Pramod Thomas is a senior correspondent with Asian Media Group since 2020, bringing 19 years of journalism experience across business, politics, sports, communities, and international relations. His career spans both traditional and digital media platforms, with eight years specifically focused on digital journalism. This blend of experience positions him well to navigate the evolving media landscape and deliver content across various formats. He has worked with national and international media organisations, giving him a broad perspective on global news trends and reporting standards.
Bollywood superstar Shah Rukh Khan's cousin sister Noor Jehan died in Peshawar, Pakistan. She was 52. The death happened following a prolonged battle with cancer.
Her husband Asif Burhan confirmed Noor Jehan’s demise. He said that she was suffering from oral cancer.
Known by her nickname Munni, she used to contact her celebrity cousin on telephone occasionally.
Noor Jehan used to live in Mohallah Shah Wali Qataal area near the Qissa Khwani Bazaar in Peshawar.
King Khan’s father and Jehan’s father were siblings.
Noor Jehan was very much active politically as served as a district and town councillor.
She even filed nomination papers for the provincial assembly PK-77 seat in the 2018 General Elections before withdrawing at the last moment.
Noor Jehan was reported to have visited her superstar cousin at least twice, with her family maintaining close contact with the relatives across the border.
According to the reports, Khan also visited his relatives in Peshawar along with his parents twice during his childhood.
Speaking in parliament during a debate on 'Operation Sindoor', Modi said, 'No world leader asked us to stop the operation.' He did not name Trump in his address.
INDIAN prime minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday denied that any world leader intervened to stop India’s operations against Pakistan during their recent conflict, countering repeated claims by US president Donald Trump that he had brokered peace.
Speaking in parliament during a debate on “Operation Sindoor”, Modi said, “No world leader asked us to stop the operation.” He did not name Trump in his address.
Modi also said that Pakistan had requested India to end the fighting after facing the “heat of our attacks”.
The fighting in May lasted four days and left more than 70 people dead on both sides.
It was triggered by an April attack on tourists in Indian-administered Kashmir, where gunmen killed 26 men, mostly Hindus.
India accused Pakistan of backing the attackers, which Islamabad denied.
Trump has repeatedly claimed credit for stopping the conflict, saying on Monday during his visit to Scotland, “If I weren’t around, you’d have, right now, six major wars going on. India would be fighting with Pakistan.”
Earlier, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had challenged Modi to declare in parliament that Trump was lying about mediating peace.
Home minister Amit Shah informed lawmakers that three Pakistani terrorists involved in the Kashmir attack were killed during a military operation on Monday.
He said all three were Pakistani nationals and identified two as members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a UN-designated terrorist group based in Pakistan.
The May fighting brought the two countries close to another war before the ceasefire was announced.
After Trump’s statements, opposition parties in India questioned whether there had been third-party mediation, a claim New Delhi has consistently denied.
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Lord Meghnad Desai, who has died, aged 85, was one of the most erudite members of the House of Lords. But he carried his scholarship lightly and with an engaging sense of humour.
The Times noted he turned 85 on 10 July, only 19 days before his death on 29 July.
He was known as a distinguished economist who had taught at the London School of Economics, where he remained an emeritus professor after his retirement, but his knowledge of Bollywood films was also impressive.
He admitted whistling songs from Guru Dutt movies in the corridors of the House of Lords.
His favourite song, he once said, when launching his autobiography, Rebellious Lord, was Mera Joota Hai Japani from the 1955 Raj Kapoor starrer, Shree 420.
That’s because deep down despite travelling and lecturing all over the world, he felt Indian, and the line that summed him up was, “phir bhi dil hai Hindustani”.
He had many books on economics and politics to his credit, among them Marx’s Revenge: The Resurgence of Capitalism and the Death of Statist Socialism, The Rediscovery of India, and The Poverty of Political Economy: How Economics Abandoned the Poor.
Desai (sixth from left) with Jo Johnson, Sajid Javid, Rami Ranger, David Cameron, Lady Kishwar Desai, guest statue sculptor Philip Jackson and Priti Patel
But he was also the author of Nehru's Hero: Dilip Kumar in the Life of India. He had a wide range of interests and also wrote a crime thriller, Dead on Time.
He was born in Baroda and had his early education in India, but though he had an enjoyable enough spell in America, he chose to settle in the UK because he felt his spiritual home was the LSE.
“I have been to more than 50 countries to give lectures,” he said. “In America, I could have earned much more money, but being at the LSE was much more fun. Because I’m interested in many things I can talk to people about what they are interested in. Basically, I like reading and writing. I’ve been to three countries I consider my own – US, UK and India. I think I belong to all three in some form or another. Everybody has been nice to me. I have had a lovely life.”
