Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Sabah gets RM350,000 to build Hindu, Sikh temples
KOTA KINABALU, Oct 30 (Bernama) -- Sabah will receive RM350,000 to build three Hindu temples and a Sikh temple.
State MIC chairman Datuk V. Jothy said the allocation was given by Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin.
"A sum of RM200,000 is allocated to build the Sri Murugan Temple in Tawau, Sri Subramaniar Temple in Lok Kawi Camp and Pasupathinath Temple in Kota Kinabalu, and RM50,000 for building a Sikh gurdwara, also in Kota Kinabalu.
"I am very touched by the concern shown by the deputy prime minister and the allocation is a recognition for the Indian community's contribution in Sabah," he said after holding a Sabah MIC Deepavali open house which was attended by Muhyiddin.
Jothy said the large allocation for Sri Murugan Temple was for the preparation of a Hindu festival celebration next year called Maha Kumba Bisegam, held every 12 years.
with thanks : mysinchew : link above for detailed news.
SikhsIndia www.sikhsindia.blogspot.com www.sohnijodi.com
1984 Sikh riot: They took their time to kill between meals
The horror of those 72 hours, when frenzied mobs butchered thousands ofSikhs in 1984, has not left senior journalists Rahul Bedi and Joseph Malliakan, who covered theriots, to this day.
"To visualise that time close your eyes and imagine that there's no state. The police remain inert while rabid mobs attack you minute after minute with military precision. The administrators look the other way with complete indifference and the situation seems never to abate," Bedi, who covered the massacre in Trilokpuri's Block-32, says.
The massacre in the small colony in east Delhi was planned, he found out. Nearly 320 Sikhs - men, women and children - were killed over two days.
On reaching the spot on November 1 evening, a day after Gandhi's assassination, Bedi and Malliakan were chased away by a mob. But the journalists persevered and made it to the spot on the following morning, where they saw "meticulous slaughter of Sikhs while policemen nearby watched, bothering not even to call for reinforcements".
"The massacre continued for two long days in houses on either side of a bylane. The killers were so exact and meticulous that they did not even hurry with their job, just took their time to rape, murder and torture them between meals," Bedi says.
Malliakan, now editor of JEM magazine, says he still cries on recalling those four days.
"I saw a Sikh along with his wife dragged out of his tenement, doused with kerosene and set on fire. Those scenes have not left me. There is no closure to it," he says.
with thanks : India Today : link above for the detailed news.
Another Sikh Controversy
Another controversy has erupted at an Alberta jobsite after a 24 year-old Sikh man from England was ordered to either shave his beard or leave, because of safety concerns. He chose to fly back home...
Another controversy has erupted at an Alberta jobsite after a 24 year-old Sikh man from England was ordered to either shave his beard or leave, because of safety concerns. He chose to fly back home earlier this week, saying the experience has turned him off Alberta and adding he doubts he would return if offered another job. He plans to meet with Human Resources officers and union officials with his company, to determine if they will take further action, against TransAlta Corporation.
He was ordered off the job at the Sundance plant, near Wabamun, west of Edmonton, after being told the length of his beard interfered with a respirator and posed a safety risk.
However, for religious reasons, he is not allowed to shave his beard. He had been working at the plant for five weeks and had passed an earlier mask fit test without a problem.
with thanks : mileOcity : link above.
With bitterness and longing - remembering victims of 1984
CHANDIGARH: Twenty-seven years since Indira Gandhi was assassinated, 27 years since 2,700 Sikhs were killed in the capital in the terrible aftermath. As a host of VIPs headed towards the late prime minister's memorial on Monday, thousands of families also remembered their loved ones massacred in the riots - and renewed their pledge to continue the fight for justice. Almost three decades later, justice continues to elude.
"There is no chance of complete justice, but we are fighting for symbolic justice. Some leaders should be punished to send out a strong message,"Supreme Court lawyer Harvinder Singh Phoolka said.
Terming the riots "a blot on the face of the nation and on the justice delivery system", Phoolka said: "If such crimes go unpunished, the future of the nation is in danger."
Passage of time may have dulled the trauma, but family members remember each detail of the violence that took away their fathers, brothers, sons and husbands.
For Nirpreet Kaur, 43, who saw her father Nirmal Singh being burnt alive in the Palam Colony in the Delhi Cantonment area in 1984, "bitterness will persist till the guilty are punished".
There is a story behind her bitterness.
Nirpreet said efforts to seek justice for her father's murder led to "harassment by the police, which branded her a militant."
"As a result, I was jailed twice from 1986 to 1991 and again from 1993 to 1997 under the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act," Nirpreet Kaur said.
Acquitted by the sessions court in 1997, she now helps families of other victims seek justice and rehabilitation through her NGO, Justice for Victims.
Pappy Kaur, 42, echoes similar sentiments. She lost 10 of her family members, including her father and elder brother, in the violence in Trilokpuri in east Delhi, one of the worst affected areas during the riots.
"We have not got justice," she said.
with thanks : Times of India : link above for detailed news.
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