Long wait over: It’s taken some generations to win permission to get the first Hindu crematorium in Britain. That permission has finally been granted to the Anoopam Mission to build one next to its temple in Buckinghamshire. Appropriate landscaping and biodiversity elements will come up alongside in Denham. At present, the Hindu community uses church halls and other facilities widely available to all.
Stolen history: An Oxford professor has raised a question that has been on many people’s minds, particularly the minds of Indians, for decades: the number of auctions that take place where precious Indian artefacts are bought and sold, without questions asked where they all come from. Archaeologist Prof Dan Hicks has asked that question pointedly on the BBC programme The Antiques Roadshow. He raised the question after a historian on the show remarked that a precious ring had found its way “somehow” to Britain.
Trade troubles: After all the noise for years now over an imminent trade deal between Britain and India following Brexit, it emerges that trade deals between India and the UAE and with Israel will beat the British to it. In Britain, the post-Brexit bonanza promised has not quite been delivered, not with India or any other. A deal with Australia will not bring significant new trade. The resignation of the Brexit minister will not help, it is an indication of the way British government plans are falling apart.
Omicron takes a bite out of UK’s Indian food business: The great Indian boat for long is coming back to bite Indians in Britain. By one estimate, even if its methodology was suspect or at least questionable, there are more Indian restaurants in Britain than in Delhi and Mumbai combined. But no one doubts that Indian cuisine is by far the most popular in Britain, even if a bulk of Indian cuisine is offered by Bangladeshi-run restaurants. Now the flow to restaurants has frozen up in the wave of the Omicron spread. Indian food and Indian food business, estimated to be worth about 4 billion pounds a year, is taking a big hit, again.
Sunak in the soup: Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak is eminently silent on any magic proposals to help out the food and catering business in Britain, Indian or otherwise. Last year he spent 1.5 billion pounds of taxpayer money on his Eat Out to Help Out scheme subsidising dining out. That only became a factor in spreading the second wave of the virus. Now any possibility of a proposal has hit a bigger setback: the government has no money to contemplate such offers.
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