MORE than 20,000 devotees are expected to attend religious discourses by one of India’s leading and most revered spiritual leaders in Manchester next month.
Pujya Rameshbhai Oza, known affectionately as Pujya Bhaishree, will lead the soul-inspiring sermons for eight days starting on August 14.
The Bhagwat Katha is being sponsored by two of country’s leading Asian entrepreneurs – brothers Sanjay and Vipul Vadera of the Perscent perfume business empire, who run the Fragrance Shop, the country’s largest perfume retailer. Their sister Mina is helping to organise the event in memory of their father, Jayantilal Harji Vadera, who passed away in 2017, aged 81.
“It will be a celebration of his life,” said Sanjay and his sister Mina, adding that it was also a nod to their mother’s 80th birthday this year.
“One of the traditions within the Hindu culture that we have done previously is to celebrate the lives of our lost ones. We call it saptah, which is basically praying, in a sense. You do it for seven days. You recite the Bhagwad Gita,” they said.
“The key thing is for our pitrus, for the souls of our lost ones to rest in peace, to have all the things that would probably not be accomplished in their mind completed in a sense; for them not to have any worry about those things.”
The Vaderas’ Fragrance Shop is a wholesale and retail group, which distributes skincare products, cosmetics and perfumes to more than 5,000 retailers, among them Asda and Superdrug. With an estimated wealth of £300 million, Sanjay and Vipul Vadera were ranked 40th in this year’s Asian Rich List, published by Eastern Eye.
Along with their parents, the siblings arrived in Britain in the 1970s when Ugandan dictator Idi Amin expelled the Asian community from the country. Their father, a businessman, worked with the Madhvani family, who run Uganda’s biggest industrial group.
As new migrants to the UK and with no savings to their name, the Vaderas dug in and started working, initially in Bolton and later in Lincoln, in order to pay the bills and provide a home for their young family.
“Mum has always been spiritual,” said Mina, while Sanjay recalled their house being open for guests at any time of the day, and growing up with a strong sense of community.
“It’s a first for Manchester and surrounding areas. (We hope) that Hindus and other communities will benefit greatly from these readings and discourses during these eight days at Event City.”
The family said an estimated 20,000 devotees from the UK and abroad, will attend the Katha over the eight days.
Mina said: “We want the youth to be involved in this as much as possible. Enlighten them, give them a bit more depth of knowledge of our culture and spirituality. We are trying to do some classes as well, bhajans in the afternoon.”
Sanjay’s wife Rita added that the discourse will be inclusive and aimed at people of all faiths.
“It has an Indian theme, but we do want people from different beliefs to come to the Katha. We want to give people that platform in Manchester,” she explained.
Sanjay said: “Our view of spirituality is the values we were taught by our parents. They instilled in us to be kind, welcoming, generous in the way of your kindness, your affection, how you share your food. Being kind, humble and thankful for everything.
“I think the hard work that our parents did and the fact that they were selfless. Selflessness is the value you pick up, and the unconditional love given to you, which is what Pujya Bhaishree talks about.
Loving is the one of the most important things, and kindness, and respect. We find these values resonate with what Pujya Bhaishree talks about in his kathas.”
Pujya Bhaishree is renowned for his discourses that are drawn from the Bhagwad Gita. His folksy delivery, impassioned singing and incisive interpretation of the holy scriptures draws tens of thousands of people all over India and around the world.
He is one of the world’s leading scholars and exponents of the Hindu scripture.
“It’s a modern way of how he does his storytelling and it’s engaging. He is obviously an artist in the way he talks about his teachings. There’s a lesson in the way he tells the stories,” said Sanjay.
Sanjay watched his parents start from scratch in a new country, while striving to provide a comfortable home for him and his siblings.
His father initially worked in the textiles industry, while his mother sold miscellaneous items while also running the house.
“They were doing manual labour at the beginning before they made it to maybe a supervisor level. They were working in shifts. It was a struggle. My mum, who had never worked before, had to do morning and afternoon shifts. We all looked after each other,” said Mina.
