Browsing Tag: Delhi

Remembering BAKSHI INDERJIT SINGH (1919 - 2009) on his 4th death Anniversary.

Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) president during his recent visit to France, announced that the DSGMC would organise the International Sikh Summit in New Delhi next year, for which the schedule would be announced shortly.

An ordinary extended family sits down for a meal around a “natural oak” table, but somewhere down the line they find Nazis in the soup.

When Sikh dancer Dimple Kaur took up Vilasini Natyam, the forgotten classical dance from Andhra Pradesh, she hoped to spark an interest for the art form among the youth.

Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has approved the commencement of preparatory work on creating an Amritsar - Delhi - Kolkata Industrial Corridor.

Measures to stop a few hundred Sikh protesters from reaching Parliament threw traffic out of gear in central Delhi on Tuesday morning.

Today it’s an empty five-story shell of a building on Delhi’s southern ring road, overtaken by weeds and barricaded by a perimeter fence made of rusting corrugated iron. Not a single patient has been treated within its walls.

Sikh groups led by United Sikhs organization, Akali Dal (Delhi) and Sikh Forum held a peaceful protest outside the French Embassy in Delhi and submitted a memorandum addressed to French President Francois Hollande against the ongoing turban ban in French public schools.

The five men accused in a brutal gang rape that led to nationwide protests entered not guilty pleas on Saturday to the 13 charges filed against them.

At a time when the fast-track court in Delhi has started the trial proceedings against the five adult accused, the father of the 23-year-old student has described her as 'the hero' of her family.

But even as India grapples with the polarizing issue, a powerful force stands in the way of any fundamental change: a police force that is corrupt, easily susceptible to political interference, heavily male and woefully understaffed.

With the national capital being virtually under siege of the Punjab government, temperature is rising in Delhi’s Sikh religio-political matrix.

A historic Sikh shrine drawing faith of over 15,000 devotees daily, the Sis Ganj Sahib Gurdwara in the heart of walled city of Chandni Chowk, tops the tourist chart when it comes to religious sightseeing in the national Capital.

Police said Sunday they have arrested six suspects in another gang-rape of a bus passenger in India, four weeks after a brutal attack on a student on a moving bus in the capital outraged Indians and led to calls for tougher rape laws.

‘Sikh Youth of Punjab’ (SYP) has suggested that the criminal law be amended to award the maximum punishment of full life imprisonment without parole to rapists.

A pause could help in seeing our own contribution to the culture of gender violence: when we laugh off our boy’s exploits for being such a ‘Casanova’ or ‘stud,’ while we pride ourselves in curtailing our girl’s movements and dreams.

That girl, the one without the name. The one just like us. The one whose battered body stood for all the anonymous women in this country whose rapes and deaths are a footnote in the left-hand column of the newspaper.

It's no comment by a social activist or enraged youth venting anger over Nirbhaya's plight. The comment was part of recent discourses by said Punjabi ballad singer Pushpinder Kaur in gurudwaras in Punjab and Delhi.

It brought on all the emotions of shame and disgust of being born in such a city which is now rather infamous as the Rape Capital.

Last year Nishaan, the colorful Sikh quarterly from Delhi, asked me to trace the Sikh (and Punjabi) presence in Delhi. Pushpinder Singh Chopra, Bhayee Sikander Singh Bagriyan and Monica Arora provided much of the research material. The more I learned about Delhi, the more I became entranced with it.

With stray dogs, nobody takes the responsibility of getting them registered. At least pet dogs are supposed to be registered. Not as an official, but even as a common citizen you face a problem. After 10 p.m. you do not want to go out because of the stray dogs. People take a stick to the parks to protect themselves...

For the first time four DU colleges are considering reserving 50 per cent of their under-graduate seats for Sikh students.

Rather disturbed by the incident, Harinder and his wife Kirandeep Kaur, swapped ideas all through the nine-hour flight back to India from Italy thinking of a blueprint to dispel the misconception about Sikhs and Sikhism.

Over the years, as my interest in Gurmat Sangeet grows, I inevitably talk to many kirtaniyas and kirtan premis about the great Rababi tradiiton, which is all but dead today. Many wistfully reminisce of the legendary Bhai Lal, and the redoubtable Bhai Chand and Bhai Taba who sang for years at the Harmandir Sahib, before 1947.

Flanked by a "taoos" playing maestro on one side, and a Guiness record holder, tabla player, on the other, it was an unlikely setting at Jalandhar in central Punjab, for world renowned Dya Singh of Australia. For the first time, he was finding himself at a Kirtan smagam, without his motley group of musicians playing a range of East-West musical instrumental blends.

“I want no minor girls working here, no one should be forcibly working here … I want to shut down this [red light district]” Kaur says.“I want no minor girls working here, no one should be forcibly working here … I want to shut down this [red light district]” Kaur says.

Almost two years after it was constructed - the Guru Teg Bahadur GTB) Memorial at Singhu Border, a village situated near National Highway No. 1 - is yet to be inaugurated and thrown open to the public. The reason: the Delhi government has not found a VVIP to inaugurate the memorial.

What I found was overwhelming. During my visit, Bangla Sahib Gurdwara’s langar served an amazing 180 people every 15 minutes.

But on account of some undisclosed reasons, Air India, for its own purposes, is going to convert Amritsar International Airport into only a spoke airport. This negates the status of an international airport... Air India is going to make New Delhi Airport the only hub airport in Northern India.

It is a matter of great pride for all of us that Queen's Baton Relay is reaching at Gurudwara Rakab Ganj Sahib on 2nd October 2010 at 8.00 a.m.