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| THIS
OUR NORTH AMERICA |
| Poverty amidst plenty |
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Khushwant Toor writes from
Toronto
AMERICA’S official poverty rate in 2008 was
13.2 percent, up from 12.5 percent in 2007. There
were 39.8 million people in poverty in 2008, up
from 37.3 million in 2007.
More
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| Taraksheel Sabha brings wonders of the night sky |
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Gurpreet Singh writes
from Vancouver
THE Indian Rationalist Society brought wonders of
the night sky to the Punjabi community in Surrey
on September 20.
More
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| Dual
citizenship woes |
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Sujit K. Pandit
INDIA announced with great fanfare Overseas
Citizen of India Card for those Indians who had
migrated to other countries and become citizens.
More
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| The
Bush Legacy: More poverty, disease and deprivation |
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 WHILE
still in office, President Bush and his allies
used to get frustrated when reporters would ask
them to speculate on what the administration's
legacy would be -- especially in light of the
President's abysmal poll numbers at the end of his
term.
More
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| Dialogue and drama:
The Gadhar heroes |
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Dr. Amrik Singh writes
from Sacramento
IN North America, Gadhar Movement 1914-1915 was
the first organized movement to free India from
British occupation. More
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| ANALYSIS |
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Disarmament: Weapons industry makes a killing
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Thalif Deen
THE United Nations is surprised at the continued
rise in global military spending - particularly at a
time when the international community is grappling
with a spreading financial crisis which threatens to
undermine the poverty reduction goals of the world
body. More |
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| The
world in disarray, rich make merry |
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THE world is in financial disarray, facing the
danger of widespread protectionism, food crisis
and unemployment. The G20 - comprising some of the
world's major economies, the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank - is meeting in
Pittsburgh Sep. More
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| Secularists should
reclaim Gandhi’s birthplace |
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Gurpreet
Singh writes from Vancouver
 WHILE
the world celebrates the 140th birth anniversary
of Mahatma Gandhi, an international peace icon,
his ideological foes continues to rule the land
where he was born. More
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| G-20 Summit and the
U.N. session show declining influence of the West |
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Dr
Sawraj Singh
RECENTLY, there were two very important events
which showed that the Western influence has
declined in a big way. From G-7 to G-8 and now the
emergence of G-20, tells us how the power is
shifting from the developed Western countries to
the developing countries of Asia, Africa and Lain
America. More
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| Farmers – Cannon
Fodder |
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Hassan
Mejie
WAKE UP CALL FOR FARMERS - All and sundry have
been using & abusing them to achieve their own
selfish ends, be it politicians, trade unionists,
or any other interest group. More
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| Learning from Kabir |
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Satya P. Gautam
FIRST of all, please forgive me for my inability
to be joining you in this great celebration to
experience the spiritual vision of Kabir. He is
one of those great bhagats, seers, a poet par
excellence. More
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| Mohammad Rafi’s meteoric rise after initial
hick-ups in Bombay-3 |
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Harjap Singh Aujla
 MOHAMMAD RAFI was not a part of Master Ghulam
Haider’s contingent, when he moved from Lahore to
Bombay in the end of 1943. More
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| Mina Sodhi rediscovered |
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Jagpal Singh Tiwana
PRITAM SINGH and Joginder Singh Ahluwalia, Sikhan
Da Chhota Mel, Ithas te Sarvekhan, San Leandro:
Punjabi Educational and Cultural Foundation, 2009.
Rs. 280. More
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| Poem: The Flour Deaths |
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Do we need?
The Prime Minister House
The President’s palace
The great old parliament
The Muppets of our bureaucracy More
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India hits back, asks China to back-off from PoK
| Bihar: Why the RSS is upset with Nitish | Separate
Haryana Gurdwara Committee Row, Akal takht declares
Jhinda guilty | RBI may hold rates steady: PM
panel | Nadal, Djokovic advance at Shanghai Masters
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| India hits back, asks China
to back-off from PoK |
| After
China's Arunachal Pradesh offensive, India today hit
back, objecting to its engagement in projects in Pakistan-occupied
Kashmir (PoK) and asking it to stop such activities
taking a "long-term view" of Sino-India relations.
More
Updated on October 15, 2009 at 2:00 a.m.
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- Bihar: Why the RSS is upset
with Nitish More
- Separate Haryana Gurdwara
Committee Row More
- RBI may hold rates steady:
PM panel More
- Nadal, Djokovic advance at
Shanghai Masters More
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| E D I T O R I
A L |
| Punjab Congress: divided we
stand |
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EVERY Congressman in Punjab looks towards
capturing political power by mid 2011. They
strongly feel that the present Akali- BJP combine
has failed on all fronts and a victory at the
polls is granted since there is no third
alternative except their party. This is not a bad
wish by itself. But the way Punjab Congress
leaders at all levels have been conducting, they
ought to think twice before dreaming about power.