It proved to be an invaluable lesson for her, and her brothers.
“Their hard work, the value system they created for us, is something I have adopted. I think it reflects a lot on how we are as siblings,” said Sanjay.
Indeed, it was his parents who inspired him, aged 20, to launch his business venture, with a loan from his father.
“In Uganda, my father had built a business which allowed us to be comfortable as a family and meant we had a fairly good lifestyle,” Sanjay recalled.
“To suddenly then lose everything, having to move to the UK as a child and seeing my parents struggle to rebuild our lives here, gave me a strong perspective to take destiny into my own hands, and to look for the right opportunity to build something that would allow my parents to retire. It allowed me to be fearless in my pursuit of success.”
Sanjay watched his mother buy things from wholesalers and sell them on, keep track of the accounts without formal book-keeping training while building and maintaining customer relationships.
“Just her sheer ability to run this little business that became quite massive later (inspired me),” Sanjay said.
“It allowed her to put down a deposit for a new house; she was motivated to make sure our family had a better house and that she could provide for them in a better way, with travel, holiday destinations, get her children through school, college and university.
“She wanted the happiness of her family and nothing would be a problem for her; 50 people could turn up and she cooked for all of them. She wasn’t fazed by anything. Growing up as teenagers, we would have people coming home, staying over, it was pretty much an open house. She was very welcoming to everyone.”
Today the siblings all live close to each other in Manchester and enjoy spending time as a family.
Sanjay revealed his daily routine. “I usually pray in the morning before I leave home, thank God for everything and go to the office and listen to the Hanuman Chalisa.
“It is about respecting everybody, being kind, being fair. Of course, in business, you can be tough, but it is about fairness too, being strong and decisive about things that are right. It is important to show the people who work for you the vision you have; in the way that you want to take the business forward. To let them be a part of the change.
RELIGIOUS extremists in Pakistan stopped members of the Ahmadi community from offering Eid prayers in at least seven cities, the Jamaat-e-Ahmadiyya Pakistan (JAP) said on Tuesday.
In Punjab, police arrested two Ahmadis and booked three others for trying to perform the ritual animal sacrifice during Eid-ul-Azha. According to JAP, members of Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) also forced two Ahmadis to renounce their faith.
In recent months, groups led by the TLP have been stopping Ahmadis from offering Friday prayers at their worship places. Ahead of Eid, police summoned several Ahmadis and made them sign written statements agreeing not to offer Eid prayers or perform sacrifices according to their beliefs.
The JAP said Eid prayers were blocked in Khushab, Mirpur Khas, Lodhran, Bhakkar, Rajanpur, Umerkot, Larkana and Karachi. It claimed religious extremists, with support from local administrations, prevented Ahmadis from praying even inside their own worship places.
In Lahore, TLP activists surrounded the community’s oldest worship place in Ghari Shahu on Eid day and demanded police action. The police responded by sealing the site.
In Nazimabad, Karachi, the JAP said that two members, Irfan-ul-Haq and his son, were taken to a police station along with their sacrificial animal by TLP activists. "Fearing for their safety, they recited the Islamic declaration of faith. The TLP activists celebrated by garlanding them and claiming their conversion to Islam," it said.
Punjab police confirmed that two Ahmadis were arrested and three others booked under Section 298-C of the Pakistan Penal Code for attempting to perform Islamic rituals. They said Ahmadis are not allowed to observe such rituals under the law.
The JAP called this treatment discriminatory, unconstitutional and illegal. "Under Article 20 of Pakistan's Constitution, every citizen is guaranteed freedom of religion. However, Ahmadis are routinely denied this right along with other fundamental rights," it said.
The group said such incidents indicate a wider pattern of discrimination against the Ahmadi community. It added that forced conversions are a serious human rights violation and raise questions about religious freedom in Pakistan.
The JAP said the community remains highly vulnerable to attacks by extremist groups like the TLP, which it claimed operate with impunity.
In early May, a senior Ahmadi doctor was allegedly shot dead in Punjab. On May 15, around 100 graves belonging to Ahmadis were desecrated in the same province.
