Under Construction
The Tribune – Pakistan PM positive about Nankana Sahib university
Amritsar, November 15. Pakistan PM Yousuf Raza Gilani has directed the Evacuee Trust Property Board officials to make all the arrangements to pave the way for the beginning of the construction work of Guru Nanak Dev University at Nankana Sahib.
Addressing a seminar on Sikh-Muslim ties organised by Dayal Singh Research and Cultural Forum in Lahore today, Gilani said he would lay the foundation stone of the university at the birth place of Guru Nanak Dev. SGPC spokesperson Ram Singh, who is accompanying a 634-member SGPC jatha to Pakistan, shared this information with The Tribune. (TNS)
The Tribune – President ignored relevant factors, Bhullar tells Supreme Court
Legal Correspondent
New Delhi, November 15. The President did not take into account several factors while rejecting the mercy petition of Devínder Pal Singh Bhullar, sentenced to death in 2001 for the 1993 bomb attack on the then Youth Congress President MS Bitta, it was argued in the Supreme Court today.
The fact that Bhullar was convicted solely on the basis of his confessional statement and that the Supreme Court upheld his sentence through a split 2-1 verdict was ignored by the President, senior counsel KTS Tulsi contended before a Bench comprising Justices GS Singhvi and SJ Mukhopadhaya.
The President also did not take into account another factor that Bhullar had gone insane following the solitary confinement he underwent due to the eight years of delay in taking a decision on his mercy plea, Tulsi argued. On the split verdict by the SC, the senior counsel said there was room for doubt” over the involvement of Bhullar in the attack as Justice MB Shah, the senior-most Judge of the three-member Bench, had delivered a dissenting judgment against giving him death penalty. The President should have taken into account all these points before taking a decision.
The Hindu – Anger at Advani in Golden Temple
For his comments in support of ‘Operation Blue Star’ in his book
Special Correspondent
Chandigarh, 16 November 2011. Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader L.K. Advani continued to face angry protests on the third day of his Jan Chetna Yatra in Punjab, when activists from different Akali factions and radical organisations raised slogans as he visited the holiest Sikh shrine, Harmandar Sahib (Golden Temple) complex in Amritsar on Tuesday.
The heavy deployment of civilian clothes-clad security personnel within the “parkarma” (path for circumambulation) notwithstanding, protesters vented their anger against Mr. Advani, who was accompanied by his wife Kamala and daughter Pratibha, for his controversial comments in support of “Operation Blue Star” in his book,My Country My Life.
Slogans raised
Activists of the Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar) led by their president Simranjit Singh Mann raised slogans against Mr. Advani and in favour of Khalistan at various places in parkarma, near the Akal Takht and outside the shrine complex.
Similarly, a group of workers led by the president of the Punjab unit of the Akali Dal (Delhi), Jaswinder Singh Baliawal, managed to sneak in and raise slogans against Mr. Advani, as the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) officials presented him a ‘siropa’ (robes of religious honour) at a brief ceremony outside the Harmandar Sahib’s information office near the clock tower entry of the shrine.
‘Badal exposed’
Talking toThe Hindu, Mr. Baliawal said that his party was of the opinion that the ruling Akali Dal, of which Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal was the patron, and the SGPC should not have welcomed Mr. Advani, who had pledged his support to the then Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, in carrying out “Operation Blue Star” that had wounded the Sikh community’s psyche. He said that by honouring Mr. Advani at the holiest shrine of the community, Mr. Badal had exposed his consent for the Army action of 1984.
According to reporters present on the occasion, Mr. Advani just folded his hands and refused to offer any comments to questions related to his support to the “Operation Blue Star.” On the other hand, the SGPC officials were tight-tipped on the issue of raising of slogans within the precincts of the shrine, despite heavy deployment of its security task force.
Good response
After paying obeisance at the Durgiana Mandir and homage to the martyrs at the Jallianwala Bagh, Mr. Advani proceeded to Batala en route Pathankot. At various rallies, especially in Batala town, Mr. Advani received enthusiastic response from the people. In his address, he targeted Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, United Progressive Alliance chairperson, Sonia Gandhi and the Congress leadership for the series of scandals, unprecedented inflation and lowering the prestige of the nation in the international comity.
Mr. Advani reiterated the resolve of the BJP and its alliance partners to force the government, during the forthcoming winter session of Parliament, to reveal the names of the corrupt leaders, who had stashed black money in Swiss banks.
Sint-Truiden, Limburg, Belgium – Levensloop 1 and 2 October 2011
Levensloop is a walk/run raising money to help cancer patients. Each team had to keep a walker or runner on the course from 4 pm on Saturday till 4 pm on Sunday. The Sikh community took part with a team of nearly sixty walkers/runners. The pictures were all taken on Sunday 2 October.
The last lap, the Mayor and his team followed by the Sikhs
The team of the mayor (burgemeester)
Pag, patka & hankie wale
Kathakar in the middle
To see more Sint-Truiden pictures go to :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12445197@N05/sets/72157622046344528/
More Belgian pictures to follow
Harjinder Singh
Man in Blue
The Tribune – 2 brothers shot dead in Manila
Our Correspondents
Hoshiarpur/Phagwara, November 15. Three Punjab men, two from Hoshiarpur and the third from Phagwara, were shot dead in two separate incidents in Manila, the capital of Philippines, over the past 48 hours.
A pall of gloom descended on Panam village in Garhshankar sub-division of Hoshiarpur district as news of the murder of two brothers, Manjit Singh (28) and Sukhwinder Singh (26), reached there. The duo was shot dead by unidentified persons and the cause behind the shootout was yet to be ascertained. According to family sources, the brothers were doing money lending business there. Panam sarpanch Balwinder Singh said efforts were on to bring their bodies to the village for performing last rites.
