ECB is about differentiating Sikhs
from the word 'Asian.'
Its a Vision to help raise awareness
of Sikhs in the Western World,
their history,beliefs and identity.
Victory Medal found in England leads to Kitchener tombstone of World War I 'hero'
The mystery is slowly unravelling.
Until some months ago, nothing much was known about the nine Sikh-Canadians who joined the Canadian army and fought in World War I – at a time when Sikhs weren't even allowed to immigrate to Canada.
Then an amateur historian bought a Victory Medal that led him to a Kitchener graveyard and he found the tombstone of Pte. Buckam Singh.
"That man was a real hero," said Sandeep Singh Brar of Brampton, who found the grave.
"He fought for Canada, came back and died alone in a hospital."
The Sikh-Canadian, whose grave drew little attention for 90 years, recently attracted about 50 people for Remembrance Day Sikh prayers at the Kitchener cemetery.
T. Sher Singh, a Guelph lawyer who attended the ceremony, said the discovery of the grave is significant for the community. "It means that we have a history in the building of this nation," said Singh. "Not only have we built the railroads and cleared the forests and slaved in the lumber mills, but we have given our lives when it was necessary."
But the story of the Sikh-Canadian, who fought at Flanders Fields, was wounded twice in battle and died in 1919 at age 25 after returning to Canada, likely wouldn't have been told if it hadn't been for the medal. Brar bought it from a dealer in England about a year ago believing it had been bestowed upon a British-Indian soldier.
He got a shock when he carefully read the inscription on its rim: Singh had been a member of the 20th Canadian Infantry and the medal listed his name, rank and registration number.
Over the next few months, Brar went to Ottawa many times to track down military records. He discovered Singh had fought in Flanders Fields and was injured by shrapnel in the head, and again by a bullet in the leg. The Toronto Star, then called the Toronto Daily Star, reported his injuries on Aug. 9, 1916, in a list of Canadian soldiers wounded in battle.
Singh was treated at a hospital in Boulogne, France run by Guelph's Lt. Col. John McCrae. He was shipped to England in 1917 where, while recovering, he contracted tuberculosis and was sent to the Freeport Hospital in Kitchener, then run by the Canadian army. He died two years later and was buried in Kitchener's Mount Hope Cemetery.
Brar believes Singh's grave may be the only one in Canada belonging to a Sikh-Canadian who fought in World War I. The Victory Medal may also be the only existing medal for a Sikh soldier.
This story has become an obsession for Brar, who has created a website, sikhmuseum.com, to showcase his findings. He said Singh's family, who lived in a village in Punjab, India, knew nothing about his time at war. "They just received a notice when he died.
"There are still many blanks in his story," said Brar, who is trying to track down Singh's family in India. That, he said, will be the next chapter in Buckam Singh's story.
Rahul Gandhi, the scion of India's ruling dynasty, is involved in a last-ditch effort to save his political future with a series of interviews, where he has repudiated his father's justification over anti-Sikh riots two decades ago and said the practice of families in parliament should end.
The controversial comments are seen as an attempt by the 38-year-old to breath life into the ruling Congress party that faces electoral oblivion in a series of major state polls, with an electorate of 92 million, for new regional governments over the next six weeks.
The Congress party has lost eight state elections in a row. Another battering would spell the end for the government of his mother, Sonia Gandhi, who won an unexpected victory in the 2004 general election.
His political opponents have derided Gandhi's attempt to rebrand the past, saying he was just a "child" but analysts say that behind the statements lies a series of cold "political calculations". A member of the Gandhi family has been in charge of India for 40 of the 60 years since independence.
"Rahul Gandhi is no dunce. He has seen the writing on the wall. All bets are that the Congress party are going to lose the next general election [next year] and it looks like he is looking to rebuild the party when it is out of power," said Mahesh Rangarajan, a political analyst.
Gandhi's most eye-catching political act has been to heal a rift with the Sikh community over the bloody events surrounding the assassination of prime minister Indira Gandhi, his grandmother, who had ordered an army assault on Sikhism's holiest shrine, the Golden Temple, where "terrorists" had been holed up.
Indira Gandhi was then shot dead by her Sikh bodyguards triggering anti-Sikh riots that claimed thousands of lives. The riots "were absolutely wrong," Rahul Gandhi said in Punjab, adding that the perpetrators "should be brought to justice".
Human rights activists have welcomed his comments, saying it was a long overdue statement by the Gandhi family. "We welcome these comments but Sikhs want that actions follow words. What we saw was conspiracy by the majority to systematically target a minority in India. Justice is required," said Rajinder Bains, a leading human rights lawyer in Punjab.
Earlier he had snubbed a senior party apparatchik who publicly decried the fact her son had not got a party seat. Gandhi told a group of young girls that he wanted to end dynastic politics, especially in the Congress party.
Rahul Gandhi's great-grandfather, Jawaharlal Nehru, was India's first prime minister. His grandmother, Indira, and father, Rajiv, also led the country. "I would not have been here, if I was not from a political family. If you do not have money, a family or friends, you cannot enter politics," he said.
Educated at Harvard and with a background running internet companies, Mr Gandhi appeared to take more eagerly to business than to politics. In 2006, he bought two shops in a new mall in Delhi. The present tenants of the two shops are clothing company, Les Femme, Koutons and Nike Sports.
"One of the biggest mysteries about Rahul is what he is thinking. Even in the middle of the world's biggest economic crash he has not said a word, although he has some skill in these matters. Whenever he says something he gets heard," said Rangarajan.
It's been a busy week for some Sikh organisations of recent with the discovery of a really filthy blog encouraging .......
"[Muslim] soldiers go hunting for Sikh slappers"
The Network of Sikh Organisations Media Monitoring group has taken action along with a number of other Sikh organisations including the Sikh Community Action Network, to tackle what could be deemed to be a form of 'Cyber-Terror'. There have always been stories and fears within both the Hindu and Sikh community about girls being drawn into relationships by predatory men under the guise of building what they deem to be legitamate relationships. On occassion it has even been rumoured that Muslim men will wear the Sikh Bangle (Kara) & provide a Sikh name to befriend the unsuspecting girls. By the time the bubble of perfection bursts and the girls realise (according to these stories) that the relationship was a ploy to induce or coerce to convert to Islam (apart from the whole sexual denigration of it all), it's all too late. Many of us have had experience or know of girls who fell in this trap during our University years, however this 'Seduction' blogsite is just a symptom of a bigger disease that lurks beneath the veneer of everyday University life. I wonder what Whitehall make of it all? Certainly the immediate concern is that this type of filth on the internet targeting a specific community and being derogatory to a faith group & it's women could ignite further tensions between Sikhs & Muslims. These were last seen in the late 1990's and resurfaced post 9/11. Oh dear, just when Sikhs thought they had been relegated to the 'vauxhall conference' of enemies by extremist groups. Its not only western Governments that extremists want to annihilate, it's all which is deemed as other. I wonder who they will have a pop at next? perhaps homosexuals.
There is one thing for certain though, If I were one of the 25 girls on this site I would see a good Liable lawyer and cash in, I am sure the damages could encourage a nice early retirement & defeat the challenges of the credit crunch we all face.
Ashish Joshi chairman of the Network of Sikh Organisations' media monitoring group, said he had been inundated with angry responses from Sikhs in the past 24 hours.
"I have never seen anything like this," he said. "There have always been concerns about grooming but to advertise such behaviour and encourage others to do so is absolutely shocking."
Mr Joshi denied suggestions that Sikh the anger may have stemmed from Sikh men being uncomfortable about Sikh women having sexual relationships with Muslim men.
"This is not about love, no-one can help who they fall in love with," he said. "This website is all about the deliberate and targeted sexual degradation of Sikh women purely because of their religion. It is about young Muslim men boasting about seducing kaffirs [unbelievers] while keeping their Muslim sisters chaste."
Until the identity (if ever) of the 'seduction blogsite' mastermind is known, people can only speculate on the reasons why the site was put together. Some will argue that it has been created just to foment tension between Sikhs and Muslims & others argue it may have even been a non-Muslim who created it. This blogsite certainly does not provide evidence of 'grooming' and Sikh groups should be cautious in their statements in light of this. It does however give a snapshot of the mindset of it's author, a dark insidous place with sexual exploitation on the mind 24/7.
The Maidenhead advertiser called this a "Victory for Sikhs as ''hate blog' is shut down", on the back of a campaign by the co-founders of SCAN, the high profile Jagdeesh Singh. As with the premier league, it's always a long season and I guess the Sikhs have started their season well, but should take caution to rest on their laurels, cyberspace is a huge place & like Freddy Krueger more websites may pop up when you least expect them!
For those who are following this story please see links below, this story is bound to get further coverage.
The Sikh Film Festival on Saturday will feature “Ocean of Pearls,” about a young Sikh doctor struggling with the inequities of the American health system and ultimately his own identity. (Photo: Sikh Arts and Film Foundation)
Governors love proclamations. Months, weeks and days are endlessly designated to draw attention to a wide buffet of causes and celebrations. They come with nice, official-looking documents with fancy scripts and seals. Constituents are happy. Everyone wins.
Among the highlights of the heritage week is the Sikh Film Festival, which runs all day Saturday, starting at 10 a.m., at the Asia Society on Park Avenue. One short documentary, “Warrior Saints,” by Kevin Lee, profiles the Sikh community in New York City, centers on Richmond Hill, Queens.
The 9/11 attack spurred the community to organize after an elderly Sikh and two teenagers were violently attacked in Richmond Hill in “reprisal” attacks by fellow Americans. The documentary interviews a number of younger professional Sikh New Yorkers who formed the Sikh Coalition from the volunteer group, who explain how they came to realize the value of protest in drawing media and political attention to their problems. Most recently, for example, they organized protests around attacks on Sikh schoolchildren.
The group galvanized after a 2004 attack when five men beat Rajinder Singh Khalsa Ji, telling him to remove the “dirty curtain” from his head. The documentary also recounts an episode in 2004 when an Irish-American M.T.A. employee who converted to Sikhism had been exiled because he would not wear a regulation transit cap.
As a result, among the coalition’s legislative lobbying pushes: a bill that would get the city to form a contingency plan to mitigate backlash violence against Sikhs, Arabs, Muslims and South Asians in the aftermath of events; and another bill that would ban discrimination on the basis of religious garb in New York City uniformed agencies. They also have made a push to educate law enforcement about Sikhism. A 2005 episode saw the police mistakenly handcuff a group of Sikh British tourists in Midtown.
Among other movies at the festival is the feature film called “Ocean of Pearls,” directed by Dr. Sarab Singh Neelam, about the story of a young Sikh doctor struggling with the inequities of the American health system and ultimately his own identity. There are four documentaries: “A Dream in Doubt,” directed by Tami Yeager, which profiles the violent aftermath of 9/11 in which Sikhs were singled out because of their turbans and beards; “The Sky Below,” by Sarah Singh, which takes a contemporary look at the 1947 partition of the Indian Sub-Continent; “Sikhs in America,” which won an Emmy, shows how Sikhs maintain their traditions while also participating in the American dream; and “Pahelwani,” by Navdeep Singh Kandola, which traces the history and traditions of the dying art of Punjabi wrestling.
France is not discriminating against Sikhs by banning the wearing of turbans in publicly-funded schools, said the President, Nicholas Sarkozy this week. He said that no religious symbols were permitted, and therefore no discrimination against any minority was being practised.
Sarkozy said that he expects Sikhs to respect the customs and traditions of the French people. “We respect their traditions and customs and I hope they also respect France's rules,” Sarkozy said in a joint interaction with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who also belongs to the Sikh community, after the India-EU summit last week.
“We respect Sikhs, their customs, their traditions. They are most welcome to France. But we have rules concerning the neutrality of the civil servants, rules concerning secularism and these rules don’t apply to just Sikhs, they apply to the Muslims, they apply to all on the territory of the French Republic,” Sarkozy said.
In 2004, France imposed a ban on the wearing of religious symbols in schools, which included Muslim veils and Sikh turbans as well as overt Christian symbolism. Sikhs have been trying to get themselves exempted from this ever since.
CULTURE Minister Linda Fabiani has launched the Scottish Sikh Heritage Trail at Edinburgh Castle's Great Hall.
She was joined by Harbinder Singh, the honorary director of the Scottish Sikh Heritage Trail and around 200 guests.
Sikh drummers and traditional Scottish pipers performed together at the launch.
The Trail involves research projects focusing on historic sites and a series of lectures, exhibitions and workshops to highlight the varied connections Scotland has with the Sikh community.
Both nations have been historically intertwined by way of colonial administrators, statesmen and military figures from the late-1700s to the present.
The full article contains 102 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
The Evening Standard today reveals the man behind the £200 million Oriental City redevelopment.
He is property magnate Peter Virdee, managing director of Mayfair-based B&S Property, which bought the site in Colindale after the original owners ran into financial difficulties.
The Sikh businessman, who started his career working in his family's retail firm, built residential care homes before moving into property. He has extensive interests abroad, which he manages with the help of his father, and has been nominated for a Lloyds TSB Asian Jewel commerce award.
Mr Virdee said today he was "absolutely confident" the Oriental City scheme would go ahead despite the economic downturn and property slump, adding: "It would be foolish to say that recent events have had no impact. We are looking at a phased development. The market will be the first part to be constructed so the traders will be the first to return to the site.
"But we will take a wait-and-see approach with the residential component. In the current climate it would be wiser to wait until the housing market recovers before starting construction," he said.
The site, dubbed the "real Chinatown", was a shrine for lovers of Oriental food and was home to traders from the Chinese, Japanese, Malay, Thai and Filipino communities.
Plans to redevelop the dilapidated food hall caused uproar, because it would mean the traders moving out while the work was carried out. The traders' case was backed by both the Commission for Racial Equality and the Chinese government, but the redevelopment proposal was eventually pushed through last March after former mayor Ken Livingstonepledged a £2 million compensation-package for the displaced traders. The original owner, Development Securities, was granted planning permission to build a larger market, two major stores, 520 one- and two-bedroom flats and a primary school.
It then sold the site to Mr Virdee's Mayfair-based B&S in a £68 million deal. The lack of construction activity since last year's sale had raised fears the project had fallen victim to the credit crunch. However, Mr Virdee told the Standard the scheme is on course and demolition work is due to start imminently.
He said: "We are in ownership of the site and there are no issues regarding financing. Everything is proceeding normally. We've signed deals with the contractors and all we're waiting on is for the final clearance from the council (Barnet). The demolition could start at any time within the next few weeks."
Senior Priests in the Catholic Church have challenged the coverage given to Christianity & a pro-Muslim Bias on C4 which have set off alarm bells. This was just days after the Media Monitoring Group of the Network of Sikh organisations raised concerns of disproportionate coverage by the BBC on Islam, highlighing a bias against Sikhs & Hindu's in TV programming since 2000.
There were 41 programmes on Islam, just 5 on Hinduism and just one on Sikhism which was called 'Sikhs in the city' arguable a pun for 'Sex in the city' - the content of this one programme was also eyebrow raising & It could be argued that a laymen would not have learnt much about Sikhisms's doctrines & teachings around, tolerance, equality and free Kitchen.
the debate will continue as to the reasons why the BBC & now C4 are heading in the direction of travel. are we living in an age where interest in Islam post 9/11 has marginalised all other faiths? Serious questions need to be tackled by heads of religion and ethics in corporations, on one hand they have every right to educate people about the other aspects of Islam however this should not be to the detriment of Sikhs, Hindu's, Jews, Christians and others. Secondly demographics should be taken into consideration, if they are or not should be raised. Surely therefore based on population demographics and proportion of faith groups in the UK we should see proportionate coverage. I anticipate that the lionshare of programming on faiths in a Christian country should be about Christianity? It is a time for reflection, debate & discussion about the future of religious television programming.
Channel 4 has been accused of being biased towards Islam and not showing enough respect to Christianity.
By Martin Beckford, Religious Affairs Correspondent Last Updated: 5:14PM BST 12 Sep 2008
The television channel, whose head of religious broadcasting is a Muslim, is said by several Roman Catholic priests to be unfair in its treatment of different faiths.
They claim it recently showed a whole season of broadly positive programmes on Islam while a "Da Vinci Code-style" documentary on Christianity cast doubt on the validity of the Pope.
In addition, they say the Channel 4 website treats the history and beliefs of Islam more reverently than it does Christianity.
It comes just days after the BBC was accused of pandering to Muslims by Hindu and Sikh leaders, who claimed the corporation makes a disproportionately large number of programmes about Islam.
Fr Ray Blake, a leading Catholic blogger who is a parish priest in Brighton, said: "I don't think it's fair towards Christianity. There seems to be a rather supine attitude to Islam and a trivialising attitude to Catholicism. I find it worrying.
"Channel 4 has shown quite serious discussions about Islam but nothing that treats Christianity in the same way."
Over the summer, Channel 4 broadcast a week of special programmes on Islam including a feature-length documentary on its holy book, the Qu'ran, and a series of interviews with Muslims around the world talking about their beliefs.
However last week it repeated a controversial documentary first shown at Easter, called The Secrets of the 12 Disciples, which claimed St Peter died in Palestine, not in Rome as the church has always taught.
Academics quoted in the documentary say this means that he was not the first Pope and so other pontiffs have not been his true successors, with the Vatican accused of "fabricating" a connection with the apostle to justify its power.
The Catholic blog Clerical Whispers quoted one commentator as calling the arguments in the programme "intellectually-challenged" and added: "They are on a par with Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code and are unsubstantiated. It shows undisguised disdain for the Catholic Church."
Another blogging priest, Fr Tim Finigan, said the Channel 4 website highlights the torture and persecution carried out by the Roman Catholic church during the Inquisition, which he said is in contrast to its positive description of Muslims.
