Asian leaders welcome high commissioner as anniversary of expulsion marked
By AMIT ROYAug 16, 2022
NIMISHA MADHVANI, whose appointment as Uganda’s high commissioner in London was reported in Eastern Eye last December, took up her post last week.
She does so at an important phase in Uganda-UK relations.
First, 2022 marks the 50th anniversary of Idi Amin’s expulsion of 90,000 Uganda Asians, nearly 30,000 of whom arrived as refugees in the UK, but have since built successful and prosperous lives in this country.
Second, president Yoweri Museveni, who has been trying to encourage Asians to return or otherwise get involved in his country’s economic development, will be in London for a trade and business summit from September 10-13.
Museveni has sent a video message of reconciliation to Ugandan Asians in Britain, seeking closure on the events of 50 years ago and right the wrongs of history. He said, “Our country Uganda has a special relationship with the UK and the Commonwealth in dealing with issues of economy, culture, history, and the fight to end poverty.”
And added, “The coming month of August and September 2022 are very special in our relationship. First, we have the Uganda-UK convention, which many entrepreneurs from Uganda wish to attend.
“And second, Uganda commemorates 50 years of struggle, recovery and ending human rights abuses that Idi Amin, in August of 1972, visited on the Asian community, the very community that had been a seed for Uganda’s business (and) independence in 1962.”
The president added: “Many of these Asians eventually ended up in the UK. However, in the last 30 years, our economy has grown at an average rate of 6 percentage points per annum. We have returned all Asian properties that Amin confiscated. And the children of the people he expelled are busy helping rebuild their country today.”
Museveni also said: “As we look back on the events of August 1972, we are reminded of the need to be careful with treatment of minorities. This is the reason our government takes an inclusive stand on all aspects of life, faith, ethnicity, and other aspects of national life.”
He emphasised: “The best way to close this chapter is raise the overall productivity of the Ugandan citizens, so as to raise their social classes and end poverty.”
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda (Photo by Hannah McKay - WPA Pool/Getty Images)
Museveni’s decision to appoint Nimisha as the first Asian in such a senior job has been welcomed by key figures, including the Tory peer, Lord Dolar Popat, the British prime minister’s trade envoy to Uganda as well as to Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He told Eastern Eye: “I hope there will soon be direct flights between the UK and Uganda.”
Nimisha, who belongs to Uganda’s premier Asian business family, is one of her country’s most experienced diplomats.
She was born in Kakira in eastern Uganda in 1959 to Meena and Jayant Madhvani, both Ugandan citizens of Indian descent. Jayant was the firstborn of the five sons of Mulji Prabhudas Madhvani (1894–1958), the industrialist and entrepreneur who founded the Madhvani group of companies in 1930.
Nimisha grew up at the family estate in Kakira, about an hour and a half’s drive east of the capital, Kampala. When Amin expelled Ugandan Asians in 1972, she sought refuge in Britain with her family as a 13-year-old teenager. When the National Resistance Movement captured power in the 1980s, the Madhvani family returned to Uganda and repossessed their assets. Nimisha’s mother returned to Kampala just a month after Amin fled the country in 1979.
In 1992, Museveni sought to restore the war-torn economy and urged the Indians to return to Uganda and become part of the country’s economic life. Laws were changed to allow the restoration of confiscated property to their Indian owners. Though most Ugandan Asians had made a new life for themselves after leaving Uganda, a few Indians did return to take over their property and factories.
Nimisha joined her country’s diplomatic service in 1990. She was posted to Washington as first secretary at the Ugandan embassy. In 2007, Indians were intrigued when she was transferred to New Delhi as Uganda’s deputy high commissioner and promoted to high commissioner a year later. She was concurrently accredited to Bangladesh, Bhutan, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka and Thailand.
She told one Indian newspaper about Uganda: “To many of us, though we lived in the UK or other places around the world, Uganda still held a place in our hearts. It was always home.”
