08 The soul and radiant colours of DIWALI
13
Understanding the perception and practice of Homosexuality in Pakistan
01 NOV 2015
Issue 9
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14 Ghap Shap with Citizen Khan star Adil Ray
Working Tax Credit Cuts:
Are Asian communities
hardest hit? Within months of the general election, the Conservative party has suffered a damaging series of defeats on plans to introduce radical reforms of the Working Tax Credit scheme. Earlier in the week, the House of Lords controversially voted to halt the cuts until the government produces a scheme to compensate low-paid workers for three years. On Thursday, MP’s and backbenchers worried about the backlash to the tax credit cuts voted on a backbench motion calling on the government to “reconsider the effect on the lowest paid workers of its proposed changes to tax credits due to come into force in April 2016, to carry out and publish analysis of that effect, and to put forward proposals to mitigate it” Official figures show that the majority of areas with the highest levels of recipients of working tax credits have significant percentages of Asian families. The UN’s committee on the covenant on economic, social, and cultural rights (CESCR) announced that it plans to ask the British government how its austerity measures affect, in particular, disadvantaged and marginalised individuals and groups. There is a focus on the impact upon ethnic minorities.
Read more on pages 6 and 7
HAPPY DIWALI FROM THE ENTIRE TEAM AT ASIAN SUNDAY