Halmaalweg, three Gingelom Singhanis, smiling Palwinder Kaur
Halmaalweg, Amarjit Singh, my landlord
Halmaalweg, the two young women in front are from Kortrijk
Halmaalweg, women pushing prams : the next generation, Belgian born
To see more Sint-Truiden Gurdwara related pictures go to :
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More Nagar Kirtan pictures to follow
Harjinder Singh
Man in Blue
Tribune News Service
Patiala, December 3. Some Hindu families, who migrated from Pakistan nearly 60 years back and settled in Rajpura, today protested against the district administration’s move to shift them from their houses in Kasturba Sewa Ashram, ahead of Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal’s visit. Meanwhile, the administration claimed that the families were being provided better accommodations and it was necessary to shift them.
In the morning, a team of the administration swooped on Kasturba Sewa Ashram, near the newly constructed Mini Secretariat, and asked the residents to vacate their houses at the earliest or their belongings would be forcibly removed. The families were told that the deputy chief minister was expected to inaugurate the building on December 7.
“We have been residing here from the past 60 years and allotted rooms and now, we have been asked to vacate and shift from here. The administration wants us to shift in incomplete houses”, claimed Hansraj, a local resident.
Another resident, Gian Chand said that the government was in a rush to inaugurate the Mini Secretariat ahead of elections. “If they are in a haste, they should have completed our houses before asking us to vacate”, said Chand.
The migrants, who have been living in the ashram just behind the newly constructed Mini Secretariat in Rajpura, said that they were not even issued a single notice in this regard.
Rubbishing the claims, Patiala Deputy Commissioner Vikas Garg said that notices had already been served on them to vacate their houses and they would be shifted to better houses.
Islamabad: The commission investigating the May 2 US operation in Abbottabad that killed Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden has called former federal minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed to appear before it on Dec 13, Dawn has learnt.
Last week, the commission headed by Justice (retd) Javed Iqbal expanded its scope of work and summoned former ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani and PML-N legislator Khwaja Asif on December 14.
Sheikh Rashid, who served as information minister during the Musharraf regime, confirmed to Dawn that he had been summoned to apprise members of the commission of his perception about the Abbottabad operation.
He said the notice showed that he had been invited along with some other people.
The commission has already interviewed several high-ranking officials from armed forces, intelligence agencies, police, the National Database and Registration Authority and other government departments.
The members of the commission are Lt-Gen (retd) Nadeem Ahmed, former inspector general of police Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Abbas Khan and former ambassador Ashraf Jehangir Qazi.
They have twice visited Abbottabad and inspected the compound where Bin Laden had allegedly been residing with his family.
The commission interviewed some local people and recorded the statements of wives and daughters of Bin Laden before granting them permission to leave Pakistan.
http://www.dawn.com/2011/12/04/abbottabad-panel-summons-rashid.html
Gurdeep Mann, Tribune News Service
Jalal (Bathinda), December 2. Kuldip Manak (62), the legendary folk singer, was buried today at his native village Jalal with state honours. Famous Punjabi singers, politicians and hundreds of people gathered to bid tearful adieu to Manak.
Manak’s body was brought from Ludhiana in a funeral van fitted with loudspeakers playing music. More than 100 vehicles of politicians, singers and Manak’s admirers accompanied the van. His body was kept in the grain market for around two hours from where it was taken to the village graveyard.
An inconsolable Manak’s wife, Sarabjit Kaur and daughter Shakti kept sitting near the body while Manak’s son Yudhvir, who has not been keeping well since long, stayed in his car. He was taken to the graveyard for few minutes where he performed his father’s last rites.
A police contingent fired gunshots in the air to pay tributes to the departed soul.
Singers Hans Raj Hans, Harbhajan Mann, comedian-turned-politician Bhagwant Mann, Nachhattar Gill, Mohammad Sadique, Sardul Sikandar, Jazzy B, Jaswant Sandila, Jasdev Singh Jasowal, Sarabjeet Cheema, Buta Mohammad and Manak’s nephew Kewal Jalal were present.
Local politicians Sikandar Maluka, Gurpreet Kangar, Ajaib Singh Bhatti, Balwant Singh Ramoowalia and MP Paramjit Kaur Gulshan also paid tributes to the legendary singer.
Chandigarh, December 2. Member of Parliament from Bathinda Harsimrat Kaur Badal today sent a communiqué to Lok Sabha Speaker Meira Kumar to convey to the visiting Italian parliamentary delegation the concern of the Sikhs on their victimisation in Italy.
“If celebrities like Golfer Jeev Milkha Singh’s coach Amritinder Singh and Ravijodh Singh Dhupia, Commander of Jet Airways, could be ridiculed in the presence of thousands of commuters (by asking them to remove their turban), one can well understand the fate of ordinary Sikhs in Italy,” she said.
In another communiqué to the Italy’s Ambassador, Harsimrat reminded him of the SAD memorandum on the humiliation meted out to Amritinder Singh and his assurance that such incidents would not reccur. She also criticised the Congress-led UPA Government for doing little to safeguard the dignity of the Sikhs travelling abroad.
She said that on the one hand, the Congress claimed to be a votary of Sikhs and on the other, despite assurances by the Union Exteranl Affairs Ministry and the Prime Minister, the Sikhs were being targeted abroad. (TNS)
Sandeep Dikshit
New Delhi, 3 December 2011. As intense discussions begin in Bonn this weekend in preparation for the December 5 international conference on Afghanistan, India will for the first time get attention it has never gained during similar international meetings around the globe over the past 10 years.