In 2008, Museveni attended the Afro-Indian summit in New Delhi where he “made a strong pitch for Indian investment in Uganda. Relating an anecdote to illustrate the kind of opportunities awaiting in Uganda, he said Ugandans had a long history as cattle breeders and produced good quality beef and milk, but most of the milk in Uganda was thrown away. An Indian-Ugandan joint venture, Sameer Dairy, had set up milk collection and cooling centres in several parts of the country to collect and process milk. Now Uganda was poised to become a milk exporter.”
In 2014, Nimisha was transferred to the Ugandan embassy in Paris as ambassador, serving in that capacity until 2017.
While in Paris, she also served as her country’s ambassador to Portugal, Spain, OECD and the UNESCO.
In January 2017, she was appointed as Uganda’s ambassador to Abu Dhabi and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
In November 2018, she was posted to Uganda’s embassy in Copenhagen, and simultaneously accredited to Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden.
Nimisha’s priority will be to boost Uganda’s exports to the UK and encourage British investment in her country.
Museveni has appealed to the UK to buy more of Uganda’s agricultural produce.
In his message he said he was appealing to the British “to allow in larger quantities of Ugandan fruits and other vegetables, flowers, beef, fish, dairy products, grains, coffee (and) honey”.
He argued: “Trade is a tool for positive change, stability, and the welfare of all humanity. “We are working hard to ensure all our food and trade standards meet the international criteria. And we should soon support the exporters to the UK with a credit fund to allow them to fulfill the orders you give them.
“We’re also working with the UK Export Finance to improve our export infrastructure at our border entry points and make it easier to trade.”
He had an explanation for the quality of Uganda’s produce. “These foods are very good foods and they are very unique because of our altitude.”
He quipped: “I don’t know why our bananas are the best in the world – I have no idea. It must be because of the soil and the altitude.”
He also spoke about “millet flour mixed with the cassava flour. They are the richest in life because they have protein, carbohydrate and iron all in one. That’s why some of the African tribes are very strong for they live on this food. They’re very delicious, very, very nice, but also very nutritive.”
He believed enhanced trade would help to “end poverty and bring prosperity and stability to our region”.
SEEMA MALHOTRA and Dr Zubir Ahmed have been appointed to new ministerial roles as part of Keir Starmer’s reshuffle, which followed Angela Rayner’s resignation as housing secretary and deputy prime minister.
Ahmed takes up the role of parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Department of Health and Social Care.
Malhotra becomes parliamentary under-secretary of state in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office while continuing as parliamentary under-secretary of state (minister for equalities) in the Department for Education.
The reshuffle also saw Ellie Reeves removed as cabinet minister without portfolio and Labour Party chair. She has been appointed solicitor general, replacing Lucy Rigby, who moves to the Treasury as economic secretary.
Reeves’s former roles go to Anna Turley, promoted from the Whips Office to minister without portfolio in the Cabinet Office and Labour Party chair.
Other changes include Sarah Jones and Alex Norris joining the Home Office under new home secretary Shabana Mahmood, with Mike Tapp also appointed as a Home Office minister.
Daniel Zeichner was removed as farming minister, while Jason Stockwood, Poppy Gustaffson and Jim McMahon also departed or moved roles.
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London Underground services will not resume before 8am on Friday September 12. (Photo: Getty Images)
First London Underground strike since March 2023 begins
RMT members stage five-day walkout after pay talks collapse
Union demands 32-hour week; TfL offers 3.4 per cent rise
Elizabeth line and Overground to run but face heavy demand
THE FIRST London Underground strike since March 2023 has begun, with a five-day walkout over pay and conditions.
Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union are staging rolling strikes after nine months of negotiations failed.
The union has demanded a 32-hour week, while Transport for London (TfL) has offered a 3.4 per cent pay rise.
TfL said the offer was “fair” but added that a reduction from the contractual 35-hour week “is neither practical nor affordable,” BBC reported.
The strike runs from midnight on Sunday 7 September until 11.59pm on Thursday 11 September. London Underground services will not resume before 8am on Friday 12 September.
Nick Dent, director of customer operations at London Underground, said it was not too late to call off the strikes before disruption.
The Elizabeth line and London Overground will run as normal but are expected to be much busier. Buses and roads are also likely to see heavier demand.
