Bollywood stars like Sunidhi Chauhan, Sophia and Kashmira Shah will perform at an open air concert in aid of International Widows Day.
LONDON: Trafalgar Square is going to be painted in the colours of Mumbai this Friday when a Bollywood concert is hosted at the tourist landmark.
Under the watchful eye of Lord Nelson perched atop his column, Bollywood stars like Sunidhi Chauhan, Sophia and Kashmira Shah are going to sing and dance in an open air concert in aid of International Widows Day.
The Loomba Trust, UK-based charity established in 1997 dedicated to promoting welfare and education of children of poor widows and orphaned children in India and around the world has decided to hold this year’s fund-raising event at the world-famous Square. Three hundred VIP and celebrity guests such as British actress Joanna Lumley, Baroness Jay of Paddington, Indian minister for women and child development, Renuka Chowdhury, are expected to attend.
Shekhar Suman, billed as the Indian Jay Leno, will host the concert. The late-Beatle John Lennon’s wife Yoko Ono and Prime Minister Tony Blair’s wife Cherie Booth, who is also president of The Loomba Trust, will speak on the aims of International Widows Day.
“I believe the International Widows Day is very important as it focuses on the plight of the widows and their children around the world who are suffering from poverty, illness, diseases of HIV/Aids, conflict and social injustice. The problems faced by widows is not limited to India alone, there are millions of Widows in countries in Asia and Africa who need our help,” said Raj Loomba, founder and chairman of the trust.
The impetus to establish the Trust stems from his mother, Pushpa Wati Loomba, who was widowed at the age of 37 in 1954 and single-handedly raised seven young children. “Widows in many developing countries face extreme hardship and bring up their children in poverty. The Trust relentlessly aims to help remove the stigma associated with losing a husband by providing support,” added Loomba.
Loomba, a Punjabi settled in the UK in 1962, began his career working as a factory worker and selling ice cream. Today he heads a multi-million clothing business. Rinku Group Plc, as his company is known, has its head office in the West End of London with overseas offices in China and India.
The concert will also have performances by the Bhangra bands Jazzy B, who will perform tracks from his chart topping albums, and 4X4 Bhangra Group. The high-profile trust has Prince Charles as its patron-in-chief, and Sir Richard Branson, Ken Livingstone, Charles Kennedy, MP, and Sir Menzies Campbell, MP, on its board of trustees.
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