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| THIS
OUR NORTH AMERICA |
| Canada – Yet another
election looming |
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Khushwant Toor writes from
Toronto
THE leaders are on the TV adds again blaming each
other. All parties across Canada have braced
themselves for an election that seems increasingly
inevitable. Come October, Canada may be heading
for its fourth election in the last six years.
More
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| America indoctrinating
hard work |
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 ON September 8 this year , American President Obama
addressed elementary and high school students across
the nation -- the first time a president has spoken
directly to America's students since 1991 -- in a
back-to-school speech emphasizing the importance of
personal responsibility in education. Some
conservatives spent last week heavily criticizing
the President's plan to speak, saying it was "an
attempt at 'indoctrination' of kids," and
encouraging parents to keep their children home for
the day.
More
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| Pushing for accountability on torture |
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LAST week, the U.S Justice Department
declassified a 2004 Inspector General's report on
the CIA's interrogation program. According to the
Washington Post, the report "describes the early
implementation of the agency's interrogation
program in 2002 and 2003 as ad hoc and poorly
supervised, leading to the use of 'unauthorized,
improvised, inhumane and undocumented'
techniques." More
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| ANALYSIS |
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Creating more mess in education
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Gobind Thukral
ON September first, 25 students of Zila Parishad secondary school at
Chintakunta in Kareemnagar district of Andhra
Pradesh climbed on the over- head tank and
threatened to commit suicide. They were protesting
against a desperate situation as five out of eight
teachers had not turned up. More |
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| India’s
Independence Day celebrations divide Sikh
separatists |
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Gurpreet Singh
writes from Vancouver
THE
presence of a Khalistani ideologue at the India’s
Independence Day celebrations in Surrey has
snowballed into a major controversy. Jatinderpal
Singh Gill is one of the directors of the Dashmesh
Darbar Gurdwara whose management supports an
imaginary separate Sikh state called Khalistan. More
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| Hatoyama wants to take Japan to the Asian fold |
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Dr Sawraj Singh writes from Vancouver
 THE new Prime
Minister of Japan, Yukio Hatoyama, a Stanford PhD,
wants to take Japan to the Asian fold. He
wants to reduce Japan’s reliance on the U.S. He is
very critical of the U.S. led capitalist
globalization. His slogan is fraternity and
love, which the current globalization lacks. More
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| China continues marching toward Asia’s century |
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Sawraj Singh
 THE
year 2008 and the year 2009 have shown that the
trends of China becoming the most powerful country
and Asia becoming the leading region of the world
are now becoming a reality. China won more gold
medals than any other country. China’s economy
grew more than 8% while many countries faced
severe recession and shrinking economies. More
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| Mohammad Rafi’s
uneventful half decade in Lahore-2 |
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Harjap Singh Aujla
 MOHAMMAD
RAFI, a genius who rose to be the leading most
film singer of the Indian subcontinent, had a
modest and uneventful beginning. At the time of
his arrival in Punjab’s capital city of Lahore,
from a small village of neighbouring Amritsar
district, Mohammad Rafi had absolutely no idea or
for that matter no expectation that some day he
can be the leading film playback singer of his
time.
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Govt for burial of ‘Q’ case, urges
SC to stop prosecution | Only unionised pilots
to get incentives: Praful | Punjab CM Badal to
inaugrate Modern Pack House on Oct. 3 | Govt threatens
to cancel block allotted to ArcelorMittal, GVK
| Vijender becomes world number one
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| Govt for burial of ‘Q’
case, urges SC to stop prosecution |
| The
ghost of Bofors pay-off may finally be given a legal
burial with the Government today telling the Supreme
Court that it has decided to withdraw case against Italian
Businessmen Ottavio Quattrocchi. More
Updated on September 30, 2009 at 2:00 a.m.
