PESHAWAR, Aug 8: The BBC World Service will launch a new three-part series to examine the impact of Asian people on life in the 21st century, said a press release issued by the local BBC office here on Thursday.

Asian Diaspora starts on Friday, Aug 16, on the English service and will explore aspects of Asian life and influence, from business and politics to family life.

Presented by Jatinder Verma, himself a child of the Diaspora, Asian Diaspora looks at the contributions of recent and established immigrant communities and analyses their changing loyalties and indentities.

“When I arrived in Britain in 1968 from Kenya, Asians used to be a minority here,” explains Jatinder Verma. “Over 30 years later, Asian food and culture have become very much part of the UK mainstream.

“Today, every fourth person one is very likely to meet in the world will be an Asian and this is not just a reflection of global population but also of migration.”

He says there is hardly a country in the world without an Asian migrant population, and Asians are contributing to the changing face of the 21st century.

Asian Diaspora go to the United States, Malaysia, Brazil, United Arab Emirates and Britain to examine how the Chinese, Indian, Japanese and Korean Diaspora are shaping the world in the 21st century. Each programme compares and contrasts two case studies within one theme: family, business and political influence.