An Indian princess who was a leader of the suffragette movement has been honoured with a blue heritage plaque in London.
Sophia Duleep Singh, the daughter of a deposed Indian maharaja and the goddaughter of Queen Victoria, used her fame, position and tenacity in the fight for gender equality in the early 20th century.
The honour was announced by English Heritage on Thursday.
The blue plaque awards celebrate the links between notable figures and the buildings in which they had lived and worked.
Princess Sophia was an active suffragette. She belonged to the Women’s Tax Resistance League, whose slogan was 'No Vote, No Tax'. Her refusal to pay tax led to her being prosecuted several times and some of her possessions were impounded.
A committed campaigner for women’s rights and an active fund-raiser, she could often be seen selling The Suffragette newspaper outside Hampton Court Palace, south-west London. Her plaque will be installed at the large house near the palace which was granted to her and her sisters by Queen Victoria in 1896.
English Heritage aims to award 12 plaques each year.
“Every year, English Heritage's blue plaques offer a glimpse of the very best of human achievement,” said Prof William Whyte, trustee and chairman of the Blue Plaques Panel.
English Heritage said the achievements of this year's class spanned fields such as the arts, music, social reform and politics.
Also being honoured is another suffragette, Emily Wilding Davison, who was killed after throwing herself under George V's horse at the 1913 Epsom Derby.
Other recipients include violinist and composer Yehudi Menuhin and activist Claudia Jones, known as “the founding spirit of Notting Hill Carnival”.
Menuhin's plaque will commemorate the six-storey house in Belgravia, London, where the American-born musician lived, worked and entertained for the last 16 years of his life until 1999.
Much of his teaching and mentoring took place in his studio on the fourth floor, where he also practised yoga, including his now famous headstand pose.
Journalist and antiracism activist Jones will be honoured with a plaque erected at the shared dwelling in Vauxhall, south London, where she lived for four years from the late 1950s.
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Emirates flies from Dubai to Phnom Penh via Yangon from Dh2,700 return including taxes. Cambodia Bayon Airlines and Cambodia Angkor Air offer return flights from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap from Dh250 return including taxes. The flight takes about 45 minutes.
The hotels
Rooms at the Raffles Le Royal in Phnom Penh cost from $225 (Dh826) per night including taxes. Rooms at the Grand Hotel d'Angkor cost from $261 (Dh960) per night including taxes.
The tours
A cyclo architecture tour of Phnom Penh costs from $20 (Dh75) per person for about three hours, with Khmer Architecture Tours. Tailor-made tours of all of Cambodia, or sites like Angkor alone, can be arranged by About Asia Travel. Emirates Holidays also offers packages.
The five pillars of Islam
1. Fasting
2. Prayer
3. Hajj
4. Shahada
5. Zakat
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
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'Worse than a prison sentence'
Marie Byrne, a counsellor who volunteers at the UAE government's mental health crisis helpline, said the ordeal the crew had been through would take time to overcome.
“It was worse than a prison sentence, where at least someone can deal with a set amount of time incarcerated," she said.
“They were living in perpetual mystery as to how their futures would pan out, and what that would be.
“Because of coronavirus, the world is very different now to the one they left, that will also have an impact.
“It will not fully register until they are on dry land. Some have not seen their young children grow up while others will have to rebuild relationships.
“It will be a challenge mentally, and to find other work to support their families as they have been out of circulation for so long. Hopefully they will get the care they need when they get home.”
'Joker'
Directed by: Todd Phillips
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix
Rating: Five out of five stars
How much do leading UAE’s UK curriculum schools charge for Year 6?
- Nord Anglia International School (Dubai) – Dh85,032
- Kings School Al Barsha (Dubai) – Dh71,905
- Brighton College Abu Dhabi - Dh68,560
- Jumeirah English Speaking School (Dubai) – Dh59,728
- Gems Wellington International School – Dubai Branch – Dh58,488
- The British School Al Khubairat (Abu Dhabi) - Dh54,170
- Dubai English Speaking School – Dh51,269
*Annual tuition fees covering the 2024/2025 academic year
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
Jigra
Starring: Alia Bhatt, Vedang Raina, Manoj Pahwa, Harsh Singh