More
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| FOCUS |
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Environment degradation threatens existence
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Gobind Thukral
 DO you feel that summers are getting hotter
every year? Well it is not just your imagination;
temperatures are rising every year at an alarming
rate. Glaciers are melting at an alarming speed.
Some scientists assert that in ext 40 to 50 years
time, the Himalayan glaciers would just disappear,
leaving no water for drinking or irrigation. Same is
the fate of glaciers across the world. More |
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Environment: Act now or lose forever
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Thalif Deen
 THE world's small
island developing nations, most of which are
threatened with environmental devastation, put the
international community on dire notice: either
accept ambitious and binding emission reduction
targets, or humanity is doomed.
The one-day U.N. summit meeting of world leaders
Tuesday came out with a clear message demanding
urgent action against the growing threats from
climate change. More
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South Asia disunited over a region battling
climate change
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Athar Parvaiz
AS the Copenhagen Conference on
climate change draws nearer, South Asia, which
appears poised for severe threats from the impacts
of climate change, faces a stiff challenge on two
fronts.
For one, South Asia’s member states – home to half
the world’s poor – need to convince the developed
world to take steps toward the mitigation of
future climate-related risks in the region. More
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Haryana's social volcano
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Prof. Manjit Singh
READ this news titled, “Girl Kills Seven of her
Family” in a national daily with the opening
sentence, “Haryana police has arrested a
19-year-old girl for allegedly murdering seven
members of her family, including her parents and
brother, in connivance with her boyfriend on
Saturday evening (19 Sept. ’09) at a village near Rohtak.” More
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Recognition of Komagata Maru heroes too late
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Gurpreet
Singh writes from Vancouver
THE India government’s decision to recognize
the Komagata Maru heroes as freedom fighters is too
late. The Indian government is learnt to have agreed to
recognize them as participants of the freedom struggle
following sustained efforts of the Punjab government and
petitioning by a senior lawyer and historian, Prof.
Malwinder Jit Singh Waraich. More
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| FEATURES |
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Afghanistan: Media outrage over coalition killing
of journalist
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FOR many Afghans, slain
Afghan journalist Sultan Munadi has become a
symbol for all that is wrong with the United
States-led war in Afghanistan.
One thousand and thirteen Afghan civilians died
due to the conflict in the first six months of
this year, according to the United Nations
Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, a 24 percent
increase over the same period in 2008, when 818
civilians were killed.
More
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Plants know no frontiers, they grow everywhere
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Nasseem Ackbarally interviews AMEENAH GURIB-FAKIM
 AMEENAH GURIB-FAKIM has
spent the last two decades travelling among the
Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean studying
plants.
And now the Mauritian scientist has been awarded
the African Union Women Scientist Regional Award
2009 this month for her scientific achievement and
contribution through science to the socio-economic
development of Africa. More
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Ive
children stories: I am Nandini
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Pearl V. Jasra
 THIS is the story of Nandini. She lives with her
Nani (grandmother). Nandini’s mother is a widow
and so is her Nani.
Nandini’s mom was 6 months pregnant when her
husband died of electric shock as he was an
electrician. In due time Nandini was born. And
when her mother completed the customary sawa-mahina (forty days) in the home of her
in-laws, she was sent to her parental house for
phera (woman visiting her parental house with the
new born for the first time). More
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Ive
children stories: Roshni’s light
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Pearl V. Jasra
 MEET Roshni, youngest of three siblings of a
single mother. Her father deserted them some years
ago. Their mom is a maid servant. All the three do
not go to school because she just cannot afford to
send them. Roshni did attend school for two years
but that’s it …With their father going away, her
mother could support her education no further. More
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| COMMENT |
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An Olympiad Bronze in Geology
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Arun Deep Ahluwalia
 COULD not believe a 10th Class school boy walking
into our university‘s Geology department, knocking
at the door of a Head of Department & several
teachers saying: Sir I won national Olympiad in
Geology at Geological Society of India, Bangalore;
I have been selected for international Olympiad at
Taiwan; I have been referred by Professor R Shanker
(Foreign Secretary of the Geological Society of India)
to see; Please help me win the gold medal. Prof. Shankar of Mangalore had
been our guest last March. More
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Consumerist culture leading to
depression
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Dr Sawraj Singh writes from Washington
 THE just released statistics show that more than
eight million Americans seriously considered
committing suicide in the year 2008. While this
number appears to be shockingly high yet it is
still a tip of the iceberg because there are any
more people who are severely depressed. Depression
is very common in America today. More
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American era is inching closer to its end
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Dr Sawraj Singh writes from Washington
 I was not surprised by the recent report of the
London based International Institute for Strategic
Studies that the U.S. power is fading and a weakened
U.S. will look to allies for support. I predicted, more
than fifteen years ago that the American Era and the
Western domination will end in the second decade of the
twenty-first century. More
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