04 Oct. 2010 ~ FATEHGARH SAHIB: Prince Charles who visited Punjab for the second time on Monday, during his previous visit in 2006 and on several other occasions went overboard to shower praises for Sikhs, Punjab farmers and contribution of the border state in the green revolution of India.
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| Tribune photograph | PTI |
| Punjab Information and Public Relations Minister Sewa Singh Sekhwan presents a bouquet to Prince Charles as former Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh looks on at the Patiala Aviation Club on Monday | Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal with Prince Charles at a function at Punjab Raj Bhavan in Chandigarh on Monday |
Having special love for farmer community, Prince Charles see a great future for organic farming in Punjab. During both visits his main emphasis remained wooing farmers for organic farming. The Prince’s interests in field such as architecture, the inner-cities, education, religion, health and farming have been elaborated over many years in a large number of speeches and articles.
When this correspondent accessed the official website of Prince Charles, in his speech delivered during the function of Consumer Goods Forum, London on June 23, 2010 he is quoted saying, “ we need to look at the way we use water, for instance. The World Bank has reported that in the Punjab over sixty per cent of groundwater is now being overdrawn by farmers. I have been there; I have seen it. Punjabi farmers now have to dig expensive bore holes over 200 feet deep to get at what remains of the water and, as a result, their debts are becoming ever deeper too – so is the salt contamination of their soil… This is why I started an initiative some four years ago to try and help a number of Punjabi farmers to convert to a more genuinely durable, sustainable organic system and to develop added value markets for their produce.”
In his speech delivered at a dinner for the British Asian Trust, St. James’s Palace, London on April 21, 2010 he said that my organizations are doing to support an initiative which I started in Punjab in 2006, after I had visited that wonderful region.
During his speech delivered at a reception to mark the Sikh Festival of Vaisakhi at St James's Palace, London on April 24, 2009 he had mentioned, "I am enormously grateful to a local Sikh admirer Harbinder Singh, for not only his marvellous works - because I learn a great deal from him about the great history of the Sikhs - but I am particularly grateful to him for having helped put together such a marvellous gathering of the Sikh community".
Remembering contribution of Sikhs, he said, "The United Kingdom owes an immense debt of gratitude to the courage and sacrifice of Sikh soldiers and this, of course, is most famously exemplified in the purely appalling conditions of the First World War, and later in Asia during the Second World War".
When he along with Duchess of Cornwall visited Gurdwra at Anandpur Sahib in 2006, they removed their shoes and covered their heads before kneeling and kissing the floor of the temple shows his respect towards Sikh community, said a senior Sikh leader.