Toronto (IANS): A visiting Pakistan minister vowed to protect Sikhs from the Taliban even as Canada announced $5 million for Pakistan's Sikh families who have fled the Swat Valley after the imposition of 'jaziya' (tax on non-Muslims) by the Taliban.
Announcing the $5-million package at a round-table here, Canada's newest Sikh MP Tim Uppal said: "I am pleased to announce on behalf of the prime minister that the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has committed 5 million dollars to the humanitarian effort to help those people displaced by the conflict."
Mr. Uppal, who is the ruling party MP from Edmonton, said: "We call upon the government of Pakistan to ensure the security and safety of all its citizens, including religious minorities."
Pakistan's Minister for Minority Affairs Shahbaz Bhatti, who was a special invitee to the round-table, said: "I want the minorities to know that they have a brother and a friend in the government of Pakistan who will do all in his power to stop atrocities on Sikhs in Pakistan."
When asked whether the Pakistan government will compensate the Sikhs for the money taken away by the Taliban, the minister only said: "I strongly condemn the jaziya collected from Sikhs by the Taliban."
The Pakistani government has announced a token compensation of $120 each to the displaced Sikh families, many of whom have sought refuge in the historic Sikh shrine at Hasan Abdal.
Asked by round-table convener and filmmaker Roger Nair how Pakistan could justify such a small amount, the minister said Sikh refugees are "still in a better shape than many of over a million or so refugees since they have a better organised structure in the form of gurdwaras".
The Toronto-based South Asians for Human Rights Association (SAHRA), which organised the round-table discussion with the visiting Pakistani minister, offered to sponsor 50 displaced Sikh and Hindu families as refugees to Canada.
"We have written to the Canadian government to sponsor these families from Pakistan. We will work with both the governments and local bodies to identify displaced families due to the Jaziya tax and sponsor them," said SAHRA chairman Nair.
He also demanded the abolition of the blasphemy law in Pakistan under which the murderers of a 27-year-old Hindu worker Jagdish Kumar last year went unpunished.
with thanks : source : http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200905191211.htm
sikhsindia
www.sohnijodi.com
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
First Sikh mayor sworn in
Newbury's first ethnic minority mayor swears oath of office during civic cermony at The Corn Exchange
NEWBURY’S first ethnic minority mayor addressed the public during his official mayor-making ceremony on Sunday (17).
In a speech delivered to more than 100 local residents at The Corn Exchange, Kuldip Singh Kang said he was pleased to have the honour and privilege of being appointed his post.
After leading the procession of councillors through heavy rain from the town hall, outgoing mayor Phil Barnett recounted some of the 294 events he had attended over the past year.
These included the recent 1940s fundraising concert at Newbury Racecourse, visiting five of Newbury’s twin towns, meeting the Queen at Vodafone, attending 300 birthday parties and travelling in a horse drawn carriage through Northbrook Street on National Bereavement Day.
He said that he had given up 1450 hours of his time and travelled over 4,400 miles as mayor.
Nominating the new mayor, town councillor Adrian Edwards said that he had known Mr Singh Kang for 20 years, since he bought the Fifth Road store and post office after moving to the town from Slough.
Mr Edwards had then helped Mr Singh Kang to stand for election to the town council two years ago, as a Conservative candidate for Falkland ward.
Mr Singh Kang said that during his year as mayor, he would support local charities and help St George’s Church at Wash Common explore the possibility of becoming carbon neutral.
He thanked his wife of 29 years, his parents, two brothers, his sister, and his three grandchildren for supporting him at the ceremony. While he will practice his Sikh faith, he will continue the mayoral tradition of having a church chaplain, and the ceremony was followed by a civic service in St Nicolas’ Church.
“I am very pleased to be standing here today supported by four generations of my family,” he said.
Former town council leader Ian Grose was appointed deputy mayor.
During the ceremony, town marshal Dave Stubbs and town crier Brian Sylvester were awarded medals for 10 years of service to Newbury Town Council.
with thanks : source : http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/News/Article.aspx?articleID=10056
sikhsindia
www.sohnijodi.com
NEWBURY’S first ethnic minority mayor addressed the public during his official mayor-making ceremony on Sunday (17).
In a speech delivered to more than 100 local residents at The Corn Exchange, Kuldip Singh Kang said he was pleased to have the honour and privilege of being appointed his post.
After leading the procession of councillors through heavy rain from the town hall, outgoing mayor Phil Barnett recounted some of the 294 events he had attended over the past year.