India goes into the Bonn conference with the tag of being the only country with which Afghanistan has signed a security pact. The US, which has invested the most, is still finalising the contours of a similar pact.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh recently said Afghan President Hamid Karzai told him that the strategic pact with India was “universally popular” in Afghanistan and there was “no demand for its ratification” unlike the proposed pact with the US.
A few days back, an Indian consortium was given mining rights to the region’s biggest untapped iron ore deposits south west of Kabul. And if the confrontation between the west and Iran deescalates over time, India would be the only country with an alternative route largely in place for bringing in men and material for construction and exporting steel from the Hajigak mine.
Remarkable elevation
This marks a remarkable elevation for India from a stage when it was in danger of being relegated to the status of also-consulted countries. At a conference early last year on Afghanistan in Turkey, while France and Japan managed to get invited, India was kept out, as the WikiLeaks tapes reveal, “in deference to Pakistani sensitivities.”
Review
The Bonn conference will be held on Tuesday with 90 delegations, most of them led by Foreign Ministers, and 1,000 participants. But representatives of major players are already in Bonn, reviewing the previous conference in Turkey, trying to cope with the Pakistani spanner of a boycott and trying to figure out the U.S. Silk Road proposal.
The conference has three themes — managing the transition as the West prepares to pull back the bulk of its forces, the political process that ought to be fashioned and long term engagement of the international community in Afghanistan.
It will be on the last aspect that the global community would be closely examining the headway made by India. A gas pipeline from Central Asia will cut through Afghanistan to supply gas to Pakistan and India. And while European companies were agonised on policy issues, India walked away with three out of four Hajigak mine blocks which will actually be a package deal of producing semi-finished products from the ore, a power plant and evacuation routes.
China’s success
China has been successful with the Aynak copper mine but unlike India it does not have a visible political role. Apart from agreeing on exploring for hydrocarbons and minerals, the India-Afghanistan strategic pact has a clause for training Afghan security personnel. India had been carrying out small scale training for the security personnel in addition to its longstanding programmes for military cadets from developing countries and the strategic agreement “puts together all that we had been doing so far with the aim to build on it,” said diplomatic sources. These developments add to the soft power India has always enjoyed in Afghanistan through its soap operas and films.
“At last month’s conference in Turkey, Mr. Karzai said India had a major role to play in Afghanistan. At the beginning of last year, it was not invited to an Afghan conference in the same country,” said an official, while underlining how the situation has changed.
Halmaalweg, Nishan Sahib and Panj Piare
Halmaalweg, Palki Sahib
Halmaalweg, Malkit Singh, Kirpal Singh
Halmaalweg, Amrik Singh, Mohinder Singh
To see more Sint-Truiden Gurdwara related pictures go to :
http://www.flickr.com/photos/12445197@N05/sets/72157624495772533/
More Nagar Kirtan pictures to follow
Harjinder Singh
Man in Blue
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, December 2. The Punjab and Haryana High Court today made it clear that there were no legal hurdles in the way of holding the December 5 meeting of the newly constituted Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) by refusing to grant a stay.
At the same time, the Bench issued a notice to the Centre, the Gurdwara Commission and the Amritsar DC to respond to the issues raised in the petition.
The case will now come up for hearing on December 16.
The notice came on a plea filed by Tek Singh Dhanaula and others seeking a stay on convening the meeting. The petitioners contended the meeting should not be allowed to be convened till the outcome of the petition seeking voting rights for Sehajdhari Sikhs. The orders on the petition have already been reserved by a Full Bench of the HC.
The counsel for the petitioner argued that the Centre could not convene the meeting of the newly elected members of the SGPC till the time the matter was resolved by the courts. He also sought directions for allowing the elected members of the outgoing body to continue till the court verdict.
Earlier, the petition came up for hearing before the Bench of the Chief Justice. It was referred to the Full Bench of Justice Surya Kant, Justice MMS Bedi and Justice Muttaci Jeyapaul, that is hearing the main case.
As the petition came up for hearing before the Full Bench this morning, Justice Surya Kant observed in the open court that the Bench had reservations on the petitioner’s locus standi to file the petition as a PIL.
Refusing to stay the December 5 meeting, Justice Surya Kant asserted the Supreme Court had already held the SGPC elections would be subject to the outcome of the Full Bench order on the Sehajdhari issue.
2 December 2011
A low-caste Dalit boy has been killed in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh for sharing a name with a man of a higher caste, police say.
They said Neeraj Kumar’s father Ram Sumer had been asked to change the names of two sons as they were the same as those of Jawahar Chaudhary’s sons.
The body of Neeraj, 14, was found on 23 November in a field. Two friends of the Chaudhary family have been arrested.
Mr Chaudhary denies the involvement of his family in the murder.
He says the family is being framed by police.
Dalits, formerly known as “untouchables”, are at the bottom of the Hindu caste system in India.
Although caste discrimination is illegal, biases remain in many areas.
Strangled The latest incident took place in Radhaupur village in Basti district.
Both Ram Sumer and Jawahar Chaudhary have sons named Neeraj and Dheeraj and that has long been an issue between the two families, Sub-inspector Praveen Kumar said.
Mr Chaudhary, who belongs to a higher caste, had given several warnings to Mr Sumer to change the names of his boys.
On 22 November, Neeraj left home after dinner to watch television at a friend’s house. His body was found the next day.
Police said he was strangled.
Mr Chaudhary’s sons – Neeraj and Dheeraj – are missing, but police have arrested two friends of the family who they say had a role in the murder.