He wrote: "My point in posting all this is not to denigrate Islam but rather to draw attention to the kind of treatment that can be given to religion, and how far it is from the customary treatment given to beliefs and practices that are sacred to Christians."
One commenter on Fr Blake's blog wrote: "The Commissioning Editor for religious broadcasting at Channel 4 is Aaqil Ahmed, a Muslim. I have long noticed that the only coverage Christianity gets on Channel 4 is in the form of programmes that seeks to undermine the authority of the Church, our traditions and our scripture."
A spokesman for Channel 4 denied it favoured Islam over other religions, however.
He said: "Channel 4's Commissioning Editor for Religion, Aaqil Ahmed, commissions programmes on the basis of their merit, and our output reflect a wide range of beliefs and faiths."
The BBC has been accused of pandering to Britain's Muslims in its religious programming and ignoring other faiths.
By Ben Farmer Last Updated: 11:11AM BST 08 Sep 2008
Sikh and Hindu leaders complained the BBC made a disproportionate number of programmes about Islam at the expense of other faithsPhoto: John Taylor
Sikh and Hindu leaders have complained that a disproportionate number of programmes have been made about Islam, at the expense of programmes on their own faiths.
An analysis of programmes from the BBC's Religion and Ethics department claims that since 2001, the BBC has made 41 programmes on Islam, five on Hinduism and one on Sikhism.
The Network of Sikh Organisations media monitoring group, which obtained the numbers, said Sikhs were shocked by the perceived bias.
Ashish Joshi, chairman, told The Independent newspaper: "We are licence fee payers and we want to know why this has happened.
"The bias towards Islam at the expense of Hindus and particularly Sikhs is overwhelming and appears to be a part of BBC policy."
Indarjit Singh, editor of the Sikh Messenger and a regular contributor to Thought for the Day on Radio 4's Today programme, said Sikhs felt "brushed aside".
He said: "I think it's probably unthinking, or inadvertent, but the bias is there.
"I do know that within the Sikh community especially there is a feeling of concern over the lack of portrayal of their religion on television."
He added: "Of course it is important to educate non-Muslims about Islam, but it is also important to provide informative, open and respectful programming on all religions."
A spokesman for the BBC said the broadcaster was committed to representing all of Britain's faiths and rejected any claim of bias.
He said: "In the autumn we will be covering Diwali from a Sikh perspective and we have a major new series for BBC Two in early 2009, including features on Hinduism and Sikhism."
Hindu and Sikh leaders have accused the BBC of pandering to Britain's Muslim community by making a disproportionate number of programmes on Islam at the expense of covering other Asian religions.
A breakdown of programming from the BBC's Religion and Ethics department, seen by The Independent, reveals that since 2001, the BBC made 41 faith programmes on Islam, compared with just five on Hinduism and one on Sikhism.
Critics say the disproportionate amount of programming is part of an apparent bias within the BBC towards Islam since the attacks of 11 September 2001, which has placed an often uncomfortable media spotlight on Britain's Muslims.
Ashish Joshi, the chairman of the Network of Sikh Organisation's (NSO) media monitoring group, which obtained the numbers, said many Hindu and Sikh licence-fee payers felt cheated. "People in our communities are shocked," he said. "We are licence-fee payers and we want to know why this has happened. The bias towards Islam at the expense of Hindus and particularly Sikhs is overwhelming and appears to be a part of BBC policy."
Indarjit Singh, the editor of the Sikh Messenger and a regular contributor to BBC Radio4's Thought for the Day, said that the public broadcaster was focusing too much attention on Islam at the expense of other religious communities.
"I think it's probably unthinking, or inadvertent, but the bias is there," he said. "I do know that within the Sikh community especially there is a feeling of concern over the lack of portrayal of their religion on television. There is a feeling of being brushed aside."
He added: "The wider community is missing out on what the different religions have to offer society. Of course it is important to educate non-Muslims about Islam but it is also important to provide informative, open and respectful programming on all religions."
In a letter sent in July to the NSO, the head of the BBC's Religion and Ethics, Michael Wakelin, denied that there was any bias. He said the demographic makeup of Britain meant that Britain's 1.6 million Muslims outnumber Hindus and Sikhs by two to one. "Therefore," he wrote, "if Muslims get 60 minutes a year, the Sikhs and Hindus should share 30 minutes each." Further content on Islam, he added, was "no doubt sparked by the interest in the faith following 9/11".
The latest row over the BBC's cultural output follows a dispute raging at the BBC's Asian Network radio service, where more than 20 former and current employees have written a letter of complaint alleging that the station ignores Muslim listeners and plays less Pakistani and Bangladeshi music than it should.
A spokesman for the BBC said the broadcaster was committed to representing all of Britain's faiths and communities. "We reject any claims of bias," he said. "In our religion and ethics content alone, we have covered Hindu and Sikh issues this year on The Big Questions, Sunday Life and Extreme Pilgrim. In the autumn we will be covering Diwali from a Sikh perspective and we have a major new series for BBC Two in early 2009, including features on Hinduism and Sikhism."
But a number of MPs, including Rob Marris and Keith Vaz, called on the BBC to do more to represent Britain's minority faiths. "I am disappointed," said Mr Vaz. "It is only right that as licence fee payers all faiths are represented in a way that mirrors their make-up in society. I hope that the BBC ... addresses the problem in its next year of programming."
The BBC has been accused of being biased against religious groups like Sikhs and Hindus, according to the Network of Sikh Organisations (NSO).
Information made available to BizAsia.co.uk refers to a list that the organisation obtained from the BBC' Religions and Ethics Department.
The data consists of a list of TV programmes commissioned by the department from the year 2000 to present and the breakdown of programmes dedicated to each of the UK's three main Asian religious faiths since the year 2000 was found to be as follows:
Naturally, this has caused grave concerns within the Sikh and Hindu communities in the UK and led to accusations of bias and seems to be part of BBC policy.
The Network of Sikh Organisations attempted to obtain an explanation from the head of the BBC's Religions and Ethics Department - Michael Wakelin - but met with "inadequate and misleading responses to date".
Mr Wakelin justifies this imbalance in his departments programming by quoting demographic figures from the 2001 census and also suggests a general interest towards Islam following 9/11.
The Organisation said, "if Mr Wakelin’s argument on statistics is to be taken at face value then the expectation would be that the BBC have produced at least 20 programmes since 2000 on Sikhism and Hinduism – as opposed to just a total of 6."
"While, as Mr Wakelin suggests, there may have been a marginal increase in interest in Islam, the greater concern is about extremism and fundamentalism. It is here that Sikhism born at a time of extremist behaviour by India’s minority Mughal rulers has much to offer. The Sikh Gurus courageously opposed religious extremism while at the same time showing respect for Islamic teachings and winning the support of most Muslims. It is both sad and irresponsible for the BBC to confine such important teachings to the margins of religious broadcasting." said Mr. Joshi. Chair of the NSO's media monitoring arm, the media monitoring group.
"In a modern multicultural nation such as the UK - such an obvious bias from an established and internationally renowned public servant such as the BBC should not be both tolerated or go unchallenged." He added.
It is hoped that in raising awareness of this injustice and the BBC’s casual attitude to this state of affairs, that they may be taken to account for their apparent biased policy in their religious television programming.
What can an American Sikh learn from the Jewish people's Zionist state for his own people's aspirations to set up an independent homeland in Punjab? What do Seventh-Day Adventists think of a renewed Jewish state in the Holy Land?
These were some of the questions batted around by members of an eight-member multi-faith contingent of US policy makers active on Capitol Hill that included, in addition to a Sikh and an Adventist, a Hindu, an Evangelical Christian and a Chinese-American.
The tour, which passed through Sderot as well as Arab villages, was organized by Project Interchange, an institute of the American Jewish Committee (AJC) aimed at giving influential Americans a better understanding of Israel.
James Standish, who represents the world-wide Seventh-Day Adventist Church in the US Congress, the White House and the US's executive agencies, said that unlike most Evangelical Christians, members of his faith do not see the establishment of the State of Israel in theological or prophetic terms.
"For us it is more of a humanitarian event," said Standish.
"After centuries during which the Jewish people were stateless, after the Holocaust there were obvious historical and religious reasons for establishing a Jewish state.
"Obviously, we also hope that there will be a final settlement so that both the Jews and the Palestinian people will have a state."
Standish added that Seventh-Day Adventists felt some affinity for the Jewish people since they both shared the same day of rest.
"Just like Jews, Adventists don't work on the Sabbath. We also don't eat pork or shellfish."
Rajbir Singh Datta, national director of the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund (SALDEF), said that while Sikhs did not have an official stance on Zionism, "we do have something to learn from the Jewish people's challenges in reconciling religion with democracy," said Datta.
"People are not sure what a future Sikh state would look like and how religion would be a part of the governance of the state. Jews have already had experience with these issues."
Sikhs harbor an aspiration to build their own state in Punjab, a territory between India and Pakistan, that would have a Sikh majority and be run in accordance with the religion's principles.
Datta said that the Sikhs also shared the modern Jewish state's strong military ethos.
"Sikhs can definitely be considered a martial race. Although we make up about one percent of the population in India, we constitute between 10% and 15% of the standing army. During British rule the numbers were even higher at between 27% and 30%.
"Like the Jewish people we have had to fight to defend ourselves against our Hindu and Muslim neighbors."
Reverend Richard Cizik, the most senior staff member of the National Association of Evangelicals, which represents 43,000 churches with 27 million adherents, said that as an Evangelical Christian he felt a "familial" connection with the Jewish people.
"Besides the fact that my paternal grandmother was Jewish, I feel a special love and connection with the Jewish people as a Christian," said Cizik.
"I am neither pre-millennial nor dispensationalist like some of my fellow Evangelicals. Nevertheless, I feel an intrinsic identification with the Jewish people because of my commitment to biblical truth, that people of other faiths might not have. After all, Christianity is an outcome of Judaism.
"At a personal level you can't love Jesus and not love the Jewish people, otherwise it is a violation of your Christianity. All the Christian bigotry and hatred directed against the Jewish people throughout the ages is a sad aberration."
Richard Foltin, director of the Office of Legislative Affairs at the AJC, who headed the multi-faith mission, said that Project Interchange worked very hard to give as many different perspectives as possible on the ongoing conflict between Israelis and their neighbors.
"We try to expose people on our missions to the 'big picture,'" said Foltin.
Some of the points on the mission's itinerary include briefings on the legal rights of ethics minorities, the Arab Israeli community, the impact of immigration on Israel's political system, the future of settlements, a tour of the security fence and a tour of Sderot.
"In addition to presenting the mission with a sophisticated and complex picture of Israeli society, we also try to put together a mission with a diverse mix of outlooks and perspectives.
"If the mission members don't leave here with more questions than when they came we have not done our job."
A provocative film based on the real-life tale of two Sikh mill workers tried for sodomy in the early 1900s is making its world premiere at the Vancouver Queer Film Festival.
Three directors — Ali Kazimi, Richard Fung and John Greyson — worked on the short Rex versus Singh, which makes its debut on Aug. 20 at the film festival. It comprises four versions of the story told from different points of view. The versions range from a sobering documentary to a whimsical musical.
Dalip Singh and Naina Singh were arrested in Vancouver in 1915 as part of an undercover sting operation. In the film, based on court records, they are accused of offering 75 cents for sex to a police detective and a chauffeur at a muddy rail yard.
At the time, more than 6,000 South Asians, mostly men, had settled in Vancouver. Many lived in close quarters in predominantly bachelor societies and worked as labourers in forestry mills along the Fraser River, or did piecework on the railway.
Kazimi said Rex versus Singh shows how police in Vancouver used laws against homosexuality to jail some South Asian men and to discourage others in their communities from making Vancouver home.
The film was commissioned as part of Vancouver Out On Screen's Queer History Project, after several court cases involving Sikhs during the period from 1909 to 1929 were discovered.
"We know that there were more than two dozen cases. We don't know if that represents the totality of the targeting. There is a lot that is unknown," said Kazimi.
"I think for most people in the [South Asian] community, this would come as a huge shock and a surprise, as well."
Kazimi also directed the documentary Continuous Journey about the Komagata Maru incident, which took place only a year before Dalip Singh and Naina Singh were arrested. In 1914, Canadian authorities turned away the ship, the Komagata Maru, from Vancouver's Burrard Inlet. Officials refused to let 376 immigrants from India disembark, citing immigration policies aimed at keeping Canada white.
Kazimi said the Canadian government allowed few South Asian women into the country in those days in the hopes that the men would return to their homeland.
"The women were not allowed to come and they were not allowed to come because Canada did not want any permanent settlement of South Asians, so there were about only about five women who came," said Kazimi.
Rex versus Singh is based on existing court transcripts that are rife with obscene language.
During one courtroom scene, a chauffeur accuses Dalip Singh of boldly propositioning him in English, although the mill worker could speak only Punjabi.
The other accused, Naina Singh, testifies the sodomy charges came after he acted as a witness in a case against a Sikh man that police had used as an informant during the Komagata Maru incident.
Gordon Brent Ingram, who researches gay culture in Vancouver, makes an appearance in the film.
"What's so funny about this 1915 trial … is that you can see how hard the nascent municipal government was trying to associate these Sikh males with homosexuality, to the point where they were involved in very aggressive hands-on entrapment," Ingram said.
"Whether the acts they are accused of engaging in actually happened or not, or were they fantasies of the police officers, or whether there was an issue of the arrested individuals not being able to bribe police out of being arrested, those are the great historical questions that we may never be able to answer."
Because of spotty court records, the fate of the two men is not known, but similar cases involving Sikh men in California resulted in sentences ranging from five to seven years.
Sitting cross-legged on the floor, a boy with a black beard and a turban cupped his hands to his mouth and led a celebratory call-and-response.
"Bole so nihaal," shouted 16-year-old Harmanas Singh in Punjabi, an Indian dialect spoken by members of the Sikh faith. In English, the statement roughly means, "All those who repeat after me will be blessed."
Most everyone else packed tight in the Gurdwara, or temple, at the Sikh Center of Orange County on Saturday responded to Singh's traditional greeting in a louder, unified voice.
"Sat sri akaal," they said, or roughly, "God is timeless..."
Moments earlier, several great uncles of Arjun Singh Ahuja gathered around their nephew at the front of the Santa Ana temple. With slow precision, the men streamed a maroon cloth around the boy's unshorn hair, a requirement of the Indian-born monotheistic faith.
The final wrap left a snug-fitting turban atop 14-year-old Arjun, whose full beard belied his young age.
The precocious boy told relatives and friends who attended the rite of passage ceremony not to lavish monetary gifts on him. Instead, the contributions they left behind would go to benefit starving children in Sudan, Burma and other countries in the United Nations World Food Program.
By the end of the two-hour ceremony, the altar at the front of the temple overflowed with cash.
A family friend, Kanwar Anand, joked that his own kids would have been more inclined to ask for Xbox 360s.
"I don't have money, but I have everything I need," said Arjun, an only child who will be starting his freshman year at Northwood High School in a few weeks.
Arjun's father, Gurpreet Singh Ahuja, a head and neck surgeon at Children's Hospital of Orange County, said that Sikhs are compelled to give unselfishly of themselves. Helping others is not charity, he said, but an act that demonstrates all human beings are equals.
Such a ceremony, though, is not required for Sikhs, who number about 150,000 in the U.S.
In the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, Sikhs have been the target of several violent attacks by those who mistake their turbans for Islamic clothing.
Jasjit Singh Ahuja, Arjun's mother, said she once chased down a group of men who walked by her family outside a fast food restaurant and whispered, "Osamas." She said her only son was "shell-shocked" by the men's action.
Still, the boy elected to undergo the rite of passage and don his turban until death to demonstrate his commitment to the faith, he said.
Anand, the family friend, explained the importance of upholding Sikh tenets in the U.S., where practitioners of the faith are a visible minority.
"When you're growing up in India, you're surrounded by it. You don't have to make as much of a conscious effort... but if you don't know your culture, you're not going to have pride in it."
DONCASTER'S first Sikh temple is to be demolished and replaced with a new building as part of the town centre's regeneration.
Building work to bulldoze the temple is set to start next week after members of the Sikh community raised some of the £450,000 required to fund the project.
The temple's 240-strong committee unanimously voted to replace the ageing building, to coincide with the £300 million redevelopment of the nearby Waterdale area.
Doncaster's Sikhs have used the building as a temple since around 1970 after previously worshipping at a house in Cemetery Road, Hyde Park.
The temple has been fenced off to allow for the works to start. Once it is demolished, a new two storey building should be completed in six months.
Darshan Singh, treasurer of the committee, said: "The building has fallen into a bit of a neglected state. No matter what you did it was still going to be an old building.
"Another reason for the rebuild was to reflect what is happening in the town centre with the Waterdale development.
"There is another temple in Balby Road but College Road was the first Sikh temple in Doncaster.
"It was a flagship temple in its day and the new building is going to be a premier temple attracting people from all across Yorkshire and will be used for the next 50 years."
The committee voted to replace the temple rather than repair the existing building or sell the site and build a new place of worship elsewhere.
On Sunday the Nishan Sahib - the Sikh holy flag - will be removed from the top of the temple in readiness for the building work which will be carried out by Julian Cox builders.
The 500 people who attend the temple will worship in the site's community centre while the work is completed.
The full article contains 311 words and appears in n/a newspaper.
Sukhbir Channa loves to make music and he also loves his Sikh religion -- and he believes his practice of that faith has led Walt Disney World to refuse him a job.
Wearing a black turban with his suit and tie, the 24-year-old trumpet player appeared at a Miami press conference Monday with other members of Florida's Sikh community to accuse Disney of discriminating against Sikhs, while expressing hope that his lawsuit against Disney might force the company to change its long-standing employee policies limiting beards and long hair.
Channa and the others also said they want the suit to contribute to the American public's understanding of the nation's estimated 500,000 Sikhs and to help end discrimination against them and other distinctive religious followers.
