Catch our latest issue: “Worst council in England”, George Galloway…..A year on with George Galloway. Read all about Halal Certification fraud…Find out who won at Bradford’s most anticipated Inspirational Women Awards and much much more…Issue 39
Free Flights For Yorkshire Businesses!!
BA means Business with FREE flights
The loyalty programme is designed specifically to help small and medium sized companies. It is free to join and companies only need two or more travelling employees to qualify.
The bonus points have been introduced to celebrate the launch of British Airways flights from Leeds Bradford to Heathrow. From March 31 these flights move from Heathrow’s Terminal 1 to the airline’s flagship home, Terminal 5
The three-times-a-day service will connect Yorkshire business travellers with over 100 worldwide destinations served direct from Terminal 5.
All customers receive a generous free baggage allowance, complimentary onboard refreshments, free on-line seat selection 24 hours before departure, On Business customers also get access to Fast Track security and the newly refurbished Yorkshire Premier Lounge at Leeds Bradford Airport.
Companies can earn On Business Points on all qualifying flights with triple points for the first six flights and they can be redeemed for flight upgrades, reward flights and hotel accommodation.
For more information visit ba.com/onbusiness
Strain on 999 Services as Paramedics go on 24-Hour Strike
Emergency services are currently under strain after a number of paramedics have gone on strike today.
The strike, which will last for 24-hours, comes after Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust proposed the introduction of emergency care assistants (ECAs) to work alongside more highly-trained paramedics.
Unite the Union, who has called for the strike, raised concerns over patient safety as an ECA receives only six weeks of training, while a paramedic undergoes a two-year degree course.
David Whiting, Chief Executive of Yorkshire Ambulance Service NHS Trust, said: “Our contingency plans are focused on providing a safe, responsive and high-quality emergency service to patients and this will always remain our top priority. We have been actively seeking to discuss with Unite the Union how patients can be protected during the strike through a number of exemptions, to ensure Unite members continue to respond to 999 patients, prior to this industrial action taking place.
“Our willingness to engage with Unite the Union has meant that senior officials from the Trust have been in regular contact with Unite, supported by ACAS, throughout the Easter period. Unfortunately, these talks have not resulted in any exemptions, so Unite the Union has confirmed that its members will not be responding to any 999 calls during the 24-hour period. I am deeply concerned over this type of action, which I believe will be of concern to all of our A&E staff, who are very committed to patient care, and will place many of them in a very difficult situation.”
Despite less than 10 per cent of paramedics actually being on strike, the Industrial action taken by Unite and its members will put a strain on services across the district.
The Trust is therefore reminding the residents to use the service ‘wisely’ and only for ‘serious and life-threatening conditions’.
Anyone requiring advice or treatment for a non-emergency situation or minor ailment considers options such as self-care, a visit to a local pharmacist, GP surgery or walk-in centre.
Whiting added: “We recognise the legal right for those of our staff who are members of the union to participate in industrial action, but our focus is to balance that right with the need to first safeguard patient care and safety. However, I do not believe that industrial action in this form is in the best interests of patients, and it is deeply concerning for a trade union representing ambulance service workers to strike without making any concessions to patient safety.”
The strike will end on April 3 at 6am.
NHS Star Awards 2013
NHS Staff Recognised for Being Stars
By Suzanne Shuttleworth
Around 300 people attended the evening which saw five groups and individuals receiving the awards under the categories: Respect, Openness, Improvement, Working Together and Excellence. Each category representing core values within the NHS framework.
Fifteen nominees were shortlisted out of a total of forty and individuals and departments from around the district were put forward by other staff, carers and service users.
Chair of Bradford District Care Trust, Mike Smith said: “What this is about is to say to people, ‘just pause and think about the great work you’re doing’. It illustrates the real breadth of things that happen in this trust and the innovation and inspiration. These people are massively committed to what they do.”
Fiona Parkinson a Senior Podiatrist from the Trust’s foot care specialist team who won the Openness category said they had been up about some tough contenders and were “surprised but delighted” they had won.
“It’s great to win the award.” Said Fiona. “It will spur us on to continue to improve openness. Our next focus will be to look at how we use this service users and carers.”
Simon Large Chief Executive with Bradford District Care Trust said: “We’ve got a whole range of projects where we’re looking at how we can do things differently. It won’t affect the quality of care, but it means we will become more effective and efficient in what we’re doing.
On the subject of the awards Mr Large said: “I’m just bowled over, I’m totally amazed by what our staff continue to do and how they continue to improve what they’re doing. There was a fantastic level of quality this year, but then there always is.”
