Sikhs protests continue; three held for desecration of holy book

Chandigarh: Two 'granthis' and a woman were arrested in connection with cases of desecration of the holy book of the Sikhs in Punjab where activists of various outfits blocked roads and highways at several places to protest the sacrilege.

While a 'granthi' in a gurudwara in Nijjapura village of Amritsar district was arrested for allegedly committing an act of sacrilege, police took into custody a woman working as a sweeper and a granthi in connection with the Ghawaddi village desecration case in Ludhiana district.

Amritsar Senior Superintendent of Police (rural) Jasdeep Singh Saini said police received a call from the priest of a gurudwara at Nijjarpura late last night that three persons forcibly entered the shrine and tore the pages of the holy book.

"The statement of priest appeared false following which he was interrogated by police before other people working in the shrine," he said.

The 30-year-old 'granthi' Jagdeep Singh confessed that he had committed the crime and had tried to mislead the police, Saini said.

"The perpetrator of crime, who himself is the granthi of gurdwara, has been arrested," the SSP said.

In another case, police arrested a woman, identified as Balwinder Kaur (45), and 'granthi' Sikandar Singh (46) in connection with the Ghawaddi desecration case, Ludhiana Commissioner of Police Paramraj Singh Umrangal said.

Sikh outfits, meanwhile, continued to stage dharnas at several places in Punjab against incidents of sacrilege and to press for arrest of police officials involved in firing at Behbal Kalan village in which two persons were killed.

Several highways in the state remained blocked for hours together as traffic was diverted, police said.

Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) convenor Sucha Singh Chhotepur visited the dharna site near Gurdaspur.

In Jalandhar, dharnas were staged at Chiheru bridge on GT road, chowk Maqsoodan and several other places, police said, adding a minor clash between Sikh activists and shopkeepers also took place at Jalandhar.

Peace marches were also taken out at various places, including Faridkot, Moga, Mansa, Tarn Taran, Sangrur and Bathinda in the state by the Sikh activists.

Trucks coming from Srinagar carrying apple to Maharashtra have been stranded near Harike bridge, police said.

In Ludhiana, protesters have started dharna at Baba Than Singh chowk, police said.

PTI 

with thanks : Zee News : LINK 

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Parliament of the World's Religions 2015 at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City,USA

Link :http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865639220/Parliament-of-the-Worlds-Religion

Parliament of the World's Religions attendees break bread together at Sikh community's langar :Salt Lake City ,USA

Members of the international Sikh community and a host of volunteers are preparing and serving thousands of communal meals, langar, each day to people taking part in the Parliament of the World's Religions at the Salt Palace Convention Center in Salt Lake City ,USA.

Their guests are people taking part in the 2015 Parliament of the World's Religions. Sikhs throughout the world are offering langar throughout the five-day event.

In the Sikh religion, langar means common kitchen in temples where food is served to all visitors without distinction of background for free.

Visitors are asked to remove their shoes, cover their heads and wash their hands before taking a seat on a carpet, where they are served a vegetarian meal that commonly includes dishes such as rice, curry vegetables and naan, an oven-baked flatbread.

"Everyone sits on the floor and feels equal. Let's say President Obama and a homeless man come to the langar. They would sit down together," said Sarbjit Singh, of Los Angeles, a Sikh who is affiliated with the Khalsa Care Foundation.

Singh said Sikhs feed all people who visit their temples so they regularly serve hundreds of free meals. But scale of the langar served each day at the Parliament is massive.

Since Thursday, thousands of pounds of food prepared at two Sikh temples in Salt Lake County have been trucked to the Salt Palace Convention Center, where the Parliament is being conducted, said Jagdish Singh Gill, a Utah Sikh who is a leader of the langar committee.

"It's service to humanity. We want to share with them. They're coming from all over the world. We want to be able to provide them free food, tea and coffee," he said.

At the Salt Palace, dozens of volunteers cook hundreds of pounds of rice in enormous pots, bake some 4,000 naan in ovens, and prepare hundreds of gallons of tea and coffee.

"Sharing and caring, those are the two keys. Every Sikh must do it with everyone, not just each other. We're all children of God," Singh said.

