Let me take as an example how the BBC can improve on its record of reaching ethnic minority audiences.

It has the scale and scope to be able to offer targeted channels such as the Asian Network, or BBC 1Xtra, the digital station for young black urban audiences. But the need to reach everyone should not be an excuse to go on creating more services. The BBC must also find ways to bring those audiences into mainstream output. That’s a real challenge, but it can be done.

There was an outstanding example on BBC One recently in the Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency, a wonderfully warm-hearted piece, set in Botswana, demonstrating all the hallmarks of high quality: good writing, great acting, strong production-values and so on.

Nearly 7 million people watched – well above the average for the Sunday night slot. And they loved what they saw - the appreciation index was significantly higher than the average for drama. But what was really interesting was that it drew a large black audience – much higher than the average for BBC One.

So it is possible to bring diverse audiences together to share a common BBC experience – if the BBC is prepared to take the necessary risks – in this case showcasing at primetime on the flagship channel an entirely black cast with Botswanan accents in an African setting.

Well said. But who is going to get the BBC Channel commissioners to listen? Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency was a wonderful piece of drama, but how often does something like that get commissioned?

Do you want to know how you make music for Bollywood films? Or how it feels to be the daughter of a Bhangra Superstar? Then join Rifco Arts for ‘A Lassi with Channi Singh‘

Channi Singh, The Godfather of Bhangra, founder and leader of bhangra pioneers Alaap is coming to Slough for this free event to talk about his hugely successful career. Joining Channi on stage will be his daughter, the ‘Princess of Punjabi Pop’ Mona Singh.

With three albums of her own, Mona is a rising star in the British Asian music scene and is proving that women can make waves in the world of Bhangra. Channi and Mona are kindly supporting Rifco Arts’ search for new Bhangra talent and wants to share their experiences of life in the Bhangra spotlight.

Rifco Arts have started a campaign to unearth the hidden talent that exists in Britain today with auditions in Slough. We want to find the temple singers, bhangra stars and Bollywood lovers who have always dreamed of a chance to perform for larger audiences than their friends and families.

Looking for talent
If you are 35+ with a strong singing voice; can sing Bhangra and Bollywood music to a high standard; if you love performing and want to be involved with a highly acclaimed British Asian theatre company then go to www.rifcoarts.com for more information and to complete an application form.

We will be holding open auditions at the end of May in Slough and our successful stars of tomorrow will work alongside professional musicians and actors, rehearsing with a team including Harvey Virdi (Bride and Prejudice; Thunderbirds; Bend It Like Beckham) and Sumeet Chopra (Alaap, Shanker Mahadevan, The Dhol Foundation). Robert Hyman (There’s Something About Simmy, Theatre Royal Stratford East’s Cinderella, BBC)

Shooting will take place in London in May, dates TBC. Food and transport expenses and a copy of the film will be provided.

The story is about an Asian Gujarati Muslim family living in London during the July 7th 2005 bomb blasts. The bombings trigger an avalanche of emotions in the main character Ahmed, who has undergone torture by the Gujarati police in the 2002 riots of Gujarat.

In this frame of mind he hears that he is wanted for the bombings by the police and reacts desperately, which in turn creates anxiety and wonder in the rest of his family. Is Ahmed guilty?

For this film she need one really dedicated Asian actor for the part of Ahmed who is about 50 years old. Zainab his wife has a smaller role but quite important. She is about 43 years old. And two teenage boys, their sons 16 and 19 years.

The film will eventually be submitted to film festivals.
Contact: fahima7s@yahoo.com

I began writing my first play ‘Zameen’ after reading about farmer suicides across India and in my ancestral homeland of Punjab.

I had always imagined Punjab as a lush green, mythological land of sturdy farmers, saints and warriors but discovered that in recent years, an ‘economics of genocide’ had driven thousands of its farmers to suicide.

According to vastly underestimated official figures, 150,000 Indian farmers took their own lives between 1997 and 2007. It was a story I felt compelled to tell.

I worked intermittently on the play with Kali Theatre Company, who provide incredible support and encouragement to Asian women writers like myself. After a short studio run at London’s Soho Theatre, I finally journeyed to the real-life setting of ‘Zameen’ at the beginning of the cotton-sowing season last year and again for the harvest, travelling across the cotton belt of Sangrur, Moga and Bathinda in the Malwa region of Punjab.