The winners for each category were: A team led by Children and Family Services who identify children and young people attending A&E not registered with a GP or a school; A speech and language therapist who has developed materials for Eastern European clients; The House Keeping team at Airedale Centre for Mental Health who improve the service users’ environment and two IT systems – one developed by the Human Resources team to support staff queries and another by the Trust’s foot health specialists to communicate more effectively across 40 different work locations.
Bradford District Care Trust provides community health, mental health and social care services for people across the Bradford, Airedale and Craven districts.
The winners of each category received £1000 to put towards improvement or staff initiatives funded by Sovereign Healthcare, one of the main supporters of the awards.
Review: Bollywood icons, National Media Museum
Review: Bollywood Icons
By Suzanne Shuttleworth
The Bollywood Icons exhibition running at the National Media Museum (8 March – 16 June) is curated by Irna Quereshi and gives visitors the chance to glimpse into the world of Indian cinema, but does it really focus enough on Bollywood’s Icons?
The exhibition which is being held to commemorate 100 years of Bollywood, will run at the same time as Bradford’s International Film Festival, which also pays tribute to this important birthday in South Asian history.
Bradford born Irna, who is known as somewhat of an expert in the field of Bollywood has been giving a series of tours around the exhibition. As a novice on the subject I’m somewhat intrigued by this genre of film, but profess to know very little, so having attended one, did I come away feeling a bit more knowledgeable?
It’s fair to say a half hour talk definitely doesn’t do the topic of Bollywood icons justice, but nethertheless Irna gave it a good go. Our guide did cover good ground explaining the importance of the Kapoor family who were instrumental to the growth of the Indian film industry and it was clear that there have been a lot of complicated romantic relationships for many of the stars whose on screen dalliances often turned into off screen ones.
The thing that confused me was that the icons were somewhat limited and although the exhibition was put together with limited space and posters because some of the older art work simply isn’t known to exist anymore, the icons really concentrated on two of the major male stars Amitabh Bachchan and of course Shahrukh Khan. But I wonder if the exhibition focuses too much on these two actors and whether it would be a bit like only concentrating on Robert De Niro and Brad Pitt? They were given two whole walls out of the four, the Kapoor family where given one wall and anyone else shared the rest.
The actresses were given little space, which is a shame considering that some of these female filmstars aren’t just in the films to look pretty, they play huge roles in their own right, but they seem to have disappeared into the background here – is that real to life?
The exhibition is vibrant and there are some fabulous posters depicting some of Bollywood’s classics, but to many a novice Bollywood-ite, Indian film is unique, it’s more vibrant than any West End musical, far more dramatic than any Eastenders cliff-hanger and as far as I know it’s entrenched in symbolism and mystique. Coming from a white British background it is a bit of an exotic enigma and rather than just concentrating on the Icons and a few of the classics, it would be nice during this special celebration of Bollywood, if I could have unlocked a bit more of what it all means.
For more on Bollywood, make sure you catch the latest editions of Asian Sunday
Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour Together Week
Bradford Council and its partners are cracking down on anti-social behaviour this week, as they look to reduce low level crime and nuisance.
During ‘Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour Together Week’, the Council, West Yorkshire Police and Bradford’s social housing landlord Incommunities will be working together with local people to address issues which can harm residents’ quality of life.
From the 18th-24th March, the Council will be coordinating joint operations with the Police and Incommunities to address graffiti and vandalism, dog fouling, parking around schools, littering and fly-tipping.
Reckless off-road vehicles, cold calling, drug dealing and curb crawling will also receive special attention this week.
Councillor Imran Hussain, Deputy Leader of Bradford Council, said: “Anti-social behaviour shows contempt for the right of people to live in a safe, clean environment and the public have made it clear that tackling it is a priority. That’s why, despite reduced resources, the Council has continued to invest in financial support for local policing and for its own teams of wardens.
“We maximise the impact of those resources when working together with the Police, with Incommunities and with local people and a coordinated crackdown will deliver a very clear message that these issues are taken seriously, that our neighbourhoods should be treated with respect and that perpetrators will be brought to book.”
Superintendent Vince Firth, from Bradford District Community Safety Partnership, said: “We treat every occurrence of anti-social behaviour in our communities extremely seriously and we continue to look for innovative ways to tackle it.
“Everyone deserves to have a quality of life in the area they live and we will be maintaining high visibility patrols throughout our neighbourhoods.
“Tackling Anti-Social Behaviour Together Week simply highlights the efforts of police and partners every single day of the year. It is important that we continue to empower people with the confidence and ability to report this type of crime and in the knowledge that something will be done to quickly resolve it.”