These included the recent 1940s fundraising concert at Newbury Racecourse, visiting five of Newbury’s twin towns, meeting the Queen at Vodafone, attending 300 birthday parties and travelling in a horse drawn carriage through Northbrook Street on National Bereavement Day.
He said that he had given up 1450 hours of his time and travelled over 4,400 miles as mayor.
Nominating the new mayor, town councillor Adrian Edwards said that he had known Mr Singh Kang for 20 years, since he bought the Fifth Road store and post office after moving to the town from Slough.
Mr Edwards had then helped Mr Singh Kang to stand for election to the town council two years ago, as a Conservative candidate for Falkland ward.
Mr Singh Kang said that during his year as mayor, he would support local charities and help St George’s Church at Wash Common explore the possibility of becoming carbon neutral.
He thanked his wife of 29 years, his parents, two brothers, his sister, and his three grandchildren for supporting him at the ceremony. While he will practice his Sikh faith, he will continue the mayoral tradition of having a church chaplain, and the ceremony was followed by a civic service in St Nicolas’ Church.
“I am very pleased to be standing here today supported by four generations of my family,” he said.
Former town council leader Ian Grose was appointed deputy mayor.
During the ceremony, town marshal Dave Stubbs and town crier Brian Sylvester were awarded medals for 10 years of service to Newbury Town Council.
with thanks : source : http://www.newburytoday.co.uk/News/Article.aspx?articleID=10056
sikhsindia
www.sohnijodi.com
Slough crowns Sikh Mayor and Sikh Deputy Mayor
Cllr Joginder Bal has become the Mayor for Slough; he is joined by another Sikh Cllr Jagjit Singh as the Deputy Mayor
The announcement was made at annual general meeting of Slough Borough Council at Slough Town Hall.
Cllr Joginder Singh is a grandfather and a dad-of-four, he was the former deputy mayor, took over from Cllr Raja Zarait. He was elected as a councillor for the Farnham ward in 2001 and is now the fifth Sikh mayor for the town.
He managed to beat of stiff competition by Cllr Brian Hetwitt who was also nominated for the role by the BILLD and Tory councilors.
After being sworn into the role with the help of council chief executive Ruth Bagley, Cllr Bal said: “I got into politics to serve people and not for personal satisfaction. I will promote Slough wherever I go.”
Cllr Bal hit the headlines last year after he was attacked with a cross bow outside his home in Northampton Avenue.
He was hospitalised for a few days but recovered and returned to his job as a taxi driver.
with thanks : source : http://www.emgonline.co.uk/news.php?news=5134
sikhsindia
www.sohnijodi.com
The announcement was made at annual general meeting of Slough Borough Council at Slough Town Hall.
Cllr Joginder Singh is a grandfather and a dad-of-four, he was the former deputy mayor, took over from Cllr Raja Zarait. He was elected as a councillor for the Farnham ward in 2001 and is now the fifth Sikh mayor for the town.
He managed to beat of stiff competition by Cllr Brian Hetwitt who was also nominated for the role by the BILLD and Tory councilors.
After being sworn into the role with the help of council chief executive Ruth Bagley, Cllr Bal said: “I got into politics to serve people and not for personal satisfaction. I will promote Slough wherever I go.”
Cllr Bal hit the headlines last year after he was attacked with a cross bow outside his home in Northampton Avenue.
He was hospitalised for a few days but recovered and returned to his job as a taxi driver.
with thanks : source : http://www.emgonline.co.uk/news.php?news=5134
sikhsindia
www.sohnijodi.com
Sikh wisdom
by Miroslav Volf
One of the most recognizable pieces of religious architecture in the world is the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, the most significant place of worship of the Sikhs. The upper part of this ornate rectangular marble structure is covered in gold. I saw the gleaming temple early in the morning, before sunrise, when it was bathed in soft artificial light. It stood immovable as a huge gilded rock, its reflected image dancing gently on the surface of the surrounding pool.
I was in Amritsar as a Christian consultant for a meeting of the Elijah Board of World Religious Leaders, organized by my friend Rabbi Alon Goshen-Gottstein. I had written a position paper to serve as a basis for discussions that would include the Dalai Lama and the chief rabbi of Jerusalem. Six writers of position papers representing different world religions had discussed their drafts with one another and with a larger interfaith group of scholars. It was a fascinating exercise. As I was writing, I was aided by wisdom from other faith traditions. What I presented as genuinely my own was in part received from others.
