Religious summer camps for Sikh children in Punjab

July 1st, 2009 ABOHAR - Pakistan, which was able to divide the Hindus and Sikhs in Punjab in the early eighties, hopes to recreate the situation if one has to believe the Punjabi Durbar programme broadcast recently. Unmindful of the fact that the Government in Punjab is a coalition of the Akali Dal with the Bharatiya Janata Party, the programme has been stating that the Sikh community has not been given its due by 'Hindu dominated government'.

June 20th, 2009 JALANDHAR/ CHANDIGARH - While most children are enjoying summer vacations by watching cartoon network or playing indoor games, some children in Punjab are utilising this time learning various skills. From Salsa, Hip-Hop, Jazz to learning calligraphy, foreign language classes, storytelling, sculpting, scripture reading - the choice at disposal is endless.

May 27th, 2009 AMRITSAR - Sikh leaders and diaspora across world have condemned the violence in Vienna and in Punjab. Talking from San Francisco, Dr.

May 11th, 2009 LUDHIANA - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said here Monday that he represented the entire country and did not think 'in terms of Sikh or non-Sikh'. The first prime minister from the Sikh minority community was reacting to a query about the Congress garnering votes on the platform of having raised a Sikh to the top executive post even as it labelled the politics of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) as communal.

May 9th, 2009 AHMEDABAD - With rising mercury, the number of people enrolling their kids in summer camps is increasing in Ahmedabad. During the summer season when schools closed for a couple of months, and summer camps are what kids look forward to keep themselves busy.

April 28th, 2009 CHANDIGARH - What the Congress could not do in Punjab - making Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's credentials as the first Sikh PM an issue - the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) and the ruling Akali Dal have done. Remarks by SGPC President Avtar Singh Makkar at political rallies for the Akali Dal and alliance partner Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) that 'Manmohan Singh is not a Sikh as he has done nothing for the community' have given a new direction to politics in the run-up to the two-phase poll on May 7 and 13 for Punjab's 13 Lok Sabha seats.

April 12th, 2009 CHANDIGARH - The Congress party's naming Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as its candidate for the top political job again is hardly making a difference to the Lok Sabha election campaign in his home state Punjab. Even though Punjab is the only Sikh majority state in the country, the Punjab Congress is not capitalising on the fact that Manmohan Singh is the first Sikh prime minister.

April 12th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi is known to have helped young faces from Punjab get party nominations for the Lok Sabha polls. And now he will go the whole hog by campaigning for them.

April 10th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Bollywood star Salman Khan descended in Gurdaspur district of Punjab to root for actor-politician Vinod Khanna, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) candidate. But he was an exception.

April 4th, 2009 CHANDIGARH - The Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) is unlikely to send a group of pilgrims to Pakistan on the occasion of Baisakhi, the harvest festival of Punjab, later this month in view of security concerns in that country. Sources in the SGPC, the mini-parliament of Sikhs that manages Sikh shrines in Punjab, said the Baisakhi jatha (group) for Pakistan, which was to leave next week, is unlikely to go following recent terrorist strikes in that country.

April 2nd, 2009 CHANDIGARH - The Sikh community in Punjab Thursday voiced its disappointment over the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) clean chit to Congress leader Jagdish Tytler in a case related to the 1984 anti-Sikh riots, a senior Congress leader quit the party and other leaders condemned the CBI move. Former Punjab assembly deputy speaker and former Congress legislator Bir Devinder Singh resigned from the primary membership of the Congress party, saying he could not be associated with a party which was siding with perpetrators of violence against Sikhs in 1984.

March 24th, 2009 CHANDIGARH - The anti-Sikh remarks allegedly made by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Varun Gandhi are now finding political echo in Punjab. Opposition parties and radicals Tuesday asked the ruling Akali Dal, which has an alliance with the BJP in Punjab, on why it is silent on his remarks.

February 22nd, 2009 CHANDIGARH - The submission Friday of a report to Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda suggesting the formation of a separate Sikh body to manage Sikh shrines in the state could lead to friction with Sikh leaders of neighbouring Punjab. The report for having a separate Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) for Haryana was submitted Friday to Chief Minister Hooda by a committee headed by Haryana?s Agriculture Minister H.S.

February 15th, 2009 CHANDIGARH - The Sikh holy town of Anandpur Sahib in Punjab will witness one of the biggest blood donation camps in the world March 10 during the Hola Mohalla celebrations at the Sikh shrine of Keshgarh Sahib, 90 km from here. The blood donation camp, in which over 25,000 units of blood are being targeted for collection within 24 hours, is being organised jointly by the Akal Takht, the highest temporal seat of Sikh religion, the Shiromani Gurudwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) and the Akal Purakh ki Fauj (Army of the Almighty).

February 6th, 2009 SIRSA - Dera Sacha Sauda sect chief Gurmit Ram Rahim Singh was Saturday questioned by the Punjab police in this Haryana town in a case of hurting religious sentiments of the Sikhs by dressing up as the 10th Guru Gobind Singh. The Dera chief was questioned by Punjab police officials at the police lines complex here amid tight security.