He sued Disney last week in state circuit court in Tampa, where he said a Disney official refused to rehire him for a seasonal job as a trumpeter at Disney World, because he did not have "the Disney look."
He is seeking $1 million in damages, class-action status for the lawsuit, and a court order to prevent "further discrimination against Sikh employees and prospective employees."
"It was very insulting to be told I was a great trumpet player, I was qualified for the gig and a strong asset, but my looks still prohibited me from anything that involved me being seen by the public," Channa said.
"This is my career. This is what I do for a living. This is what my passion is," he said.
A central allegation in his civil case is in dispute.
Both Disney and Channa state that, when he was a music student at the University of South Florida in Tampa, he was hired as a musician for the 2005 holiday season. He played trumpet as a toy soldier character -- wearing a costume that hid his turban, hair and beard -- in Magic Kingdom parades.
He contends that, when Disney recruiters returned to his campus the next fall, he reapplied but was turned down because of his looks. He and a witness, another musician, filed affidavits supporting that charge.
Disney World contends he never reapplied and therefore could not be rehired. Spokeswoman Jacquee Polak insisted Monday that the company does not discriminate against Sikhs or anyone else, and did not discriminate against Channa.
"He never sought re-employment for the 2006 season," Polak said.
Having earned a USF bachelor's degree in music, Channa just completed a nine-month U.S. tour with the Broadway show Annie. For now, he is living with his parents in Davie.
Sihkism, the fifth-largest religion in the world, was founded in India in the 15th century and has about 25 million followers. An estimated half-million live in the United States. They believe in one God, earning an honest living, and being charitable to others. Contrary to a common Western misconception, their faith is not a form of Islam.
Sikhs follow Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh religious tradition, and nine prophet-teachers, called gurus, who followed him. They do not cut their hair, and men cover their heads with a turban, or dastar, which is integral to their religious identity.
Monday's press conference was organized by the Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund. Rajdeep Singh, an attorney for the fund, charged Disney with hypocrisy. "Disney makes millions of dollars promoting cartoon characters who wear turbans but, ironically, cannot respect the right of an American to wear a turban for religious reasons."
Disney spokeswoman Polak insisted that Disney does not discriminate, and that the company makes accommodations that allow Sikhs and others with unusual needs to work at the giant resort.
"We value and respect diversity in our cast members and treat each request [for an accommodation] individually," Polak said. "The type of accommodation varies with the type of request, job and location."
Sports columnist Rohit Brijnath talks to the 'Flying Sikh' Milkha Singh, the finest athlete India has ever produced, ahead of the Beijing Olympics
Now in his 70s, voice still strong, Milkha Singh knows it's Olympic year, he knows journalists (like me) will call and ask him about that day 48 years ago and dredge up a memory so piercingly painful. He has won four Asian Games gold medals, and one Commonwealth Games gold, yet it is not his many victories but one failure that people ask about. He sighs. He speaks.
India has won a fistful of individual Olympic medals, bronzes by KD Jadhav (wrestling, 1952), Leander Paes (tennis, 1996), Karnam Malleswari (weightlifting, 2000) and a silver from Rajyavendra Singh Rathore (shooting, 2004). Yet Milkha's story of a bronze missed in Rome 1960, is the most irresistible, the one we return to constantly.
Perhaps because heartbreak, as a story, is often more powerful, and poignant, than triumph. Perhaps because in 2008 India expects medals, but then in 1960, in a country that had savoured independence for just 13 years, where facilities were few, contending for medals was a more romantic pursuit.
Different world
India's progress in sport has not yet manifested itself in medals, but its strides are quiet and surer. Last year swimmer Virdhawal Khade's parents, from Kolhapur in Maharashtra state, agreed to the once unthinkable: letting him delay his class 10 examinations to qualify for Beijing. He did Technology is no longer foreign to Indian athletes. Khade has been priviliged to use Speedo's breakthrough LZR Racer suit. World champion shooter Abhinav Bindra has been hooking himself up to a machine that identifies what activity is going on in his brain when he is shooting well. As he told me: "The key is how to train that area of the mind so it is routine to get into that state."
Milkha's world bore no resemblance to this. With a straightforwardness that is immediately disarming, he says that when he joined the army, "I came from a remote village, I didn't know what running was, or the Olympics".
Context gives Milkha's story its searing beauty, the environment in which he ran gives his tale uniqueness. PT Usha would lose Olympic bronze in 1984 by an even crueller margin, yet in a comparison of tragedies he wins because of where he came from, what he endured. Usha did not work less hard, but it's impossible to compete with a man whose parents were killed, some reports say in front of him, in the carnage of India's partition. Whose temporary home for a month was a platform on Delhi's railway station.
A Sikh teenager who was barred from school for wearing a religious bangle regarded as a ‘handcuff to God’ was discriminated against and should be allowed to return to classes, a judge has ruled.
Sarika Watkins-Singh was excluded after insisting she be allowed to wear the Kara – a bracelet worn by many Sikhs as a symbol of faith – despite her school’s ban on jewellery other than wristwatches and ear studs.
The 14-year-old, who had been a prefect at her school in South Wales, said tearfully that she was ‘overwhelmed’ by her High Court victory and described herself as a ‘proud Welsh Punjabi Sikh girl’.
The ruling means no school can stop a Sikh pupil from wearing the Kara to classes.
The High Court has previously refused to uphold a teenager’s right to wear a chastity ring at school as an expression of her Christian faith and a 13-year- old Roman Catholic girl’s right to wear a crucifix on a chain.
But Mr Justice Silber said today that the Kara fell into a ‘very exceptional’ category of religious jewellery and that Aberdare Girls’ School had discriminated against Sarika on the grounds of race and religion over her half-inch wide, plain steel bangle.
While not a requirement of her religion, he accepted the Kara was of ‘exceptional importance’ to Sarika’s racial identity or religious belief.
The judge said there was ‘no evidence’ that the wearing of a crucifix was regarded in the same way as the wearing of the Kara.
‘In other words the school is not justified in having any fear that granting an exemption to the claimant to allow her to wear the Kara would create any further exemptions,’ he said.
However, it has been claimed that the judgment could lead to legal challenges, particularly relating to ‘unobtrusive’ items of religious significance.
Julia Thomas, head of legal services at the Children’s Legal Centre which supported Muslim schoolgirl Shabina Begum in her unsuccessful attempt to be allowed to wear the jilbab – head to toe religious dress – at school, said she thought it would anger those who had fought to wear religious items and failed.
‘There are devoted Catholics who would regard wearing a crucifix as just as important, and there was the recent case of the young lady wanting to wear a chastity ring.
‘I think there could be a little bit of a problem there with the judge interpreting religion and making an assumption which is possibly not justified.’
Sarika, her 38-year-old mother Sinita and stepfather Satnam Singh, welcomed the ruling.
‘I am overwhelmed by the outcome and it’s marvellous to know that the long journey I’ve been on has finally come to an end,’ said Sarika outside the court in London.
‘I’m so happy to know that no one else will go through what me and my family have gone through.’
Sarika, whose Welsh father, a Christian, died when she was a baby, was the only Sikh pupil at her 600-pupil school.
She was 13 and had worn the Kara for two years when a teacher asked her to remove it in April last year because it contravened uniform policy.
She requested an exemption but was told she could not attend classes wearing the bangle and was taught in seclusion then excluded. In February she joined Mountain Ash Comprehensive, which allows her to wear the Kara.
Her mother said that although it was a good school, the education of her daughter, an A and B-grade student, suffered as a result of the move.
She added it had been Sarika’s decision to fight the case.
Aberdare Girls’ School has agreed to take Sarika back in September, but her mother said her daughter needed time to think about that.
‘The hardest thing for me is she is going to look back at her schooldays and remember this, it will never go away,’ she said.
Mr Justice Silber said the Kara – narrower than many watch straps – was regarded universally by practising Sikhs as an important part of their religious observance.
An Aberdare school governor’s attitude that wearing it was roughly similar to displaying the Welsh flag in that it engendered emotion was ‘seriously erroneous’, the judge said.
But he stressed that the judgment was ‘fact-sensitive’ and that there was an ‘enormous difference’ between the ‘unostentatious’ Kara and a very noticeable garment such as the Muslim niqab or jilbab.
However, Anna Fairclough, legal officer for the human rights group Liberty who was representing Sarika, said the judgment could have an impact in potential future cases.
The governors and head of Aberdare Girls’ School said: ‘The decision to defend this action was taken after careful consideration by all concerned, and in good faith.
‘Should Sarika wish to return to school in September, in accordance with the judgment, she will be offered help and support to reintegrate her into the normal day-today life of the school.’
Sarika Watkins-Singh, 14, suffered indirect discrimination from Aberdare Girls’ School in south Wales last year after insisting on wearing the bracelet for religious reasons, a judge ruled.
Legal experts warned that Mr Justice Silber’s ruling that the slim steel bangle was a symbol of faith and not a piece of jewellery could pave the way for similar cases involving religious apparel.
Clarissa Williams, president of the NAHT teaching union, said: “We’re expected to have school uniform policies, this puts schools in an invidious position.
“The main issue with jewellery is the health and safety aspect - it’s not about discrimination.”
Mr Justice Silber ruled that 14-year-old Sarika Watkins-Singh had suffered indirect discrimination from Aberdare Girls' School in south Wales last year.
She was isolated from her classmates for two months and even accompanied to the toilet by a member of staff, before finally being excluded for persistently breaking the "no jewellery" rule.
In court, Sarika said wearing the bangle - known as the Kara - was as important to her as it was to the England cricketer Monty Panesar.
Finding the school guilty of discrimination under race relations and equality laws, the judge said Sarika, from Cwmbach, near Aberdare, could go back in September wearing the bangle.
Outside court, the teenager said: "I am overwhelmed by the outcome and it's marvellous to know that the long journey I've been on has finally come to an end.
"I'm so happy to know that no-one else will go through what me and my family have gone through. I just want to say that I am a proud Welsh and Punjabi Sikh girl."
Her mother Sinita, 38, added: "We are over the moon. It is just such a relief. Sarika has been through so much. When she was isolated at school it was very upsetting for the whole family.
"She was not allowed out of the classroom if the other children were in the corridor, she wasn't allowed out in the yard for fresh air, she wasn't allowed to get food.
"I don't think we will ever get the answer to why the school felt they had to take that action."
The family - who received legal aid to fight their court battle - made no claim for compensation, but their legal costs will now be paid by the school.
Sarika was the only Sikh among 600 girls at Aberdare, which does not permit any jewellery other than wristwatches and ear studs.
After being excluded, she enrolled in another school which allowed her to wear the Kara, but her mother said her schooling had been disrupted.
"Her education has gone downhill. She has always had top marks, she was always the top in her favourite subjects.
"She came home with 90 plus from a young age. Now she's finding it hard and she got a score in the 40s."
In his judgement, Mr Justice Silber said the school was wrong when it said wearing the Kara was similar to displaying the Welsh flag because it engendered emotion.
"That was a seriously erroneous attitude because it totally ignored the religious importance of the Kara which is not shared by the Welsh flag," he said.
The Kara is one of the five Ks of Sikhism, the others being the Kesh (uncut hair), the Kanga (wooden comb), the Kaccha (specially designed shorts) and the Kirpan (sword).
Mr Justice Silber said the Kara could not be seen under long sleeves, and Sarika was willing to remove it for safety reasons during games.
He also rejected argument that it might be seen as a symbol of affluence and allowing Sarika to wear it would be widely misinterpreted by other pupils.
The judge refused the school permission to appeal, although it can still seek permission from the Court of Appeal.
Barrister Jeffrey Bacon, who specialises in employment and discrimination, described the judgement as "brave".
"The judge could have stopped at indirect discrimination, he didn't need to go as far as saying the bangle was not a piece of jewellery. I do think that was a brave finding.
"This ruling is likely to be looked at with care by others with cases which involve religious dress and the like. I am not saying that this is opening the door, but it must at least be a chink of light."
Mr Justice Silber said the school's governing body had accepted that the way it conducted the appeal was unfair.
A statement from the school said: "The decision to defend this action was taken after careful consideration by all concerned, and in good faith.
"It was not taken lightly. We regret that this action became at all necessary.
"Should Sarika wish to return to school in September, in accordance with the judgment, she will be offered help and support to re-integrate her into the normal day-to-day life of the school."
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia: A Sikh group in Muslim-majority Malaysia is demanding the right to use the world "Allah" as a synonym for God and has joined a legal battle by Christians against a government order banning non-Muslims from using it, an official said Friday.
The Malaysian Gurdwaras Council filed an application at the Kuala Lumpur High Court on Tuesday seeking to join a suit by The Herald, a Roman Catholic newspaper, against the government over use of the word "Allah," said council President Sardar Jagir Singh.
The Home Ministry previously ordered the newspaper not to use the word "Allah" in its Malay-language publication as a translation for God, saying using the word would confuse Muslims. The Herald then filed suit, claiming it had a right to use the word.
Jagir said his council, representing more than 100,000 Sikhs, wanted to join the suit because the ruling would affect them.
The word Allah appears on "numerous occasions" in the Sikh holy book, Guru Granth Sahib, he told The Associated Press. "Not a word can be altered. It's our holiest book ... it will mean we can't practice our own religion."
Jagir said so far he has not received a court date. The High Court is scheduled next Wednesday to hear the applications of several Islamic institutions that have applied to intervene in the suit to defend the ban.
The Herald — which publishes in English, Malay, Mandarin and Tamil — says "Allah" is an Arabic word that predates Islam and has been used for centuries to mean "God" in Malay.
The government has not explained how the use of "Allah" by other religions would confuse Muslims, but apparently wants to draw a sharp distinction between the Islamic God and all other deities.
The case is an example of increasing complaints by religious minorities in Malaysia that their rights have been undermined by government efforts to bolster the status of Islam, the country's official religion.
Ethnic Malays, virtually all of whom are Muslim, make up nearly 60 percent of Malaysia's 27 million people. The main minorities are ethnic Chinese and Indians, most of whom are Buddhists, Christians and Hindus.
Dissatisfaction with court rulings over Muslims' inability to legally leave Islam along with other religious issues such as the demolition of Hindu temples by state authorities contributed to the ruling coalition's poor performance in March elections, when it lost its two-thirds majority in Parliament.
In a separate case, the Sabah Evangelical Church of Borneo has filed a lawsuit in an effort to be allowed to use "Allah" after officials last year banned the import of books containing the word. Hearings in that case are still in the preliminary stages.
A police force's failed attempt to find protective headgear that fits over Sikh officers' turbans has left taxpayers with a £100,000 bill, it has been revealed.
The money was spent by West Midlands Police after the dilemma posed by a constable who wanted to become a member of its counter-terrorist Operational Support Unit (OSU).
The man, thought to be in his mid-20s, was refused a place because he was unable to fit the necessary helmet and respirator over his turban and beard, both of which are requirements for strict adherents to his faith.
According to a police source, the unnamed officer claimed he was being discriminated against and was then assigned the task - while on full pay - of sourcing new equipment suitable for Sikhs.
He contacted manufacturers across the world to see if they could adapt their gear but after 18 months his search ended in vain and he was restored to regular duties. A few weeks later he is said to have gone on long-term sick leave suffering from stress.
The source - who estimated the total cost of the failed project, including the officer's wages, at £100,000 - said: 'This was a shocking waste of taxpayers' cash.'
Turbans are made of around 15ft of cloth wound around the head. Sikh men wear them to cover their hair, which they leave uncut in accordance with their religion. Most Sikh men wear their long beards rolled up.
As well as being a sign of spirituality, the turban is also a symbol of Sikh identity - showing they are proud to demonstrate their faith - and of courage.
Turbans offer a degree of protection to the head in terms of padding, but would not stop a bullet or a deflect a sharp blow to the head nor, obviously, protect against a chemical or biological attack like a respirator does.
Dr Indarjit Singh, director of the Network of Sikh Organisations, said: 'It is mandatory for adult Sikh men to wear the turban, but there is a dilemma in some areas such as this where the police say wearing the helmet and respirator is absolutely necessary.
'The officer in question has approached me for advice. He wants to be a good Sikh role model and is very sincere in feeling that he should be allowed to wear the turban at all times. Taking off the turban would be like removing part of the Sikh identity.'
Sikh soldiers serving in the British Army refused to wear helmets during World War I and World War II. They fought with their turbans on, several receiving the Victoria Cross for their acts of gallantry.
Former West Midlands Police Chief Superintendent John Mellor branded the costly West Midlands scheme as a case of 'health and safety gone mad.'
He said: 'If this officer wishes to be in the OSU at his own risk, he should be able to carry out his training and his duties without the protective equipment.
'If they are going to insist on these precautions, then spending taxpayers' money looking for a way to get around their own rules is totally ridiculous.
'Taking 18 months out of an officer's duties and the colossal cost of this project is quite indefensible. It makes one wonder if people in charge of public funds understand what they are doing.'
A force spokesman said: 'West Midlands Police is a diverse organisation, which both serves, and recruits from, a diverse community.
'No Sikh officer has applied and been 'turned down' from joining the Operational Support Unit because of faith issues.
'However, it has been identified that for some members of the Sikh faith, the removal of the turban to wear a helmet and the wearing of a respirator could be problematic. 'As an employer committed to equality and diversity, we are working to try and find a solution to what is a national issue.'
Members of the National Sikh society have met this morning with Otahuhu police to discuss the fatal shooting of liquor store owner, Navtej Singh.
And Manurewa MP George Hawkins is to meet police Deputy Commissioner Rob Pope this afternoon to raise community concerns around the killing.
Mr Singh, 30, died in Auckland's Middlemore Hospital 24 hours after being shot in cold blood by an armed gang robbing his Manurewa liquor store of alcohol and cash on Saturday night.
