The Asian Today
Encyclopedia
Gratis
Gratis is the process of providing goods or services without compensation. It is often referred to in English as "free of charge" or "complimentary"...
fortnightly community
Community
The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...
newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
published and distributed in the Midlands
English Midlands
The Midlands, or the English Midlands, is the traditional name for the area comprising central England that broadly corresponds to the early medieval Kingdom of Mercia. It borders Southern England, Northern England, East Anglia and Wales. Its largest city is Birmingham, and it was an important...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
It is a community newspaper providing the region's south-Asian community access to important news
News
News is the communication of selected information on current events which is presented by print, broadcast, Internet, or word of mouth to a third party or mass audience.- Etymology :...
stories, current events and encouraging community interaction and dialogie as well as provoking debate
Debate
Debate or debating is a method of interactive and representational argument. Debate is a broader form of argument than logical argument, which only examines consistency from axiom, and factual argument, which only examines what is or isn't the case or rhetoric which is a technique of persuasion...
and discussion.
The Asian Today began in September 2002 under its original name, The Asian Leader
Asian Leader
The Asian Today is a community newspaper providing the region's south-Asian community access to important news stories, current events and encouraging community interaction and dialogue as well as provoking debate and discussion....
, before briefly adopting Your Leader in August 2005 and then permanently rebranding itself as The Asian Today in September 2005.
The newspaper is one of the few English language
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
newspapers circulated in the Asian
Asian people
Asian people or Asiatic people is a term with multiple meanings that refers to people who descend from a portion of Asia's population.- Central Asia :...
community but is said to be the widest read ethnic newspaper in the Midlands. Its distribution and readership spans Birmingham
Birmingham
Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...
, Nottingham
Nottingham
Nottingham is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England. It is located in the ceremonial county of Nottinghamshire and represents one of eight members of the English Core Cities Group...
, Leicester
Leicester
Leicester is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands of England, and the county town of Leicestershire. The city lies on the River Soar and at the edge of the National Forest...
, Walsall
Walsall
Walsall is a large industrial town in the West Midlands of England. It is located northwest of Birmingham and east of Wolverhampton. Historically a part of Staffordshire, Walsall is a component area of the West Midlands conurbation and part of the Black Country.Walsall is the administrative...
, Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton
Wolverhampton is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands, England. For Eurostat purposes Walsall and Wolverhampton is a NUTS 3 region and is one of five boroughs or unitary districts that comprise the "West Midlands" NUTS 2 region...
and Coventry
Coventry
Coventry is a city and metropolitan borough in the county of West Midlands in England. Coventry is the 9th largest city in England and the 11th largest in the United Kingdom. It is also the second largest city in the English Midlands, after Birmingham, with a population of 300,848, although...
, largely emcompassing areas with a high south-Asian population where it can be collected in takeaways, supermarkets, taxi ranks, community centres and entertainment and cultural outlets.
The newspaper has broken numerous national stories including an exclusive interview with Dr Mohammad Naseem on the subject of terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
which was followed up by the mainstream press as well as shocking revelations of systematic abuse of a veiled Muslim woman, Mrs Mahfooz Bibi, at the hands of police officers, which was widely cited by national and international press and in religious and cultural forums and even picked up by the Muslim Voice UK. Most recently, the newspaper featured the threat of violent protests from prominent UK Sikh leader, Sewa Singh Mandla, after the Sikh
Sikh
A Sikh is a follower of Sikhism. It primarily originated in the 15th century in the Punjab region of South Asia. The term "Sikh" has its origin in Sanskrit term शिष्य , meaning "disciple, student" or शिक्ष , meaning "instruction"...
community was angered by the a Bollywood
Bollywood
Bollywood is the informal term popularly used for the Hindi-language film industry based in Mumbai , Maharashtra, India. The term is often incorrectly used to refer to the whole of Indian cinema; it is only a part of the total Indian film industry, which includes other production centers producing...
film, Jo Bole So Nihaal, which they believed committed sacrilege
Sacrilege
Sacrilege is the violation or injurious treatment of a sacred object. In a less proper sense, any transgression against the virtue of religion would be a sacrilege. It can come in the form of irreverence to sacred persons, places, and things...
and also exposed the case of a Blackheath
Blackheath, West Midlands
Blackheath is a town in the Metropolitan Borough of Sandwell, West Midlands, England.-Establishment:Before 1841, Bleak Heath or Blake Heath was a small group of farm houses and inns on the turnpike road from Oldbury to Halesowen, within Rowley Regis...
imam who was suing a lottery-funded mosque.
The newspaper is published by Birmingham-based Urban Media Ltd. who also produce Desi Xpress
Desi Xpress
Desi Xpress was a weekly national entertainment newspaper, published in the United Kingdom by Urban Media Limited.-Background:Desi Xpress was first launched in the Midlands region in England in September 2004 before becoming national in September 2005.The entertainment weekly catered predominantly...
. The editor of The Asian Today is Zakia Yousaf.
Related links
Media coverage
All of the stories relating to Mahfooz Bibi were published after the Asian Leader Midlands broke the story and the subsequent follow-up.- West Midlands Police 'Racist' - Alleged Systematic Abuse - IndyMedia UK
- Police accused in veil dispute - Evening Mail
- West Midlands Police 'Racist' - Alleged Systematic Abuse - Mathaba News
- Police force Muslim woman to remove veil - Muslim Voice UK
- Police force Muslim woman to remove veil - www.Islam4you.co.uk
- Government accused of 'creating' terror threat - Evening Mail