Samir Jeraj

3 weeks ago | hyphenonline.com | Samir Jeraj

The UK’s Ramadan economy has as much as quadrupled in the past decade and could now be worth £1.3bn annually, new research suggests. Researchers from the thinktank Equi estimated that Muslim consumers now spend £642m a year on food, travel and clothes, as well as giving £359m in charitable donations, while mosques across the UK also provided an estimated 3.8m free iftar meals at a cost of £15m.

1 month ago | hyphenonline.com | Samir Jeraj

In Muslim communities around the world, certain dishes are inextricably linked to Ramadan and the ending of the daily fast. Haleem, or khitchro as it is known in Gujarati cuisine, is the one I grew up with. Made of beef or lamb, grains and lentils cooked to a porridge-like consistency, this hearty stew fills you up as soon as you look at it. It’s the definition of comfort food, flavoured with earthy cumin, cinnamon, cardamom and cloves.

1 month ago | hyphenonline.com | Samir Jeraj

On 8 December 2020, a moment of hope emerged at a bleak time. Nearly a year into the Covid-19 pandemic, the first person in the UK to be vaccinated against the virus walked out of a hospital in Coventry. In nearby Birmingham, workers at a local pharmacy were concerned that the roll-out of the vaccine might miss some of the most vulnerable people in their community. They had seen the rapid spread of disinformation about vaccines targeting Pakistani and Bengali communities.

1 month ago | newstatesman.com | Samir Jeraj

Conventional wisdom has it that when the economy is growing, voters will reward incumbent politicians with a new mandate, and that overseeing a recessions is a quick route to the political wilderness. In the US, a growing economy and huge public investment by President Joe Biden seemed to have little impact on both his and Vice-President Kamala Harris’s political survival. Ordinary people didn’t feel better off, and any growth was swallowed up by inflation.

Nov 25, 2024 | newhumanist.org.uk | Samir Jeraj

Five years ago, in the pages of New Humanist, I reported on the Beirut Marathon – an event designed to build peace in a country that had endured decades of civil war. Since then the city has lived through economic and political unrest, the Covid pandemic and the catastrophic explosion in its port in the summer of 2020. Now, with Israel launching strikes on Lebanon’s capital city, the Beirut Marathon Association (BMA) has transformed into a humanitarian organisation.