A separate dispute will shut the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) on Tuesday 9 and Thursday 11 September.
Service plans include: limited Tube operations ending early on Sunday 7 September; little or no service on the Underground from Monday to Thursday; and full resumption by late morning on Friday 12 September. The Elizabeth line will not stop at Liverpool Street, Farringdon and Tottenham Court Road stations at certain times on 8–11 September, Sky News reported.
The last full Tube strike took place in March 2023.
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Mumbai Local has been stripped of its licence by Harrow council. (Photo: LDRS/Google Maps)
AN INDIAN restaurant in north London has lost its licence after it was found to have repeatedly employed illegal workers.
Harrow council determined that the evidence suggested that using illegal workers was a “systemic approach” to running the premises and it had a “lack of trust” in the business to comply with the law.
Harrow council’s Licensing Panel chose to strip Mumbai Local, an Indian restaurant on Streatfield Road, of its licence at a meeting on August 20, the outcome of which has now been made public.
The review came after Immigration Officers found people working there illegally on three separate visits dating back to 2023.
The panel found that the restaurant owner had “disregarded the law” on employing illegal workers on a number of occasions and it “had no trust” in them to remedy the situation.
An option to simply suspend the licence was considered but the panel concluded that it had “no confidence” in the licence holder’s ability to comply with their legal obligations and had “no choice” but to revoke it entirely.
The Home Office had called on Harrow council to review Mumbai Local’s licence due to a “continual pattern” of hiring illegal workers.
Immigration Officers told the panel that six illegal workers had been found at the restaurant following a visit on November 16, 2023, with a further two found during a follow up visit on July 4, 2024.
A compliance check was carried out on July 17, 2025, where a man who had previously been arrested was present on the premises, as well as another lady who told officers she would get the manager before disappearing.
On August 15, 2024, the company running the restaurant was given a £120,000 civil penalty for employing two people who did not have the right to work. This was reduced to £60,000 for employing one illegal worker following an appeal. A further appeal has been lodged but this remains ongoing.
The premises licence holder (PLH) “held their hands up” to the illegal workers being on the premises in November 2023, according to the meeting minutes, but claimed that the July 2024 incident “had more to it”. The PLH claims this worker came to the country having been sponsored by an IT company that went bust so he was out of work. They suggested the man is “like a son” to them and provided free food to him as he had nowhere to go and believes he “has a duty towards him”.
The PLH tried to suggest that the panel suspend the licence for just one month, claiming this would already “be crippling” to the business but the panel would “never see him again” as they had no other sanctions against them. However, under questioning the PLH admitted that there had been issues at another premises they own and they were forced to pay a £30,000 fine.
Ultimately, the panel didn’t feel the option of a suspension and additional conditions imposed on the licence “would be an appropriate remedy”. It determined that it “did not have the confidence in the PLH’s ability to comply with his legal obligations and had no option but to use their powers to revoke the licence.”
(Local Democracy Reporting Service)
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FILE PHOTO: US president Donald Trump meets with Indian prime minister Narendra Modi at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 13, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US PRESIDENT Donald Trump said India and Russia seem to have been "lost" to China after their leaders met with Chinese president Xi Jinping this week, expressing his annoyance at New Delhi and Moscow as Beijing pushes a new world order.
"Looks like we've lost India and Russia to deepest, darkest, China. May they have a long and prosperous future together!" Trump wrote in a social media post accompanying a photo of the three leaders together at Xi's summit in China.
"I don't think we have," he said. "I've been very disappointed that India would be buying so much oil, as you know, from Russia. And I let them know that."
Asked about Trump's social media post, India's foreign ministry told reporters in New Delhi that it had no comment. The Chinese foreign ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment and representatives for the Kremlin could not be immediately reached.
Xi hosted more than 20 leaders of non-Western countries for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the Chinese port city of Tianjin, including Russian president Vladimir Putin and Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
Putin and Modi were seen holding hands at the summit as they walked toward Xi before all three men stood side by side.
