art.
11:20pm - 11:50pm / Thursday 29th March on BBC 2

A Village in Bangladesh
Series of educational programmes for seven-to-11-year-olds. A thematic look at village life in Bangladesh. The series starts with a journey from Dhaka to the village of Gangkul and gives a vivid insight into village life, farming and Ramadan.
10:30pm - 10:40pm / Friday 30th March on BBC 2

Birmingham based Raj TV, known for its willingness to broadcast full-on wedding videos from years ago, and profiled in the hilarious documentary - No Time for Tea at RajTV - relaunched its services last week.

From 6am until 9pm every day you can find them on Sky Channel 187 with a new range of general entertainment programmes. They say: “There is sure to be something for every member of the family, ranging from the ever-popular Shaadi Show in its new primetime evening slot, to hard-hitting politics with controversial public figures including the outspoken MP George Galloway hosting a regular 6pm show from Monday to Thursday.”

Granada Television is currently working on a documentary about young brides. They are looking for girls aged 16 to 18 who plan to marry before the end of May 2007. If this applies to you please email Melanie Tompkins - Melanie.Tompkins@ITVplc.com

The BBC want your ideas on how it can work to promote equality for women, men and transgender/transsexual people. What do you think are the most important things that the BBC needs to do to achieve this?

Tell them what you think. Your ideas could be included in a three-year Gender Equality Scheme action plan that is legally enforceable under the new Gender Equality Duty (April 2007).
See this website.

BBC4 has confirmed the line-up for its Comedy Playhouse season, which will showcase four new productions under the banner Tight Spot. On of the productions, titled Lift, stars Douglas Hodge, Rasmus Hardiker and Nina Wadia.