Police are reviewing how long it took them to respond to the robbery after they held back an ambulance from reaching the store.
A friend of Mr Singh's said the delay was inhumane.
Police received the first 111 emergency call at 9.05pm but did not enter the store until 9.31pm and paramedics entered at 9.38pm - 20 minutes after they arrived at a "safe point" at the scene.
Police later said they had to establish where the gunman was before they entered so no one else's life was put in anger.
As they waited members of Mr Singh's family told 111 operators the gunman and the rest of his colleagues had long since departed.
Local community leaders have raised concerns about the level of policing in the area.
Mr Hawkins would meet Mr Pope as Commissioner Howard Broad was overseas.
"The Sikh community are really concerned at the delay in getting the ambulance there and why police took so long to let the ambulance in.''
Mr Hawkins said he would also talk about crime generally in the Counties-Manukau area.
He said it was up to police where it distributed officers.
"What I'll be telling them is the reaction of the community."
Mr Hawkins said he would give examples of problems with police responses, and ask questions from the community.
Mr Hawkins has been an effective local MP - it was his efforts that recently saw the Manukau City Council (Control of Graffiti) Bill pass despite a select committee recommending it should not be enacted, and the Government introducing its own bill to deal with the problem.
A Sikh student in Scotland was punched and kicked by a group of thugs who accused him of having a bomb in his turban.
The group battered Lakhivar Singh, 22, a student of Paisley University, as he was waiting for a bus after finishing work as a part-time supermarket shelf stacker.
The thugs ripped off Singh's turban, punched him in the face and kicked him as he lay on the ground at one of Paisley's shopping centres last week till security guards chased them away, according to the Daily Record newspaper.
"At one point I thought I would be killed in the attack," Singh, who arrived in Scotland about six months ago to do his post-graduation in finance, said.
"All my family are in Mumbai and they just want me to come home because they think Scotland is no longer safe for me," he added.
"I was really enjoying myself here and most people are friendly, but now I am scared to go to work and I just want to go home," the Indian student said.
In the backlash that followed the London bombings, there has been a steep rise in incidents of hate crime against Hindus and Sikhs, with most of them perpetrated because of mistaken identity, the Hindu Forum of Britain said in London.
There were as many as 932 instances of such hate crimes against Indians, who are predominantly Hindus or Sikhs, as opposed to approximately 600 instances of faith-related hate crime against Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslims, Ramesh Kallidai, Secretary General of the Forum said on Wednesday evening.
"As Asians we all look the same, and are equally vulnerable to any backlash," Kallidai said at the meeting of the leaders of the Forum with the Assistant Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Tarique Ghaffour.
At the same time Hindu leaders noted that most of the hate crimes against the community were perpetrated through mistaken identity during the backlash after 7/7 bombings.
"However, our greatest concern is that there is no official recognition yet of the vulnerability of Hindus and Sikhs," Kallidai said.
During the special meeting organised by the Forum and the Metropolitan Police Hindu Association, he said the leaders voiced concerns over lack of community infrastructure to prevent hate crimes and help the victims.
"Even worse is the fact that there has been very low levels of Government engagement to understand what effect such high levels of hate crime is having on our confidence in the Criminal Justice System," he said adding very little effort was being made to help increase reporting of hate crime and offering voluntary support to victims.
In June there were only three instances of faith hate crime against Hindus and Sikhs but now there are more Hindu and Sikh victims of hate crime in the capital than Muslims, Kallidai said.
Arjan Vekaria, Chair of the Hindu Forum Security Committee, said "even though the level of hate crime against our community has increased so dramatically, there have been very few prosecutions."
The Forum had invited over 25 organisations to the meeting with Assistant Commissioner.
WASHINGTON: The Sikh American Legal Defence and Education Fund (SALDEF), the oldest Sikh civil rights’ and advocacy organisation in the US, has asked premium golfing magazine, Golf Digest, to apologize for depicting Sikhism’s fifth Guru, Guru Arjan Dev, as "Golfing Guru" in its May edition.
The storm was kicked up after an American Sikh, Harjit Singh Sandhar, noted the depiction while on flight to Washington DC from Tulsa. He and his cousin, Sartaj Singh reported the matter to SALDEF.
"The image appeared along with an article — the Golf Guru — on the magazine’s 66th page. It appeared at the beginning of the article, which answers readers questions on golf," SALDEF said, adding, "The image, at first glance, appears to be a south Asian bearded, turbaned man with golfing gloves and stick. But the image is a picture of Guru Arjan Dev."
In a letter to the Golf Digest publisher, Thomas Blair, SALDEF said, "The decision to use the picture shows cultural and religious ignorance of Golf Digest staff and executives." SALDEF chairman, Manjit Singh, said they had brought the matter to the magazine’s notice, about a month back.
"Since we got no response, SALDEF decided to raise the matter within the community," he said, adding, "Since the mistake has been brought to the editor’s notice, it should be corrected."
Sikh Council on Religion and Education (SCORE) has also condemned the depiction and described it as blasphemous.
"The way Golf Digest doctored the image is clearly blasphemous and shows they are insensitive. They should have first determined who Guru Arjan Dev is before using his image," SCORE chairman, Rajwant Singh, said.
Golf Digest is self-proclaimed number one publication in its genre. Published by Advance publications, the magazine is a generalist golf publication covering recreational and competitive golf.
A Michael Jackson tribute act featuring a Muslim and a Sikh has proved a massive hit on the TV show Britain's Got Talent. Here, Signature give their first interview with Celia Walden
When a Muslim who performs a Michael Jackson tribute act and a chunky Sikh, carrying a broom, first stepped out in front of the cameras six weeks ago, the viewers were as bemused as the judges on Britain's Got Talent.What followed could have been an excruciating mix of tastelessness and embarrassment. Instead, what we got was brilliant and hilarious, one of the most un-PC performances ever to feature on British television and a perfect riposte to those who agonise and pontificate over multiculturalism.
Since that day, Signature - the dance duo comprising Suleman Mirza, a 29- year-old trainee lawyer from Essex and 34-year-old Madhu Singh, from Hayes in Middlesex, who works at PC World in Heathrow's Terminal 5 - have become a phenomenon.
Their blend of energetic pop and banghra has prompted standing ovations. On a single day their BGT audition rerun on YouTube exceeded five million viewers. This week, they became the first act to be voted through by the public to Saturday's final, and yesterday Signature gave this paper their first ever interview.
"Our routine is about togetherness and overcoming conflict," said the rather handsome Mirza, who has been a Jackson fan since he was six years old. "I start the act with a Western dance, and then Madhu comes on stage. I look down on him because I don't understand his culture. But he surprises me, and he works really hard, symbolising immigration, and then we work together, and show that everyone can get on."Singh has an energy which belies his corpulent frame; he is the famously silent partner on stage but not in person. He says the pair are consciously using the contest to promote diversity - and entertain at the same time."Right now, you put the news on and it seems like it's just stabbings everywhere in Britain. I hope that we and all the kids and other acts on the show demonstrate that Britain does have potential, and should be great."Sikhs," he explains, "are not just taxi drivers, and I want people to understand that. Neither of us has ever dreamed of playing down our religions.""People see headlines when they hear the words 'Muslim'," sighs Mirza, "and probably rightly so. I understand that some of the minority groups in the Muslim community haven't made things easy for people like myself, who are moderate Muslims.
But back in April, at the audition, I was proud to go out in front of the audience in my Muslim headwear."
We are back stage at Fountain Studios in Wembley where the BGT semi-finals have been taking place every night this week. The corridors seem to be filled with performing dogs, chanting girl-bands, numerous over-excited children and nervous relatives.
Singh and Mirza, however, are an oasis of calm, complementing each other with their very different temperaments.
"I'm the quiet one," says Singh, "and Suleman is the one who rings excitedly to talk about new dance moves at midnight, when I'm trying to sleep. Most of the time I just hold the phone to my ear and close my eyes."
They met eight years ago at an audition for a talent show at Westminster University and have become best friends. But while Singh said he learnt to dance before he could walk, and is intent on making performing his livelihood, Mirza is adamant that he will return to work on Monday - even if Signature win the final.
"I have to go back to work next week, and I'm looking forward to it, because I want to get a bit of normality back in my life. I'm under no illusions - so you want to make sure you have a back up. My Mum's kept me grounded," he laughs. "On Wednesday she gave me a list of groceries and sent me out to the 24-hour Tesco around the corner."
"I've been back to work," says Singh, "because I had some things to finish up. But the papers ended up having a go at my boss saying he wasn't giving me time to rehearse, which wasn't true. They've all been amazing at work."
Singh's father, a priest, is coming around to the idea of his son as a dancer. "He was always a bit iffy about my dancing, because he didn't want me to get sidetracked, but this week, for the first time in my life, he sat me down and said: 'So, you're in the semi-finals, and there's one thing I want to say to you.'
Yes? I said. 'Lose some weight'." He and Mirza fall about laughing and Singh makes a pantomime lunge towards a box of chocolates. "But then he said: 'Just go out there and give it your all, and I got tears in my eyes'."
The female attention is a welcome perk. "I've never had a girlfriend," says Singh, "so I'm hoping this might change all that." Mirza, on the other hand, is openly revelling in his new-found fame. "I was on the Jubilee line on my way here tonight and this really good looking woman came up and asked to have her picture taken with me. Afterwards, the whole carriage followed suit - it was great.
"We've been dreaming about this chance for more than 20 years," he adds. "I've been pretending to be Michael Jackson since I was two, while Madhu used to creep downstairs at night, put on the Bollywood films and learn to dance to them, so I think we do deserve this."
Singh adds quietly: "Even if this doesn't work out, we will stay together, and we will never give up."
HIGHTSTOWN, New Jersey: Officials in New Jersey are banning a high school senior from campus after he was charged with setting fire to a fellow student's turban.
Authorities say Garrett Green torched a 16-year-old junior's turban with a cigarette lighter during a fire drill last week. The Sikh student had patches of his hair singed but was not seriously hurt.
Sikhism calls for men to wear their hair long. Many wear turbans. The victim's uncle says he was wearing a smaller version of a turban called a patka.
Green is due in court Wednesday on charges of arson and criminal mischief.
He's banned from Hightstown High School's campus and won't be allowed to attend prom or graduation at the school just east of Trenton. The district will give the 18-year-old home schooling instead.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Prabhjot Singh has flow out of San Francisco International Airport nine times since December. Nine times he was pulled aside for secondary screening of the turban required by his Sikh religion.
"I'm generally the only one subjected to secondary screening," said Singh, a marketing executive for a software company who travels for work. "People are staring, like asking, 'What did this guy do?'"
A civil rights group says targeting passengers like Singh continues at the San Francisco airport, which the group said was the worst in dealing with Sikh passengers. The alleged racial profiling went on despite the Sikh Coalition's work with the Transportation Security Administration and a positive change in the federal guidelines — at least on paper, said Neha Singh, the coalition's advocacy director.
"The issue now is implementation, making sure the policy we worked hard on is being implemented on the ground," said Neha Singh, who is not related to Prabhjot Singh.
Of the 113 voluntary reports by Sikh travelers sent to the advocacy organization between Dec. 1, 2007, and March 31, 2008, 80 were regarding additional screening.
Of those, 28 were at the San Francisco airport, the coalition said.
Sikh Coalition representatives believe that TSA screeners at the San Francisco airport were misinterpreting new rules giving them the discretion to check turbans as mandates to check them every time.
The TSA issued guidelines in August
subjecting flyers wearing head coverings — such as cowboy hats, berets and turbans — to secondary screenings at airport checkpoints.
Protests from the Sikh community, which felt unfairly targeted, led to a collaboration between the Sikh Coalition and the TSA and a revision of the rule in October. The new federal guidelines give screeners more discretion, allowing flyers to opt for a pat-down of their headgear and options less intrusive than the removal of a turban — something Sikhs only do in private.
TSA spokesman Nico Melendez said his agency has received less than two dozen complaints relating to secondary screening of Sikh passengers at SFO since October, adding that the standards in San Francisco are the same as in other airports. A spokesman at San Francisco International Airport spokesman referred calls to Melendez.
"A private screening is offered to passengers, but it's about providing security," Melendez said. "We see enough items coming through the checkpoint to know what's common and what's uncommon."
The Sikh Coalition also identified airports whose screeners were praised for their cultural sensitivity — in Los Angeles, Portsmouth, N.H., and St. Augustine, Fla.
Up to 10,000 people are taking to the streets of a Berkshire town to mark the founding of the Sikh religion.
A carnival procession and religious services across Slough will mark the festival of Vaisakhi. It has the one of the largest Sikh populations in the UK.
Vaisakhi, also spelled Baisakhi, is one of the most important dates in the Sikh calendar.
It is the Sikh New Year festival and also commemorates 1699, the year Sikhism was born as a collective faith.
Organisers of the town's procession expect up to 10,000 people to turn out.
Inderjit Singh Ghattaura said Vaisakhi was marked by religious ceremonies and a huge celebration: "Within the procession, it's like a carnival.
"We have different floats, there's speeches and things like that.
"A lot of food is served, a lot of hot drinks are served, in case people are getting tired or thirsty," he continued.
"We also try and inform people who are actually watching from their windows or from their houses exactly what the carnival procession is about.
"We have all the council people, all dignitaries, and they all actually join in."
Vaisakhi is also a long established harvest festival in the Punjab, celebrated long before it gained a religious dimension for Sikhs.
AN 11-YEAR-OLD Sikh boy had his turban ripped off and stamped upon by a group of racist thugs on a Liverpool bus.
Arjan Rhode was attacked by a gang of teenagers on Monday afternoon on the 82 service in Garston.
Moments after he got on the bus near Aigburth Road, he was tapped on the shoulder and his turban was suddenly pulled from his head.
A group of around nine yobs, aged around 18, passed the turban around while mocking the St Benedict’s RC College pupil.
They shouted a tirade of racist abuse at the terrified boy as they stamped on the turban on the floor.
The turban is one of the most important religious symbols for a Sikh and damaging one is seen as a huge insult.
The bus was packed, around school leaving time at 3.10pm, but nobody intervened.
Arjan left the bus sobbing and recounted the assault to his mother who immediately telephoned the police.
Police have arrested a boy aged 17 on suspicion of a religiously aggravated public order offence.
He was being questioned by officers and the matter could be passed to the force’s Sigma Unit, which deals with hate crime.
Police are set to examine CCTV tapes from the bus.
It is alleged that the mocking group were made up of current and former pupils from St Benedict’s, formerly St John Almond, and the school has been contacted.
His mother, who wished to be identified only as Mrs Aurkaur, said her son had been left traumatised and was off school.
She said: “The bus was busy but nobody helped him. After it happened, Arjan sat there alone and frightened until he got off.
“This was a completely offensive act, the turban is the basis of Sikh religion.”
Mrs Aurkaur said her son had suffered repeated racist attacks and insults at his school in Horrocks Avenue, Garston.
Headteacher John Finnigan said initial inquiries suggested none of the yobs was a pupil, but he would work with police to identify them.
He said: “Any racist incidents are totally against the ethos of our Catholic college.
“Such incidents are always condemned, thoroughly investigated and action taken.
“This matter occurred after school, but we have obviously made inquiries among our students and teachers.
“College staff and the police will be patrolling the area at the end of the school day.”
A Sikh policeman has been awarded almost £10,000 in damages for racial discrimination after a police force rejected a dozen applications from him to join.
Pc Sangram Singh-Bhacker, 41, who comes from an Indian family in Manchester, had been trying to transfer to the city since 1990.
But despite having served for 16 years with five other forces in England, his applications were repeatedly refused by Greater Manchester Police.
He now works for British Transport Police and has abandoned any hopes of working in Manchester.
A tribunal found GMP guilty of racial discrimination and condemned the force both for its refusal to employ the officer and the way it later sought to impugn his integrity.
Pc Singh-Bhacker was awarded £5,000 for "injury to his feelings", £4,000 in aggravated damages and £400 in travel expenses. The aggravated damages were awarded because of the way GMP had attacked Mr Singh-Bhacker's integrity without any supporting documentation.
A GMP spokesman said: "We regularly accept transfers of officers from other forces if they meet the rigorous standards we require. These officers are drawn from many different communities, including the Asian community."
Excitement and anticipation are building among Leamington's Sikhs as work on the town's new temple begins this month.
The £8 million gurdwara is expected to open in 2010 and has been paid for by fundraising and donations from the congregation.
Member Parminder Singh Birdi said: "It is exciting time and people are starting to become aware that long wait is over and the place is buzzing.
"Just the other day there was an anonymous donation of £5,000 and I think as soon as work starts we will start to see a lot more enthusiasm from the Leamington community."
Committee member Jaspal Singh Bhambra said: "December 9 was an important day for us as it was when an open meeting was called to dispel the difference of opinion that few members had and the congregation unanimously agreed to proceed with the project. "
Contracts with Leamington builders AC Lloyd have now been signed and work is expected to start in the next few weeks. The new gurdwara, which will be built on the temple's existing Queensway site, will have a library, meeting rooms and three prayer halls to meet requirements of its large number of members, weddings and functions.
The current building will remain in use while the project is being completed and will eventually become a community centre.
Before Christmas some 180 families had signed up to help the project and since then the number of donations has continued to rise.
Organisers hope the gurdwara will meet the needs of the 4,500 Sikhs living in Leamington, Kenilworth and Warwick and will also welcome schools and other faiths to visit and learn about Sikhism.
Plans also show a large basement which will be used to house language and music classes.
Mr Birdi believes seeing work begin will be a poignant moment for everyone involved. He added: "This is a very large building project and we are surprised that it is right on schedule. It is a testament to the dedication and professionalism of all volunteers involved."
A magistrate has been jailed for 18 months after admitting telling a contact he could delay his court case in return for a £50,000 payment.
