Sify.com – Sukhbir Badal thanks Delhi Sikhs for gurdwara poll win

Chandigarh, 30 January (IANS). With his party Wednesday moving to get a clear majority in the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee (DSGMC) election, Shiromani Akali Dal (Badal) president Sukhbir Singh Badal thanked the Sikh community in the capital.

The Akali Dal routed a group led by DSGMC president Paramjit Singh Sarna, which had dominated Delhi Sikh politics and managed the Sikh shrines in the national capital for over a decade. Sarna himself was defeated from the Punjabi Bagh seat by Akali Dal candidate Manjinder Singh Sirsa.

Akali Dal candidates were declared winners in 23 out of the 46 constituencies in the DSGMC poll till afternoon. The winners included Akali Dal leader Manjit Singh GK.

Sukhbir Badal, who is Punjab deputy chief minister, said: “The Sikh community has reposed faith in us. We will deliver by fulfilling all promises made in our manifesto.”

“This election is a reminder to Sarnas that those who stabbed the Sikh community in the back by hobnobbing with the Congress, would be severely punished by the community,” he said.

He said the Akali Dal would strive further to seek conviction of Congress leaders involved in the massacre of thousands of Sikhs in the 1984 anti-Sikh riots.

Badal said the DSGMC election results were an indicator of the ensuing rout of the Congress in the Delhi assembly election and the 2014 general election.

Speaking to media in New Delhi after his group’s defeat, a defiant Sarna, who was backed by Congress leaders, including Punjab Congress president Amarinder Singh, said: “These (Akali Dal) people will ruin everything. We have no regret (about the defeat).”

http://www.sify.com/news/badal-thanks-delhi-sikhs-for-gurdwara-poll-win-news-national-nb4skgdeihc.html

The Tribune – Free electricity bankrupting power corporation

Jangveer Singh, Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 5. Free power bankrupted the erstwhile Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB). It may well do the same to Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL). In the race for competitive populism, the power subsidy in the state net continues to rise. With landless labourers also covered under subsidised power, nearly 35 per cent consumers are being given subsidised power in Punjab.

The Cabinet has approved 100 units per month free power to landless labourers, bringing another five lakh persons under this facility. Nine lakh SC and below poverty line (BPL) families are being provided 100 units of power free per month. Ten lakh agriculture consumers enjoy free power for their agricultural pump sets.

This has resulted in a huge subsidy bill that the government has to pay each month to the electricity utility. Free power to the agriculture sector and to SC and BPL families costs the state Rs 349 crore per month. Free power to landless labourers will cost it Rs 150 crore per annum.

The state is virtually robbing its own electricity utility by refusing to pay it full subsidy in cash as decreed by the State Power Regulatory Commission. The government has made paper adjustments of more than Rs 4,000 crore against outstanding loans in the past four years. The liability of bonds worth Rs 980 crore issued by the government has also been placed on the power utility.

While the government paid PSPCL Rs 249 crore on account of subsidy after deducting electricity duty for the subsidy due for October, it took back Rs 140 crore from the corporation on account of electricity duty.

Paper adjustment of subsidy as well as irregular payments are leading to a financial crisis in the PSPCL which is forced to go in for short-term borrowings to purchase power. These borrowings are invariably disallowed by the regulatory commission, leading it into a debt trap. The PSPCL faces a cumulative loss of Rs 11,000 crore and is finding it increasingly difficult to borrow money with public sector banks refusing loans.

Despite the situation, there is no recovery plan in sight. There is a feeling that the free power facility started by the SAD-BJP government in 1997 is here to stay. Even the previous Congress government led by Captain Amarinder Singh  succumbed to populism and resumed the free power facility after doing away with it on assuming power in 2002. The BJP and former Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal had spoken out against free power, but to no avail.

In this race for populist schemes, the government seems to be impervious to the environmental crisis looming over the state. Free power has led to an increase in the number of pump sets (11.5 lakh). In 2000 there were only 7.7 lakh pump sets. As many as 105 of the 140 blocks in Punjab are in the red zone with the ground water going down steadily.

The government has failed to come out with any incentive for the optimum use of tube wells or create conditions to make its oft-repeated call for diversification succeed.

http://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20111206/punjab.htm#7

431.Sikh Ultras in Panjab

Sikhs used to be terrorists, fundamentalists, agents of the ISI, but the new buzz word is ‘Sikh Ultras’. According to the Panjab Police, the Badal Dal, Amarinder Singh and the Tribune there are Sikh Ultras, mainly from Babar Khalsa, who want to revive the Sikh terrorism of the Seventies, Eighties and early Nineties.

