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May 15, 2008
Britain Gets a
First Indian Woman Lord Mayor
By Dipankar De Sarkar
London
Manjula Sood, an Indian-born councillor, Thursday made history by
becoming the first Indian woman to be made a Lord Mayor in Britain -
appropriately, in a city dubbed Little India.
Although the post is largely ceremonial - unlike that of the elected
mayor - it marks an Indian success as this year marks the 800th
anniversary of the creation of the Lord Mayor's office in the city
of Leicester, home to between 72,000 and 90,000 people of Indian
origin.
Sood, who moved from Punjab to join her husband in Leicester in
1970, told a glittering ceremony that it was a “great honor for me
to represent the city.”
“This year will be an historic time for Leicester in many ways, and
I am really looking forward to doing all I can to promote what's
going on here, across the world,” she said.
Taking the role of the traditional Lady Mayoress is Sheenal Sejpal,
who will be marrying Sood's youngest son Mitesh later this month.
Mitesh and her older son Manish Sood, who is also a Leicester city
councillor, will be her consorts.
Sood first became a Leicester city councillor October 1996, for
Latimer ward, after working as a school teacher for nearly 20 years.
She was inspired to take up the role following the loss of her
husband Paul Sood, who had been the councillor for that ward until
his death May 1996.
In May last year she became the first Asian woman to join the city
council's Cabinet, where she took on the new portfolio of health and
well-being.
She is a member of the Leicester Council of Faiths, and a governor
at Leicester College.
And she has recently joined a national task force for black, Asian
and ethnic minority women formed by British minister Harriet Harman.
Sood has earlier spoken about how she had wanted to go back to
Punjab when she first came to Leicester, 160 km from London.
"When I arrived here on December 18, 1970, I didn't want to live
here - I wanted to go back. It was snowing, it was so dark, I was
living in an old Victorian building which was cold. For one week I
wouldn't even open the suitcase.
"I phoned my grandfather after a week and he said, 'Leicester is
your home, Britain is your country, make the most of your
opportunities. I have given you education, go and get some training
and find a job'."
"I don't want to be the first and last Asian woman Lord Mayor in the
country," she added.
According to Britain's 2001 census, 26 percent of Leicester's
280,000 population is of Indian origin. But some Indian community
leaders now put the figure at closer to 33 percent.
May 15, 2008
IANS | Top
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