Indian racially taunted on Big Brother

Looks like its open season on people of Indian origin. Britain's broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom, has said that it has received some 280 protests concerning the display of racial discrimination in a popular reality show - Big Brother.

CJ: Rajiv Azad

Sat, Jul 11, 2009 08:59:57 IST

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Reality Shows :

IT SEEMS we Indians are soft targets; time and again we are gratuitously discriminated against on diverse world platforms - be it sports or politics. According to reports coming in from

Britain

’s leading reality show Big Brother, an Indian student named Sree Dasari had been racially abused by another contestant, the British Markus Akin

. The controversial incident took place in the first week of July 2009.

Britain

’s broadcasting watchdog, Ofcom, has said that it has received some 280 protests concerning the display of racial discrimination in a popular reality show - Big Brother. It further said that most of these complaints related to an unpleasant incident involving Indian contestant Sree Dasari and Markus Akin.

The incident in question which was televised on Channel 4, shows Markus Akin bullying Indian student Sree Dasari and making fun of his Indian antecedents and English accent. Following complaints from viewers, the producer of the show issued a warning to Markus and said, “Threatening language and behavior is not acceptable in the Big Brother house. Big Brother monitors the welfare, language and behavior of housemates at all times and will continue to monitor this situation.”

This is not the first time that an Indian has found himself/herself the butt of racial taunts on the show. In the year 2007, leading Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty was also racially abused by another British contestant, the late Jade Goody. At that time, the incident left many people across the globe livid and Channel 4 was left with no option but to expel Goody.

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