Lockdown Diaries: British Asian Trust’s emergency COVID-19 appeal for South Asia
His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales, Royal Founding Patron of the British Asian Trust, gave his support to the British Asian Trust’s COVID-19 Emergency Appeal on Friday 24th April via a specially recorded video message. South Asia is home to 27% of the world’s poorest people with 750 million people surviving on less than $2.50 per day. Now...
Lockdown Diaries: Ashish Pandya, Sukhdeep Singh, Anwesh Sahoo continue their work for LGBTQ+ communities from their homes
The coronavirus lockdown in India, that has been carrying on from 25 March, is nearly four weeks old as we go to print. While this has been quite an anxious time for everyone, the situation has been especially tough for the LGBTQ+ individuals living away from home. Their family, work, and personal lives have come to a halt, affecting...
Lockdown Diaries: Ankit Bhuptani’s views on self-isolation and how our actions will define a generation
50 or 100 years from today we will not be able to talk about the year 2020 without talking about this COVID-19 pandemic. I wonder, will a teen of that time be able to believe that all the commercial planes of the world were grounded? Businesspersons, film-stars, industry leaders and other powerful people who hardly had time to eat a meal peacefully,...
Lockdown Diaries: The power of easy-to-make vegan gluten-free pitaya energy balls
I was not a vegan all my life. My journey began after my lovely daughters Nurbanu (26) and Farin (21) turned vegan about five years back and inspired me to do the same, especially when I started experiencing a lot of muscular pain. They pointed out that I was overall following a rather unhealthy diet. Even though they were...
UK project Mission Shramik Sahyog reaches out to feed migrant workers in India
When lockdown hit India it didn't hit the whole population equally, there were those who were in a much more tenuous situation than others. Although millions around the world were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, Indian migrant workers found themselves amongst the worst affected. Due to the lockdown, hundreds of thousands of Indian workers were unable to leave their workplace....
Dance to Nihira Joshi Deshpande’s authentic Cuban music with Hindi lyrics
Germany based Nihira Joshi Deshpande has created an independent song with Hindi lyrics set to the melody of authentic Cuban music. This song Ishq Manayein Kya? has gone viral. Nihira is an internationally acclaimed popular singer, composer, independent music producer, Spanish translator come interpreter. Nihira Joshi Deshpande has been singing for many Marathi and Hindi films, worked with Shankar...
Lockdown Diaries: Harish Iyer helps sex workers and their families in Kamathipura
Harish Iyer espouses many causes. He was one of the few people who appealed to the Supreme Court against section 377, an archaic law criminalising certain forms of consensual sex between adults and one that was often used against the queer community. He is the only Indian listed in the World Pride Power List by The Guardian, among other...
Lockdown Diaries: Teenager Jai Aswani on a mission to feed the hungry in India by collecting 100 tonnes of food grains
Our initiative Mission 100 Tonnes was born out of distress calls we received from old age homes, orphanages, and pet shelters in Chennai, during the government-imposed lockdown in India three weeks back. Since then, there has been no looking back for us. The number of marginalised people requiring help during the unprecedented time of the COVID-19 outbreak has increased...
Kaushalya UK’s upcoming project will share stories to empower and uplift women around the world
An upcoming anthology of women titled ‘The New Woman’ - a project lead by Ritu Sharma, is a collection of 34 stories of women who have undergone transformation through adversity, spread across five continents,. The book will be launched on 27 July. Under the umbrella of Ritu's organisation Kaushalya UK, the anthology will showcase "women who have been broken by...
Lockdown Diaries: Apsara Reddy fights against heightened abuse and vulnerability during curfew in India
Apsara Reddy is the first trans-gender Indian politician, who has led the way and been an inspiration to thousands in the community in India and across the world. The inspirational leader was appointed the National General Secretary of All India Mahila (Women's) Congress, in January 2019 by the Congress President Rahul Gandhi. The lockdown period imposed by the government of...