On one occasion he said his greatest achievement was possibly raising money for the statue of Mahatma Gandhi that went up in 2015 in Parliament Square, facing the Palace of Westminster and not far from that of Winston Churchill.
He said: “I would say that Gandhi is relevant not just to Indians or British Indians – he is relevant to everybody. Gandhi is universal and still relevant as an alternative way of launching a struggle in a century that has continued to have violence. It’s astonishing what he achieved. Indians born here (in the UK) may know of Gandhi from their parents but they would only know a stylised bit of Gandhi. If, as a result of this statue, they are inspired to explore Gandhi more thoroughly and read about his life and look at what he did, that will be great. I hope lots and lots of schools come to look at the Gandhi statue and people carry on teaching a bit more about Gandhi because he is a fascinating, very complex character. You can criticise him quite a lot and there are a lot of critics there but on balance he is the most unique person of the 20th century.
Desai during the Mahatma Gandhi anniversary in Parliament Square on October 2, 2019
“Attenborough’s movie is a remarkable classic movie – the movie that more than anything else introduced Gandhi to the world. More people have learnt about Gandhi from the movie, especially people outside India, than anything else. Attenborough’s movie made Gandhi a much more known person round the world for a new generation. I don’t think any Indian would have been allowed to make a movie like that given the restrictions that the Indian government places on film making. You see they only want hagiographies.”
In Rebellious Lord, his autobiography published in 2020, he explained why he did not always do well in exams in India: “One of my problems was that I could not give the standard answer which was what got you the marks. I deviated from the straight and narrow and showed off my reading or tried some jokes. None of this helps you in an Indian examination where you have to display memory and rote learning.”
He said that “in early January 2004, I was at my desk in the House of Lords when I got a call. The call was from Delhi, asking me if I would accept the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman, awarded to an expatriate Indian. I said, of course, I would. They must have thought that being left-wing, I might publicly refuse to accept an honour from a BJP-led coalition government, but any government elected by the Indian people was acceptable to me.
“So it was that within a couple of days, I was off to Delhi to receive my award. When I met Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, I was in for a pleasant surprise. After he gave me the award, I asked him, ‘Why did you choose me? I have criticised you so much.’ As in any conversation with that marvellous man, there was no immediate response. Then he smiled and said, ‘You criticise everybody.’ That reply made me happy, as I was particular about my non-partial standpoint.”
One of the abiding friendships he made while at Berkeley in America was with fellow economist Amartya Sen, who was later to win the Nobel Prize.
“I was 24 and he was 31,” recalled Desai. “I had, of course, heard his name while I was a student in Bombay. People talked about this young Indian whom his Cambridge teachers – Joan Robinson and Nicholas Kaldor, authors whose books we read – were praising very highly. Amartya was visiting Berkeley in my second year. I went to hear him at a seminar he was giving in the economics department. The original venue was too small for all the people who had come to listen so it was moved to a much larger hall on the campus. I was thrilled when I heard him speak. The topic was about peasant behaviour in developing countries. It was technical but also full of insights into the political economy of the problem. Dale Jorgenson played the part of the acerbic critic and Amartya stood up to him easily. We met up afterwards and then many times during the year he was there. Amartya was there with (his then wife) Nabaneeta, who had a literary background and became a famous Bengali author subsequently. We got on very well and have done so ever since.
“Amartya is a great person. I guess he is my longest acquaintance among Indian economists, because I met Amartya in Berkeley in 1964. He’s a nice man, a very nice man. I think I think he’s slightly cross with me because I’m much softer on (Narendra) Modi than he is. But then you know, I’m me. And he is he. But I don’t think those things are serious for either.”
Desai had three children with his first wife, Gail Wilson, an LSE colleague whom he married in 1970. He met his second wife, Kishwar Ahluwalia, a literary editor, in India when he was working on the Dilip Kumar biography, The couple married in London in 2004.
Desai with Amartya Sen (right)
Desai has talked of his love of Bollywood films.
“I began to be taken to see movies at the age of four,” he said. “I could never understand people who try to intellectualise films. All the critics who wrote about films intellectually hated Hindi films. And I loved them. To this day I love ordinary, commercial Hindi films. I like Guru Dutt because he made commercial films which had content.
“The thing about Guru Dutt is he is thought to be one of those amazing art film directors because most people have only seen Kaagaz Ke Phool. I myself did not like it very much. I still don’t. I think it is a badly made film, very, very confused.