Parliament participant Jen Bernstein of Petaluma, California, said sitting down for a meal with people of such diverse faith backgrounds was "incredible."

"It's just remarkable. It tears me up a little bit, quite honestly, to see so much hospitality, so much grace and unflagging hospitality and kindness," she said. "It's really quite overwhelming, actually."

Bernstein, who said she is Jewish and Pagan and serves as a veterinary and community chaplain, is deeply immersed in interfaith activities.

"This is still remarkable, special and unique," she said.

Cameron Kennedy, a filmmaker from Australia, said he had his first experience with langar when the Parliament of the World's Religions met in Barcelona in 2004.

When his group arrived in Spain, they were exhausted, spoke no Spanish and came upon langar by happenstance.

"We felt the love and the food and the give. This one is a little spicier than the one in Barcelona," he said.

Kennedy's daughter, Emily, took part in her first langar Friday.

"I'm feeling the love," she said as volunteer servers walked down rows offering additional helpings of rice, garbanzo beans and other dishes.

"They keep coming back and they want to make sure everyone is served, that they're very full and that makes me happy," she said.

Singh said hundreds of volunteers will prepare and serve langar each day for the duration of the five-day parliament.

While local volunteers representing many faith traditions are helping out, some Sikhs traveled throughout the county and the globe to contribute. There are 60 volunteers from the United Kingdom alone.

Kennedy said he brought his daughter to the last two Parliament so she could be immersed in religious diversity and to learn about the global service performed by interfaith organizations.

"The world would probably be a different place without the people at this event, he said.

Link :http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865639220/Parliament-of-the-Worlds-Religions-attendees-break-bread-together-at-Sikh-communitys-langar

Midland Langar on BBC MIdlands Today

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Tension in Punjab as bandh follows Kotkapura firing

A day after two Sikh activists were killed in police firing in Kotkapura during protests over the desecration of a ‘bir’ of Guru Granth Sahib, tension continued in the area on Thursday as members of the community took to the streets on a call for bandh in the state. Entire Punjab is observing a Bandh today. 

We have got few pics from Jallandhar city :

Khanda Baba Deep singh ji : SikhsIndia : 38,356 Views so far

A New Business Class:Gurpreet Singh (Dalit ) who turned first Generation Entrepreneurs

Gurpreet Singh, 30 (Chandigarh)

Project: Manufacturing facility for fly-ash bricks, blocks and pavers VC funding: Rs 8.5 crore 

From a mini solar plant to an e-commerce site for second-hand vouchers, Gurpreet Singh ( Dalit ) has turned into first-generation entrepreneurs, backed by a government VC fund.

When Gurpreet Singh was about seven years old, he would wonder why he could not visit one of the two gurdwaras in Bhajauli, his father’s village in Punjab. “I would ask my grandfather why he would not take us to that gurdwara. He never explained, but I now know that as Dalit Sikhs, we were denied entry into that one,” says Singh, 30, CEO of MGM Infra Development Solutions Pvt Ltd.

Son of an engineer in a government department at Bhaddal, Punjab, Singh went on to do a BTech in computer engineering from the Institute of Engineering & Technology, Bhaddal, in 2008, after which he worked for Dell in Mohali for a year. He later joined a private infrastructure company and was involved in building the “first air conditioned bus stand in Mohali”. But he “always wanted to strike out on his own”.

Another job later, he knew what he had to do. “While speaking to friends in Bengaluru, I learnt that the Metro construction there uses hollow blocks made of fly ash. In Punjab, we generally use kiln-made bricks, not fly ash. So, in 2013, I decided to set up a manufacturing facility for fly ash and concrete-based building material,” he says.

His father sold the family property to give him Rs 4 crore for the initial capital to set up the company. But Singh needed Rs 18.2 crore in all. Once again, he would encounter “caste discrimination, though not so overt”. At least three banks, he says, rejected his loan application.

Finally, last October, the Bank of Maharashtra lent his company a loan of Rs 4.7 crore.

Under the VC fund, he has been sanctioned Rs 8.5 crore. Having secured most of the investment, Singh is looking ahead. “I want to involve the best brains in construction technology, so we have tied up with German company Hess,” he says.

