91Èȱ¬

If you had asked me two and a half years ago what would be the dominant story during my time as head of news at the Asian Network, I would probably have said it would be the aftermath of the 7 July attacks on London's transport system.

At the start of 2006, when I joined the network from Radio 5 Live, it was only a few months after the suicide bombs that killed 52 people.

Many commuters were still nervous and many Asians, whether Muslim or not, were concerned about how the attacks would affect them and the way they were treated. It has indeed been a strong theme.

Only this week we were reporting about the efforts being made by counter terrorist officers in the North of England to persuade residents that they weren't picking on Muslims, rather responding to evidence and intelligence.

The fact that we could find almost no young Muslim in Bradford to talk to us on the record for fear of police reprisals goes to show how big a job the authorities have to do. We have also seen what police say are big plots uncovered and an attack on Glasgow airport.

But what I've really enjoyed about doing news for the Network is the richness of what we've been able to do.

My highlights include the story of Mirza Tahir Hussain, who was stranded on death row in Pakistan desperately protesting his innocence. It was a case we followed closely, interviewing him from his prison cell on a crackly mobile phone. I was incredibly surprised when his sentence was commuted, he was released and in an Asian Network studio all within a week.

Around the same time there was the story about the girl who was initially known as Molly Campbell who had seemingly been abducted and taken to Pakistan. The rights and wrongs of her moving to Pakistan to live with her father were discussed in courts and on the radio for months.

There was Shambo the bull, slaughtered after he was found to have TB despite the protests of the temple which owned him. Recently we covered a row over voting rights for women at a Gurdwara (a Sikh temple) in Bristol. Eventually women were elected to the committee for the first time.

At the frothier end of the news agenda we had the row over Shilpa Shetty and Jade Goody. Many thought it a fuss about nothing, but many listeners told our phone in programme that they saw Shilpa's treatment in the big brother house as a reflection of their own problems with racism in Britain.

We know Bollywood is popular with much of our audience. Perhaps our biggest Bollywood highlight was an interview by our Love Bollywood programme with Indian Film's golden couple, Aishrawaya Rai and Abishek Bachchan.

At the opposite end of the hard-soft news spectrum was the research done by Sanjiv Buttoo into in British Asian communities that became the documentary Asian Network report: Britain's missing girls. It won a Sony award this year which made us all very proud.

I suppose what I'm trying to get across is that bombs, terror, radicalism and al-Qaeda are important, but there is so much more to the British Asian communities that we report on and aim to serve at the Asian Network.

It's the that would make some suspect a conspiracy.

As our colleagues at Newsbeat were working up their story about MI6 (Rod blogged about it here yesterday), the Asian Network's reporter, Anna Cunningham, was interviewing two officers at MI5.

But as far as we can tell, MI5 and MI6 had not been liaising over the their public relations strategy.

After some detailed negotiations, Anna went into Thames House to meet two officers, Jayshree and Shazad. We assume they aren't their real names but we can't know for sure. They talked about their work and motivations. They were clearly passionate and committed to their jobs, believing that they were working for the good of the country. They spoke about how the July 7th attacks on London's public transport system convinced them of the value of what they were doing. We weren't allowed to ask them about MI5 policy but they did reject suggestions that they targeted Muslims. They told us they only focussed on individuals who they believed to be a threat.

Our audience reacted strongly to the story. We asked on our phone-in programme with Nihal, "would you join the security services?" Most callers, e-mailers and texters said no.

One said, "anyone who joined the security services is a 'coconut' and untrustworthy." Another said that, "after Iraq it would be impossible to expect a British Muslim to help the security services." Even on the other side there was some scepticism, "I would join the secret services - the best way to correct a system is 2 become part of it".

It seems obvious that MI5 agreed to the Asian Network request for an interview - amongst the many they must get - because they feel the need to recruit more British Asians. If what our audience tell us is anything to go by, they still have plenty more work to do.

What is a "coconut?"

It's perhaps a new term to you, but when we went on the street and talked to British Asians about their concerns, it was something that came up time and time again. "Coconut" is used by Asian people to describe other Asians who act or think like white people. The idea is that you may be brown on the outside but on the inside you are white - it can be used teasingly or it can be a deep insult.

We decided to do some more rigorous research about "coconuts" and a number of other issues of identity for the Asian Network's "Asian Nation" project. We commissioned a poll from ICM who asked Asians if they would describe themselves as a coconut. Perhaps not surprisingly for a term that is undoubtedly derogatory only 12 per cent did. But a third said that they thought you needed to BE a coconut to get on in British society. To find more about our poll have a look .

If you listen to the Asian Network you will know that the issues of identity crop up again and again as first, second, and now a third generation of people born and brought up here wrestle with their cultural identity. They all have to balance their cultural heritage with the influences they get from modern day British society.

The Asian Network project is our contribution to the 91Èȱ¬'s commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of partition. Other parts of the 91Èȱ¬ are looking closely at the events of 60 years ago and their effect on India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. We felt that our focus should be on our British Asian audience and we've asked them to send their thoughts on their lives now to be put up on our special website, which we've launched today.

Many Asian Network listeners regularly visit India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka to see family. So the story of Mirza Tahir Hussain really strikes home.

He says he was doing just that, heading to see his relatives in a taxi when the driver Jamshaid Khan robbed him at gunpoint and seemed to be about to sexually assault him. There was a struggle and the gun went off, fatally wounding the driver. Mirza Tahir Hussain says he then drove away before finding the police to report the incident. The police saw things very differently, accusing him of murdering Jamshaid Khan and stealing his car in an effort to raise money for drug dealing.

