A new festival dedicated to pan-Asian culture will be part of the 2008 Edinburgh Fringe Festival this year. Dubbed ‘InvAsian’, it is a partnership between production company clubWest and Tartan Silk Public Relations, with events taking place in the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh’s Quincentenary Hall.
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Irfan Hamid, the former head of business and strategic development at Carphone Warehouse, has moved to the technology start-up SpinVox.

SpinVox’s core business revolves around ‘voice to screen messaging’. In other words it turns mobile voicemail messages into texts, among other services.

Hamid initially joined The Carphone Warehouse in 2000, from Prudential Corporation, where he had started off fresh out of University on their Business Management Graduate Scheme, working in various divisions across the globe. In 2002 he was promoted to head of business development for growth markets. In this position he reported directly to the UK CEO and contributed to strategic planning and development as a member of the executive team.
www.spinvox.com

It may be late to the party, following in footsteps already trodded by Maxim, Vogue and a growing list of publishers, but that is always better than never. The men’s magazine GQ has announced it will launch a version for the Indian market.

The Guardian today reports that it will be edited by Sanjiv Bhattacharya, a former features and contributing editor of the British GQ.

“Bhattacharya has worked in America for the past eight years and contributed to the Los Angeles Times, Marie Claire, the Daily Telegraph and the Observer, as well as completing a documentary for Channel 4,” GQ stated in its press release.

The magazine is published by Condé Nast and is launching on the back of “overwhelming success” of Vogue India, also part of its stable, said Condé Nast International chairman Jonathan Newhouse.

by Sabuhi Mir
Freelance journalist

Starting a career in journalism can be a little daunting for anyone, but particularly so if you are an ethnic minority.

Why? Because so few ethnic minorities work across print and online media. Is this just because most Asians brought up in the UK prefer to follow other career paths which are deemed more “traditional” or “safe” in the eyes of they Asian community like law, medicine, accountancy or banking.
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Wrier and former Guantanamo Bay detainee Moazzam Begg was awarded the ‘Published Writer of the Year’ award at the Muslim Writers Awards event last week.
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This July sees the launch of the third annual Britdoc Festival and we want you to be a part of it. With the world’s most influential documentary movers and shakers coming to Keble College, Oxford we are now open for film submissions in both the shorts and feature competitions.

The festival celebrates homegrown talent by screening the 10 best British feature documentaries (over 70 mins) from the past 12 months.

Organisers are looking for films that explore the world we live in and the people we share it with, and say they are always keen to see experimentation. Over the last two years Britdoc has presented award winning films as Nick and Marc Francis’ Black Gold, David Singleton’s In the Shadow of the Moon, Paul Taylor’s We Are Together, Kim Longinotto’s Hold Me Tight, Let Me Go, and Ben Hopkins’ 37 Uses For a Dead Sheep.

Apply here: www.britdoc.org

The Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore was inspired directly by Alice in Wonderland and Western opera when he wrote the dance opera Tasher Desh - a satirical portrayal of a society ruled by strict conventions.
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BB producers working on a new series of Dragons’ Den are searching for business ideas, inventions or products with serious business potential that are investment ready and looking for funding.

In the most recent series, 15 entrepreneurs received offers of investment in the Den, and plenty more have gone on to find success even without the backing of the dragons.
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A new series of Street Doctor airs from this week on BBC1. The popular programme starts on Wednesday April 2nd at 7.30pm and will run for 6 weeks.

In a cast of four doctors, it stars 34 year old Dr Ayan Panja who works in a busy inner city North London practice with over 4000 patients.

While the second series is aired, the BBC is filming the third series of the show.
More info: bbc.co.uk/streetdoctor

This week Slough sees the launch of the annual film festival Same Difference. The previously acclaimed event opens on Wednesday and is organised by the group Aik Saath.

The Same Difference Film Festival seeks to challenge, inspire and educate people using film. It premieres with on 2nd April with ‘Sukkar Banat’ (Caramel) at the Empire Cinema, Slough.
For the full programme visit: www.same-difference.org.uk

A new series of films at Asia House in London will showcase films by women from around the world.
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The annual Muslim Writers Awards will take place this Saturday, 29th March, at the ICC in Birmingham, to celebrate the breadth and quality of British Muslim literary talent. Now in its second year, the event is being supported by the Prime Minister’s office and will be broadcast on Islam Channel.

MWA 2008 will recognize the work of 26 writers across eight categories, with the ‘Writer of the Year’ award presented by Jermaine Jackson at the event.
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Pakistani channel Prime TV started broadcasting its long-awaited Dawn News English channel on Sky Channel 792 in the UK this week.

Dawn News was recently launched as Pakistan’s first English language channel, a subsidary of the Dawn Group of Publications.