Meanwhile, a Phagwara resident, Vikki Talwar, was also shot dead in Manila last night. Ajay, the deceased’s nephew, said his uncle went to Manila two years ago and was doing finance-related business there.
Dawn – National Assembly passes pro-women bill unanimously
Raja Asghar
16 November 2011
Islamabad: After being blocked twice last month, a landmark private bill seeking to penalise evils like the so-called “marriage with the holy Quran”, forced wedlock, and depriving women from inheritance finally got through the National Assembly on Tuesday, when the house also voiced outrage at the recent murder of three Hindu youths in Sindh.
Some trifling objections that had stalled the Anti-Women Practices (Criminal Law Amendment) Bill on two private members’ days of the previous session of the house were not raised this time when, at the end of the day’s sitting, the house voted unanimously for the draft, which must be now passed also by the Senate to become law, to provide for some stern prison terms and heavy fines.
A substantial amendment proposed by a member of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Justice (retd) Fakhrunnisa Khokhar, to remove what she considered drafting faults or legal lacunas, which contributed to previous hurdles to the bill, was rejected when put to vote while she was not on her seat as her party did not support it.
It had appeared an undeclared gang-up when excuses like non-availability of copies of some proposed amendments and objections to mandatory punishments raised by some members from both the opposition and treasury benches derailed the bill twice last month just before the final vote, despite its earlier approval by a 17-member all-party house standing committee on women development.
The five-clause bill, which seeks to amend both the Pakistan Penal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure, provides for at least 10 years’ imprisonment and a fine of one million rupees for using deceitful means to deprive a woman of inheritance, up to seven years and a minimum of three years and Rs500,000 as fine for giving a woman in forced marriage to settle civil disputes or a criminal liability, and up to seven years and a minimum of three years with Rs500,000 as fine for compelling or facilitating the “marriage of a woman with the holy Quran”.
The “marriage with the holy Quran”, often blamed on feudal families in the interior of Sindh and Punjab, has been explained in the bill as an “oath by a woman on the holy Quran to remain unmarried for the rest of her life or not to claim her share of inheritance”.
Earlier, the house observed a two minutes’ silence for three Hindus shot dead on November 7 in Shikarpur town of Sindh reportedly in a dispute over a dancing girl.
While most speakers from all parties in the house, including members from non-Muslim minorities, saw the killings as part of the often-complained targeting of minorities by extremist elements, Interior Minister Rehman Malik said the incident, in which at least one doctor and two other members of Hindu community were killed, was a crime but “not a target- killing”. Assurances for sincere government efforts to arrest and punish all those found responsible came from both the interior minister, the PPP chief whip Khursheed Ahmed Shah and even some PPP members of the minority communities.
The interior minister endorsed some members’ demand for a house committee to study problems of minority communities and said he planned to meet lawmakers from minorities next week.
After PPP veteran Aftab Shahban Mirani raised the issue, several members from both sides of house also regretted reported withdrawal of security arrangements at the Karachi residence of Speaker Fehmida Mirza, some of them seeing the move as a consequence of a row between the PPP leadership and the speaker’s estranged husband and former Sindh home minister Zulfikar Ali Mirza.
But the speaker later told the house that the security arrangements had been restored after the matter came to the notice of President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani, although, according one source, some members had earlier planned to table a privilege motion for a perceived breach of privilege of the house by the Sindh government’s move.
The weekend killing of four military officials and a civilian helper allegedly by militants they were pursuing at the hilltop shrine of Pir Chumbal in Chakwal district of Punjab also figured in the house where the interior minister blamed the incident on militants who had fled from the Malakand division of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and cited “somebody’s double-crossing” as the immediate cause.
A PML-N MNA from Chakwal, Ayaz Amir, earlier told the house that he had received information some two months ago that a “terrorist gang” was hiding in the mountains in that area for a long time, but he did not believe it then.
He said the officials were subjected to “unspeakable torture” after being kidnapped by the unidentified militants and added: “We have to see what crops we have sown and what are we harvesting.”
http://www.dawn.com/2011/11/16/na-passes-pro-women-bill-unanimously.html
In the UK, 15 November 2011
Sikh Channel is doing a show this Thursday at 23.00 hours CET with Harjinder Singh from the Netherlands. They will do the first part of the programme in English and the second part will be Dutch. Please share this info with everyone in the Netherlands & Belgium and post it to your FB wall.
Sikh Channel doet een show deze donderdag om 23.00 uur CET met Harjinder Singh uit Nederland.
Het eerste deel van het programma is in het Engels, het tweede deel is in het Nederlands. Gelieve deze informatie met iedereen in Nederland & België te delen en zet het op uw Facebook wall.
I went to the UK for three reasons. The first one is that I am starting to prepare myself for my return to the UK in the summer of next year, after the Olympics are over and done with. On Friday I will attend a London Region meeting of the fbfe (for more info http://www.fbfe.org.uk/ ) with whom I have worked before I went to Belgium. Today I visited the Slough Equalities Council and the STAIS translation and interpretation service. I have both been employed and worked as freelancer for these organisations.
The second reason is to meet some of my good London friends, especially my brother Amrik Singh (Airport) and his family.
The third, equally important reason is to go to either of the Southall Singh Sabha Gurdwaras and listen to the beautiful kirtan !
And of course you must all watch and listen to Sikh Channel at 10.00 pm BST on Thursday 17 November.
Singh Sabha Gurdwara, Park Avenue, Southall