I visited dusty, time-warped villages, where the last of the camels were ploughing the land, the last of the charkhas were being spun and the last of the handlooms woven, even as the global ‘outside’ was pushing in via satellite dishes, mobile phones, American snacks, Chinese food, cream filled pastries - and the desire to do a ‘2 number’ (illegal) migration abroad. It was an affirming trip in that these characters I had imagined, sitting at my desk in Southall, were living, breathing individuals – struggling but showing a rural resilience to survive.

In Punjab, I met beleaguered cotton farmers and their families - who talked about the high costs of chemical farming (GM seeds, pesticides, fertilisers, diesel, water pumpsets and tubewells), which coupled with erratic monsoons and harvests have led farmers into vicious cycles of debt and others, to suicide. There were also multiple family suicides.

In Sangrur, I visited a cotton farming family in which 3 sons had committed suicide and a fourth was barely able to speak for the burden of the family debt to banks and a local moneylender. In villages such as Harkishanpura and Malsinghwala, collective debt has become so high that the villages themselves were put up for sale.

Young women told me about the growing burdens of consumer driven dowries and the pressures of giving birth to sons in a state where the shocking child sex ratio (approximately 700 girls to every 1000 boys) and high rates of female foeticide and infanticide are among the worst in India.

Aside from wanting to relinquish the farming traditions of their forefathers and migrate abroad, many young village men have become drug addicts and alcoholics. I visited a De-Addiction clinic in Bathinda, treating those addicted to heroin, opium and bhang, as ever new methods of getting high range from spreading boot polish on chapattis or toast to smoking lizard’s tails.

Recent state government statistics estimate that 40% of Punjab’s youth and 48% of its farmers and labourers are addicts. Caught between a traditional and new global Punjab, these are lives in violent transition.

Once the experimental ground for the US sponsored Green Revolution, designed to solve widespread hunger in India, Punjab is experiencing a new Gene Revolution of GM seeds and crops. Many also see it as a dumping ground for lethal chemicals by profiteering agro-chemical companies. Covering 2.5% of land in India, Punjab uses 18% of its pesticides.

The Green Revolution’s chemical farming has led to serious environmental problems that include severe groundwater contamination, desertification and water shortages. Hence, the slow poisoning of Punjab, where excessive use of pesticides banned in parts of the West, are still sold there by Western based companies. DNA mutation, a host of illnesses including cancer and arthritis, premature ageing as well as the death of livestock are being linked to pesticide use. Indeed, the ‘cotton belt’ in Malwa is now known as the ‘cancer belt’.

Big multinationals are also moving in. Stories of land grabbing by companies to set up Special Economic Zones, assisted by the state government are rife. I was told how 376 acres of fertile land had been forcibly acquired by the local Trident factory from 3 Sangrur villages with the help of the state government, barbed wires erected around tracts of the villagers’ land during the night. Subsequent running clashes between police and farmers suggest a rural fight back.

‘Zameen’ offers a glimpse into small village lives. In a globally connected world, these are lives and stories that matter just as much as our British (Asian) ones. From the food we eat, to the clothes we wear, to the lifestyle and consumer choices we make, to the values we choose to live by, their histories, fate and destinies are tied to our own.

As rural communities in India, South America or Africa pay a high price for global change, perhaps the very least we in the affluent West owe them, is to listen.

Satinder Chohan has grown up and occasionally lives (at her parents’) in Southall. She edited the British Asian arts and style magazine ‘2nd Generation’ and has written articles for various publications including The Guardian and Dazed and Confused. She has worked in journalism, publishing, broadcasting and new media, often around South Asian issues, including researching Meera Syal’s family history for the BBC series ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’.
Zameen is her first play.

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Tour details

7–17 May Tues – Sat 7pm
Sat & Thur matinees 3pm
The Arts Theatre, London
0844 847 1608
www.ticketmaster.co.uk

21-24 May 7.45pm

24 May 2.45pm
Birmingham Rep, The Door
0121 236 4455
www.birmingham-rep.co.uk

2 & 3 June 7.30pm
Southampton Nuffield Theatre
023 8067 1771
www.nuffieldtheatre.co.uk

5-7 June 7.45pm
Sat Matinee 2.30pm
Leeds West Yorkshire Playhouse
0113 213 7700
www.wyplayhouse.com

Singer Jay Sean releases his new album, My Own Way, from today. The album is available from most music retailers.