Balbir Sandu, 63, who had been a lay Wolverhampton magistrate, was sentenced at Birmingham Crown Court after pleading guilty to the fraud charge.
The court heard Sandu, of Merridale Road, Wolverhampton, later dropped the fee for his contact to £40,000.
Sandu told police when he was arrested the offer was intended as a prank.
The court heard how Sandu's acquaintance had become concerned and called police following their conversations, which happened between 14 January and 14 March last year.
Sandu pleaded guilty to fraud at a hearing at Birmingham Crown Court in January.
St. Patrick's Day festivities kick off with Ireland fund lunch, tomorrow's parade
Mar 15, 2008 04:30 AM
Prithi Yelaja Staff Reporter
Even the Sikh cabbie who drove Susan Storey, chair of the Ireland Fund of Canada, to the group's annual St. Patrick's Day bash in downtown Toronto was wearing the green.
As in a green turban.
"He was thrilled. I thought that was so cute," says Storey.
Yes, it's that time of year when, as Jack Ferns, organizer of Sunday's St. Patrick's Day parade, likes to point out: "There are three kinds of people in the world: those who are Irish; those who wish they were and those who have no ambition."
Undoubtedly, the nearly 1,400 people who enjoyed the craic (fun) at the Ireland Fund's hooley (party) yesterday at the Metro Convention Centre fell into the first two categories.
"It celebrates the best of Ireland in a way that even if you come from another cultural group you can have fun," says Eleanor McGrath, a Toronto author who is writing a book about the Irish in Canada.
Adds Liz Power, whose husband Michael donned a big, goofy green hat for the occasion, "It's the Irish event of the year in Toronto."
Two stately Irish wolfhounds sauntered around.
And Guinness flowed freely as the crowd was treated to Irish jigs and sang along to perennial favourites like "When Irish Eyes are Smiling" and "Molly Malone."
Launched modestly in 1982, the first Ireland Fund luncheon attracted 80 people, raising $2,500.
Now in its 25th year, the $225-per-ticket event was expected to raise more than $250,000 and capture a Guinness Book World Record for "largest simultaneous roast beef dinner."
"We've just outgrown every facility. We could probably do a 3,000-person lunch, but there's no facility that could accommodate that," says Storey.
Founded in 1978 by Hilary Weston, the Ireland Fund of Canada is one of 11 such funds worldwide, supported by many of the estimated 73 million people who belong to the Irish diaspora – including 3 million in Canada, 1 million in the GTA.
The fund raises money for grassroots community projects that celebrate Irish heritage and promote peace and reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants in their homeland.
The fund's Canadian branch spearheaded the creation of Ireland Park on Éireann Quay at the foot of Bathurst St., which commemorates the Irish famine immigrants of 1847.
The park was inaugurated by Ireland's president, Mary McAleese, last June.
"Canada has done an incredible job of accepting people from every nation, but it's really important to understand where you come from. If you don't understand your history and what made the good and the bad, you can't build another country," says Storey.
Like Canada, Ireland struggles with issues of national identity following waves of immigration in the wake of its current economic boom."The big debate in Ireland these days is: `What is it to be Irish?' You can't say any more what it is to be Irish, only what is perceived to be Irish," says Finbar McCarthy, a building contractor who migrated to Toronto from Cork in 1982.
About 400 people attended a special mass at St. Michael's Catholic Cathedral to honour St. Patrick, who brought Christianity to Ireland in the 5th century.
The hour-long ceremony began with the blessing of the shamrock, which the patron saint used to illustrate the concept of the Trinity to the uninitiated.
The service is usually held March 17 but was moved up by the Vatican because Palm Sunday, the beginning of solemn Holy Week, arrives early this year, tomorrow.
Father Patrick O'Day, who plans to raise a pint or two of Guinness this weekend, believes there's room for both religion and fun in remembering St. Patrick, the latter in moderation of course.
"Though I hope people who are celebrating St. Patrick's Day know he didn't found beer," O'Day says with a chuckle.
The Maharani's headstone after it was unveiled at Ancient House Museum, Thetford, yesterday.
For decades, it gathered mould under tonnes of rubble and human remains at a derelict London chapel.
But a broken Victorian headstone that marked the temporary resting place of an Indian Queen was unveiled at a Norfolk museum yesterday to add to the region's rich Anglo-Sikh heritage.
Tourism chiefs said they hoped the installation of the restored marble gravestone of Maharani Jindan Kaur - mother of the Maharajah Duleep Singh - at Ancient House, in Thetford, would help the area to wake up to the huge economic potential of promoting its Sikh connections.
Thousands from across the country already visit west Suffolk and the south Norfolk town every year to pay homage to the last Maharajah of the Punjab and Britain's first Sikh settler, who lived at Elveden Hall, was buried at the village church and has a statue in nearby Thetford.
Harbinder Singh, director of the Anglo Sikh Heritage Trail, yesterday said the gravestone of the Maharajah's mother, who died in London in 1863, would add to the town's popularity among the UK's Sikh community. “East Anglia, and in particular Thetford, is well represented on the heritage trail, but the economic potential for the area remains to be realised. It evolves with time and I think we are getting to that time. The interest will carry on cascading for centuries,” he said.
Mr Singh added that the chance discovery of the Maharani of Lahore's headstone in the catacombs at Kensal Green Dissenters Chapel, northwest London, during a restoration project in 2006 had stunned historians and was “highly significant” for Anglo-Sikh heritage.
Oliver Bone, curator of Ancient House, said the 2ftx2ft stone was a fitting addition to the museum because the building owed its existence to the Maharani's grandson, Prince Frederick Duleep Singh, who gave the Tudor townhouse to the people of Thetford in the 1920s.
Duleep Singh, who lived at Elveden Hall.
“It [the stone] is important because the Maharani was not in Britain very long and there are very few traces of her existence,” he said.
Maharani Jindan Kaur was the beautiful wife of the one-eyed “Lion of the Punjab”, Maharajah Ranjit Singh. She gave birth to Duleep Singh in 1838, who at the age of six became Maharajah of the Punjab.
But when the British annexed the region in 1849, the most powerful woman in northern India was sent into exile and her son was shipped off to England to live the life of a British aristocrat.
The proud woman who was known as the “Messalina of the Punjab” was eventually reunited with Duleep Singh in 1861 and was permitted to enter England. She died two years later in Kensington, London.
She was entombed at the old chapel at Kensal Green until her son arranged for her body to return home in the spring of 1864 and was cremated at Nasik in Bombay. The Maharajah Duleep Singh, who was a favourite of Queen Victoria, bought Elveden Hall, near Thetford, in 1863. He died 30 years later in Paris.
A teenage boy of Pakistani origin has been held guilty by a Queens Supreme Court jury of committing a hate crime by cutting off a Sikh boy's hair by force.
Umair Ahmed was held guilty Friday of hate crimes, harassment and possession of a deadly weapon.
The trial stemmed from an incident last May when the victim, Harpal Singh Vacher, then 15, was a high school student in Queens borough. Ahmed, then 17, was also a student in the same school.
Queens District Attorney Richard A. Brown observed: 'The defendant has been convicted of a serious attack on the fundamental beliefs of the victim's religion and his freedom to worship freely. Crimes of hate will never be tolerated here in Queens County - in particular the most culturally diverse county in the nation.'
Unshorn hair is one of the five articles of faith for Sikhs.
Depending on whether Ahmed is treated as a youthful offender or as an adult, he could face up to four years in prison. He is scheduled to be sentenced April 11, a press release by United Sikhs, an advocacy group, said.
Jaspreet Singh, staff attorney for United Sikhs, commented: 'We are thankful that the perpetrator has been convicted, and that the jurors recognised that this was not a simple incident of hair cutting; freedom of religious practice must be preserved.'
According to the testimony at trial, there was an argument May 23 last year between Ahmed, then 17, and Harpal Singh, fellow students at Newtown High School in Elmhurst. Ahmed threatened that he would beat up Singh and send him home naked.
The next day, Ahmed declared to Harpal in the school cafeteria: 'I have to cut your hair'. Wielding a pair of scissors, he forced the victim to accompany him to the restroom. In a closed stall of the restroom, Ahmed forced the Sikh boy to remove his turban and proceeded to cut his hair.
Another student, who entered the restroom at that time, reported the incident to a school safety agent.
After the school authorities said they could not guarantee his safety, Harpal Singh was transferred to another school.
CHANDIGARH: An 18-year-old Pakistani has been convicted of hate crime against a Sikh student in a US school.
Depending on whether he is treated as a youthful offender or an adult, Umair Ahmed can face up to four years in prison for cutting 15-year-old Harpal Vacher's hair with a pair of scissors after threatening him on May 24, 2007.
A New York jury, after two-and-a-half days of deliberations, found Ahmed guilty of second-degree menacing as a hate crime, second-degree coercion as a hate crime, fourth-degree criminal possession of a weapon and third-degree harassment. He is scheduled to be sentenced on April 11.
Queens district attorney Richard A Brown said, "The defendant has been convicted of a serious attack on the fundamental beliefs of the victim's religion and freedom to worship freely. Crimes of hate will never be tolerated here in Queens County in particular, the most culturally diverse county in the nation."
The 16-year-old victim testified for approximately six to seven hours on Monday and for three to four hours on Wednesday. The incident reportedly took place after a spat between Ahmed and the victim. Ahmed was said to have threatened the victim on May 23, 2007, saying that he would beat him up and send him home naked.
On May 24, Ahmed again approached the victim in the school cafeteria and declared that he would cut the victim's hair. But, all pleas by the victim reportedly fell on deaf ears as Ahmed threatened to punch him with a ring.
Threatened by Ahmed's behaviour and the fact that he was wielding the ring and a pair of scissors, the Sikh student followed his attacker to the restroom.
"It was a difficult trial for the prosecutor because they did not have any witnesses to the actual incident other than the victim.
Also, it was difficult to convey the importance of hair for a Sikh to the jury and to convey the depth of fear Ahmed had instilled in the victim,"said Tejinder Singh, legal director of United Sikhs. "The jury saw through the attempts by the defense to suggest that the victim wanted his hair cut, and convicted Ahmed of all charges,"added Singh.
A Sikh man was verbally abused by two racist thugs and had his turban torn off while up to 40 onlookers stood by and did nothing.
The attack on Rattandeep Singh Ahluwalia in Oxford city centre comes a day after 19-year-old student Tom Grant was stabbed to death on a train after going to somone's aid.
Mr Ahluwalia was waiting at a bus stop outside HSBC bank in Queen Street at midnight on Sunday when a man started swearing and shouting racist insults at him.
The stranger grabbed hold of the 26-year-old's turban a traditional head-dress worn as a sign of devotion to God and threw it on the pavement.
As Mr Ahluwalia struggled to defend himself, another man waved his fists in his face and also shouted racist abuse.
The former student, who was heading home to Whitson Place, Cowley, after a day of praying in London, was shocked none of the people around him tried to help.
He said: "I was really scared. No-one showed any sympathy. There were at least 30 to 40 people and no-one did anything.
"He could have stabbed me."
He was not seriously injured but has been left traumatised and shaken by the attack.
He added: "A turban is part of a Sikh's religion, our costume. What that man did was the biggest sign of disrespect and the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me in my life."
'I always thought this was the best city I have ever been to in my life'
Rattandeep Singh Ahluwalia
Mr Ahluwalia, who moved to the city to study for a Masters at Oxford Brookes University, has also criticised the police for not understanding the significance of what happened to him.
He said when the officers arrived, he was standing against the wall petrified to be seen in public with his hair exposed, but was forced to run over the road to meet them.
Mr Ahluwalia said: "I always thought this was the best city I have ever been to in my life. Now I will not go out late at night on my own."
This is the first time Mr Ahluwalia has been physically attacked.
Oxford police spokesman Kate Smith said officers attended the racially-aggravated common assault on Sunday at 12.12am but no arrests hade been made.
She added: "We take all racist incidents extremely seriously and a thorough investigation is under way."
The attack has been condemned by members of the Sikh community, including Gurdip Singh Saini, vice-chairman of the Asian Cultural Centre in East Oxford. He said: "It is very shocking. These sorts of incidents are increasing day by day in the UK and it is getting worse. It is all the more wrong that no-one came to his rescue."
Anyone with information should call Pc Chris Miles via 08458 505505 or Crimestoppers on 0800 555111.
This Indian enclave in west London is drenched in silver and gilt, the carpet's loud 'n' lairy, signs for Punjabi towns adorn the wall alongside scenes of rural idyll and it generally looks as if an elephant in the room has peppered a standard English boozer with Indian nick-nacks. It's also the only pub in Britain that accepts Indian rupees. About 320 rupees (£4) will get you a pint of Kingfisher, Cobra or one of several lacklustre lagers. There's sweet or salted lassi too but disappointment awaits those wanting a hoppy India pale ale, because there isn't any ale at all. As well as a serious-looking pool room, a giant plasma screen (gilded, naturally) was blaring out a fairly absurd Indian interpretation of 'Pump up the Jam' and Bollywood-style music videos. There's a roaring fireplace too should you consider that entertaining. Bar talk? Two Asian lads from Leicester pondered the current number of rupees to the pound (78), the ban on cycle rickshaws from Chandni Chowk in Delhi (while London's West End has been introducing them), and the phrase 'going for a glassy' - Indian shorthand for a 'cheeky pint', while noting that while beer measures are still imperial in the UK, in India they are metric. Amid plenty of scintillating sizzle and smells, the kitchen serves up terrific no-frills karahi-cooked dishes, chicken tikka, dhal, and other subcontinental culinary classics. The regulars are both urban and turban. Elders pop in from Europe's biggest Sikh gurdwara (place of worship) opposite, while the Southall 'yoof' (all hair-gel, bling and pimp-rolls) hang out in the pool room. Ben McFarland. Photography Allyce Hibbert
It's an intriguing dilemma in a multicultural society: where do the rights of an individual begin and the laws of society end? The latest dilemma revolves around a Sikh man named Baljinder Badesha. He was charged in 2005 for not wearing a motorcycle helmet as he tooled around his Brampton home.
But he wasn't being lazy, defiant or forgetful. Instead, Badesha claimed his faith mandates that he wear only a turban and the helmet wouldn't allow him to do that. So he's taken his case to court to fight the fine.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission is supporting the 39-year-old biker, agreeing that the father of four is being discriminated against. But at a Friday hearing into the controversial case, the Crown is insisting the fine remain in place.
There have been similar instances in B.C. and Manitoba, where exceptions to the rule have already been made. And the commission claims losing the case wouldn't be a disaster for prosecutors, because future exceptions would still have to be decided on a case-by-case basis.
The dispute has raised new concerns about the need for safety vs. the freedom of religion. Many believe the latter should come first and that it's in the public interest that the law mandate people protect themselves while indulging in activities that could leave them facing severe injury.
But others contend that the man in question is an adult and he should be able to make his own decision in the name of his faith. Human Rights Commissioner Barbara Hall agrees.
"Rights like freedom of religion are not absolute, but there is a requirement if people request accommodation to explore whether or not it makes sense," she explains. "And it means going through ... scientific tests ... [to determine] what happens to a turban at high speed, to determine where is the risk, and is it an acceptable level of risk? ... There are a number of situations where people in Ontario currently have exemptions from the Highway Traffic Act."
But callers to Citytv's CityOnline disagree, calling it a foolish precedent. "I think this is a totally ridiculous thing," criticizes a woman named Andrea. "It's safety first. It's nothing to do with religious aspects. If you have to wear a helmet, this is Canada. It's in Ontario. It's in the Highway Act. What happens if he gets hit by a car? Is his turban going to protect his head more than a helmet would?"
Kris Reyes will have much more on this divisive dispute on CityNews at Five and Six.
JATINDER BIR SINGH'S parents mortgaged their home and land to pay for him to study at Global College, but he had brave hopes that he could earn it back and pay for his siblings to study in Australia too.
The Punjab student had chosen to study commercial cookery because it was a skills shortage area so it would give him a better chance of obtaining permanent residency.
But when he arrived in Australia he was dismayed to discover that he could not study commercial cookery as planned but was locked into hairdressing - the worst possible course, because Mr Singh is a Sikh.
Not only is he forbidden to cut his own hair, but the religion bans him from cutting anybody else's, on pain of being expelled from his community.
Mr Singh said the college had promised him in India that if he agreed to accept a place in hairdressing he would be given a spot in commercial cookery once he arrived on Australian soil. Now they were telling him he was stuck in hairdressing.
"When I said, 'This is against my religion. I want a refund', they said no," Mr Singh said.
Mr Singh's story is repeated by Shantinder Jit Kaur, who says she hocked her jewellery to afford the airfare and $22,000 course fee, only to be told by Global College on arrival that she could not switch to commercial cookery and must study business.
"I sold my jewellery. You can't imagine," Ms Kaur said.
"I took a bank loan. In all the statements I put 'commercial cookery'."
The college's operations manager, Omar Hong, said the students were all told that their switch to a place in commercial cookery was contingent on space becoming available.
"We've never tried to mislead students," Mr Hong said.
"It's hard to believe what students say. We've had a few difficult students."
They would only be entitled to a refund if they cancelled more than 28 days before the course started, he said.
Amit Baijal, the director of the education agency Visna Info, has lent several students money to apply to different colleges because he felt sorry for them.
If the students had known there would be no space in commercial cookery at Global College they would have enrolled in many of the other hundreds of colleges around the country, he said.
Peterborough Interfaith group pictured outside St Mary’s Church in New Road before heading off to visit the new Sikh temple in Bedford. (8PF0210206) Picture: PAUL FRANKS
A NEW multi-million pound Sikh Temple was the latest port of call for members of the city's Interfaith group.
Members met outside St Mary's Church, New Road, before setting off to the Gurdwara (Sikh temple) in Bedford.
This marks the third of a series of visits to different places of worship the group are undertaking as part of their 30th anniversary celebrations.