Prime TV was the first Pakistani Channel launched in the UK also the first to broadcast news in Urdu News. Its Pakistan-based news show, fronted by British presenter Saima Mohsin, airs every week night at 9pm.
www.primetv.tv

London based Asian pop band Trickbaby is releasing its next single, Fighter, on 28th April. Their second album, Chor Bazaar, releases on 12th May through Wrasse Records, part of Universal.

Based around the song-writing partnership of Saira Hussain and Steve Ager, the band came to prominence a few years ago with their debut album Hanging Around.

They have made two videos to coincide with the release. Fighter is made in the form of an animated video, while Nine Parts Of Desire is produced by Ramesh Sippy (director of the Bollywood blockbuster Sholay), directed by his son, Rohan, and stars Abishek Bachchan as Saira’s love interest with Priyanka Chopra as her love rival.

The band recently performed live at the UK Asian Music Awards. at the Royal Festival Hall in London and they will opening for Rachid Taha and friends (a mini Africa Express) at London’s Jazz cafe on April 14th and 15th.
www.trickbabymusic.co.uk / www.youtube.com/trickbabymusic

Acclaimed Channel 4 drama Britz won the award for Best Drama Serial at the Royal Television Society awards last week. The two-part programme starred Manjinder Virk and Riz Ahmed in lead roles.

Britz is also nominated at the BAFTAs and the Broadcast Press Awards.

Also winning that night was the children’s comedy series My Life as a Popat, which features the antics of a young Asian boy and his madcap family. Among others, that features Shaheen Khan and Kulvinder Ghir as the parents.

The Art Space, a city wide exhibition based in York, is looking for Asian visual artists. There are dozens of spaces available. Interested artists should contact The ArtSpace through their website.

Muslim? Single? Looking?
ITV is looking for Muslims to take part in a series about soulmate searching online
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A new free-to-air television channel aimed at British Asians launches next month. Brit Asia TV says it aim to “broadcast and promote Asian culture amongst British Asians” in the UK and across Europe, and will air on Sky digital.

With a mix of feature shows, music, entertainment news, chat shows, drama serials, reality TV shows and more, the station hopes to capture the lucrative young British Asian market, joining similar rivals such as Raj TV.

Director of Brit Asia TV Jaz Bal said: “This is a unique and highly entertaining television channel that will plug the gap for quality programming by British Asians for British Asians.”

The television station was originally to be called Punjabi World TV, before a change in its name and focus was made. Sources at the station say it is not affiliated with other Asian media companies and did not disclose who was funding the channel. Former Ikonz magazine editor Reena Combo has taken over as station manager.

The channel will officially go live on 7th April 2008 on channel 836 on Sky. Its studios are based in Birmingham.

Media contact: sheila@britasia.tv / reenac@britasia.tv

The writer and commentator Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s poignant and impassioned one-woman show about a Ugandan in Britain is once again on tour around the country.

In Nowhere to Belong: Tales of an Extravagant Stranger, she explores her life-long love of Shakespeare. The experience of playing Juliet as a teenager in ‘60’s Uganda sent shockwaves through her family and helped shape the emotional and political landscape of her life. The play captures how theatre and Shakespeare helped change her life.
Details of the tour on her website.

Singer Karen David will be appearing alongside Sir David Jason, Sean Astin and Tim Curry in The Colour of Magic, a film adapted from the Terry Pratchett novel of the same name.

The red carpet premiere was held last week March 3rd. The film will air on Sky 1 (UK) on Easter weekend, March 23rd and 24th. Karen David plays Liessa Dragonlady.

Her EP, The Live Sessions, will be released on April 14th on all digital download websites and limited editions at selected music stores.
www.karendavid.com

Blast Films is looking for talented, up and coming directors who are ready to make the step up to directing their first 30 min documentary for the Channel 4 First Cut strand.
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British Asian theatre arts will be celebrated and explored at a major international conference at the University of Exeter in April.

The event is a culmination of a 4 year research project led by the Drama Department to address the lack of resources that offer a historical and critical analysis of South and British Asian drama in the UK.
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Now in its third successful year, an Arts Council programme is launching a drive for high flyers from Black, Asian and minority ethnic backgrounds to join the boards of arts organisations.
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The review is coming soon! Click on each thumbnail for the full image.

East London based Club Asia radio is losing one of its founding directors - John Ogden - for a senior post at another London station. He will take up the post of station manager at Spectrum Radio, which broadcasts in several languages for a multicultural audience.

Mr Ogden’s loss will come as a serious blow to the station because he has been widely credited within the industry to ensuring Club Asia remained a tightly run ship. He had been with the station’s founders - sisters Humerah Khan and Sumerah Ahmad - from the start. He previously worked under Mohammed Al Fayed running London’s Liberty Radio and has held senior positions in the BBC and commercial radio.
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