Local Trains from Manchester & Leeds I

I first got familiar with local trains in northern England through my travels to Grimsby, Scunthorpe, Crowle and Lincoln. To Scunthorpe and Grimsby I travelled on FirstTransPennine Express trains from Doncaster, to Crowle a Northern train also from Doncaster and to Lincoln I changed to Northern in Newark and took another Northern train from Lincoln to Peterborough on my way back to London.

Northern runs ’small trains’ on rural routes and ‘metro’ type services between Northern Cities like Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford and York

 

A map of northern railway lines on the wall of Manchester Victoria Station
The map obviously is from the pre-privatisation days 

Northern train and Metro tram at Manchester Victoria Station 

The Leeds Metro Network
Most trains operated by Northern

Leeds Station – National Express train to London on the left and a Northern train on the right 

Leeds – London train and Northern train

Northern and National Express

 

Forced Conversions to Hinduism – Mahavir Sanglikar

Hinduism is being forced on the followers of Non-Vedic religions like Jainism, Buddhism and Sikhism. The people forcing it do not tell you to go to Hindu temples or perform rituals, but they just change your religious identity. They write your religion as Hindu wherever possible.

All this starts right from the admission of the pregnant woman to the maternity home. When the registration process goes on, the clerk writes her religion as Hindu, without asking her or her relatives accompanying her. For these clerks, if the woman is not a Muslim or Christian, then she is a Hindu.  After the birth of the child, the doctor issues a birth certificate mentioning the child’s religion as a Hindu. For the parents, the religion is not important at that time as they are in heaven. They do not take pain even for reading it. But thereafter, whenever they see the birth certificate, they find that their child is converted to Hinduism.

Same thing happens in the school while the admission of the child. The parents do not know that here also their child is growing as a Hindu. They realise it only when the student gets a ‘School Leaving Certificate’ from the school. It mentions the religion of the student as Hindu-Sikh or Hindu-Punjabi in case of Sikhs, Hindu-Jain in case of Jains and Hindu-Buddhist in case of Buddhists. Sometimes it mentions just ‘Hindu’. So the School Leaving Certificate is actually Certificate of Religious Conversion to Hinduism.

The most stupid thing in these School Leaving Certificates is that there is no standardised format for it. One school mentions ‘Religion and caste’, other mentions ‘Race and religion’, another mentions ‘Race and caste’. Who knows about race? But many schools have a ‘Race’ column on the leaving certificate. It is there because it was there while British rule. Change is not acceptable.

Now let us speak about the census. On every tenth year, the Census Commission of India counts the people of India.  The Census form mentions 7 religions namely Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Christian, Jain, Buddhist and Parsi. The followers of other religions are counted under ‘Other’ column. But while census, the data collectors do the same thing what the clerks in hospitals do. They do not ask religion at all. For them all those are Hindus if their name is not a Muslim or Christian name. This happens not just because of lack of knowledge. It is being done systematically by the Hindutwa minded people working as Census Data Collectors.

The population of Hindus in India is about 79%. It is because of the forced Hinduism. We can not know the actual population of Jains, Buddists, Sikhs in India. We can not know the actual population of Adivasis and Nomadic tribes, who are not Hindus but they are counted as Hindus.

Mahavir Sanglikar is a scholar of socio-religious history, blogger and a freelance writer.

You can meet him at:

www.censusindianews.blogspot.com

York Minster I

We went for a walk in York during the annual chaplaincy conference and I have posted two postings on Simran in York, two on going for a walk in York and one on a market in York and a market in Leeds.

This third posting is about the fabulous York Minster, which is a beautiful building and in which we listened to ‘Evensong’ which was even more beautiful !

Look at all the tourists who are not looking at the Minster 

Beautiful trees, beautiful Minster, too many vehicles with internal combustion engines

 
A better view of the Minster, with the entry that was not used for us ordinary mortals

Next to the huge Minster there is this ordinary sized church

Markets in York & Leeds

During my walk in York on 08/07 I came across a small market, and two days later I found a wonderful covered market in Leeds

York – Tudor house on the left and market on the right

 
York – Fruit and Veg stall with a wonderful colourful display

 
Leeds – Jack Fulton and Neil’s Quality Fruit and Vegetables

 

Leeds – This stall looks very appetising to me !