Chairman of the council, which aims to forge closer links between worshippers of the city's numerous faiths, Jaspal Singh said: "We took a full coach to the Gurdwara, 53 people, with four major faiths represented on the trip, those of Sikh, Hindu, Christian and Judaism."
The group attended the service and were also invited to join in a four-course meal.
They were then given a tour around the temple and joined in a question and answer session.
Mr Singh said: "The committee at the Gurdwara were really helpful and welcoming. We took a real cross section of ages, the youngest attendee was one and a half with the oldest more than 70. Everybody had a great time."
The new Guru Nanak Gurdwara in Bedford which will become the centre of the Sikh community in that area was built to replicate the appearance of Indian Gurdwaras using specific stone and also stone masons brought over from India.
The full article contains 228 words and appears in Peterborough ET newspaper.
A 14-year-old Sikh girl cannot wear a religious wrist bangle to school pending a full legal battle over her cultural and religious rights, the High Court ruled today.
Sarika Watkins-Singh was excluded after she refused to remove the Kara bangle and is now due to fight in the courts to establish a permanent right to continue wearing it in class.
Backed by her mother, Sanita, 38, she says it is an important symbol of her culture and Sikh faith.
She wants to return to Aberdare Girls School in south Wales and continue her education pending the hearing.
The school governors say the bangle cannot be worn because of its "no jewellery" policy.
Today her lawyers came to London's High Court, suggesting that she should be allowed to wear it on her right wrist under a long-sleeved jumper until there was a final ruling in her application for judicial review, which could take several months.
Helen Mountfield, appearing for Sarika, argued that she was unfairly being made to choose between her education and her faith.
But Mr Justice Harrison accepted the argument of the school governors that, to allow Sarika to be made an exception to school uniform policy even for a short period would cause disruption among the 600 girls at the school.
Jonathan Auburn, for the school, said there would be the risk of pupils "turning up at the school displaying jewellery saying that it was allowed".
The judge ruled: "Whilst I accept there will be detriment to the claimant if she is not able to wear the Kara in the interim, it does not seem to me that is anything like as significant as the detriment to the school if she were allowed to wear it."
The Punjabi Welsh girl from Cwmbach, near Aberdare, said the small, plain steel bangle was "a constant reminder to do good".
Ms Mountfield had told the judge that Sarika was allowed to wear it for about two years before a PE teacher asked her to take it off in April last year.
"She is 14, now approaching the age at which she is required to choose her GCSE subjects.
"She cares about her education and is a child with aspirations to have a professional career.
"She will suffer harm if she cannot attend school in a way that is consistent with her culture and religion, and is forced to choose between something which is central to her ethnic and religious identity and her education."
Ms Mountfield added that Sarika could not hide the Kara in a bag, which the school was suggesting as a compromise.
The point of the Kara was that it was a symbol of a faith with a history of martyrdom that required its adherents to visibly stand up for what they believed, she told the judge.
Recently the school head, Jane Rosser, said that wearing the Kara was against regulations because it was a piece of jewellery.
Sarika's family contend it was not jewellery as it was worn for religious reasons and not for decoration.
The only two forms of jewellery that girls are allowed to wear in school are a wrist watch and one pair of plain metal stud earrings.
In the forthcoming High Court hearing, Sarika's lawyers will argue that the school's stance violates race relations laws, the 2006 Equality Act and the 1998 Human Rights Act.
Her mother says she has the support of several local politicians and the Sikh Federation UK.
The teenager would remove the bangle for gym classes, or wood and metalwork, for safety reasons.
The mother said recently: "We feel very strongly that Sarika has a right to manifest her religion. She is not asking for anything big and flashy, she is not making a big fuss, she just wants a reminder of her religion."
Her daughter's interest in the Sikh faith intensified after the family visited India, including the Golden Temple in Amritsar, two years ago.
"I don't believe in putting pressure on children to follow a certain religion, but Sarika decided for herself that she wanted to be a practising Sikh," Mrs Singh, a mother-of-two, added.
Sarika said: "I am a Sikh and it is very important for me to wear the Kara because it is a symbol of my faith and a constant reminder that I should only do good work, and never do anything bad, with my hands.
"It is a comfort to me and a confidence booster when I am doing my exams. The reason I am fighting for my right to wear the Kara is because I want to stand up for the right of all the other Sikh pupils across the country to wear their Karas in school."
TEENAGE girl led a racist attack by a group of youths against a Sikh man on a bus in Edinburgh.
The 22-year-old man was verbally abused on the Number 26 Lothian bus to Corstorphine at around 10.30pm on Saturday.
The man, who was wearing a turban, boarded the bus at Haymarket with a friend. Shortly after, a group of teenagers got on near the Murrayfield Ice Rink and racially abused the victim, partly due to his traditional clothing.
The female main suspect got off the bus at the top of Drum Brae Drive, near to the Fox Covert housing estate.
She is described as white, 16 to 20, 5ft 8ins, slim, with blonde hair, which was tied up in a ponytail. She was wearing a white jacket and grey jeans.
A police spokesman said: "The victim was left extremely upset as a result of this incident, which shows a lack of respect for the victim's faith.
"We want anyone who witnessed the incident, or who knows the identity of any of the youths involved, to get in touch."
It was last November when the case for Sarika Singh came into the spotlight & again raised the ever contentious debate around issues of religious symbolism in Britain.
‘Having spoken on the airways recently to Sarika Singh’s Mother It dawned on me that the debate around the Kara or ‘Religious Sikh bangle’ has far wider Implications than just on religious expression and basic freedoms.’ Said Satinder Singh from Ethnic Confusion Britain.
‘Questions like what is the significance of a Kara or Turban to Sikhs and what is the significance of a skullcap to a Jew need to be addressed within the schools National curriculum.’
This unprecedented case highlights a need for government & Legislators to reassess the inclusion of further information on issues of identity and religious symbolism within Great Britain’s Schools national curriculum.
‘It was only very recently that I myself researched Rastafarianism; I soon discovered the significance of ‘the Lion of Judah’
being an emblem of Ras Tafari, otherwise known as the former Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie. Only through education do we dispel myths and misconceptions about others thus education and understanding will be part of the gel that hold society together in years to come.’ He added
Sarika’s case is not the first time in the history of modern day Britain that religious symbols have been under the scrutiny of the judiciary & government, In accordance with the motor-cycle crash helmets Act 1976 passed by the British Government in 1976 section 2A “exempts any follower of the Sikh religion while he is wearing a turban from having to wear a crash helmet."
The case echoes controversy in France, where politicians voted for a ban on religious symbols in schools, including the hijab, the headscarf worn by Muslim girls and women.
Sarika Singh, 14, has not attended Aberdare Girls' School, Cynon Valley, since 5 November 2007 and a legal challenge has been filed at the High Court.
An application for judicial review of Sarika's exclusion is awaiting adjudication at the High Court.
The US Public Broadcasting System (PBS) has produced a documentary on American Sikhs to create awareness about the community traumatized by post 9/11 racial attacks.
Called 'Sikhs in America', the half-hour documentary captures their culture, spiritual beliefs, social ceremonies, martial arts, the game of kabbadi and the Yuba City Sikh Parade.
Releasing it here, channel president David Hosley said 'Sikhs in America' would teach mainstream Americans about the community.
Although Sikhs have been in the US for over 100 years, few Americans know anything about them, he lamented.
Jasbir Singh Kang, founder member of Yuba City Punjabi American Heritage Society that mooted and partly funded the documentary, recalled how they persuaded the PBS to do the documentary to raise awareness about American Sikhs.
'We needed a mainstream network to project us. Since PBS is a respected national network, I made a presentation to Hosley four years ago. He agreed to do this documentary on the basis of that presentation.'
Marissa Aroy of Berkeley-based Media Factory, which produced the documentary, told IANS: 'Before my partner Niall McKay and I started filming it, we saw all programmes on American Sikhs. All related to hate crimes after 9/11.
'We didn't want to add one more to them. Instead, we decided to present their (Sikhs) contemporary picture to Americans.'
Although her crew were given only five days to complete the shooting, they took 25 to delve deeper and know the community better, she said. 'It is a portrait of what it means to be a Sikh in the US today,' she said.
Although shot in Sacramento, Freemont, and Livingston in northern California, the documentary mostly centres on Yuba City, which is known as a Punjabi village in America.
The camera follows Sikh families through daily life - how they share a meal and pray together at home, how they participate in Sunday prayers at gurdwaras, how they celebrate Yuba City Sikh Parade, how they keep their martial arts alive and how a young Sikh wears his uncut hair and ties his turban.
'It features a Sikh wedding and a game of kabbadi to show their cultural and athletic side,' Aroy said.
On the negative side, she added, it shows how they still practice the caste system despite religious injunctions against it.
The documentary was telecast Wednesday in northern California by PBS's local affiliate known as KVIE. Soon it will be telecast across America by other PBS affiliates.
''Sikhs in America' is a great educational tool. I hope it will create awareness and stop mistaken hate crimes against Sikhs,' said Kang, whom the channel had honoured as an unsung hero in 2006 for his community work.
NORTH INDIA'S Sikh leaders are fretting about turbans. Despite India's line-up of turban-clad celebrities like the offspin bowler Harbhajan Singh and the Prime Minster, Manmohan Singh, there are fears that young Sikhs are spurning the traditional headgear in growing numbers.
Even in the Sikh heartland city of Amritsar, home of the magnificent Golden Temple, turbans are being abandoned.
Sikh elders there are so alarmed they have set up a free turban clinic.
Customers can learn to tie a good turban and get advice on what style and colours suit them best. Facial structure, complexion, height and even occupation are taken into account. Specially designed software called Smart Turban 1.0 is used to help with the task. Another program, called Turban Tutor 2.0, is available to those wanting to improve their tying techniques.
Jaswinder Singh, an Amritsar lawyer who helped establish the clinic, is deeply worried about the slump in turban tying, especially in Punjab, the Indian state with the greatest concentration of Sikhs.
"We need to encourage our young men to tie a good turban," he said.
It was becoming increasingly difficult for Sikh fathers to convince their sons to adopt the turban, with many young men considering traditional styles favoured by older Sikhs to be "archaic and conservative".
Jaswinder Singh believes education in contemporary turban techniques is essential to stem the decline. "It can be difficult to know which style of turban suits your face," he said.
The main aim of the clinic is to encourage young men to refrain from cutting their hair - one of the key tenets of the Sikh religion. "This is one of the most serious problems confronting Sikhism today," he said.
The clinic has the backing of a leading Sikh religious group called the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee. But there are many turban clinics around Amritsar.
One of them is run by Inderapal Singh at his family's turban store, close to the Golden Temple complex, one of Sikhism holiest shrines. With almost 40 turban styles for his clients to choose from, his vision is to "show the
new generation how to be
a true Sikh".
Inderapal Singh, 21, said it can take anywhere between five minutes and two hours to put on a turban, depending on the style. Most turbans are made up of five to nine metres of fabric.
He sports a magnificent burnt orange turban, which he said takes 20 minutes to put on every morning.
"The turban is very important to my identity," he said. "It shows the world you are a Sikh."
His 14-year-old brother, Amandeep Singh, who helps in the turban store after school, wears the simple black head covering favoured by sportsmen like Harbhajan Singh. He is considering what style of turban he will adopt when he gets a little older.
Dalbir Singh, an information officer at the Golden Temple, says three colours of turban are favoured by the many Sikhs who visited the famous shrine: black signifying the struggle over sin, saffron signifying sacrifice, and blue signifying service.
However, the turban salesmen clustered around the busy streets near the temple have a huge array of colours on offer. Inderapal Singh said a top priority for most customers was to find turban colours that matched their suits, shirts or ties.
A negative reaction to religious head coverings following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, in the US has been blamed for accelerating the decline of turban-wearing.
Jaswinder Singh also points the finger at Bollywood films. "Those wearing turbans are often used to provide comic relief," he said. "They are shown as provincial, uneducated and amusing. This has bruised the feelings of the community."
Published: January 25 2008 18:17 | Last updated: January 25 2008 18:17
A few months ago in Punjab, as grain farmers set fire to harvested rice fields to clear their land, Jagroop Singh spent the afternoon reflecting on his good fortune farming cows. Singh, a tall Sikh who tends his herd in a white tunic and pale pink turban on a farm near the north Indian village of Aliwal, owns 60 somewhat bony brown animals, which he keeps in an open-air shed on the edge of the fields behind his house.
Keeping cows, like farming wheat, has been an immensely profitable business during the past year, because Singh gets paid a lot more for his milk than he used to. He receives about Rs15 a litre – a third more than two years ago – from Nestle India, which collects the milk and blasts it through machines at a nearby factory, evaporating the water and creating a fine white powder.
“The prices are very good, we are very happy,” says Singh as he looks over his herd. He’s planning to build a new shed soon, as he’s running out of room to house his cows. By this time next year, he aims to have 150, which would be exactly 148 more than he owned a decade ago.
Not far away, another Sikh farmer, Jatinder Singh, is equally optimistic about the future. He started his farm a decade ago with just one cow but today has 65, which are kept outdoors in concrete-paved yards and dirt paddocks. Over the next few years, he plans to breed cows and double his milk production.
But what’s good for the farmers is hard on consumers. In India, where milk has traditionally been bought fresh every day and boiled to make tea and curd (this stops it going bad in a country where electricity is intermittent and many people do not have refrigerators), people are now paying around Rs24 a litre – Rs3 more than six months ago.
And milk is not the only basic foodstuff rising rapidly in price, nor India the only country in which people are spending more money on food. Bread, pasta, eggs, coffee, chicken, pork and beef – it is difficult to find a staple food that has not become more expensive over the past year, or a country in which food prices have not gone up.
British food producers increased prices by 7.4 per cent last year – the biggest annual increase since the country’s National Statistics office began tracking them 15 years ago – due to big jumps in the cost of producing bread, butter, eggs, milk and meat. In Russia, prices went up so sharply – milk rose by some 30 per cent and bread went up 22 per cent – that the government froze prices towards the end of the year. This month, China warned it may take similar action after food prices soared 18 per cent last year.
The speed at which food prices rose in 2007 has shocked not just farmers and consumers, but also governments. “Rarely has the world witnessed such a widespread and commonly shared concern on food price inflation,” the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organisation says.
Why are food prices going up so fast all over the world? For a start, the world’s stocks of grain have been falling, partly thanks to droughts in Australia and Ukraine (both countries are among the world’s-biggest wheat exporters). This has helped push up prices. Higher grain prices make food derived from animals – such as poultry, pork, eggs and milk – more expensive, because farmers who buy grain to feed their animals pass on the extra costs.
Meanwhile, biofuels are also having an effect. As global demand for non-oil-based sources of energy rises, some farmers are choosing to turn their crops into biofuels rather than food.
But the biggest cause of higher food prices is not biofuels or the fall in grain stocks: it is the remarkable changes occurring in the kinds of foods people eat, particularly in the fast-developing nations of India, China, Russia and Brazil. These changes are so big – and so swift – that their impact is being felt all over the world.
This is particularly acute in India, as is clear at New Delhi’s Khan Market branch of Cafe Coffee Day. Khan Market is a dusty group of shops, boutiques and restaurants on the south side of the city that attracts affluent locals and foreigners, and Cafe Coffee Day is one of the most popular places to meet.
On a Thursday morning in October, a group of men and women in their early twenties sit outside on the cafe’s balcony smoking, while inside, an older couple ignore the flat-screened television on the wall and talk over a glass-topped table. Other customers sit on cane lounge sets and read the paper or talk on their mobile phones. As the Cafe Coffee Day chain has expanded (there are now almost 500 in India), it has developed an extensive food menu. Along with a cappuccino, patrons can now order a chicken burger, a teriyaki chicken ciabatta, nachos with salsa, fish and chips, Greek salad, pasta in Alfredo sauce, apple pie, a blueberry muffin or dozens of other savoury and sweet snacks.
A few years ago, such a diverse menu would have been rare. But as Indians have become wealthier, they are travelling abroad and eating out more often, which exposes them to a wider variety of food.
“People have a lot more money to spend and people are a lot more adventurous,” says Naresh Fernandes, editor of Time Out Mumbai. “Until 20 years ago, we had rationing and food shortages. Going out to enjoy yourself didn’t exist until recently.”
Every fortnight, two or three new independent restaurants open in Mumbai, charging between Rs500 and Rs1,000 per person for a meal; Indians can increasingly afford these prices because incomes are rising quickly. About a third of India’s population live in cities. During the next 15 years, three-quarters of these are expected to earn enough money to join the country’s middle class, each earning between Rs200,000 (£2,600) and Rs1m per year, according to the McKinsey Global Institute, the economic research group. Only 10 per cent of urban Indians earn this much today.
This means that by 2025, India’s consumption of food and other products will quadruple to $1,500bn, creating the world’s fifth-biggest consumer economy after the US, Japan, China and the UK (India now ranks 16th, trailing Spain, Canada and Italy).
The new shopping mall Select Citywalk, a concoction of steel and glass in south Delhi, shows how closely the consumption habits of Indians are starting to mirror those of people in more developed countries. Inside the mall, which is so vast that it is impossible to see from one end to the other, most of the shops are expensive international brands such as Tissot, Esprit, Lancome, Mac, Mango and L’Occitane.
Familiarity with fashionable clothing brands and restaurants is being encouraged by new magazines such as Vogue India, which declared India’s “arrival” on the global fashion scene when it launched its first issue in September, and Time Out, which has a Delhi edition as well as a Mumbai one and shortly plans to start publishing in Bangalore.
Meanwhile, restaurants are now doing so well that many are opening up branches in different cities. Some are fast-food chains that have emulated McDonald’s, which has been in India for more than a decade and is one of its most established foreign restaurants. It remains a popular destination: in the evenings its restaurants are full of families queuing for Chicken Maharaja Macs, McAloo Tikki burgers and Paneer Salsa wraps – now made with “multi-cereal” bread for the health-conscious diner.
