Ugandan Asians in spotlight
A series of exhibitions are to show the 40-year history of Leicester's Ugandan Asian community.
About 10,000 Asians settled in the city after dictator Idi Amin expelled them from Uganda in 1972. Now, the stories of those affected, from their expulsion to their arrival, adaptation and developing role in the city's culture and life, will be brought to life in displays at the New Walk Museum and Art Gallery.
The exhibition is called From Kampala to Leicester: The Story of Leicester's Ugandan Asian Community 1972-2012. A season of events will run from Saturday to September 30.
City mayor Peter Soulsby will officially launch the exhibitions today.
He said: "Anyone with an interest in the Leicester we see today will be fascinated by this important phase in its past, which is illustrated so beautifully, thanks to these events."
Full details of the exhibition and events programme is available at:www.leicester.gov.uk/ ugandanasianstory
Festival promises taste of Asian life
The tastes, sights and sounds of Asia will take over the city centre this weekend for the annual Mela festival.
On Sunday, two stages in the city centre will host dance and music while the market place sizzles with the finest curries, bhajis and samosas.
The organisers of the Leicester Belgrave Mela promise it will be "a glittering mix of live music, dance, fashion and food".
Festival director Sanjib Singh Sahota said: "It promises to be bigger and better than ever before.
"This summer, we are inviting the whole of the UK to experience our famous Mela Shopping Bazaar, a whole host of free South Asian arts activities, delightful dance, music, electrifying entertainment – and a few celebrity guests.
"It's going to be a great day out for the whole family."
Special guests flying in from India especially for the event will include Rucha Hasabnis and Vishal Singh, who play the characters Rashi and Jigar in the popular Star Plus series, Saath Nidhana Saathiya.
BBC Asian Network, which helps organise the Mela, has invited performers including Navin Kundra, the Stranger Family, Foji and Mobo award-winner Raghav.
Hosts on the stages will include Leicester-born Star TV presenter Nishil Saujani and BBC Radio Leicester's Rupal Rajani.
Other fun will include a climbing tower and sports activities.
Pradip Popat, of Mirch Masla restaurant, which will have two stalls at the Mela this year selling food, said: "There's always an amazing atmosphere with brilliant music and culture and there are always more people than ever in the city centre when the Mela's on.
"I've got my fingers crossed for good weather and I think it will be the best and the biggest ever."
About 25 youngsters from Kuntal's School of Bollywood Dancing will be performing on the main stage in Humberstone Gate and on the smaller stage near the Clock Tower.
Kuntal Indulkar, who runs the school, said: "We have dancers aged from six to 25 who will be performing and they're very excited.
"It will be our third year taking part. We had rehearsals at the weekend with the costumes all the parents helped make and we can't wait for Sunday."
The Mela was first held in 1982 on Cossington Recreation Ground, Belgrave, as the Belgrave Festival before moving to Abbey Park, and then the city centre. It became the model for similar summer festivals in Manchester, London, Cambridge and Newcastle.
This year's event, which will be broadcast on BBC Asian Network, starts at 11am and finishes at 6pm.
Christianity definitely not a religion, it's a way of life
While FO Hipwell is perfectly free to be an atheist (Offensive, but I'd go further, Mailbox, July 3), I notice he only "suggests" God "may also be a fairytale".
So there does appear to be an element of doubt in his mind.
Like Mr Hipwell, I started out (in my case almost 60 years ago) believing there could not be a God, but life has taught me a lot about God, about people and the world we live in, and I now believe in God 100 per cent.
I was not misled by anyone, but made my own mind up.
I believe God created the world, but it is actually "ruled" by other forces. which explains why bad things happen.
Some people are good and some are bad. Sometimes things on Earth can get so bad that God may intervene to avoid his plans being thwarted.
I believe this may have happened in the 18th century when John Wesley preached in the British Isles and America.
People in our towns and cities were smitten by the power of God which accompanied Wesley and other evangelists when they preached, so this outpouring of the Holy Spirit is a historical fact.
This was especially relevant in Leicestershire. Further study of the Baptist preachers of Barton in the Beans, Lady Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, and Thomas Cook, provides a great deal of evidence of the existence of God.
Above all else in my own mind is the belief that Christianity is definitely not a religion, but a way of life.
Minimal regulation is necessary. God only requires us to love Him and to love our neighbours.
God actually came to Earth in the form of Jesus Christ.