Though Ahmadis consider themselves Muslims, Pakistan’s parliament declared them non-Muslims in 1974. A 1984 ordinance later prohibited them from calling themselves Muslims or practising aspects of Islam. This includes building minarets or domes on mosques, or publicly displaying Quranic verses.
However, the Lahore High Court has ruled that places of worship built before the 1984 ordinance are legal and should not be altered or demolished.
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'This is a symbol and celebration of rising India,' Modi said of the Chenab Bridge, which connects two mountains. (Photo: X/@narendramodi)
INDIA is committed to efforts to develop Jammu and Kashmir, prime minister Narendra Modi said last Friday (6), accusing Pakistan of seeking to destroy livelihoods there with April's deadly attack on tourists.
He was speaking on his first visit to the Himalayan region since Islamist attackers targeted Hindu tourists in the popular Pahalgam area, killing 26 men, triggering hostilities between the countries that ended in a ceasefire last month.
"The atmosphere of development that emerged in Jammu and Kashmir will not be hindered by the attack ... I will not let development stop here," Modi said in remarks after inaugurating infrastructure projects.
Key among these was a $5-billion rail link between the Kashmir Valley and the rest of India, which has been more than 40 years in the making and features the world's highest railway arch bridge.
Others include highways, city roads and a new medical college.
"Pakistan will never forget... its shameful loss," the prime minister told crowds.
"Friends, today's event is a grand festival of India's unity and firm resolve," Modi said after striding across the soaring bridge to formally launch it for rail traffic.
"This is a symbol and celebration of rising India," he said of the Chenab Bridge, which connects two mountains.
New Delhi calls the Chenab span the "world's highest railway arch bridge", sitting 359 metres (1,117 feet) above a river.
While several road and pipeline bridges are higher, Guinness World Records confirmed that Chenab trumps the previous highest railway bridge, the Najiehe in China.
Modi said the railway was "an extraordinary feat of architecture" that "will improve connectivity" by providing the first rail link from the Indian plains up to mountainous Kashmir.
With 36 tunnels and 943 bridges, the new railway runs for 272 km (169 miles) and connects Udhampur, Srinagar and Baramulla.
It is expected to halve the travel time between the town of Katra in the Hindu-majority Jammu region and Srinagar, the main city in Kashmir, to around three hours.
The new route will facilitate the movement of people and goods, as well as troops, that was previously possible only via treacherous mountain roads and by air.
Trains run in the Kashmir valley, but the new link is its first to the wider Indian railway network. Apart from boosting the regional economy, it is expected to help revive tourism, which plummeted after the April attack.
Pakistan's foreign ministry, in a statement, said India's "claims of development... ring hollow against the backdrop of an unprecedented military presence, suppression of fundamental freedoms, arbitrary arrests, and a concerted effort to alter the region's demography".
Around 150 people protested against the project on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir.
"We want to tell India that building bridges and laying roads in the name of development will not make the people of Kashmir give up their demand for freedom," said Azir Ahmad Ghazali, who organised the rally attended by Kashmiris who fled unrest on the Indian side in the 1990s.
"In clear and unequivocal terms, we want to say to the Indian government that the people of Kashmir have never accepted India's forced rule."
More than 70 people were killed in missile, drone and artillery fire during last month's conflict.
Modi also announced further government financial support for families whose relatives were killed, or whose homes were damaged, during the brief conflict – mainly in shelling along the heavily militarised de facto border with Pakistan, known as the Line of Control.
"Their troubles are our troubles," Modi said.
Pakistan aimed to disrupt the livelihoods of the poor in Kashmir, who rely heavily on tourism, Modi said, adding that he would face down any obstacle to regional development.
Last month, Islamabad said a just and peaceful resolution of the Kashmir dispute was essential to ensure lasting peace in the region, known for its snow-topped mountains, scenic lakes, lush meadows, and tulip gardens.
The region drew more than three million visitors last year.
