Jagtar Singh

  Revival of Shiromani Akali Dal difficult without major surgery despite reverting to Panth Ground Zero   Jagtar Singh   It must be appreciated that the humiliating and crushing defeat in February 2022 Assembly election has failed to demoralise or dishearten Shiromani Akali Dal president Sukhbir Singh Badal. He is already on way to reinvigorate the party rank and file going by his address at the “Panthic Conference” on Baisakhi today at Takht Damdama Sahib, Talwandi Sabo in Bathinda district. The ground for his speech was earlier prepared by Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee president Harjinder Singh Dhami who tried unconvincingly to revive the narrative of the Shiromani Akali Dal being synonymous with the Panth. He conveniently overlooked the fact that the Akali Dal, since 1997, has conveniently been stream-rolling the Panthic traditions, especially when in power. Moreover, the party had opted for voluntary shift from Panth to Punjabiat at its 75 th...

  AAP government in Punjab should focus on Bargari sacrilege, not on telecast of Gurban i Ground Zero Jagtar Singh   The offer made to the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee by the Aam Aadmi Party government, the first non-Akali and non-Congress one, in Punjab to facilitate live telecast of Gurbani from the Golden Temple (Darbar Sahib) in Amritsar is a highly appreciable gesture. After all, this is the place from where emanates the universal message of   humanism, universalism and egalitarianism. This is the place that is the centre of the thought that makes no distinction between man and the man on the basis of caste, class or Faith. At that level, this message is all the more relevant in the modern world, especially in India where sectarianism is raising its ugly head and this must be disseminated to every nook and corner of the globe. The uniqueness of this shrine is that its every grain of its soil is soaked in the blood of the Sikh martyrs who sacr...

  Chandigarh dispute between Punjab and Haryana symbolises political dishonesty of ruling classes   Ground Zero Jagtar Singh Chandigarh was one of the two dream projects of Prime Minister Pt Jawahar Lal Nehru, the other being the Bhakra Dam. Chandigarh was designed as capital of post 1947 Punjab as Lahore became part of Pakistan. Bhakra was to be the dynamo to drive the Indian Punjab. None of these two projects are now part of what remains Punjab. Haryana was carved out of Punjab in 1966 when Chandigarh was declared capital of the two states but as a central territory under union home ministry. Both Chandigarh and Bhakra went under the central control on November 1, 1966 on the day Punjab was reorganised under the Punjab Re-organisation Act on the recommendation of a 3-member Punjab Boundary Commission. One of the members S Dutt dissented with his two other colleagues as he argued with logic for retaining Chandigarh in Punjab. What was unleashed on November...

  Outgoing Prime Minister Imran Khan shatters narrative of Pakistan being ruled by three A’s   Ground Zero Jagtar Singh On May 1, 1960, the geo-political situation suddenly changed. On that day, a plane flying high over the Soviet Union was shot down by a surface-to-air missile near the city of Sverdlovsk Oblast in the Ural Mountains. It was till then a top-secret single pilot spy plane that was part of the CIA operations during Cold War. This plane had flown over the Soviet Union many times earlier. It could fly at a height of about 70,000 feet undetected by the radars. The technology advanced and the plane became the target ultimately. Its pilot   Francis Gary Powers landed safely into the hands of the Russians. What is important in the present context is that this CIA plane had taken off from Peshawar in Pakistan and was to land at some base in Norway. This was the relationship of Pakistan with the USA till sometime back that has now changed when Paki...

  Test for Bhagwant Mann after Assembly mandate to prove he means business on Punjab issues   Ground Zero Jagtar Singh   Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, whose party has debut in this politically volatile border state after emerging as the main opposition in 2017, might have realised that the challenges are posed to those in power from altogether different domain and not from schools, colleges and hospitals on which its campaign had been centred. After the party was backed by the people with unprecedented mandate to provide better governance, the non-BJP parties in the Assembly today stood like a rock behind him while expressing unreserved confidence in him to take up the commanding role associated with his office to protect the interests of this state that constitute historical baggage. The one-day special session of the Assembly today adopted the resolution amidst walk out by the Bharatiya Janata Party   that called upon the state government ...