There appears to be a Singh behind it all, loads of RDX and other evil stuff has been confiscated and some people have been arrested. Family and friends loudly protest their innocence and allege that the arrested persons have been tortured.

In the late nineties when I lived in Panjab stories about dangerous people who were smuggled in from across the Pakistan border by the ISI, carrying weapons, ammunition and explosives, kept popping up in the press. ‘After some time’ the arrested people were discretely set free, and the ‘confiscated’ weapons etc were redeployed in the next fake arrest of ‘dangerous Khalistanis’.

I do not live in Panjab anymore, and although I try to keep in close touch with events there, it is more difficult for me to judge the present stories. I have a working theory which fits in with impressions of the mood of people on the fringe of the Khalistani movement, and with past experience of Indian practices.

There are people on the fringe of the ‘established’ Khalistani movements in countries like Canada, the UK, USA and Malaysia who are angry that so many years after 1984 the culprits of the killings in Harmandar Sahib and in Delhi and other Congress ruled cities have not been prosecuted and that no real progress has been made towards establishing Khalistan.

They have no patience with the long term strategies of the established Khalistani organisations and are looking for action, in their home countries action against what are seen as anti panthic elements, but also direct action in Panjab itself.

When I visited Lahore in 1996 and 1997 I met ‘diaspora’ Sikhs who go to Pakistan and volunteer to go into the east Panjab and explode bombs or kill politicians. The persons I met never made it across the border, all they did was shuttle between Lahore and their Islamabad ISI contacts in the hope to progress their plans.

We all know that the Pakistani army and the ISI have never been under control of the Pakistani governments, not even of the military ones.

Looking at what is served up by the Panjabi press I think that that there might be at least one real incident with some kind of Khalistani connection, and that the rest are the usual scare stories and finds of the same weapons etc again and again.

The use of violence in India or elsewhere will not be of any benefit to the Sikh Qaum. Just like in the days of Indira Gandhi, Sikh violence will only give an excuse to politicians in India and elsewhere to implement anti-Sikh measures.

415.The Man in Blue – Damdami Taksal and Sant Samaj

I still have not got my head round the recent close cooperation between the Taksal and the Sant Samaj, with Baba Harnam Singh heading both groups.

Of course the Taksal and the Sant Samaj have things in common. They both do not believe in Guru Granth/Guru Panth as ordained by Guru Gobind Singh. They both think that the 1945 Rehat Maryada that came about after wide consultations of various Sikh institutions is no good.

They both believe in the story of Luv and Kush as the forefathers of the Gurus, they also both believe in rules not based on the Rehat Maryada and which are not based on the teachings of the Guru Granth.

The rituals of the Taksal and of the Sant Samaj differ, but both groups tend to emphasise on how to do things, instead of Guru’s emphasis on the intention with which you do things.  

Sants tend to tell their followers to give them the money and they will do the spiritual work for you. This does not agree with Taksal practice, unless ‘Baba Harnam Singh’ has changed that too.

The biggest difference between the two groups is in the political field. Most members of the Sant Samaj have been faithful servants of the various Delhi governments, while the Taksal was always a thorn in the side of Delhi.

That makes you wonder what the struggle between Bhai Ram Singh and Baba Harnam Singh was about. Was this new political direction behind the question of who should be the next Taksal Jathedar ?

I knew Bhai Ram Singh when he was one of the Granthis of Darbar Sahib. He was the only person of any weight there who helped me. That agrees with the way I was welcomed by Baba Thakur Singh when I came to take Amrit.  But Bhai Ram Singh seemed more open to Sikhs of other traditions, while in Mehta Chowk it was made clear that the Taksal way was true Sikhí.

The most amazing aspect of these new developments is that this Sant Samaj/Taksal combination works together with the Akal Takhat Jathedar and other puppets of the Badal Dal/BJP state government. That this  combination is powerful in Panjab I understand. But that educated people in the UK support this unholy alliance does surprise me.

Some groups in the UK think that a difference of opinion is an excuse to use violence. The Sikh Federation should realise that being seen together with violent groups and individuals will be used to justify the Indian anti-Khalistani propaganda. They also should realise that being together with the Sant Samaj and the Badal Dal is not a Panthic stance.       

Stop the use of violence

All Sikhs, Sikh organisations and Gurdwaré should undertake never again to use violence as a means to settle differences of opinion. There is no precedent from Guru’s days for this bad practice, the Guru taught us to stand up against injustice, not against opinions that we do not agree with.