I have found that in accepting this amazing fact, everything else fits into place and documentary proof is not needed.
Nigel Mutimer, Coalville
City's Dean honoured by new role at York Minster
Dean of Leicester, the Very Rev Vivienne Faull, has been given the task of running one of England's biggest cathedrals.
Downing Street announced yesterday that Dean Faull was to be the new dean at York Minster – one of the most senior and prestigious deaneries in the Church of England.
Dean Faull, 57, has been responsible for Leicester Cathedral since 2000, when she was appointed provost of Leicester, the first woman to lead a Church of England cathedral. She became Dean of Leicester in 2002.
She said she was delighted and honoured to have been given the task of running one of England's biggest cathedrals.
She also thanked the people of Leicester for their support.
"The people of the parishes of the diocese, and of the cathedral, have gently and generously taken me into their care as I have learnt with and from them how to be a dean," she said.
"It is, of course, daunting to move from one of the smallest to one of the largest cathedrals, but I know there are many people who care deeply for York Minster, its mission and ministry, and I look forward to leading a large team on its continued development."
The Bishop of Leicester, the Rt Rev Tim Stevens, said: "I am delighted Viv Faull has been appointed as the next Dean of York.
"She has been a great ambassador for the cathedral and will leave it in a stronger position. I am glad her vision and leadership qualities will continue to be used in cathedral ministry."
Dean Faull has been at the forefront of the role of women in the church and was ordained in 1994.
She has been a member of the General Synod since 2004 and is on the panel of Chairs of Synod.
In 2009, she was elected chairman of the Association of English Cathedrals, the cathedrals' representative body.
She was also one of the founder directors of the company tasked with delivering St Martin's House, in Leicester, as the new centre for mission for the diocese, housing the offices of the diocese and cathedral. She succeeds Keith Jones, who retired in April, and is expected to take up her new post in September.
Although excited to be moving back north, Dean Faull says she will miss Leicester.
She said: "Having lived here for 12 years, I will leave part of my heart here, the city is very special."
Details regarding a service of farewell in Leicester Cathedral and her installation in York Minster will be published soon.
Mount Everest: the ethical dilemma facing climbers
Since the first recorded deaths on Everest in 1922, 233 people have lost their lives trying to reach (and return from) the summit of the earth's highest peak. As expedition organisers' experience has grown and equipment improved, the ratio of fatalities to success has fallen. But the sheer numbers of people now climbing Everest – more reached the summit on a single day in 2010 than in the 30 years after the first 1953 ascent – means 70 deaths have occurred since 2000 – including 10 this year.
The deadliest situations occur when large numbers of climbers, all relying on the same forecasts, decide to take advantage of a weather window to make their summit bid at once. This can quickly lead to dangerous, oxygen-wasting bottlenecks of two hours and more, particularly on the more popular southern approach pioneered by Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay in 1953, which follows a single rope line over almost 10km to the summit.
That is what happened when Leanna Shuttleworth, 19, and her father Mark headed for the 29,035ft summit on May 19-20. Up to 200 others had the same idea; six of them lost their lives. "There were quite a few bodies attached to the fixed lines and we had to walk round them", Shuttleworth said later. "There were also a couple who were still alive." Shuttleworth describes coming across one man who she assumed had perished. "As we passed he raised his arm and looked at us," she said. "He didn't know anyone was there. He was almost dead. He was dead when we came back down." Their sherpa did manage to help one of the people they found who was still alive.
The debate around ethics on Everest has raged since 2006, when an estimated 40 climbers passed a dying British mountaineer, David Sharp, without stopping. A week later a US climber, Don Mazur, and his team gave up their own summit bid to co-ordinate the rescue of an abandoned Australian, Lincoln Hall. He survived. On the weekend the Shuttleworths reached the summit, an Israeli climber, Nadav Ben Yehuda, carried a Turkish-born American climber, Aydin Irmak, to safety on his back for eight hours. So should the Shuttleworths have stopped and tried to help? There are no formal guidelines issued to climbers, and we don't know the risk it might have meant for their own lives. But can it ever be right, in the words of mountain leaders Chris and Simon Holloway, for climbers to "carry on to the summit, while there are living people dying behind them"? Ben Yehuda, a former soldier, described his decision to stop as "automatic". For others, it plainly isn't. In an era when climbing Everest has become a form of extreme tourism open to anyone with $10,000, has human life come to count for less than the fulfillment of a personal ambition?