I grew up solidly Protestant in an overwhelmingly Catholic and Orthodox environment controlled by aggressively secular communists. Unlike the communists, those in our Protestant tribe nurtured a sense of the holy. But we differed from the Catholics and the Orthodox in that for us holiness was not to be located in time and space. The eternal and omnipresent God was holy; people could be holy if they made themselves available for God; times and places were not holy. We did not follow a liturgical calendar closely, and we met for worship in remodeled rooms of an ordinary house on an ordinary street. As a child of a pastor, I lived in that house; the neighbor kids and I played soccer in its yard and marbles on the patch of dirt in front of it. As examples of sacred architecture, the places where I experienced God—in restless rebellion and not just in sweet surrender—were the polar opposites of the Golden Temple.
At the temple I walked barefoot and with covered head around the holy pool in which people took ritual baths. I observed the people quietly streaming to the temple and walking by the place where Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji is kept, the holy book which ultimately makes the place holy. But I didn't feel spiritually pulled in. I was a sympathetic observer, learning, questioning, puzzling over things, appreciating. I remained an outsider, not a participant.
Yet I took with me something unforgettable, a nugget of enacted religious wisdom that I cherish more than I would a piece of that temple's gold.
The next day, as I walked one more time within the temple complex, I wanted to buy a souvenir for my two boys. Then it dawned on me: I hadn't seen a vendor or a shop anywhere on the temple premises. "Thousands of religious tourists mill around here every day," I thought. "There must be a place to buy souvenirs!" But there wasn't.
You had to leave the temple complex and step onto the profane ground of surrounding streets to satisfy your tourist appetite. There peddlers were as busy as anywhere else in the world, and I found what I was looking for—a small kirpan, a ritual sword that all baptized Sikh wear. But not on the holy site—there the only commercial transaction that took place was the purchase of a "ticket" to walk across the bridge to the temple in the middle of the lake. The ticket was a bowl of porridge, the size of which depended on how much you paid. You could eat some of it, but you were expected to put at least a portion of it into large bowls. When the bowls were filled, they were carried off to feed the poor.
The contrast between the Golden Temple and other religious sites I've seen could not be greater. Everywhere else, greedy people—often religious leaders with business managers—were trying to cash in on the devotion of visitors. Here that devotion was channeled into feeding the hungry. I was reminded of the story of Jesus' cleansing of the temple, recorded in all four Gospels. "And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple. . . . 'Is it not written,' he said, '"My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations"? But you have made it a den of robbers.'" The Gospels consistently tie Jesus' death to the cleansing of the temple. Mark's account continues, "And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him."
I came away from the Golden Temple with a nugget of wisdom—houses of worship should not be sites of commercial activity, but places of gift giving to the needy, just as faith itself is not to be bought and sold but freely given. That Sikh wisdom turned out to be buried treasure of my own faith.
with thanks : source : http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=6937
sikhsindia
www.sohnijodi.com
One of the most recognizable pieces of religious architecture in the world is the Golden Temple in Amritsar, India, the most significant place of worship of the Sikhs. The upper part of this ornate rectangular marble structure is covered in gold. I saw the gleaming temple early in the morning, before sunrise, when it was bathed in soft artificial light. It stood immovable as a huge gilded rock, its reflected image dancing gently on the surface of the surrounding pool.
I was in Amritsar as a Christian consultant for a meeting of the Elijah Board of World Religious Leaders, organized by my friend Rabbi Alon Goshen-Gottstein. I had written a position paper to serve as a basis for discussions that would include the Dalai Lama and the chief rabbi of Jerusalem. Six writers of position papers representing different world religions had discussed their drafts with one another and with a larger interfaith group of scholars. It was a fascinating exercise. As I was writing, I was aided by wisdom from other faith traditions. What I presented as genuinely my own was in part received from others.
I grew up solidly Protestant in an overwhelmingly Catholic and Orthodox environment controlled by aggressively secular communists. Unlike the communists, those in our Protestant tribe nurtured a sense of the holy. But we differed from the Catholics and the Orthodox in that for us holiness was not to be located in time and space. The eternal and omnipresent God was holy; people could be holy if they made themselves available for God; times and places were not holy. We did not follow a liturgical calendar closely, and we met for worship in remodeled rooms of an ordinary house on an ordinary street. As a child of a pastor, I lived in that house; the neighbor kids and I played soccer in its yard and marbles on the patch of dirt in front of it. As examples of sacred architecture, the places where I experienced God—in restless rebellion and not just in sweet surrender—were the polar opposites of the Golden Temple.