“When he started Guru Dutt had a slight racy reputation. When he appeared in Aar Paar as a hero, the Times of India wrote a very angry review that he was bringing values down, singing love songs in a dingy garage with a heroine. There was Guru Dutt putting forward as hero a car repair man who had been a criminal. People were shocked that the hero was no longer a noble hero.
“He made Mrs & Mrs 55 which is a fantastic film. He actually discovered that Madhubala had a flair for comedy.
“In Mrs & Mrs 55 – I remember seeing it at the National Film Theatre in London –there is a little episode where Kumkum, who plays the hero’s sister-in-law, tells this girl Madhubala that, yes her husband beats her up but that’s not bad, you know, husband do beat up wives – you could see the frisson of disappointment in all the trendies who had come to see the great Guru Dutt. They hadn’t realised he was very much a conservative.
“Then, he made Pyaasa – and Pyaasa just hit me like a ton of bricks. It was basically Devdas, made beautifully, written by Abrar Alvi, music by S D Burman, that redeemed his reputation as a serious film maker.
“Then Chaudhvin Ka Chand is another absolutely fantastic film. It is one of the greatest ‘Muslim socials’ ever, something an entire Muslim family could see.
“Sahib Bibi Aur Ghulam is another great film – wow! What a beautiful, beautiful film, made with great understanding of Bengali society. He trained with Uday Shankar, the dancer, in Calcutta. He married Geeta Roy who became Geeta Dutt. He was a man of great sensitivity.
“I was at Ramnarain Ruia College in Matuna, studying BA economics. I can tell you Aar Paar in 1954 made an impact absolutely. Once you have experienced life, you become a bit cynical and you can distance yourself whereas, when you are young, films have an immediate impact on your sexual and ethical consciousness. I am a fan of all Hindi films of the 1940s and 1950s. I am an Indian until the 1950s and then later I came to England and eventually became a ‘Brit’.
“One day I will write a story about the cinema houses I frequented in Bombay: Arora at King’s Circle; Chitra and Broadway near Dadar; and Surya and Bharat Mata near Parel. I still believe, not because I was young then, that that was the golden age of Hindi cinema.”
Desai with wife Kishwar
Desai has made many speeches in the House of Lords, which he joined in 1991, the first Asian man to be given a peerage in contemporary times. He was then a member of the Labour party.
In his maiden speech on 19 June 1991, he spoke of the decline of British manufacturing: “I well recall that as a child I thought that it was axiomatic that British manufacturing was the best. Of course, I learned the lesson under somewhat advantageous circumstances for British manufacturers, for in those days Japanese or German manufacturers were synonyms for shoddy goods. I never thought then that I should rise so many years later on my first occasion in this House to speak on the manufacturing industry in this country.”
He switched to education: “I was surprised when I first heard many years ago before I touched the shores of this country that there is widespread here a kind of contempt for education, a glorification of the untaught genius—someone who cannot read a book but who can innovate. If that was ever true, that time is past. Innovation is no longer the privilege of the single, lonely person. It is a corporate activity which requires sustained investment in high-powered scientific and technical knowledge.
“We must raise the general level of education and knowledge in this country and continue to invest in the education and training of everyone from age five onwards. We must not drop people at 16 or 19. Let us make sure that there is no conflict between basic research and applied research. Basic research is extremely important to innovation. There is no false dichotomy between basic science and applied science. Unless we invest much more in education—primary, secondary and tertiary—and in research and development, we shall not be able to have the sustained foundation that we require for manufacturing.”
Last year he spoke in the Lords about the Palestinian problem: “The Israel- Palestine problem, or the Israel-Hamas problem, did not start in October 2023; it started in November 1917, and we still have it. Some here may remember Arthur Koestler, who was a communist and then became an ex-communist and was one of the few people who worked on a kibbutz in the 1920s. He said that: ‘One nation solemnly promised to a second nation the country of a third.’
“That was very much the message. Before Palestine had fallen from the Ottoman Empire, it was signed over to welcome Jews from all over Europe and America to come and make a nation.
“It is a fact—I have been reading lots of books about this—that at no stage did we say that the Palestinians had any claim on the territory where they had been living for several centuries. That is the dilemma: two communities of very ancient origin can claim, truthfully and simultaneously, that it is their country and no one else’s. It has taken 100 years to prove who is right, and neither group is. We have to solve this problem because for a long time, not just since October 2023, there has been a lot of killing and damage done to both communities, carried out with a passion that is quite surprising. Obviously, being an atheist, I blame religion for this. The children of Abraham have quarrelled with each other now for about 2,000 years. After all, anti-Semitism was not invented recently; it was invented by the Christians, and the rest we know.
Desai said, “Everybody has been nice to me. I have had a lovely life.”