"I'll always be friends with Modi," Trump told reporters. "He's a great prime minister. He's great. I'll always be friends, but I just don't like what he's doing at this particular moment. But India and the US have a special relationship. There's nothing to worry about. We just have moments on occasion."
"Deeply appreciate and fully reciprocate president Trump's sentiments and positive assessment of our ties," the Indian prime minister said in an X post early on Saturday (6).
India and the US have a "very positive ... forward-looking Comprehensive and Global Strategic Partnership," Modi said.
Trump has chilled US-India ties amid trade tensions and other disputes. Trump this week said he was "very disappointed" in Putin but not worried about growing Russia-China ties.
Trump has been frustrated at his inability to convince Russia and Ukraine to reach an end to their war, more than three years after Russian forces invaded Ukraine.
He told reporters on Thursday (4) night at the White House that he planned to talk to Putin soon.
(Reuters)
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Nigel Farage gestures as he speaks during the party's national conference at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, Britain, September 5, 2025. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes
POPULIST leader Nigel Farage vowed to start preparing for government, saying the nation's two main parties were in meltdown and only his Reform UK could ease the anger and despair plaguing the country to "make Britain great again".
To a prolonged standing ovation by a crowd at the annual party conference on Friday (5), Farage for the first time offered a vision of how Britain would be under a Reform government: He pledged to end the arrival of illegal migrants in boats in two weeks, bring back "stop-and-search" policing and scrap net zero policies.
Despite having only four lawmakers in the 650-strong British parliament, Farage is becoming increasingly confident that his party - which was on the fringes for three years until last year - can beat both Labour and the Conservatives, taking the initiative on every issue from immigration to free speech.
Everything from the large crowds queuing to enter the two-day, sold-out conference in the English city of Birmingham, to the standing ovations and Farage chants, underscored a newfound confidence in the party which, according to current opinion polls, is on course to take power at an election due in 2029.
Farage said British people frequently told him he was "the last chance we've got to get this country back on track", describing the nation as being abandoned by Labour and as being run by unqualified people "not fit for government".
"All I can do is promise that I will give this everything, I will give this absolutely everything that I've got," he said. "No one cares more about the state of this country than I do. I am determined to do something about it."
When he spoke later on the stage to encourage supporters to attend an evening party, one young woman shouted "Tax the rich!", prompting six security guards to carry her out of the conference hall.
Zia Yusuf looks on during the party's national conference at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham, Britain, September 5, 2025. REUTERS/Isabel Infantes
Unveiling a new defection to Reform from the Conservatives - former culture secretay Nadine Dorries - Farage said he was setting up a department for the preparation of government and appointing ex-Reform chairman Zia Yusuf as head of policy.
He said the move was part of "the next steps" - the banner of the conference - towards government, building on Reform victories at local elections earlier this year and the increasing professionalism of a party once better known for candidates making reported racist or offensive remarks.
Loved or loathed after being instrumental in winning the 2016 Brexit referendum to get Britain out of the European Union, Farage says that by bolstering his team, the party will be a fighting force well before 2029, when the next election is expected.
Farage has led the running against Britain's traditional two mainstream parties on immigration, unveiling - when prime minister Keir Starmer was on holiday - a plan to repeal human rights laws to allow for mass deportations of asylum seekers.
Despite analysts questioning the legality of those plans, they seemingly prodded the government into beefing up its own plans to tackle the high numbers of arrivals.
Farage has also orchestrated a debate about freedom of speech in Britain, criticising arrests of people for making comments on social media deemed to incite violence.
A friend of Donald Trump, Farage went to Washington this week to urge US politicians to persuade Britain to put an end to what he called a North Korea-style clampdown on free speech, before visiting the US leader in his Oval Office.
Starmer criticised Farage for going to Washington to criticise Britain, calling it "unpatriotic".
Reform UK has yet to command as many political donations as the two main parties, and it was not clear how many business representatives were at the conference, although Farage promised to end what he called an "exodus" of the wealthy from Britain.
Before leaving the stage to blaring music and pyrotechnics, he said the party's ambitious programme was what Britain needs.
"It needs hope, it needs belief, it needs to smile again, it needs to believe in who we are."