But these days McDonald’s is facing more competition. Newcomers include Jumbo King, which has taken a popular street food called vada pav, a spiced potato patty topped with chutney and served in a bun, and created a fast food chain around it, and Yo! China, which markets itself as “Chinese food, Chinese prices”.
Rachna Singh, a 34-year-old doctor who lives in Delhi, is one of the new generation of Indians who eat out regularly. She and her husband, who works in IT, go to restaurants three or four times a week and prefer non-Indian food when dining out, particularly Thai, Chinese, Middle Eastern and Italian. On weekends, Singh gladly drives for an hour to eat at her favourite Thai restaurant. But she restricts her three-year-old daughter, Avaka, to once-weekly sessions of junk food such as chips.
New food that was unheard of until recently has also found its way into Singh’s home. “We didn’t know what a kiwi was two or three years ago,” she says. She has also taken to buying foods that her mother would have made when she was growing up. Indian families traditionally make roti (round flat bread) by hand with a small rolling pin. But Singh buys frozen roti and parantha, another type of bread. She swears they taste like homemade ones. “They are excellent! You can’t tell the difference.” But she admits: “My parents think I am crazy.”
Singh often dines with her parents, Dipak and Anju Khannee, in their home in the south Delhi neighbourhood called Greater Kailash I. On a recent evening, they sat at a long dining table laden with typical Indian dishes. Big bowls were filled with kali dhal (black lentils), paneer (Indian cheese in sauce), rasala (a salad of cucumbers, red onions and coriander); chicken, raita (a type of yogurt) and roti.
The meal is traditional, but there are some new twists. Singh’s parents spoon pickle on to their plates from a store-bought jar. Singh’s mother used to make this tangy condiment of peppers herself but now finds it is easier to buy it.
Does Singh ever make pickle? “Me? No!” she shakes her head. “In our generation, no one would know how to make pickle. I’d rather buy 10 different kinds. It’s impossible to make a small amount.”
A glass dish of butter slices sits on the table, and Singh spreads some on her roti. A generation ago her mother would have made butter at home, but these days the family buys it too. “No one has got time or inclination to do so much stuff,” she says, even though both she and her parents employ housekeeping staff.
Indians have typically bought their fruits and vegetables in outdoor markets, and packaged foods in small stores with limited selections of products. But supermarkets, where young professionals such as Singh can find rare fruits like kiwis and chilled foods like butter, are now popping up around the country. In Gurgaon, the booming business district on the outskirts of Delhi, where cows wander along dusty streets between newly built office blocks, shoppers walking into a Spencer’s supermarket will find a pizza stand, Chinese food “X-press” and shelves filled with many of the same brands that they would see in London or Paris.
Lurpak butter, Red Bull energy drinks, and Tropicana orange juice are just some of the foreign brands available, and there is an entire aisle dedicated to foods such as peanut butter, pancake syrup and cranberry sauce beneath a sign saying “Taste America at Spencer’s”. Every month, 40 new Spencer’s supermarkets open around the country.
India, which is still trying to lift millions of people out of poverty, is having problems satisfying its appetites. One of the reasons the Punjabi dairy farmers are doing so well is that demand for milk, and milk-derived products, is increasing so quickly that farmers can’t keep up. India, despite being the world’s largest producer of milk, temporarily halted exports of milk powder last summer to try and stop domestic milk prices from rising too fast after some dairy farmers were tempted by record high global prices and sold their product to exporters rather than local food producers.
Milk isn’t the only hot commodity. After restarting wheat imports in 2006, for the first time since the late 1990s, India banned wheat exports last year. The country can, of course, try and produce more food. But Ajay Shankar, a government secretary in the ministry of commerce and industry, says that while India wants to increase its agricultural yields (which are low compared with the rest of the world), expanding the amount of land farmed is difficult in a country already struggling to support more than one billion people. In Punjab, the state that produces a hefty chunk of India’s wheat, rice and milk, decades of intensive farming and heavy fertiliser use have taken a heavy toll on the land, and water tables are falling sharply.
Although India’s economy is expanding at about 9 per cent a year, its agricultural sector is slowing, with growth declining from 4.7 per cent between 1992-1997 to just 1.5 per cent between 2002-2006.
If India can’t produce enough of its own food, it will have to import more. Shankar says it is unclear how much more food India will need, but acknowledges that significant increases in imports would affect the global economy. “If we become a major importer of food grains as some fear, clearly it will have an impact on global prices,” he says over tea in his Delhi office.
And India is not the only country expected to import more food in coming years. Over the next decade, per capita income in China is expected to triple, which means the Chinese will be eating more – and better. They are already each eating twice as much meat as they were in 1990 and the country now accounts for one third of all meat eaten in the world, according to research by Goldman Sachs.
Even in India, with its large vegetarian population, people are eating 40 per cent more meat. In Brazil, the amount of meat eaten by each person has risen by more than one third over the past 15 years. Brazil is better placed than most countries to meet its own needs due to its fertile soils and vast land mass, but many other countries will need to find more arable land if they are to satisfy the appetites of their citizens.
For dairy farmers such as the two Singhs, the implications of these global shifts are good news: after a decade of poor returns, farming appears to have a bright future. For everybody else, it’s a different story: get used to paying more for what you eat.
Jenny Wiggins is the FT’s consumer industries correspondent. Additional reporting by Amy Yee.
For an online special report on food prices, go to www.ft.com/food
United Sikhs, a UN affiliated international advocacy NGO, joined other civil rights organizations over the weekend in asking Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to discuss the Sikh turban issue in France with President Sarkozy.
Mr Sarkozy's high profile visit to India began on 25 January 2008. Last week, Sikh organizations across the world mobilised for a change in the 2004 French law prohibiting all overt religious dress or symbols in schools and certain other public places.
“No Sikh organization has been granted a meeting with Dr Manmohan Singh or the External Affairs Minister, but we will persist in our request for a meeting so that we are able to effectively apprise him of the issues,” said Mejindarpal Kaur, the United Sikhs director who is leading the legal challenge to the French ban on the Sikh Turban in schools and on ID document photos.
“We are concerned that the details of the problems faced by French Sikhs and the legal arguments that have been presented in the French and in the International courts are not known to Dr Manmohan Singh,” she told a press conference at the Meridien Hotel in Delhi.
“We understand that Dr Manmohan Singh may be preoccupied presently, but we hope that he will grant us a meeting by next week,” said Daljeet Singh, chair of the Dharam Parchar Committee of DSGMC.
“Dr Singh, a Turban-wearing Sikh, cannot turn a blind eye to the injustice suffered by Sikhs in France," he added.
"Since the law was passed, France has also not issued passports, driving licence and residence cards to Sikhs who refuse to remove their turban for their ID photos,” said Gurdial Singh, an Indian national living in France, who has traveled to New Delhi to campaign for the Sikh Turban ban to be lifted in France.
On 16 January 2007, United Sikhs director, Gurpreet Singh, and other members of a Sikh delegation presented a memorandum, addressed to Mr Sarkozy, to the French Ambassador in Delhi, Jerome Bonnafont.
The ambassador informed the Sikh delegation that the French government takes a serious view of the concerns of the Sikhs and he will raise with Mr Sarkozy the issues raised in the memorandum.
The memorandum stated forcefully that the Sikh Turban is the most recognizable feature of a Sikh. Unlike other head coverings, it is an inextricable part of the Sikh identity and is worn by Sikhs at all times to cover their unshorn hair, a mandatory article of their faith. As a part of the core identity of a Sikh, this law essentially has the effect of banning the practice of the Sikh religion in France.
As a top presenter on TalkSport radio and star columnist on The Sun, Jon Gaunt has the reputation as the most rabid right-wing ranter in British media. He tells Ian Burrell about being the scourge of the liberal press and his college friendship with Simon Le Bon
Monday, 28 January 2008
He used to dye his hair five different colours with his friend Simon Le Bon. He read drama at a red brick university before becoming the toast of liberal theatre-goers, with his avant-garde plays. He heads off to Stratford-upon-Avon to watch Shakespeare at weekends. When he was younger, he marched in sympathy for the women of Greenham Common and stood on the picket lines in solidarity with striking miners. And he likes it to be known that when he goes to watch his favourite football team he sits with three pals who are respectively Muslim, Sikh and Hindu.
Meet Jonathan Gaunt, 46, the most rabid right-wing ranter on British radio, the bogeyman of the liberal media and the bete noir of this newspaper's Matthew Norman. "You don't get punished in this country," wails "Gaunty" to listeners of his weekday morning show on TalkSport radio, in a familiar lament over a nation turned soft, before pining for the return of the Poll Tax. "It was fair!" he screams, blaming the demise of Margaret Thatcher's hated levy on the "great unwashed, the students, the layabouts and the lefties", who, he claims, never pay their taxes anyway.
In his column in The Sun, where he is a replacement for Richard Littlejohn, he rails against lax immigration controls and castigates the Home Secretary's lack of support for the police, describing her as "Jacqui Spliff...dopey old bird", because of her university toking.
Never mind that he makes no secret of having inhaled industrial quantities of amphetamine sulphate and cocaine as a young man. A complex character is Gaunty. Such are the apparent contradictions that if a psychiatrist was ever so misfortunate as to have to diagnose what makes him tick, the session might end with the shattered shrink lying on the couch while Gaunt lectured him from an armchair.
As he sits now in a studio at TalkSport, dressed in a black shirt, just as his detractors would imagine him, he makes no apology, setting about other media figures from as far apart in the political spectrum as Johann Hari and Simon Heffer.
His confidence is born of his success. "I'm Jon Gaunt. I've got a column in The Sun, which gets the biggest reaction, a national radio show and I'm constantly on telly."
He says that he is not a shock- jock, which is strange when his autobiography is titled Undaunted: The true story behind the popular shock-jock. "I'm not a shock jock. It's an easy term to use but I don't set out to shock and I don't think the great talk jocks in America do, they just say what they feel. I say what I think and don't care whether it's to you or David Cameron."
The Tory leader has been a guest on Gaunt's show three times, though the presenter does not regard himself as a Tory ("No. I would vote one way locally and another way nationally.") Although he never misses an opportunity on air or in print to stress his working-class credentials, he says he has no problem with Cameron's Old Etonian background. "If he starts saying things that I agree with I'm not going to disagree just because he's a posh boy."
Indeed, Gaunty has sent his own children private.
Yet his sworn enemies in life are the bourgeoisie, the "Jeremys and Mirandas", as he calls them. "It is always white middle-class twits (with an A) who cause trouble within our disunited kingdom," he opined in a recent Sun piece on English identity.
Gaunt sees himself as the ally of the ignored masses, from whence he came. "My whole career has been aimed at talking to people who aren't represented in mainstream media and aren't involved in the democratic process. I've always seen myself as some sort of conduit for them to speak," he says. "My audience are ordinary guys and women who are struggling to turn a pound."
Gaunty himself, of course, is not struggling financially. He gleefully tells listeners of his "Jag-waar" car and his "big house" in Northamptonshire, so big that it is a running TalkSport on-air joke that he needs an Albanian worker to keep the grounds in order. "I don't think my audience, my fans, resent that. I'm the clever kid from their neighbourhood who went to college. But I'm the one who hasn't forgotten where I came from, "he says. "The only people that don't like you talking about being successful are middle class twerps – Jeremy and Mirandas whose mummy and daddy did everything for them and now they haven't quite made it."
His distaste for the middle-classes stems from his time at the University of Birmingham, where he studied drama and moved in a circle that included Le Bon and senior BBC television executive Kate Harwood. By comparison with most of his fellow students, Gaunt had a harsh upbringing in nearby Coventry. His mother had died of a brain haemorrhage when he was 12, leaving his father, an old-school, hard-drinking, hard-smoking Detective Constable of the pre-politically correct era, to bring up three sons alone.
Gaunt spent his early teens in a care home. He won a place at university after becoming a member of Coventry's Belgrade Youth Theatre, where he began long-standing friendships with Clive Owen, now a celebrated Hollywood actor, and Laurence Boswell, the respected director.
At Birmingham, Gaunty felt gauche. "I remember asking Le Bon, 'Why are we having spaghetti on toast for a dinner party?' He had to explain to me that spaghetti comes in a packet and you make a sauce that goes with it.
He must have told the others because they all took the piss. I realised that at university you can either pretend that you are one of them or you are the clown and I was not going to be either."
Nonetheless he felt obliged to sign up to the anti-Thatcher student political consensus that emerged after the 1979 election. "When I was at university all my politics came out of one file. I was left-wing, so I had to be pro CND. I walked round Coventry city centre with a fucking coffin on me shoulder when the Greenham Common missiles arrived. I can't believe I did those things," he remembers.
But it was also the era of British ska, when bands such as The Specials and The Selecter put the concrete jungle of Coventry on the musical map.
When Gaunt returned home after university he set up a theatre co-operative called Tic Toc (theatre in Coventry, theatre of Coventry), inspired by The Specials's original record label Two Tone and working with original members of that band, Jerry Dammers and Lynval Golding. Tic Toc became a hub for the city's musical and acting talent and Gaunt plays, such as 'Meat' and 'Hooligans' ("very anti Thatcher and that dole culture she had created") became nationally successful.
But the dream ended when the venture went bust. Gaunt lost his home and, disillusioned and angry, became the kind of layabout that he now rants about. "I spent six months doing nothing, staying in bed until about noon, having a bath for about three hours, then sitting around, drinking cheap lager from the off licence."
Persuaded by his wife Lisa to scrape some change from the back of the sofa and go into the city centre, he met an old acting friend, Moz Dee, who persuaded him to audition for the local BBC radio station for which he worked.
The radio microphone gave Gaunt the outlet he had been seeking, an opportunity to find his own voice and unleash some pent-up invective against the Jeremys and Mirandas.
"On air one day, I just looked up and the red light was on. It was like my road to Damascus moment," he says, a little misty-eyed. "I thought this was why my mum died, this was why my dad was a bastard to me, why I was an outsider at university and why I went bust, this is why I had my house repossessed, this is it, this is what I was born to do." Gaunt moved from Coventry to Luton's BBC Three Counties Radio where his show won three Sony Gold awards.
He was hired by BBC London but knew that his phone-in style put him on borrowed time with the corporation. "I knew full well that the moment the figures dropped those lefty liberals would have me out of the door quicker than they could order their next skinny latte," he writes in his book.
The end came in 2005 when he was offered a job on The Sun. Gaunt says the decision that he could not work for Rupert Murdoch's paper and the BBC at the same time was taken at the top. "I said what about [Jeremy] Clarkson? What about Vanessa Feltz? They said 'But she doesn't do current affairs.' It was just nonsense."
Still, he is happy enough with his current set up.
He tries to write his Sun column in the manner he delivers his TalkSport show, which he started in May 2006, shooting from the hip with minimal preparation. He reads the liberal press but detests its "Londoncentric, metropolitan view" and what he sees as its predictability. The Independent, for example, will always cover transport from a green perspective.
The "Jag-waar" driver is hardly enigmatic on this subject. When "Ed", a caller to his TalkSport show, last week suggested that cars with bigger than 3-litre engines were unnecessary, Gaunty cut the "plonker" off, telling him: "Shut up and get back to Cuba."
He says this newspaper's Johann Hari is "not old enough to shave let alone write a column." But he also attacks right-wing commentators such as Simon Heffer and Peter Hitchens ("we are not living in the fifties anymore"). When it's put to him that Hitchens also underwent a left to right conversion, he says: "He hasn't come from the background I've come from, he's not been bankrupt, he's just not real."
He also despises the output of "Radio 5 Dead", ridiculing presenters Shelagh Fogarty and Victoria Derbyshire and citing one listener to the station who revealed she ate Eggs Benedict and "three grilled cherry tomatoes" for breakfast. "If I ever attract those ponces to my show you can take me out and shoot me."
Gaunt is convinced that his upbringing gives his words a deeper truth. He is "straight". Not that he gets credit for it by an intelligentsia that "sneers" at the likes of him. "They paint me as some sort of right-wing bloody bigot, that left-wing liberal chattering class, none of which have ever done a proper day's work. I know because I used to promote them all, they've all come straight out of university and gone straight into arts and media."
The presence of loyal listeners such as Sid (Muslim taxi driver Siddiqui Khan, who gave the presenter a Christmas card before the holiday "is banned") says otherwise. "I say immigration has been good for the country, I say it repeatedly and I believe it passionately but it has to be controlled and well-managed," says Gaunty. "They can call me a fucking bigot as much as they want, or a racist, but I know what I am."
His views have made him hated by the BNP, he says. "I hate 'em. It's foul, filthy, horrible, to judge somebody by the colour of their skin." And though he is vehemently anti-abortion, he is "not anti-gay at all".
If Gaunty's not careful, an invitation to Jeremy and Miranda's next dinner party could be in the post.
Published: January 25 2008 16:15 | Last updated: January 25 2008 16:15
French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is visiting India at the head of a large trade delegation, is coming under pressure to exclude the Sikh turban from the ban on ostentatious religious symbols in France’s schools.
It is the latest side-issue to distract attention from Mr Sarkozy’s own agenda for the visit – the development of stronger trade and investment ties with the world’s second-fastest growing big economy – following weeks of discussion of his love life.
“Prime minister Manmohan Singh, a Sikh never seen without his turban, is the best evidence France needs to be convinced that a Sikh is inseparable from his turban,” said Manjeet Singh, president of the Akali Dal (Panthik), a political party in Punjab.
Indian foreign ministry officials, known for their fastidious attention to protocol, had been irritated by Mr Sarkozy’s failure to state whether Carla Bruni should be treated as a normal member of the delegation or given the status due to a president’s wife.