(With inputs from agencies)
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Chief adviser to the government of Bangladesh Professor Muhammed Yunus speaks during a live interview at Chatham House on June 11, 2025 in London, United Kingdom. (Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images)
BANGLADESH interim leader Muhammad Yunus said on Wednesday (11) that there was "no way" he wanted to continue in power after elections he has announced for April, the first since a mass uprising overthrew the government.
The South Asian nation of around 180 million people has been in political turmoil since a student-led revolt ousted then prime minister Sheikh Hasina in August 2024, ending her 15-year rule.
Speaking in London, Yunus, asked if he himself was seeking any political post, the 84-year-old Nobel Peace Prize winner said there was "no way", waving his hands in the air for emphasis.
"I think none of our cabinet members would like to do that, not only me", he said.
Yunus was answering questions after speaking at London's foreign policy thinktank Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs.
He also said he wanted to unveil a "big package" of proposals next month that he dubbed a "July Charter" -- one year on since the students launched the demonstrations that toppled Hasina.
"We want to say goodbye to the old Bangladesh and create a new Bangladesh", Yunus said.
The charter is being drafted by a government "consensus commission", talking to political parties to "find that which are the recommendations they will accept", he added.
Yunus has long said elections will be held before June 2026, but says the more time the interim administration had to enact reforms, the better.
But after political parties jostling for power repeatedly demanded he fix a timetable, he said earlier this month that elections would be held in April 2026.
"Our job is to make sure that the transition is managed well, and that people are happy when we hand over power to the elected government," he said.
"So we want to make sure that the election is right, that is a very critical factor for us. If the election is wrong, this thing will never be solved again".
Yunus is also expected to meet in London with Tarique Rahman, acting chairman of Bangladesh Nationalist Party, which is widely seen as likely to sweep the elections.
Rahman, 59, the son of former prime minister Khaleda Zia, has lived in London since 2008 after being sentenced in absentia under Hasina -- convictions since quashed.
He is widely expected to return to Dhaka to lead the party in polls.
(AFP)
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The proposed reorganisation could save £43m a year, say council leaders, but critics question the figure
RESIDENTS can now have their say on a plan which would see the number of local councils in Leicestershire drop from eight to two.
The proposal is one of three put forward for the political re-organisation of Leicestershire after the government told local leaders it wanted areas with two tiers of councils – such as the county – to reduce it to a single-tier set up.
That does not mean just one authority for Leicestershire, however, with the eight district and borough councils, along with Rutland County Council, believing residents would be better served if Leicestershire was split in two. They are proposing one new council for the north of Leicestershire and Rutland, and a second covering the south and the city to remain separate.
Their proposal is at odds with the options put forward by Leicester City Council and Leicestershire County Council, both of which believe one ‘doughnut’ authority, taking in all of the county but leaving Rutland and the city separate, is a better approach.
Leicester mayor Sir Peter Soulsby also believes that city borders should expand to take in parts of Leicestershire, something the remaining council leaders and many county residents all say they oppose.
Now, the district and borough councils are seeking residents’ opinions on their “North, City, South” proposal.
Under the plan, the areas currently served by Charnwood, North West Leicestershire and Melton district and borough councils, and Rutland County Council, would be served by one authority, called the “North Leicestershire and Rutland” council.
Those under the control of Blaby, Harborough, Hinckley and Bosworth, and Oadby and Wigston district and borough councils would be served by the second authority, called “South Leicestershire” council. District and borough leaders believe this would allow councils to stay “connected and accountable” to the communities they serve, while still simplifying services and saving money, as the government has demanded.
The leaders said this approach could save nearly £43 million a year. However, this figure was disputed by the previous leaders of the county council who put the figure closer to £17 million.
Speaking on behalf of the eight authorities, leader of Melton Borough Council Pip Allnatt said: “Councils in the area are facing the biggest change in over 50 years and it is vital our communities are involved in helping to shape the future of local government. We encourage people, businesses and organisations to take part in the survey and tell us their views on our plans.