Singh feels there is still a need for “more positive discrimination”. “Reservations are filled to satisfy government norms, but most decision-making is not with SCs”.

Link : http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-news-india/a-new-business-class-dalits-who-turned-first-generation-entrepreneurs/

Community Langar Held in Mosque : “Hi Langar, Goodbye World Hunger”

People of different faiths partaking the langar hosted in the Jama Masjid, Ludhiana,India

THE OLD building of Jama Masjid, in the narrow streets of Field Ganj in Old City of Ludhiana, witnessed an unusual scene this Sunday. A Hindu priest, P D Shukla, in saffron robes and a rudraksh mala in hand, was going around the mosque premises, asking people if they have had a proper meal. So was Manpreet Singh, a church pastor, as some Sikhs served food in the mosque’s courtyard.. The food was prepared in the community kitchen (langar) on the rooftop of the mosque. Close to 400 people — madrasa children, some Sikhs and laborers, too — were served food..

“Hi Langar, Goodbye World Hunger,” read the banner at the entrance of the mosque, put up by Sikh Press Association (SPA) and Basics of Sikhi, who chose the mosque as the venue to celebrate International Langar Week. We want to spread the message of communal harmony as well as give a call to fight world hunger, said the representatives of the four communities. Among the attendees was Tanvir Singh Dhaliwal, a Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) councilor, who said he accepted the invitation as it was for a noble cause. “It is in the teachings of our Guru that serving food to the poor is supreme. I appreciate that the event was held in a mosque and I chose to attend it not as an Akali councilor but as a Sikh. Muslims always invite us for feast on Eid. It is good that this time Sikhs offered to serve langar in a mosque,” said Dhaliwal. He said the ‘Dadri incident’, where a Muslim man was lynched on suspicion of storing and consuming beef, was a “blot on the nation as a whole”. “It was ridiculous. Personally, I see it as a blot on the country which will be remembered for years to come,” said Dhaliwal. As for Akali Dal ally, BJP, supporting beef ban in various states, Dhaliwal said, “I would not like to comment on it but personally such things should not happen.” P D Shukla and Manpreet Singh said the Dadri incident should have been “tackled better”. “People are not fighting; politicians are making them to do so. It is all a political game in the wake of Bihar polls. Food is everyone’s right, irrespective of religions,” said Singh. “The man should not have been killed and culprits should be punished. Cow slaughter is a sin but killing a man is insane,” said Shukla. Shahi Imam, Punjab, Maulana Habib Ur Rahman said, “It is for the first time that such a langar by Sikhs was proposed in our mosque and we readily agreed. Someone just asked me if people from other religions can enter a mosque. I replied ‘it is not khuda ka ghar (it is not God’s home), if all cannot come’. Politicians are going all out to divide the country but people should give them a befitting reply.” Harjinder Singh Kukreja, trustee, SPA, and the organizer of the langar, said, “There is a debate over beef versus no beef but our purpose is just to fight world hunger. We feel world hunger is bigger issue than fighting over cows and beef.”.

Link: http://indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/langar-held-in-mosque-world-hunger-is-a-bigger-issue/

Indian American Sikh Shot Dead In California’s Oakland City

A 45-year-old Indian American was shot dead by an unidentified gunman in California, prompting police to announce a USD 10,000 reward money for information leading to the arrest of the killer. SF Gate reported earlier today, Oct 8, that Oakland police investigators have identified a 23-year-old man ‘Joevan Lopez’ for shooting 45-year-old Jasvir Singh. Lopez was described as 5 feet 7 inches tall and 158 pounds, with dreadlocks.

Jasvir Singh was fatally shot inside his ice-cream van on Saturday in California’s Oakland city, San Jose Mercury News reported. According to residents of the locality, a gunman approached Mr Singh, shot him inside his van and ran away through the backyards.

Local residents described the horror of the broad day-light killing and expressed their fears of rising crimes on the streets of Oakland city.

“I don’t understand why someone would murder our ice cream man,” said Paula, a nearby resident.

“I heard five shots and came to my front door. I just feel really bad; he was doing his job, and now he’s gone,” she added.

with thanks : theindianpanorma : LINK : for detailed news report.