Coverage of his visit in the Indian press has been dominated by his romance with the former model, with many wondering whether he might be planning to propose to her at the Taj Mahal. Mr Sarkozy, who is the guest of honour at India’s Republic Day parade today, in the end decided to leave Ms Bruni behind in France.
The visit started badly on Friday when Mr Sarkozy was grilled on the stability of the French financial system in the wake of the record fraud perpetrated against Société Générale by a rogue trader. He tersely replied that its “solidity and reliability” was unaffected.
In a speech to Indian businessmen, he expressed support for an Indian seat on the United Nations Security Council and for civil nuclear co-operation with India, but also pointedly urged New Delhi to “assume its responsibilities” in the fight against climate change.
Sikh groups, which have been holding protest marches in New Delhi, yesterday distributed grainy black and white photographs of turban-wearing soldiers in the Champs-Elysées in 1919. About 80,000 Sikhs fought in France during the two world wars.
“Today Sikhs are fighting for their right to wear the turban in the same country,” said Mejindarpal Kaur of United Sikhs, an advocacy group. “The prime minister of India must raise the turban issue with the president of France.”
Intended to affirm the neutrality of the French state vis-a-vis all religions, the 2004 law prohibited “ostentatious” religious symbols – taken to include the Sikh turban, the Muslim hijab, the Jewish Kippa and Christian crosses – in public schools in France.
Visiting French politicians have in the past promised to find an acceptable compromise that satisfies both secular fundamentalists at home and France’s tiny Sikh community, but failed to follow through on that commitment, Sikh groups say.
Sikhs in France complain they are accidental victims of legislation intended to curb what was perceived to be the growing trend for Muslim schoolgirls to wear headscarves. There are an estimated 5m Muslims in France and 6,000 Sikhs.
Sikhs say the turban is not a religious symbol but an integral part of their way of life. Sikhs are prohibited by religion from cutting their hair and complain that the ban is tantamount to forcing them to give up their religion.
Aberdare girls' school has temporarily excluded Sikh student, Sarika Singh, for wearing her religious kara bracelet. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA
The case of a 14-year-old Sikh girl excluded from school for wearing a religious bangle will be heard in the high court, it was decided today.
Sarika Singh, a pupil at Aberdare girls' school, south Wales, has not attended school since being told she cannot wear her bracelet, known as a kara.
The case brought by the human rights group Liberty follows unsuccessful legal attempts to extend the boundaries of Muslim dress acceptable in schools. A Luton schoolgirl, Shabina Begum, sought to wear a full-length jiljab to classes and, although her case was upheld in the court of appeal, it was reversed by the House of Lords.
A young teaching assistant in Dewsbury, Aishah Azmi, failed in her attempt to prove religious discrimination after she was prevented from wearing a veil in the classroom.
In the Singh case, which is not expected to be heard for several months, Liberty argues the school has breached race relations and human rights laws.
Ann Fairclough, Liberty's legal officer who is representing the Singhs, said: "Nothing less than our traditions of religious freedom and racial tolerance are on trial in this case.
"Individuals from any religion who wish to modestly express their faith should not be denied a proper education, as Ms Singh has."
Liberty claims the school is also breaching a 25-year-old law lords' decision allowing Sikhs to wear items such as turbans to school.
An interim hearing will be held in the next two weeks to decide whether Singh, the only Sikh at her school, can return to classroom while the case is continuing.
She had been taught in isolation at the school for two months, and has been excluded since the beginning of November. The school has banned students from wearing any jewellery other than plain ear studs and wrist watches.
Singh has refused to remove the bangle and her family has said it is an important Sikh reminder to do good with the hands, and should not be regarded as jewellery.
Liberty claims Aberdare girls' school is violating the Race Relations Act 1976, the Equality Act 2006 and the Human Rights Act 1998.
Members of the GTA Sikh community are rallying to save their lead priest from being sent home to India after eight years as their main spiritual adviser.
Gurdeep Singh, 38, was refused landed immigrant status last year and community members fear he may be scooped up and sent packing by immigration officials.
He is one of many foreign priests being allowed here to work, but not reside, their Toronto lawyer said.
Singh was sponsored here in 1999 to act as a lead priest and adviser of the Gurdwara Nanaksar, on Timberlane Dr. in Brampton, said temple secretary Gurmeet Singh.
Gurmeet Singh said the refusal has left the priest without status in Canada, but he can't be removed yet because an application for a visa extension is pending.
'OUTSTANDING'
"He is an outstanding priest who was educated and trained in India," Gurmeet said yesterday. "The community wants to keep him here as their spiritual adviser."
He said the priest doesn't receive wages but his expenses are paid for by the temple, which has a congregation of about 10,000.
Gurmeet said community leaders have had unsuccessful meetings with immigration officials in a bid to sponsor Singh here as a landed immigrant.
'WELL-LOVED'
"This man leads all the services and is invaluable to the community," he said. "He is very highly qualified and well-loved by the community."
Lawyer Mendel Green said Singh was refused landed immigrant status because his English skills were lacking and officials fear he may go on welfare.
"Immigration is treating these highly skilled priests as temporary workers," Green said yesterday. "The community must have the stability to know their leader will be here tomorrow."
Green said Ottawa is cracking down on foreign priests. "There seems to be a big problem with communities getting their priests," Green said. "The immigration department is not using any common sense in dealing with this situation."
Immigration spokesman Madona Mokbel said there's no conspiracy to ban priests.
"All these cases are dealt with on a case-by-case basis," Mokbel said yesterday.
AN EVENING of celebration has been held to mark the birth anniversary of Guru Gobind Singh Ji.
The Sri Guru Singh Sabha Gurdwara in Wilbury Way, Hitchin, marked the anniversary of the Sikhs' 10th guru by holding an evening of events which included holy songs as well as offering free food and holding a fireworks display.
Born in 1666 Guru Gobind Singh Ji was a saint, soldier and poet who fought against oppression and in 1699 changed a two-century-old Sikh tradition by creating a new order known as Khalsa, which refers to the collective body of all baptised Sikhs.
Sikhs from across the world will be joining in moral and practical support of a peace march in New Delhi, India, today to protest against a French secularity law that bans the wearing of sacred turbans in schools and other work places throughout the country.
The one kilometre march from Gurudwara Bangla Sahib to Jantar Mantar, prefiguring the arrival of the controversial French president next week, will be followed by a candle light vigil.
The new law in France prohibits all “ostensible” religious articles - including the Sikh turban, the Muslim hijab, the Jewish Kippa and Christian crosses in public schools in France.
For Sikhs, the turban is one of five key symbols of their faith. For those who wear it, it is not just a head-dress but an extension of who they are as a person. It is also a willingly accepted obligation in a way that a cross, for example, is not for Christians.
Eastern Orthodox Christians wear a cross which is consecrated for them at the change of name they have through baptism, but it is usually worn under the clothing, for example.
Civil rights campaigners say that the French law is unacceptably prohibitive, and an example of "eliminative secularism" - a version of secularity which is not simply about equal treatment and the denial of privilege to any one group, religious or non-religious, but a deliberate attempt to deny any visibility to religion in public life.
The march is taking place a week ahead of French President Sarkozy’s arrival as chief guest at the 58th Indian Republic Day celebrations.
Six Sikh schoolchildren and two adults have unsuccessfully turned to the French courts for redress. They are now appealing their cases to the European Court of Human Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee.
United Sikhs, a body which brings together Sikh people from the India, the USA, Canada, Britain, Ireland and elsewhere, will file for third party intervention in these cases in order to reinforce the importance of the turban to Sikhs.
The turban, they point out, poses no security threat as a Sikh is recognizable only with and because of the turban and not without it. Further it does not interfere with identification in today’s age of biometric photos.
A number of national and international Sikh organizations are participating in the march.celebration. Over 2,000 Sikh school pupils and 1,000 Sikh college students will join in the candle light vigil.
Delegates from Dharmik Ekta Mission, Shromani Akali Dal (Panthic), Shromani Akali Dal Delhi, and the International Sikh Confederation are expected to take part in the nonviolent protest.
United Sikhs aims to "recognise the human race as one" and to work with minority and underprivileged communities for empowerment, spiritual development, education and understanding.
A Queens man has been charged with a hate crime for breaking the nose and jaw of a Sikh worshiper.
David Wood, 36, allegedly approached Chadha Bajeet on Monday night screaming, "Arab, go back to your country," as the 63-year-old man parked his car outside a Sikh temple in New Hyde Park.
Wood was arraigned Tuesday night and is being held on $10,000 bail. He is charged with second-degree assault as a hate crime, second and thirddegree assault and second-degree aggravated harassment.
She was portrayed in the press as a victim of cruel religious discrimination - a poor persecuted Christian who had been "banned" by British Airways from wearing a simple cross at work. And all this while her Muslim and Sikh colleagues were parading about in hijabs and turbans.
The Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury and Tony Blair came out in her defence. The Daily Mail took up the cudgels on her behalf. One hundred MPs spoke out in her favour. Bishops demanded a boycott of BA. Evangelical Christians went into paroxysms of righteous fury. At last - here was proof that they were innocent victims of Christianophobia - as practised by our very own national airline.
An open and shut case, you might think. Nadia Eweida was a Christian martyr, pure and simple.
But hang on a moment. The employment tribunal, to which she complained, has just published its judgment, and it tells a rather different story. Not only did it kick out all her claims of religious discrimination and harassment, it also criticised her for her intransigence, saying that she:
"... generally lacked empathy for the perspective of others ... her own overwhelming commitment to her faith led her at times to be both naive and uncompromising in her dealings with those who did not share her faith."
One example of this was her insistence that she must never be required to work on Christmas Day, even though she had signed a contract that made it clear that she, like her colleagues, would be working in an operation that functions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and therefore required shift working and bank holiday working, too.
In order to be fair to everybody, BA used a union-approved ballot system to ensure that those who worked on Christmas Day were fairly and objectively chosen. If their name came up, they were at liberty to negotiate with their colleagues to change shifts and days on a like-for-like basis. But not Nadia. She insisted that, because she was a Christian, she must not be required to work on Christmas Day - or Sunday, come to that.
The tribunal commented:
"[Eweida's] insistence on privilege for Christmas Day is perhaps the most striking example in the case of her insensitivity towards colleagues, her lack of empathy for those without religious focus in their lives, and her incomprehension of the conflicting demands which professional management seeks to address and resolve on a near-daily basis."
Eweida was originally suspended from work as a BA check-in clerk when she refused to wear a cross on a necklace underneath her uniform rather than on top of it. This breached stated uniform policy, which stated that no one was allowed to wear visible adornments around their neck.
But Eweida and her Christian activist backers managed to foment such a backlash that BA was forced into changing the policy. Now she can wear her cross visibly, and the airline offered her £8,500 compensation and a return to her job, with her point successfully made.
But no - she decided to continue pursuing the airline at the industrial tribunal. She was funded in her action by a rightwing religious law firm in Arizona called the Alliance Defence Fund, whose affiliated lawyer was Paul Diamond, a familiar figure in court cases demanding religious privilege.
The tribunal - unlike the Daily Mail - was required to look at all the evidence, and not consider only Eweida's account of events. And having done so, it kicked the case out on all counts, saying that Eweida did not suffer any discrimination.
The tribunal concluded:
"The complaint of direct discrimination fails because we find that the claimant did not, on grounds of religion or belief, suffer less favourable treatment than a comparator in identical circumstances."
The tribunal also heard how Eweida's attitude and behaviour towards colleagues had prompted a number of complaints objecting to her: "Either giving them religious materials unsolicited, or speaking to colleagues in a judgmental or censorious manner which reflected her beliefs; one striking example," said the judgment, "was a report from a gay man that the claimant had told him that it was not too late to be redeemed."
Indeed, the proselytising motivation of her desire to wear the cross over her uniform instead of underneath it was underlined when she said: "It is important to wear it to express my faith so that other people will know that Jesus loves them."
The details of this case make it clear that this is a woman who is wearing religious blinkers. In several instances she brought grievances and complaints against BA that had no basis in fact. She was convinced that BA was anti-Christian, and nothing would dissuade her from that opinion, despite the company jumping through hoops trying to accommodate the many and varied religious demands being placed on it. Indeed, there is a BA Christian Fellowship group that did not support Eweida's fight, and confirmed that BA was already "making available facilities, time, work spaces, intranet use and supporting Christian charitable activities throughout the world" - but strangely we haven't heard about them in the newspaper reports.
The tribunal notes that on the original claim form, Eweida states "I have not been permitted to wear my Christian cross; whilst other faiths (Sikhs, Hindu, Muslims) are permitted to manifest their faith in very obvious fashion. Secular individuals can show private affiliations." The tribunal found the first and last assertions to be untrue. But Eweida would not be persuaded.
Her numerous demands for special treatment because of her religion showed a complete indifference to the effect it would have on the lives of others. Indeed, in one instance she made an accusation against the Christian Fellowship group that turned out to be completely fallacious, and the tribunal felt compelled to say: "We find it demonstrates to a degree the extent to which the claimant [Eweida] misinterpreted events, as well as her readiness to make a serious accusation without thought of the implications."
Now we read that there is another case in the pipeline for British Airways. An orthodox Jewish man is bringing a case of religious discrimination because he is required to work on Saturday, the Jewish Shabat.
And a demonstration by Sikhs has just taken place outside the Welsh assembly, demanding that a schoolgirl be permitted to breach the school's uniform policy by wearing a ceremonial bangle, the kara.
As Jonathan Bartley, of the religious thinktank Ekklesia said of the Eweida case:
"Like many of the other claims of discrimination being made by Christians, this has turned out to be false. People should be aware that behind many such cases there are groups whose interests are served by stirring up feelings of discrimination of marginalisation amongst Christians. What can appear to be a case of discrimination at first glance is often nothing of the sort. It is often more about Christians attempting to gain special privileges and exemptions."
The National Secular Society has demanded that employers should be permitted to declare their workplaces secular spaces if they want to, without penalty. Attempts by employers to accommodate everyone have turned many workplaces into religious battlegrounds. It should now be OK to say: "Leave your religion at the door, please. And if you won't and your religion doesn't permit you to work in the way that this jobs demands you do, then please find another job that will."
Canadian Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day has blasted Indo-Canadian supporters for resisting deportation of failed refugee claimant Laibar Singh.
Twice they have stopped police attempts to deport Singh who entered Canada on a false passport five years ago and is currently sheltering in a Surrey gurudwara (Sikh temple) after exhausting all legal avenues.
The first attempt to deport him failed Dec 10 when over 2,000 supporters blocked police access to him.
They foiled another attempt last Wednesday when they blocked police entry to the gurudwara. whose management had promised to cooperate in Laibar Singh's deportation.
Stung by their non-cooperation, the minister said Singh might be in a mall or a gurudwara; he was not entitled to stay in Canada any more and will be deported.
Hitting out at the gurudwara management for sheltering Singh, he said: 'There are a few and there are rare circumstances across the country where places of worship are used as sanctuary. There is no law that actually provides for that.
'When people are ... defying a removal order - whether they are taking refuge in a place of worship or whether they are taking refuge in a mall - they are in defiance of the rule of law.'
Urging the Indo-Canadians to cooperate in Singh's removal, the minister said, 'I would encourage those who are supporting somebody at a time like this to remember that those representatives gave their word and they asked for a time of reconsideration, and then the reconsiderations were given and at the risk of them being seen as people who do not keep their word, I would hope that they would respect that. We believe in the rule of law in our country.'
He said over 12,000 illegal people were being removed from Canada each year, and the Canadian Border Security Agency was delaying this case only because they didn't want to hurt the sentiments of Sikhs by entering the gurudwara.
Meanwhile, Gulzar Cheema, a doctor who examines Singh regularly, has come under fire for breaking patient confidentiality after he had said Singh could travel to India under medical support.
Singh's supporters said it was unethical on the part of Cheema to speak publicly about his health.
Singh was paralysed in 2006 and his supporters say he should not be deported, as he will not get proper medical care in India.
A teenage Sikh girl, who was kidnapped by her own family at a Leicester cinema as she fled an arranged marriage, has told of her ordeal.
She revealed her story just days after an inquest ruled that Muslim teenager Shafilea Ahmed, from Cumbria, was unlawfully killed by her parents after she refused to go to Pakistan to marry.
The Sikh girl, who is in hiding, was 16 when she was snatched by her mother and uncle outside a cinema in July last year.
The BBC has been accused of being biased against religious groups like Sikhs and Hindus, according to the Network of Sikh Organisations (NSO). 
A few months ago in Punjab, as grain farmers set fire to harvested rice fields to clear their land, Jagroop Singh spent the afternoon reflecting on his good fortune farming cows. Singh, a tall Sikh who tends his herd in a white tunic and pale pink turban on a farm near the north Indian village of Aliwal, owns 60 somewhat bony brown animals, which he keeps in an open-air shed on the edge of the fields behind his house.
Meanwhile, restaurants are now doing so well that many are opening up branches in different cities. Some are fast-food chains that have emulated McDonald’s, which has been in India for more than a decade and is one of its most established foreign restaurants. It remains a popular destination: in the evenings its restaurants are full of families queuing for Chicken Maharaja Macs, McAloo Tikki burgers and Paneer Salsa wraps – now made with “multi-cereal” bread for the health-conscious diner.
Indians have typically bought their fruits and vegetables in outdoor markets, and packaged foods in small stores with limited selections of products. But supermarkets, where young professionals such as Singh can find rare fruits like kiwis and chilled foods like butter, are now popping up around the country. In Gurgaon, the booming business district on the outskirts of Delhi, where cows wander along dusty streets between newly built office blocks, shoppers walking into a Spencer’s supermarket will find a pizza stand, Chinese food “X-press” and shelves filled with many of the same brands that they would see in London or Paris.
Aberdare girls' school has temporarily excluded Sikh student, Sarika Singh, for wearing her religious kara bracelet. Photograph: Barry Batchelor/PA