“This is the second time we have asked for views, and earlier this year more than 4,600 people and organisations responded to our original survey to help inform our interim plan… we will continue to make strenuous efforts to gather views from our communities and partners. Please have your say.”
The survey asks residents whether they agree with the principle of replacing the two-tier system with a single council structure, if they agree with the North, City, South approach put forward by the districts and boroughs, and if they agree with the areas proposed to be joined together under that plan.
The survey can be found on the North City South website with residents able to respond until Sunday, July 20. An explainer of all of the proposed changes and their impact on residents is also available there.
(Local Democracy Reporting Service)
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Donald Trump and Narendra Modi shake hands as they attend a joint press conference at the White House on February 13, 2025.
INDIAN and US negotiators reported progress after four days of closed-door meetings in New Delhi on Tuesday, focusing on market access for industrial and some agricultural goods, tariff cuts and non-tariff barriers, according to Indian government sources.
"The negotiations held with the US side were productive and helped in making progress towards crafting a mutually beneficial and balanced agreement including through achievement of early wins," one of the sources said to Reuters.
The US delegation, led by senior officials from the Office of the US Trade Representative, met Indian trade ministry officials headed by chief negotiator Rajesh Agrawal.
Both sides also considered ways to expand bilateral digital trade through improved customs and trade-facilitation measures, the sources added, noting that “negotiations will continue” with an eye on a quick conclusion of the initial tranche.
Interim pact expected soon
president Donald Trump and prime minister Narendra Modi agreed in February to finalise a bilateral trade agreement by autumn 2025 and to more than double two-way trade to $500 billion by 2030. Officials now expect to seal an interim deal by the end of this month, before Trump’s 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs expires, including a possible 26 per cent levy on Indian goods.
Commerce minister Piyush Goyal, who is in Switzerland for talks with European counterparts, said India is ready to settle “simpler issues” first. Subsequent rounds could handle more complex matters, with the goal of signing the first tranche by September or October, the officials said.
India turned down US requests for wider access to wheat, dairy and corn while offering lower tariffs on US almonds, pistachios and walnuts. New Delhi also asked Washington to remove its 10 per cent baseline tariff, a step the US side opposed, pointing out that Britain accepted the same duty in its recent deal. India further sought relief from a 50 per cent duty on steel exports.
A 26 per cent tariff on Indian rice, shrimp, textiles and footwear—about one-fifth of India’s merchandise exports—could dent shipments and weigh on foreign investment, the sources warned. India has pledged to increase purchases of American liquefied natural gas, crude oil, coal and defence equipment.
India’s exports to the US climbed 28 per cent to $37.7 billion in the first four months of 2025, while imports rose to $14.4 billion, widening India’s surplus, US data showed.
US voices backing on terrorism fight
Separately, the State Department said the US “reaffirmed its strong support” for India’s fight against terrorism during last week’s visit to Washington by an Indian all-party parliamentary delegation led by Congress MP Shashi Tharoor.
Deputy secretary of state Christopher Landau met the group as part of New Delhi’s outreach following Operation Sindoor, launched after the 22 April Pahalgam attack that killed 26 people.
State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told reporters that a Pakistani parliamentary team headed by Bilawal Bhutto Zardari also met officials, including under secretary for political affairs Allison Hooker. “So that meeting occurred,” Bruce said.
Hooker reiterated US support for the current “– as you might imagine, thank God – between India and Pakistan,” Bruce added, referring to the cessation of on-ground hostilities.
Asked about possible Pakistani assurances on action against militants, Bruce declined to share details. On whether Trump might “mediate” on Kashmir, she said: “Well, I – obviously, I can't speak to what's on the mind or the plans of the President. What I do know is that I think we all recognise that President Trump in each step that he takes, it's made to solve generational differences between countries, generational war."
“So, while I can't speak to his plans, the world knows his nature, and I can't speak to any details of what he might have in that regard… But it is an exciting time that if we can get to a point in that particular conflict..,” Bruce said, adding that it is a “very interesting time.”
India has maintained that Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh are an “integral” part of the country and has rejected any outside mediation.