Is RDB really the best we have to offer?
In many ways, the Punjabi-Sikh art scene is expanding exponentially these days. Just 10 years ago, beyond major, mainstream singers, I don’t think there was an arts scene, except maybe in people’s homes. Today, there are film festivals in most major cities like Spinning Wheel and the upcoming...
Gurbani – A Sikh Solution to Female Feticide
It might partly be the scarcity of female voices and public female faces in the Sikh community that makes Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh’s so distinctive and refreshing. But in addition to her position as one of the few public female voices in the Sikh community, her original and creative work is really...
Sikh Heritage Film Festival in NY
East coasters and others with expendable income: the Sikh Art & Film Foundation is bringing you the 2009 International Film Festival to be held at the Asia Society and Museum.
The Festival will kick off on Friday September 18th with 3 films (My Mother India, Flying Sikhs – A History of Sikh...
New immigration option for battered Sikh women
It used to be the case that women who came to the US as dependents on their husbands’ immigration status were sometimes caught between a rock and a hard place. In cases where one spouse was abusive, the other spouse wouldn’t leave the relationship for fear of losing their immigration status...
Solar-electric rickshaws in Delhi
On your next trip to India, how will you travel? Train, car, metro? How about in a solar-electric powered cycle rickshaw? Because now you can.
The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, a government body, made a motor powered by a solar powered battery to decrease the effort required to pedal...
EcoSikh: reconnecting Sikhs and the environment
Posted by Reema in Activism, Environment, India, USA on 08 6th, 2009 | Comments Off on EcoSikh: reconnecting Sikhs and the environment
Coblogged by Camille and Reema
This week is Energy and Environment week. The environment has been front page news for a while now and one Sikh group is getting involved.
Recently, SCORE launched a new initiative called EcoSikh, a project driven towards promoting environmentalism and environmental stewardship...
Arson suspected at Vancouver Khalsa school
One of the three Khalsa schools in Vancouver burnt to the ground yesterday. Arson is suspected. The fire started in the main building and two portable classroom buildings simultaneously, and spread rapidly. The Elementary School had been broken into as well. When the school secretary called 911 to...
Sikh activists in the making, inspire
Early last week, a remarkable thing happened. Sikh children took to NYC streets again- some in strollers- and they were heard.
Last fall, the New York Department of Education passed a regulation in response to disturbing findings about the bullying that Sikh children face in schools. The regulation...
India denies USCIRF; maybe Sikhs should use Twitter
Oh India. You can’t hide the skeletons in your closet forever.
It appears that the US Commission on International Religious Freedom was on its way to India this week. (The USCIRF is a federal group that works to promote freedom of thought, conscience and religion; protect people from abuses...
Why We Remember 1984
Posted by Reema in Sikhi on 06 9th, 2009 | 93 Comments
Joint post by Mapleleaf Sikh, Sundari, Jodha, Camille, Phulkari, RP Singh, Reema
It has been 25 years and we remember.
On this day we remember; in this week we remember; in this month we remember; in this year we remember. On June 6th we stopped to remember the recent chapter in the history of the Sikhs.
When...
Sikh narcissism the root of Violence in Austria
Posted by Reema in General on 06 3rd, 2009 | 16 Comments
Over at Huffington Post, a lovely reflection on “The Cancer of Religious Narcissism” appeared recently. It’s point of orientation was the violence amongst Austrian Sikhs. The focus however, was on how religious narcissism is often the cause of such religious violence- when the slightest...
The Sikh Collection Initiative
Mark your calendars- the Kaur Foundation and the Asian Division of the Library of Congress have teamed up to undertake a unique initiative, to institutionalize knowledge by and about the Sikh community for future generations. The Library of Congress is the oldest federal cultural institution in the...
New info on Sikh Maharani, Jind Kaur, uncovered
This week, Peter Bance published “Sovereign, Squire and Rebel: Maharajah Duleep Singh and the Heirs of a Lost Kingdom.” It includes some little known and interesting information on Rani Jindan- the youngest of Maharaja Ranjit Singh’s wives. While the tale of her son, Duleep Singh,...
More Sikh Art: mool mantar through oil paintings
Thematically Sikh paintings are rare. Thus, when I came across the paintings below, I thought I should share. The oil paintings below are the work of Jaswant Singh Zafar. He’s a poet, photographer, and painter in his free time and an engineer in Ludhiana by day. This year, he’s spending...
Hair for a Sikh, an African American, and a trichotillomaniac
Kes is an important part of the Sikh identity but it also carries social, cultural, and political meaning for more than just Sikhs. Recently, a film student from NYU explored this less explored cross-cultural perspective by speaking with 3 individuals from various backgrounds in an interesting (and short-18...
Bleed India
The last day of India’s 5 day, 6 week general election is tomorrow, May 13th. And only one political party has been speaking honestly about what they will do for the country post-election: Bleed India. Pappu Raj is the candidate. And select excerpts from his “moneyfesto” are as...
Nikky Guninder Kaur Singh in DC
If you’re in the DC area on Friday and are free in the afternoon, head over to the Library of Congress at 1:00 pm. Nikky Guninder Kaur Singh, author of “The Feminine Principle in the Sikh Vision” among other works, will be speaking in the Mary Pickford Theatre on the 3rd floor of...
Sikh Scouts: a response to bullying
Many students face physical and psychological bullying in schools- elementary, middle, and high. But Sikh students, male and female, often face especially severe bullying. Over the past couple years, some severe cases have come into the public eye, including one teenager’s patka being set on...
Silencing truth through rape; an inquiry of the Sikh struggle survives
Cynthia Mahmood, author of the groundbreaking work, “Fighting for Faith and Nation,” just published an incredibly personal and powerful account of her rape and assault, possibly by Indian police, in an attempt to silence her anthropological work on Sikhs in Punjab in the early 1990s. ...
More “Sikh” products- tv channels
More Sikh (or being promoted as Sikh) products are launching- I’m referring to the new tv channels: 1) The Sikh Channel– which is replacing Brit Hits TV and 2) Punjjabi TV…
Punjabi and Sikh people finally have the opportunity to watch programs in their mother tongue with the launch...