Open air and covered markets, ideally in areas with loads of small shops around it, are so much nicer to visit than our boring old supermarkets !  

 

381.The Man in Blue – Hounslow SGSS Sponsored Walk

Harjinder Singh 
Man in Blue 
Doing Path in Sadh Sangat

On Sunday 19 July the Hounslow Singh Sabha held its annual sponsored walk. As I am useless at fund raising I volunteered to be a marshal.

The weather forecast for the day was poor, but it turned out to be a much better day than predicted. There were two ‘sant-babé’ performing in Hayes and it seems that many people prefer sants over a walk with sadh sangat. 

The route of the sponsored walk is simple : turn left into Hanworth Road towards the centre of Hounslow and keep going in that direction, along the London Road until you come to Busch Corner. Here we turned left, walked past Syon Lane Station and again left at Gillette Corner into the Great West Road.

From there it is straight on past Osterley Station and Lampton Corner to turn left into Sutton Lane, which after crossing the Bath Road becomes the Wellington Road North. At the Staines Road we turned left and then after a few hundred yards right into Hibernia Road, which brings you to the side entrance of the Gurdwara.

Being a marshal means that you do not just walk the walk, but also check that other marshals/the police are in place at road crossings and that the walkers are all right. On the first stretch to Busch Corner I was in the vanguard and then waited till all had gone past. I then left taking big strides hoping to overtake all before we got to Sutton Lane.

I did not quite manage that, but saw a lot of the walkers who stopped at the free ice cream van. By then I took off my right shoe and noticed that I walked a sizeable hole in my sock, and had the beginning of a blister where the hole was.

I took off both socks and finished the last stretch at a more sedate pace, still overtaking many walkers. Between having long legs and not having a car I am in reasonably good nick in spite of being of the 1947 vintage.

I like walking, I love walking, it is a wonderful way of getting from A to B ! Of course if the heavens open and rain comes pelting down I am not entirely happy. But it is part of living in the UK, it is part of living a natural life. The best part of walking is that you do not need any special kit.

I have seen French ladies go up a rocky mountain path in stiletto heels and smart clothes. I would not advise people to follow that example, but ordinary decent shoes are fine for ordinary walks, ordinary decent clothes, suitable for the climate and the season will be entirely suitable.      

Walking with sangat and taking exercise made me feel nearer to God, nearer to Creation. Walking to me is simran, meditation where you do not necessarily have to repeat words that remind you of God. I was on a spiritual high at the end of the day, which was helped by the big chunk of watermelon I was given.

Manchester – Guru Harkrishan Gurdwara

I must be going in the right direction !

 
Sri Guru Harkrishan Sahib Gurdwara
12 Sherborne St
Manchester M3 1FE

The Gurdwara is in a side street with mostly neglected business premises and itself seems to be in a poor state of maintenance  

All are welcome and Gurdwara Entrance signs should encourage loads of Sangat to arrive, but when I was there between 5 and 6 pm it was not very busy

Palki Sahib

Apparently the building is owned by a local sikh businessman, but from what I have seen and heard used by people linked to the AKJ. There has been a fire (there is a burnt smell everywhere) and a notice offers apologies for inconvenience and promises a better Gurdwara in the near future.  

Near the Gurdwara I saw this road sign !

 

Manchester’s Metrolink, trams and major works

During my June visit to Manchester & Ashton-under-Lyme in June I did not just do my usually multi-faith work in Ashton’s 6th Form College, but also visited a local Gurdwara and took pictures of the Metrolink Trams

 
Metrolink Tram at Manchester Victoria Station
The system at Manchester started with two existing suburban railway lines, one to Bury and one to Altrincham, being connected by an on-street section and being served by trams

A Bury tram has just arrived in Victoria station   

This sounds like bad news, but things are even worse

This is where the trams normally leave Victoria Station and start their on-street section

 
In August no trams to Eccles and Altrincham, and at the moment no trams at all on most of the on-street section in central Manchester

 Shudehill station closed, no trams !