Its cast will include Archie Panjabi, Sadia Ghaffar, Nina Wadia and Sagar Arya.

Gifted is set in Cardiff in the 1980s, a place where maths can get you noticed. Rumi Vasi is the town’s maths prodigy: untangling numbers and Rubik’s cubes protects her from the harsh vagaries of the playground and gives a pattern to her world.

But after years of her father’s determined tutoring, Rumi finds that numbers are beginning to lose their innocence.

India infuses her with a romantic sense of belonging and, as she grows older, and desire becomes a dirty word in the Vasi household, the idea of love is opened up to painful examination.

Gifted was nominated for the Man Booker Prize and Whitbread First Novel Award last year. This year it is in longlist for the Desmond Elliott Prize. It is now out in paperback.

BBC Radio 4
Monday 12th May – Friday 16th May
1045-1100 (repeated 1945-2000)
(From Monday also available online)

Kissing Cousins is produced by Amyn Kaderali and Manish Goyal. Both were behind Call Center, a short film that became very popular on the web.

Kissing Cousins played at the Asian Pacific Film Festival last week and is currently touring other film festivals in the United States.

The film revolves around Amir, 29, who works as a professional ‘relationship termination specialist’. In other words he provides a dumping services for disgruntled daters. During Thanksgiving he is reunited with Zara, his beautiful cousin from Britain who he has not seen in twenty years. When she meets his friends she surprises everyone, including Amir, by introducing herself as his ‘girlfriend’.

Before long she even shows him how to be more sympathetic to his ‘breakup victims’. An undercurrent of sexual tension develops between them as the charade comes dangerously close to going too far. Will his friends find out the truth?

Will Amir fall for his own cousin? Or will he become one of his own victims?
www.kissingcousinsmovie.com

Her position will be filled by Andrew Bate, who previously handled publicity for Asian Network as well as Radio Five Live.

The BBC and ITV backed service will reach almost all of the UK and feature over 80 free digital channels - television, radio, interactive - plus high definition (HD) services from the BBC and ITV. Launched last week in the UK, Freesat has no subscription and no contract. It offers high definition digital television for for a one off payment, starting at £49.99, and an £80 installation fee.

It is unlikely many of the major Asian satellite channels will migrate to the service. A significant number of the big players including Sony, Zee and B4U still charge charge a monthly subscription via Sky. B4U Music is B4U’s only free to air channel.
www.freesat.co.uk

The magazine, titled Apnee Sehat (Your Health), has been produced with help from the Department of Health and was was launched a fortnight ago by Prince Charles at an event in Coventry.

A number of DVDs and other educational pamphlets have also been produced to encourage older generation British Asians to learn more about a healthy lifestyle.

Dr Shirine Boardman, one of those spear-heading the project, told AIM magazine: “It will help to provide tips for energy giving meals for the day with all the minerals and nutrients required for glowing health! It also discusses Asian spices and the early research evidence for its benefits!”

The project has been founded to raise awareness of the terrible health of British Asians. It is estimated that up to 20% of adult have type II diabetes in contrast to 3% of the general population.

The Apnee Sehat team has worked with expert registered dietitians from the British Dietetics Association’s (BDA) Multicultural Nutrition Group (MNG) to develop the magazine.

There are plans to look at distributing it nationally, especially in areas with a high percentage of British Asians. Copies can also be ordered from their website.
www.apneesehat.net

Frustrated by his limited prospects, his son turns to alcohol and dreams of migration, while his daughter must choose between staying in poverty on the land she loves or following the man she adores to seek a new life in the West.

Zameen (land), written by Satinder Chohan, and directed by the acclaimed Janet Steel, tells of the environmental damage and disruption that agri-business can have on lives when the forces of nature, tradition and globalisation collide.

Cast: Amarjit Bassan, Ravin Ganatra, Goldy Notay, Bhasker Patel, Gurpreet Singh.