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- Only unionised pilots to get
incentives: Praful More
- Punjab CM Badal to inaugrate
Modern Pack House on Oct. 3 More
- Govt threatens to cancel
block allotted to ArcelorMittal, GVK
More
- Vijender becomes world number
one More
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| E D I T O R I
A L |
| Akalis losing shine |
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 PUNJAB’S
woes are getting multiplied. Once again Akalis
have settled for an incremental politics and blame
game. At Shimla where the leadership met for three
days, the ruling party in Punjab failed to provide
any workable policy frame. Instead it struck to
small time agenda and blaming government of India
where Congress rules for Punjab's fiscal ills. More
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| FOCUS |
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Gujarat still burns
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Gobind Thukral
 ON June 15 2004 four
persons— a young college girl Ishrat, Javed Ghulam
Sheikh alias Pranesh Kumar Pillai, Amjad Ali alias
Rajkumar Akbar Ali Rana and Jisan Johar Abdul Gani
killed in an encounter on the outskirts of
Ahemadbad. This was announced by a trigger happy
Gujarat police as a big triumph. The Union Home
Ministry always rushing to make claims about such
encounters put its seal, claiming all these four
were linked with the Pakistan based terror
outfit, Lashker—e—Toiba. More |
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Stormy times as U.S.
withdraws
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Helena Cobban
POLITICAL violence in Iraq killed 456 Iraqis in
August, the highest monthly death toll since July
2008. And with the U.S. showing no sign it plans
to reverse the troop withdrawal that is now well
underway, numerous struggles for power are shaping
up inside Iraq.
They involve both competing factions within the
country and also, perhaps more ominously, several
neighbouring countries. More
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Drought hits hard India’s largest state
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Vinod
Anand
 DROUGHTS
are caused by lack of rain over a long period of time.
If rain does occur it usually isn't enough for the
ground to absorb before it is evaporated again. Plants
and animals need water to survive, so if there is not
enough water they will eventually die from thirst and
dehydration. More
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| FEATURES |
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Remembering Bhai
Bhag Singh
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Gurpreet Singh writes from Vancouver
A
candle light vigil in the memory of the first
Indian martyr on the Canadian soil was organized
at the Surrey’s Bear Creek Park this past Monday.
Bhai Bhag Singh was the towering leader of the
Khalsa Deewan Society, Vancouver - the oldest Sikh
religious body of Canada . A pro British agent,
Bela Singh shot him and Bhai Badan Singh on
September 5, 1914 inside the Gurdwara. The two men
succumbed to their injuries a day later. More
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Freedom fighter Gurdev Singh Grewal is no more
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Gurpreet Singh writes from Vancouver
 THE
last surviving hero of the struggle that was
launched to get the East Indians right of vote in
Canada has passed away. Gurdev Singh Grewal died
on the morning of September 2 at the age of 87. He
breathed his last at the Vancouver General
Hospital following brief illness. Grewal was one
of the participants of the struggle that was launched by
the Indian immigrants after they were disfranchised in
1907. More
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Smiling chappals
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Pearl V.Jasra
 VIKRAM is funny, happy and perky most of the
times, but more than all this, his chappals are
more remarkable in many ways which I spied just by
chance.
“Vikram, teri chappalaan nu
ki hoya?”
“Didi, ghiss gaeeyaan (worn
out)” More
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Ive children:
Saving a baby crow
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 AND the storm was so strong
last Saturday that my two neem trees my mother
left me with, were having tough time. I was
beginning to get alarmed about the nest of the
crows up there. And that is what
happened…one of the branches where the crow couple
had built their nest broke and crashed to the
ground. More
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Revisiting school - Five decades later
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Bal
Anand
 THE
year 2009 has been curiously needling my mind
about the days, months and years spent in my two
schools. It was full five decades ago that I
passed my Matriculation Examination from Mahatma
Gandhi Memorial National High School, Ahmedgarh,
a grain market town situated about 20 km south
of Ludhiana, Punjab. More
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| LAW & JUSTICE |
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The right to free education
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Joginder Singh Toor
 HISTORIC
documents in the Central Library of Toronto have
letters written by a prominent person during 1830
to 1840. One particular letter from a father to
the authorities objects to the requirement of the
permission of the clergy for admission of a
student in a school. He says Canada being a
multicultural country and Toronto a cosmopolitan
city, the permission of the clergy is
unreasonable. More
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| COMMENT |
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Wild species face
extinction threat
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Ajmer Alam
Wani
 THE
Jammu and Kashmir Government may have initiated viable
steps (on papers only and in meetings) to eradicate
menace of timber smuggling and also for preservation
of environment in the State but the ground reality is
far away and the slogans and claims of the concerned
Minister and officials seems hollow. More
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