 
High Street closed, no trams
New tracks and new ‘beds’ to lay them on are being constructed

There are no trams on the spur to Piccadilly Station, but for the moment, until August hits us, there are trams from St Peter’s square to Eccles and Altrincham

In August all will be shut down apart from Victoria to Bury vv, after August the system will start going back to normal

After this hopefully work will start on the extensions to Oldham and Rochdale, to Ashton-under-Lyne, to Manchester Airport and to Stockport

BBC News UK – Equality chief urged to quit post

BBC News, 25 July 2009

Equalities and Human Rights Commission head Trevor Phillips is facing calls to step down after a fourth resignation over his leadership in eight days.

Ben Summerskill of gay rights group Stonewall is the latest commissioner to go. He said Mr Phillips was damaging the cause of equality by staying on.

Auditors have criticised the commission for spending almost £1m on re-employing staff after giving them redundancy.

Mr Phillips will not be resigning, the commission said.

A spokesman added that Mr Summerskill’s decision to leave was “regrettable”.

Mr Phillips was appointed chairman of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) – his current organisation’s predecessor – in 2003.

He continued as chairman when the organisation evolved to cover the areas of age, religion and belief, sexual orientation and the promotion of human rights in 2006.

‘Careless waste’

However, his leadership style has come under intense scrutiny in recent months and the three commissioners who resigned last week criticised his management skills.

A refusal by the National Audit Office to fully sign off the commission’s accounts added to the pressure, with opposition MPs accusing it of a “careless waste of taxpayers’ money”.

The body admitted it had not followed the rules when it re-employed seven people who had taken redundancy from the CRE – at a cost of £629,276 – on short-term contracts worth £323,708.

It prompted Mr Summerskill to say that “destructive headlines” about Mr Phillips were interfering with the commission’s work and that he was damaging its cause by staying on.

He told the Guardian: “There are millions of people in this country whose lives are still disfigured by prejudice. Every hour that the commission is arguing about who its chair is… is an hour that is not being spent focused on changing the lives of those people.”

Mr Summerskill added that he was surprised that, five days before publication of the auditors’ report, the government had re-appointed Mr Phillips to another three-year term.

Going for a walk in York II

More pictures from the wonderful city of York

 This not mock-tudor, it is the real thing !
Somewhere here we found the National Trust Tea Room where we had very nice coffee and near which we found the nice garden pictures of which have been posted before.

I am not sure which gate this, it is near the Minster and when you go through it and turn right it will take you to St John’s University

This is the same gate seen from outside the old city

The Library, nice building, picture is a bit dark

Young Zimbabweans singing beautifully

Also see :

Going for a walk in York I 

Haywards Heath, York & Leeds

More Simran from York

  

BBC News – Global swine flu deaths top 700

BBC News, 21 July 2009

H1N1 swine flu has killed more than 700 people around the world since the outbreak began four months ago, says the World Health Organization (WHO).

This represents a jump of at least two-thirds from the last official death toll figure of 429, published by the WHO on July 6.

Margaret Chan, WHO director-general, has warned that swine flu will become the biggest flu pandemic ever seen.

However, most cases continue to produce only mild symptoms.

The overwhelming majority of patients usually recover, even without medical treatment, within a week of falling ill.

The WHO has said the pandemic is developing at such a high speed that it is now pointless to try to document every case.

In past pandemics, flu viruses have needed more than six months to spread as widely as the new H1N1 virus has spread in less than six weeks.

But officials have stressed that there is an ongoing need for all countries to monitor unusual events, such as clusters of severe or fatal cases, or unusual clinical patterns, closely.

Some 125,000 laboratory-confirmed cases have been reported worldwide – but the number of actual cases far exceeds that.

WHO spokeswoman Aphaluck Bhatiasevi said a group of experts, including mathematicians, epidemiologists and a virologists, were examining various measures countries could take to slow the spread of the disease.

Ms Bhatiasevi said school closures could be among the recommendations, but that it was up to each country to consider appropriate steps for their situations.

Experts predict that there will be a significant surge of new cases of swine flu in the northern hemisphere when the weather begins to cool in the autumn.

SWINE FLU SYMPTOMS

1. High temperature, tiredness and lowered immunity

2. Headache, runny nose and sneezing

3. Sore throat

4. Shortness of breath

5. Loss of appetite, vomiting and diarrhoea

6. Aching muscles, limb and joint pain

Source: National Health Service