More info: Punjab Heritage News

Press contact: Suman Buchar

Tour details

7–17 May Tues – Sat 7pm
Sat & Thur matinees 3pm
The Arts Theatre, London
0844 847 1608
www.ticketmaster.co.uk

21-24 May 7.45pm
24 May 2.45pm
Birmingham Rep, The Door
0121 236 4455
www.birmingham-rep.co.uk

2 & 3 June 7.30pm
Southampton Nuffield Theatre
023 8067 1771
www.nuffieldtheatre.co.uk

5-7 June 7.45pm
Sat Matinee 2.30pm
Leeds West Yorkshire Playhouse
0113 213 7700
www.wyplayhouse.com

In contrast Sunrise Radio, Kismat and Club Asia radio did not do so well.

For the quarter ending March 2008, Asian Network managed to pull in 535,000 listeners - its highest ever numbers. This was a 21% jump since the previous quarter.

While its February marketing campaign, promoting Asian Network as the ‘The New Sound of Asian Britain’, may have succeeded in boosting numbers, it remains unclear whether listeners will remain with the station. Its listening figures have been highly erratic - falling and rising every quarter by big percentages.

Sunrise Radio in contrast maintained a steady ship, increasing its weekly audience from 510,000 to 514,000 nationally. Its listeners also tune in for longer over the week compared to Asian Network.

Sunrise Radio’s sister station Kismat also saw a modest increase in from 58,000 to 68,000.

But the station has under-performed generally. Senior executives at Sunrise expected it to draw between 100,000 - 200,000 listeners after a few years, absorbing Sunrise’s older listenership and allowing it to focus more aggressively at a younger audience. Kismat’s lacklustre numbers put this strategy in doubt.

Youth station Club Asia Radio also saw a drop in audience over the past 6 months. Its reach fell to 197,000, a slight fall from the 206,000 listeners it first posted a year ago.

The COI spends approximately £3 million a year in trying to communicate government campaigns to Britain’s ethnic minorities.

It aims to increase effectiveness of government campaigns, tailoring communications taking account of citizens’ cultural nuances.

The list of preferred suppliers was established in 2004 following COI’s Common Good Research into communicating with ethnic minorities.

It last unveiled a roster of preferred suppliers four years ago, then planning to spend £8 million over 4 years.

The main agencies on its ‘Cultural Diversity Framework’ now are:
- Here & Now 365
- Ethnic Communications
- Linstock Communications
- The Change Institute
- Media Moguls
- Quiet Storm
- Media Reach Advertising
- Livity

In addition it has also published an ‘Approved Supplier List’ of smaller companies, sole traders and freelancers that can specialist skills when required. These are:

- Reinnovez
- Solutions @ Gem
- Blackflash Media
- Shahrp
- 93 ½ PR
- PR UK
- Tinsel Media
- Uproar
- The Watch-Men Agency
- Focus Consultancy
- Rich Visions
- Forster

Patricia Macauley, head of Cultural Diversity at the COI, who led the review of the list, said: “The UK’s demographics have changed significantly since the framework was established. The government and public sector needs to communicate with emerging new communities and faces an increasing challenge to engage a diverse range of audiences.”

“I am confident that the agencies and suppliers we’ve chosen have valuable insight into these culturally diverse audiences and look forward to working with them in the future.”

The Cultural Diversity team at COI extended their remit this year to target sub-cultures such as urban youth, whose lifestyle, fashion, and attitudes have a major influence on their behaviour and consumption of media.

It will also increasingly focus on emerging communities such Eastern Europeans and faith groups.

The COI has waged a range of campaigns through its preferred suppliers including: blood donation, illegal food imports, Stop and Search on behalf of the Home Office and on fire safety.

Seen most recently in a supporting role in the Channel 4 drama Britz (pictured), he began acting at the age of 17 while training at the Harris Drama School in Wembley. His first role came as a patient on Casualty in 2005 and since then he has done commercial work for Tesco (2005) and the Cricket World Cup (2006). He eventually graduated from City University with a degree in Media & Sociology.

Are you 35+ with a strong singing voice? Can you sing Bhangra and Bollywood music to a high standard? Do you love performing and want to be involved with a highly acclaimed British Asian theatre company?