Karen Lee, Director of Incommunities, Neighbourhood Services, said: “We are committed to working with residents, Bradford Council and our partners to continue to tackle anti-social behaviour and uphold the rights of all our customers to live in safe and peaceful neighbourhoods.
“We would urge any Incommunities residents who feel threatened or concerned about anti-social behaviour where they live to contact our 24-hour confidential reporting line (Tel 01274 254274).”
Celtic FC Invite Young Indian Football Stars
Gaurav Bora (14) from Delhi and Sufaid Ali Pookkodan (15) from Kerala, both of whom are central defenders, spent a week training in Glasgow.
The youngsters spent seven days as guests of Celtic, even finding themselves in the centre circle during the half-time break in the clubs SPL game against Kilmarnock.
Celtic teamed up with the Mahindra Youth Football Challenge as it continues to promote with beautiful game in India.
The Mahindra Youth Football Challenge is a tournament is played out in six cities – Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Cochin, Goa and Calicut.
More than 3000 players from 192 schools took part and the winning teams from each coming together in Bangalore for an inter-city championship.
Throughout the final stages of the tournament, Celtic coaches provided specialist training while looking out for the best individual players to invite to Glasgow.
This was the second year of a three-year commitment by Celtic to the Mahindra tournament and it is understood negotiations are currently taking place to extend the arrangement.
Celtic worked closely with Glasgow-based Oceanic Media Consulting, who organised many of the social and cultural events for the two visiting players, which included visits to a local mosque, Hindu temple, restaurants and more.
OFT Gets Tough with Payday Lenders
The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is giving leading payday lenders just 12 weeks to change their business practices.
Over 50 major lenders, which is 90% of the market, risk losing their licences after evidence uncovered irresponsible lending and failure to comply with the standards required of them.
The OFT also announced that it is proposing to refer the payday lending market to the Competition Commission after evidence of ‘deep-rooted problems’ was found in how lenders compete with each other.
These actions were announced in the final report on the OFT’s compliance review of the £2 billion payday lending sector.
Clive Maxwell, OFT Chief Executive, said: “We have found fundamental problems with the way the payday market works and widespread breaches of the law and regulations, causing misery and hardship for many borrowers.
Payday lenders are earning up to half their revenue not from one-off loans, but from rolled over or re-financed deals where unexpected costs can rapidly mount up.
“We are proposing to refer this market to the Competition Commission, which has wider powers to get to heart of the problems in this market and to identify and impose lasting solutions that protect consumers.”
He added: “Irresponsible lending is not confined to a few rogue payday lenders – it is a problem across the sector. If we do not see rapid, significant improvements by the 50 lenders we inspected they risk their licences being removed. Payday lending is a top enforcement priority for the OFT.”
The OFT is now advising consumers to think very carefully when considering taking out a payday loan.
Census Results: Polish is the most popular ‘Other’ main language
As part of the data collected from the Census in 2011, the Office for National Statistics have released information on the language used by people across England and Wales.
The results showed that over 9 in 10 people reported English (English or Welsh in Wales) as their main language. However, 4.2 million people (7.7%) reported another language.
Polish was reported as the most popular ‘Other’ main language with 546,000 speakers (1.0 % of the total population). Punjabi and Urdu were the next most spoken ‘Other’ main languages reported.
London was revealed to have most ‘Other’ main language speakers with 22.1%. Here in the Yorkshire and Humber region, only 5.9% of the residents spoke another main language.
Except for London, all other regions reported at least 92% of residents spoke English as their main language.
In England and Wales, 726,000 people (1.3%) reported that they could not speak English to a high standard. While 138,000 people (0.3%) reported that they could not speak English at all.
Similar statistics were revealed for the Yorkshire and Humber region with 1.3% of residents admitting they struggle with English but just 0.3% could not speak it at all.
Madhuri most Inspirational
Madhuri Dixit seems to still reign as Queen Bee as she beat off her contemporaries in a recent poll for the most Inspirational all time Bollywood Actor (female).
To celebrate 100 years of Bollywood cinema, this year organisers of Bradford’s Inspirational Women Awards asked the public to nominate their most inspirational Bollywood actress of all time. Madhuri won hands down, with Kareena Kapoor coming second and Katrina third.
Leading Bollywood dance company Spice Entertainment will be performing a medley of the popular actresses most memorable songs at the red carpet awards ceremony which will be held on Saturday 16 March at Hilton Hotel, Bradford. 