“We need to think about how to stop the Israel-Palestine war right now, as soon as possible, and then about how to rehouse the refugees scattered throughout Syria, Lebanon, Iraq and all those places, as well as people who are being thrown out of Gaza, the West Bank and everywhere else.”
His voice will be missed not only in the Lords but the wider British Asian community where he was a familiar figure at book launches and political and cultural functions.
Desai said he has never faced racism: “Everybody has been nice to me. I have had a lovely life.”
Lord Meghnad Desai, the British Indian economist, author, and peer in the House of Lords, has died at the age of 85, sources close to the family confirmed on Tuesday (29).
Desai is understood to have passed away in hospital in Gurugram, India, following a health complication. His death was confirmed by family contacts in London.
Born in Gujarat, Desai was a prominent figure in UK academic and political circles, known for his work in economics and his efforts to strengthen ties between the United Kingdom and India.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi led tributes, describing Desai as a "distinguished thinker, writer and economist".
“Anguished by the passing away of Shri Meghnad Desai Ji,” Modi wrote on social media. “He always remained connected to India and Indian culture. He also played a role in deepening India-UK ties. Will fondly recall our discussions, where he shared his valuable insights. Condolences to his family and friends. Om Shanti.”
A recipient of India’s Padma Bhushan award, Desai served as a professor of economics at the London School of Economics from 1965 to 2003. He joined the Labour Party in 1971 and was appointed to the House of Lords in June 1991.
Lord Rami Ranger, a fellow peer, described Desai as “a pillar of the community who worked tirelessly and made significant contributions to many worthy causes, including the Gandhi Memorial Statue at Parliament, which I collaborated on with him.”
“He will be greatly missed. We pray for a place in heaven for the departed soul and strength for his family during this difficult time,” Ranger said. (Agencies)
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The men avoided deportation nearly a decade ago by renouncing their Pakistani citizenship to claim statelessness, and remain in the UK despite repeated court rejections, as Pakistan had refused to accept them. (Representational image: iStock)
TWO ringleaders of the Rochdale grooming gang, Qari Abdul Rauf and Adil Khan, could be deported to Pakistan by the end of the year, according to a Pakistani government official.
The UK has been trying to deport the pair for years following their convictions. Negotiations have intensified since the UK lifted its five-year ban on Pakistani International Airlines (PIA) in July. The Times reported that Pakistan has used the case of Rauf and Khan as leverage in efforts to remove the airline suspension.
A senior Pakistani official involved in the talks said the country’s interior ministry must issue legal clearance before the deportation can proceed.
“I believe a resolution could be reached within a month or two, although there are some legal and political complexities involved. Once they provide clearance, it will be passed to the foreign ministry, which will finalise the acceptance of Rauf and Khan,” the official said to The Times.
The men avoided deportation nearly a decade ago by renouncing their Pakistani citizenship before a court appeal, successfully arguing they would be left stateless. Despite judges rejecting their appeals multiple times, they remain in the UK because Pakistan had refused to accept them.
Immigration law expert Osama Malik told The Times Pakistan’s willingness to accept them despite the nationality issue was surprising and could set a precedent. He suggested Pakistan may expect investment and aid in return.
Paul Waugh, Labour MP for Rochdale, said he was encouraged by the progress. “Ever since I was elected, I have been working constantly with ministers to deport these Rochdale grooming gang ringleaders to Pakistan,” he said.
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The accident took place in Jharkhand state. Visuals from the scene showed the bus’s rear portion almost entirely burnt and the vehicle badly damaged.
AT LEAST 18 people died in eastern India on Tuesday when a bus carrying Hindu pilgrims collided with a truck transporting cooking gas cylinders, officials said.
The accident took place in Jharkhand state. Visuals from the scene showed the bus’s rear portion almost entirely burnt and the vehicle badly damaged.
Local lawmaker Nishikant Dubey said the pilgrims were on their way to a Hindu shrine to celebrate the sacred month of Shravan, which coincides with the monsoon season in the subcontinent.
"18 devotees lost their lives due to a bus and truck accident," Dubey said on social media.
Officials said the pilgrims were carrying holy water from the Ganges to offer to Lord Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction.
Indian Prime minister Narendra Modi expressed his condolences to the families of those killed.
"The road accident in Jharkhand's Deoghar is extremely tragic," his office said on social media. "Deepest condolences to the families of the devotees who lost their lives."
According to official data, tens of thousands of people die in road accidents in India each year. Transport minister Nitin Gadkari told parliament that more than 172,000 people were killed in road crashes in 2023.
In November last year, a bus plunged into a deep Himalayan ravine in Uttarakhand, killing at least 36 passengers and injuring several others.