Mirza Tahir Hussain ended up in prison for 18 years, most of them in grim conditions on death row. The legal path he followed during that time seems convoluted and confusing. He was convicted before being acquitted by a higher court. He was then re-tried in a Sharia court, found guilty and the death sentence re-imposed.

This story was almost invisible until earlier this year when the campaign to free him led by his brother Amjad really took off. Amjad recruited MPs and MEPs. Prince Charles made representations on a visit to Pakistan and the High Commission in Islamabad embraced the case. As the story of a British Pakistani, we felt at the Asian Network that this was something our audience would want us to cover in depth.

We sent our reporter Sanjiv Buttoo to Pakistan to cover events as Mirza Tahir Hussain's execution date was set and then postponed again and again. We looked at the risks British Asians run when abroad and asked if they were all vulnerable to rough justice. We managed to interview Mirza Tahir Hussain from his prison cell on a smuggled-in mobile phone; a lonely voice pleading for his life. We also spoke to the family of the dead man - their anger over their own son's loss of life every bit as real as Amjad's desperation for his brother's release.

Once the news came that Mirza Tahir Hussain had been freed we really wanted to do the first broadcast interview with him. This was eventually secured by Sanjiv and done by our breakfast presenter Sonia Deol. You can listen to it here.

It's a deeply thought provoking interview. Mirza Tahir Hussain says the killing was an act of self-defence. The Pakistani justice system eventually concluded that it was murder. We have always tried to put both sides of the story. That's why Sonia questions him at length about the sequence of events.

Listening to Mirza Tahir Hussain now, it's clear how much he has suffered during his time in prison, watching his youth slip away, never knowing whether he had only days to go before the gallows. Whether that was justice done or a terrible wrong against him only he knows for sure.

At the Asian Network we often hear of the dilemmas that come from growing up in a country where sex outside marriage is widely accepted while living in a culture where it isn't. Young British Asians are often in sexual relationships but their parents disapprove.

At its worst we see it in what are often called 'honour killings' - young women murdered because of disapproval of their sex lives. These of course are very very rare. But this week in the Asian Network Report (which you can listen to by clicking here) we had an insight into some more common problems faced by our audience. We were told by the Brook Advisory Clinic in Birmingham that proportionately more young Asians than non Asians are coming to them after having unprotected sex, and that proportionately more young Asian women are referred for abortions.

Why? Well at least in some cases it seems that young British Asians want the sex but don't want to have contraceptives at home in case their parents find them. We looked at this problem through the eyes of people in Birmingham and Glasgow. Some of it sounds almost romantic. A young woman told us about leaving pillows under her duvet to fool her parents as she shinned down a drainpipe to go out with her mates. Some of it was tragic. We heard the painful tale of a woman who had contracted genital herpes after unprotected sex. She now feels she can never have the arranged marriage she wanted. How would she explain her illness to any potential husband?

But what are we to learn from this. Does it show that conservative parents are right? No sex is the only safe sex? Or does it show that Asian mums and dads need to teach their children about condoms and STIs? Well, we asked in our phone in programme with Anita Rani if we needed to talk more with our parents about sex. NO came the resounding response. The last thing either side of this generational divide wanted to do was to discuss the issue...

As head of news at the Asian Network, I work out of three offices, in Leicester, London and Birmingham. Of course I wasn't in any of them when news came through about the bombs in Mumbai. The first I heard of it was when I idly looked at my mobile phone - which was on silent during the meeting I was in. "Four missed calls". There was also a text from a colleague at 91Èȱ¬ World Service asking if I was "sending" to Mumbai. "Sending" is the journalist jargon for getting a reporter to a location.

So I phone the office, find out what we know so far and start telling people to do things. But it becomes clear that the team writing our news bulletins in Leicester and the one making the Adil Ray Drive programme in Birmingham are way ahead of me. They are doing a textbook job in breaking news. Adil himself is relatively new to this kind of story but I think anyone listening would agree he performed superbly: always calm, always trying to find out more and always clear about what we really know and what only think has happened.

That leaves me with the problem of whether to "send". My instinct is of course "yes". But the Asian Network is not a huge station and doesn't have that much money for big trips. We have already spent a fair amount this month sending a reporter to Pakistan to cover the case of - a Leeds man on death row in Islamabad. A "send" to Mumbai will also mean that I have less to spend on what I think is our core business: covering the lives and concerns of British Asians. The Asian Network can also use all the other 91Èȱ¬ reporters who are rushing to the scene too. Even so, I take the view that for the Asian network to cover this story as well as our listeners will expect, we need to be there.

It was a bit of a scramble. We decide to send Dil Neiyyar (our London reporter) and Rifat Jawaid (our languages editor). Dil spends the afternoon getting a visa from the Indian High Commission and his equipment together. Rifat rushes to Heathrow from Birmingham. We start compiling the appropriate hazard assessment forms. Safety is crucial. As well as the possibility of more bombs, there is the fear of communal violence and more mundanely the intense heat. Both Rifat and Dil have done the 91Èȱ¬'s "hostile environment" course. Mumbai isn't a war zone, but this intense training really helps reporters assess the risks on the ground.

Eight thirty in the evening and a nightmare call comes. Visa delays mean they've missed the flight. More money needed for another one. Got to do it now, just hope we get a refund for the first flight.

They arrive early the next day and are on air almost immediately. Between them they work for our morning programmes, our lunchtime news programme "The Wrap" and for Adil's show again. Rifat appears on our languages shows through the evening. They head off around Mumbai and get some terrific material: voices of real Mumbai citizens responding to this terrifying attack. I'm left with a strong impression of a defiant city refusing to stop living their lives and refusing to blame the many Muslims in their city. And the good news is we did get our first flights refunded. So more money in the pot for next time.