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.

The Indian version of Big Brother is due to start broadcasting in the country from today. BBC News reports:

Called Bigg (sic) Boss, the programme format is the same as its inspiration and will be hosted by Bollywood actor, Arshad Warsi.

Thirteen celebrities have been chosen to spend three months locked up in a house near Mumbai (Bombay).

Unsurprisingly though “concessions” have been made to stop offending people’s morality. You see, Indians are not averse to sex otherwise the country would notbe the second most-populus country on the planet. They just don’t want it out in the open. Or so they say.

“We have been true to format except we don’t have cameras in the bathrooms and shower rooms and of course the sexuality aspect in the programme has been curtailed and controlled keeping the Indian audiences in mind,” the programmes Chief Creative Director Sandiip Sikcand told the BBC News website.

“Even Indian celebrities are also very concerned about their reputation and do not like to talk about sex openly.

“Also, when there are so many cameras focussed on them sex is honestly the last thing that comes to their mind.”

We suggest AIM magazine readers band together and be the first to offer a £10,000 reward for the first couple to get it on!

30 years after the Race Relations Act, has the dream of a utopian multi-cultural state been shattered? First premiered on More4 earlier this month, Dr Robert Beckford presents the documentary ‘Ghetto Britain: 30 Years of Race’, on Channel 4 this week exploring the state of race in Britain today.

In 1976, parliament passed the first piece of legislation outlawing racial discrimination, the Race Relations Act. Thirty years on, Beckford asks whether Britain has succeeded in embracing the multicultural dream, or whether indeed the plan has spectacularly backfired, and created a multi million pound race relations industry that has lost touch with its grassroots.

Made by Maverick Television, the film was executive produced by Tommy Nagra, former head of the BBC’s Asian Programmes Unit.

The Independent newspaper reports today that Kumars at No.42 may finally be coming to an end. Or moving to another channel, it’s not clear exactly.

Meera Syal told the newspaper: “We won’t do another series in its present form for the BBC because we have now done seven, amazingly. We have had interest from other quarters about doing something different – but keeping the family together. So we’re exploring that.”

So maybe an off-shoot of the current format. After seven series though, isn’t it time to lay it to rest? The Kumars first went out on BBC Two in 2001. The format was also sold to Australia, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands and the USA.

Saving a Stranger is a powerful, heart-wrenching documentary that highlights the suffering of the thousands of people waiting for bone marrow transplants in the UK.

This Community Channel exclusive, which broadcasts Thursday, October 19th at 9pm (repeated Sunday, October 22nd at 10pm), aims to inspire people from asian, black and ethnic minority groups to join the bone marrow register in order to find a match that can help save lives.

The film introduces us to the plight of 12-year-old Yvette Gate from Bristol, whose only chance of survival is a bone marrow transplant. Yvette suffers from aplastic anaemia. Her bone marrow has stopped functioning, which means she cannot produce her own blood, and has to rely on transfusions to say alive. Yvette originates from the Gambia and is more likely to find a match from someone of the same ethnic origin. But there is a desperate shortage of all bone marrow donors and a particular shortage of donors from black and ethnic minority groups.

Yvette’s parents, Mary and David Gate, are becoming increasingly desperate to find a bone marrow match for Yvette. They are pinning all their hopes on a bone marrow registration clinic that has taken months of organisation. The film also concentrates on the inspiring Asma Meer, who lost her three-year old son Ibrahim because they couldn’t find a match for a bone marrow transplant.

Media contact: Rakhee Gokani 07830 275 275 / Rakhee@fnik.com

In a sleepy corner of East Sussex, a battle is underway for the soul of yoga. 82-year-old Hindu swami, Indrananda Ji, believes that yoga – a practice rooted in the Hindu scriptures - has been separated from its ancient spiritual roots and hijacked by pop stars and health clubs.

To make a stand he opens up his world to five supermarket workers from Bolton. But with chanting at dawn, a strict diet, some strenuous postures, and a search to find the self, the life of a yogi was never meant to be easy. Swami Ji is determined, but how many of them will last the course?

All have their own reasons for signing up to the retreat, and all agree to follow Swami Ji’s way of life. But all react differently to the yogic way of life.

Checkout Yoga is on tomorrow Wednesday 18th October, 2006 at 11:20pm, BBC One.