Auditions will be held in Slough on Saturday 10th May 2008 and are open to anyone aged 35+ who have completed an application form.
Get the application form from their website, call 01753 570 700 or email lucy@rifcoarts.com

Successful singers will be working alongside professional musicians and actors, rehearsing with a team including Harvey Virdi (Bride and Prejudice; Thunderbirds; Bend It Like Beckham) and Sumeet Chopra (Alaap, Shanker Mahadevan, The Dhol Foundation) and Robert Hyman (There’s Something About Simmy, Theatre Royal Stratford East’s Cinderella, BBC).

Titled [PART][TION] it explores events of 1947 through the personal memories of survivors living in the UK today. The exhibition of images and oral collections hav been assembled by the Slough-based social cohesion group Aik Saath.

The exhibition is free and will run from Wednesday 30th April to Sunday 8th June 2008.
112 the Green
Southall UB2 4BQ
www.1947partition.com

India’s Missing Girls tells the story of the thousands of girls who are killed every year - simply because of their gender. Most are aborted as soon as their sex is determined. Some are abandoned at birth, while others are killed, shortly after.

The disturbing story of this buried baby girl was the starting point for Ashok Prasad’s intimate investigation into why modern India is obsessed with boys. And what the brutal realities of that obsession means for the country’s girls. The story is told through the eyes of Sandhya Puchalapalli – who runs a children’s home for abandoned girls in the south of India.

The film was originally shown as part of the This World strand on BBC2.

The event at the Frontline Club is an opportunity to meet with Sandhya and to hear from her directly as well as to see a longer (45 minute) version of the film. It takes place on Friday May 2nd at 7.30 pm.

http://www.frontlineclub.com/club_events.php?event=2052

“It will move you to tears of rage” The Observer
A film by Ashok Prasad

British Asians today still don’t get the arts, and don’t want to either. Got better things to do. They push their young people into real jobs that bring in big bucks, or at least good brides from families with big bucks. A painter, novelist, playwright, actor, cannot be admitted into respectable or wealthy dynasties – unless, of course, there is evidence of stardom.
…
Jatinder Verma, founder of Tara Arts, the British Asian theatre company, observes some stirrings of interest, but largely superficial. “Over the last two decades, people have become more comfortable, and a small number from this emerging middle class are coming in. But too few are passionate about theatre or dance. There is no understanding that the arts have intrinsic value, that they tell us who we are as a society, our relationships. We have not looked to critiquing ourselves, what our place is in this country, this world. We are not yet in love with ideas.”
…
“Asian kitsch has cachet now,” says one composer who wishes to remain anonymous. “The young would rather go to fashion shows than exhibitions, listen to Britney rather than Nitin Sawhney. There are, of course, brilliant individuals who will always rise, but with no blood links, cultural pathways to and from their people. We British Asian artists are lost before we were found, and I am very depressed about the future.”

Is there a hint of truth to these accusations? Are British Asians too in love with simple entertainment and not experimental enough with the arts?

In an announcement last week it said it wanted to “extend our ability to reflect all kinds of social diversity including ethnicity, disability, nationality, regionality, age, gender and beyond”.

As part of its new strategy, the public service broadcaster will recruit a head of diversity at senior executive level. The person will lead its diversity strategy across all the organisations activities.

The move may come as reminiscent of an earlier era when the broadcaster had its own Multicultural Programmes department run by Farookh Dhondy. That was disbanded when senior executives felt that diverse programming needed to permeate all parts of Channel 4, and not be produced just by one department.

The announcement of a new diversity executive editor will be seen as an attempt to deal with criticism on two fronts.

First, that Channel 4 is still failing to accurately reflect modern Britain, despite employing diversity managers with a remit to look at talent development and on-screen programming.

The second criticism is that people of diverse backgrounds are not represented at senior level within the company - that its top management still overwhelmingly remains a white, male and middle-class domain.

Going further, Channel 4 has also announced it will appoint a separate commissioning editor with responsibilities for commissioning multicultural programmes during peaktime. It has ring-fenced £2million to commission more multicultural programmes for that 9pm - 10pm slot.

It will also double funding for the existing diversity-placement scheme within commissioning and roll out a similar scheme across all departments within Channel 4.

The corporation also announced it would extend its Researcher Training Programme which funds 18 placements per year at independent production for researchers from minority groups.

It will now include other trainee production roles as well as researchers.

A spokerperson at Channel told AIM Magazine that it would also work with key production companies to ensure they had diverse teams on Channel 4 projects and meaningful diversity policies.