"It is wonderful. I had been living a double life, wearing a turban only at home," Simratpal Singh said, adding, "My two worlds have finally come back together."
A group of prominent United States lawmakers have urged the Pentagon to end the presumptive ban on Sikh Americans serving in the United States military.
Following an outcry from the Sikh community, the United States Defence Department has decided to review its policy, which prevents Sikhs from joining the country's armed forces. On behalf of Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the Pentagon has informed advocacy group Sikh Coalition that it was reviewing current regulations, which prevent a US Sikh national from serving the army, on the ground that they wear turban.
A United States court has ruled that Marine Corps cannot deny entry to Sikhs sporting a beard and wearing a turban, in a major victory for three recruits from the community who can now join the elite unit's basic training without having to forfeit their religious beliefs.
The new set of rules allows religious accommodations to be approved at the brigade-level. Previously it was at the level of secretary.
The Army Tuesday said no air defence guns or any other air defence resource were deployed within the Golden Temple premises during Operation Sindoor.
The prime minister is now expected to speak on Thursday in the Rajya Sabha, where the debate on the Motion of Thanks on the President's Address has taken place without any disruption.
'Mark had such a profound understanding of India, which was, of course, the land of his birth as well as of his death... He loved India, and lived two-thirds of his life here.'
Captain Tejdeep Singh Rattan has been accepted as an Army dentist and allowed to wear a turban and not shave his hair as a condition of joining the military. Confirming the drafting of Rattan, the community's advocacy group, Sikh Coalition, hailing the Army action, said these enrolments should not be treated as isolated cases and that doors should be opened for large-scale recruitment of Sikhs in the US Army.
A 20-year-old Sikh-American student has won a significant legal battle in the United States with a court allowing him to enrol in an army programme without removing his articles of faith like the beard and turban.
Two Sikh-American military recruits, both medical professionals already in the US Army, who have been denied the right to report for active duty in July unless they remove their turbans and cut their unshorn hair and beards, have called on the Pentagon to allow them to serve their country without having to compromise their religious principles.
But it will be a giant leap for America when all can serve freely in the US Armed Forces, Major Kamaljeet Singh Kalsi tells Suman Guha Mozumder about the Pentagon's relaxing of rules on religious wear
'Amritpal is the creation of journalists and the inaction of the government in Punjab.'
The Chinese Army troops try to enter these areas every year and try to patrol out their claim line which India does not allow.
Determined not to be arm-twisted into delaying the execution, he decided to hold a late night hearing at his residence. In the pitch blackness of the night, the original verdict was upheld. The next morning, on 9 October 1992, General Vaidya's assassins were hanged until death.
Ram Madhvani's series is all over the place and also boring to watch, complains Deepa Gahlot.
A 26-year-old Sikh-American officer in the US Marines who has been allowed to wear the turban - the first person in the 246-year history of the elite force allowed to do so, but with a few limitations, plans to sue the Corps if he is not granted full religious accommodation, according to a media report.
US Congressman Joe Crowley, who spearheaded the campaign for the Federal Bureau of Investigation to create a new separate hate crimes category in the agency's uniform crime reporting programme to track bigoted attacks against Sikh Americans, has now set his sights on fully integrating Sikh Americans in the US Armed Forces
'The flight did not land in Gujarat because the 'Gujarat model' would then get exposed.'
The corridor will connect the Dera Baba Nanak shrine in India's Punjab with Darbar Sahib at Kartarpur, just 4 kilometres from the International Border, located in Narowal district of Pakistan's Punjab province.
India's assessment is that the Kartarpur project was being implemented with alacrity and military zeal under the supervision of the Pakistan army as it has the strategic objective to use the corridor to encourage separatism in Punjab, say government sources.
The British army's first Sikh soldier allowed to wear a turban rather than a bearskin on ceremonial duties has suffered abuse from his colleagues over his headgear and his refusal to cut hair and his beard, a media report said on Sunday.
The move makes Captain Simratpal Singh, a 28-year-old decorated combat veteran, the first active duty Sikh soldier to receive approval to maintain his articles of faith while actively serving in the US army.
Can ordinary citizens counter this backward march? Can peace activists ensure that the two communities retain their bonds? Do they have a choice, asks Jyoti Punwani.
'I'm heartbroken. The reason why I was removed was because I refused to remove my turban,' he wrote on Facebook.
The foundations of the army's own peculiar secularism are potentially being destabilised
The Army on Thursday evening staged a flag march in the Satwari area of Jammu city after a Sikh youth was killed in police firing, while two others were wounded in daylong clashes between protestors and security forces.
Lt Gen Naravane is currently serving as Vice Chief of the Army. In his 37 years of service, Lt Gen Naravane has served in numerous command and staff appointments in peace, field and highly active counter-insurgency environments in Jammu and Kashmir and the Northeast.
'I told them I am a Muslim, you are Sikh, you are Hindu, but we have one country to save.'
The martyr's father Udham Singh said he was proud of his son, but wanted that Pakistan be given a befitting reply.
The competition for the worst or most perilous 10 years has always been between the 1960s and the 1980s, points out Shekhar Gupta.
'I'm now living under threat, but life has to go on because as a soldier, you can't run away from it.'
Expressing concern over the situation in Afghanistan, a group of eminent persons, including former ministers K Natwar Singh, Yashwant Sinha and Mani Shankar Aiyar, on Wednesday urged the government to continue engaging with the Taliban and not allow any political party to use the developments in that country to communally polarise Indian society for electoral gains.
Chawla, who is the general secretary of Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee and is known to speak for 'Khalistan', had shared the purported picture on his Facebook page.
Reacting cautiously, MEA said an agreement has been signed between the two countries finalising the modalities for visits and India will stick to it.
'The ISI is bound to exploit narcoterrorism.'
'The consolation is that in recent years, the focus at the time of the anniversary has been increasingly shifting from Indira Gandhi's assassination to the plight of the thousands of innocent Sikhs who had been killed in retaliation,' Manoj Mitta, co-author of When a Tree Shook Delhi: The 1984 Carnage and its Aftermath, tells Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com.
Members of the United States Congress break bread to celebrate the contributions of Sikh Americans. Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa reports
They travelled for almost three days in a train with dead bodies, witnessing bloodshed and massacre across the new border that was created between India and the new-formed Pakistan.
'Many times when Khalistan slogans are raised, it is from those who feel alienated, not because they want a separate state.'