At the temple I walked barefoot and with covered head around the holy pool in which people took ritual baths. I observed the people quietly streaming to the temple and walking by the place where Sri Guru Granth Sahib Ji is kept, the holy book which ultimately makes the place holy. But I didn't feel spiritually pulled in. I was a sympathetic observer, learning, questioning, puzzling over things, appreciating. I remained an outsider, not a participant.
Yet I took with me something unforgettable, a nugget of enacted religious wisdom that I cherish more than I would a piece of that temple's gold.
The next day, as I walked one more time within the temple complex, I wanted to buy a souvenir for my two boys. Then it dawned on me: I hadn't seen a vendor or a shop anywhere on the temple premises. "Thousands of religious tourists mill around here every day," I thought. "There must be a place to buy souvenirs!" But there wasn't.
You had to leave the temple complex and step onto the profane ground of surrounding streets to satisfy your tourist appetite. There peddlers were as busy as anywhere else in the world, and I found what I was looking for—a small kirpan, a ritual sword that all baptized Sikh wear. But not on the holy site—there the only commercial transaction that took place was the purchase of a "ticket" to walk across the bridge to the temple in the middle of the lake. The ticket was a bowl of porridge, the size of which depended on how much you paid. You could eat some of it, but you were expected to put at least a portion of it into large bowls. When the bowls were filled, they were carried off to feed the poor.
The contrast between the Golden Temple and other religious sites I've seen could not be greater. Everywhere else, greedy people—often religious leaders with business managers—were trying to cash in on the devotion of visitors. Here that devotion was channeled into feeding the hungry. I was reminded of the story of Jesus' cleansing of the temple, recorded in all four Gospels. "And he entered the temple and began to drive out those who were selling and those who were buying in the temple. . . . 'Is it not written,' he said, '"My house shall be called a house of prayer for all the nations"? But you have made it a den of robbers.'" The Gospels consistently tie Jesus' death to the cleansing of the temple. Mark's account continues, "And when the chief priests and the scribes heard it, they kept looking for a way to kill him."
I came away from the Golden Temple with a nugget of wisdom—houses of worship should not be sites of commercial activity, but places of gift giving to the needy, just as faith itself is not to be bought and sold but freely given. That Sikh wisdom turned out to be buried treasure of my own faith.
with thanks : source : http://www.christiancentury.org/article.lasso?id=6937
sikhsindia
www.sohnijodi.com
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Sidhu manages hat - trick in Amritsar.
After various ups & downs, after trailing for a long time, atlast Sidhu manages the hat trick in Amritsar. At one stage it was announced that position of Sidhu was very bad in the elections. But making a comeback, he won the prestigious Amritsar Lok Sabha seat. Our heartiest congratulations to Mr. Sidhu.
SikhsIndia
www.sohnijodi.com
SikhsIndia
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£50,000 reward offered to catch Sikh temple arsonists
By Gemma Collins
SHOCKED members of London’s Sikh community who watched their temple go up in flames in a suspected arson in March have pledged today fight for justice with a £50,000 reward to track the culprits.
The committee of East London’s Gudwara Sikh Sangat at Harley Grove in Bow are treating the attack as “murder” because their holy books were destroyed.
The community’s 14 Saroops, the Sikhs’ holy books, were lost as 40ft flames swept through the building and broke through the roof.
Committee members holding a news conference this-afternoon in a tent in the small park opposite claimed police could be doing more to catch those responsible.
ATTACK ON RELIGION
Temple trustee Jagmohan Singh said: “This is more than just an arson attack on the building. It was an attack on the Sikh religion itself.
“Police could be doing more—so we have to assist them with the reward. The community won’t sleep until the intruder is caught and brought to justice.”
The community pledged to rebuild the temple which could cost an estimated £4 million.
They also plan a march on May 24 to show the attack “will not be tolerated.”
A police investigation began after eye-witnesses reported an intruder in the temple moments before the blaze on March 16, but no arrests have been made.
Detectives are appealing to anyone with information to contact Limehouse CID on 020-7275 4750, or Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800-555111.
with thanks : source : http://www.eastlondonadvertiser.co.uk/content/towerhamlets/advertiser/news/story.aspx?brand=ELAOnline&category=news&tBrand=northlondon24&tCategory=newsela&itemid=WeED15%20May%202009%2016%3A46%3A39%3A387
sikhsindia
www.sohnijodi.com
Singh is king again
UPA has won the elections 2009 and obtained almost 250 plus seats i.e. just a few less than the magic number 272. Therefore, it's now sure that Dr. Manmohan Singh will be the Prime Minister again. We hereby congratulate Dr. Manmohan Singh on this great victory of UPA.
