Jagtar Singh

Jagtar Singh Chandigarh: Three soldiers were killed in an accident and two others sustained injuries as the army ambulance carrying them hit a stray cow that suddenly came in front on the Abohar-Delhi national highway near Malout on Thursday. This is not an isolated incident. Spate of such cases have been reported in Punjab during the last few months. Residents cutting across social, religious and political lines staged dharna for days in Mansa against the stray cow menace following series of deaths in cow related incidents some time back. There is no improvement in the situation, not only in Mansa but anywhere else too. The stray cattle, mainly the cows, are taking over the highways in northern India, what to talk of the villages. Punjab panchayats and rural development minister Tript Rajinder Singh Bajwa some weeks back called for identifying the holy of ‘mother’ cow. He had hit the nail on the head. Similar assertion was made by the Hindu organisations in Mansa

Jagtar Singh Maharashtra has redefined the terms of both the political discourse and political trade and at the heart of the change is the fall of the mighty. The myth of invincibility of the mighty stand shattered. Although the Assembly election results of Maharashtra and   Haryana had given the first indication of the changing political discourse, every effort was made to perpetuate the myth. It is Sharad Pawar who has emerged as the proverbial phoenix, rising from the ashes. He has positioned himself in the political matrix at a strategic point to challenge Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo in the coming period who had earned the distinction of being invincible with almost 80 per cent of the media turning what can be termed as loyalist media. Like the political class, the people in the media too seem to suffer from memory loss. History has lessons for everybody. Maharashtra is a lesson for every leader and every political party that matters. The lesson si that nothing can

Jagtar Singh Chandigarh: The Congressmen in Punjab are still to identify themselves with the government headed by Capt Amarinder Singh in the state that was formed by the Congress more than two and a half years ago in February 2017 elections. Ironically, Punjab is the only state where the Congress performed well in May 2019 Lok Sabha elections despite the alienation of the Congressmen from their own government. That it is not their government even after more than two and a half years is reflected in the observation of none other but state Congress chief Sunil Jakhar who has been quoted by the Hindustan Times today whereby he has stated, “Bureaucracy has to be made accountable. They (bureaucrats) have been creating problems from time to time and bringing a bad name to the government. It is high time this is stopped”. Jakhar has only reinforced the perception at the ground level that this is the government of the bureaucrats and by the bureaucrats who care two hoots for

Jagtar Singh Chandigarh: The historic Kartarpur Sahib Corridor, although not expected to redefine tense relationship between India and Pakistan, seems to have fallen victim to planned sabotage in the beginning itself. Otherwise one of the most significant events in international relations that have been compared with the fall of the Berlin Wall, has failed to take off going by very small number of visitors. The 4-km long Kartarpur Sahib Corridor connects the Kartarpur Sahib shrine, where Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh Faith, spent his last a little more than 17 years of his life and demonstrated his model of creation of ideal society and ideal man, with Dera Baba Nanak in India. At another level, this corridor reconnects the Sikhs in Indian Punjab to the Pakistani Punjab that is the land of their birth that got divided by the Radcliffe line in 1947. Pakistan had initially planned the corridor for   700 devotees but upgraded it to handle 5000 visitors daily on i

Jagtar Singh Chandigarh: When the Shiromani Akali Dal   and the Punjab government   entered the race, it seemed that they were competing to propagate the legacy of Guru Nanak, the Founder of the Sikh Faith in the year of his 550 th birth anniversary. What happened at Sultanpur Lodhi, the centre of the anniversary celebrations, proved it wrong. It was the ego and vested political interests that clashed. Missing from the celebrations was the content of the teachings of Baba Nanak. When Baba Nanak set out on his mission to interact with the world after his enlightenment at Sultanpur Lodhi where he had shifted from Nankana, now in Pakistan, the very first message that he conveyed was identifying himself with the wretched of the earth by opting   to accept invitation from Bhai Lalo, a person who belonged to the lowest strata of society. He rejected the offer from Malik Bhago, a money bag, to host him to lavish meal. He put his experience of 17 years of this inte

Chandigarh: Only two dignitaries from India were invited by Pakistan to speak at the inauguration of the historic corridor at Gurdwara Darbar Sahib Kartarpur Sahib. They were Imran Khan’s cricketer friend Navjot Singh Sidhu who was the hero at the celebrations and Akal Takht acting Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh who was by and large ignored. However, he was the person whose words were heavy with political content. Giani Harpreet Singh, who heads the highest Sikh seat for prayer and politics, rejected the political line of Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal on Kashmir. Not only that, he traced the theological similarities between Sikhism and Islam. Giani Harpreet Singh, a postgraduate in religious studies from Punjabi University, Patiala, is pursuing doctoral degree at the same university. Jathedar of Takht Sri Damdama Sahib at Talwandi Sabo, he was given additional charge of the Akal Takht following the ignominious exit of Giani Gurbachan Singh who symbolised total d