SikhsIndia
www.sohnijodi.com
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Sikh Wins Hoboken Council Seat - North America
Ravinder Singh Bhalla was elected today to be a councilman-at-large for Hoboken, N.J., which gives him the national distinction of holding the highest elected office as a Sikh.
According to the Hudson County clerk's office, Ravinder Singh won nearly 14 percent of the 25,988 votes, statistically tying Carol Marsh for the most votes. He now holds one of three at-large seats, for a four-year term.
Ravinder Singh was part of the slate for mayoral candidate Dawn Zimmer, who won with 36 percent of the 9,986 votes. This election also made Zimmer the first woman and the first Jewish mayor of Hoboken.
Zimmer and her two biggest challengers, Peter Cammarano and Beth Mason, were all council members who oversaw a very unpopular property tax increase last year. She and Ravinder Singh were hoping that voters were not angry with all elected officials, just ones that contributed to the tax increase. Solving the tax and budget crisis became the top campaign issue for Zimmer and Ravinder Singh.
A win for the mayoral candidate usually means a win for the entire slate. But not only did Ravinder Singh win his first election, he won big.
with thanks : source : sikhnn.com
sikhsindia
www.sohnijodi.com
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
Cancer treatment in Delhi
Just read the news item Leaving Punjab on the Cancer Train, on Mr Sikhnet Posted by Sundari in Health, which says about A recent story on NPR discussed the “cancer train” in Punjab. The train is so named as it routinely carries about 60 patients and their families from Bathinda to the town of Bikaner in order to get treatment at the government’s regional cancer center.
Please note that the cancer patients can get absolutely free treatment at the DELHI STATE CANCER INSTITUTE. Free Chemotherapy, Free Radiation, Free routine checkup everything on the first come first served basis. They had to open the in house Admission with all the rest of facilities alongwith the private wards. This hospital, fully airconditioned was started by Mrs. Shiela Dixit, Chief minister Delhi.The detailed address, Tel number can be checked from http://www.sohnijodi.com/sohnijodi%20punjab%20related%20news.htm
SikhsIndia
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Manmohan as mascot
Sarabjit Pandher
Congress plays the ‘Sikh card’
The Congress appears to have broken new ground in this election by using the “Sikh card” to woo the community, estranged since “Operation Bluestar” in 1984 and the anti-Sikh violence following the assassination of Indira Gandhi.
It is hard to imagine that Manmohan Singh is not surprised by the fact that he has become the poster boy of the Congress in its campaign to win over the Sikhs.
The Congress was put on the defensive, when its nomination of Jagdish Tytler and Sajjan Kumar, who were alleged to have fanned violence against the Sikhs in November 1984, met with widespread protests — including a shoe thrown at Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram — from the Sikh community and the party was forced to withdraw their nominations. The party quickly went into damage control mode and reminded the Punjabis, especially the Sikhs, that it was the “first” party to have a “Sikh” as Prime Minister.
The tactic seemed to have worked, as it not only calmed the Sikhs but also put the combative Akalis on the back foot, with the party finding it hard to launch a full scale broadside against a Sikh.
The Akali leadership was almost knocked off its feet, when Sikhs reacted sharply to a Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee statement that Dr. Singh was not a Sikh. Put on the defensive, the Akali Dal failed to project Dr. Singh as “just another” Congress Prime Minister. Eventually, the Akali Dal had to resort to a no-holds-barred offensive against the former Chief Minister, Amarinder Singh.
Now, with Dr. Singh as the mascot, Capt. Amarinder, who has been getting a good response from the public, has emerged as the spearhead of the Congress campaign in Punjab.
For a change, the roles of the Congress and the Akali Dal appear to be swapped with the former using the “Sikh card” and the latter focusing on the development plank, say analysts.
However, this tactic is fraught with danger: it could conceivably lead to communal polarisation once again, say observers. They point out that the Congress used the “Sikh card” in the 1970s, which ultimately provided the fuel for the subsequent Sikh extremism.
with thanks : source : http://www.hindu.com/2009/05/12/stories/2009051250031200.htm
sikhsindia
www.sohnijodi.com
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