“Don’t ask me about my childhood. I won’t be able to narrate that time,” said 83-year-old Jagdish Lal Ahuja, in a voice choked with emotion. In 1947, a 12-year-old boy born in Peshawar, Pakistan, came over to this side during the Partition. The event not only took away his birthplace from him, but his childhood too.

Popularly Known as ‘Langar Baba’, is searching among hundreds of poor kids whom he has been feeding over 3 decades.

He sold his seventh property worth ₹1.6 crore to arrange money for his noble initiative. He has sold six other such properties worth crores to ensure that the poor do not go to bed on an empty stomach.

Ahuja was the only breadwinner of the family as his father did not work and his mother was a homemaker. “Everyday, I walked three miles barefoot to buy namkeen dal for ₹1 and sold it for ₹1 and 2 aane at stations. I made two such rounds daily and earned ₹2 and 2 aane. By the time I got home, my feet and hand would be full of blisters, but I still had to earn or else I would go hungry for days,” he said, his voice choking up.

He never went to school in Peshawar even though he could afford to do so. He said, “My father beat me up if I studied and teachers beat me up in school because I would not have done my homework. So, yes, I could not study; my childhood was horrifying.”

From selling namkeen dal at the stations in Amritsar to selling toffees, jaggery, and fruits on the streets of Patiala, Ahuja continued working and fought hard when faced with hardships.

Now that baba is growing old and is fighting cancer, he only comes for a visit towards the end of the langar. That is when he distributes balloons, toffees and snacks to children. (Anil Dayal)
STARTING FROM SCRATCH

At 21, he moved to Chandigarh after a fight with his family. Here, he started buying and selling fruits. His journey in the new city that started from the purchase of a cart of oranges for ₹15 turned into an enterprise worth crores.

He bought his first property, a house in Sector 22, in 1965-66 for ₹4,000. He recently sold this property to fund the langar. Since he had a business of selling bananas, he was often known as the “banana king”. Soon, he was became popular as ‘langar wale baba’.

Talking about how he began this initiative, Ahuja said, “It was my son’s eighth birthday and I wanted to celebrate it by giving to the society. So, I decided to organise a langar for children.”

“We cooked food for 150 children and served it in the market in Sector 26. The moment I saw the joy on the faces of the children, it reminded me of my childhood. I then announced that this langar will be held daily,” he added.

YEARS OF SERVICE

He said, “It was on Guru Gobind Singh’s birthday that I wanted to distribute halwa and was wondering which place I should choose to set up. I was passing through PGIMER and saw a boy serving rice to the poor; that’s where I got the idea.”

Since then, baba’s langar is part of a routine at PGIMER. Between 6pm and 6.30pm, a black van stops outside gate number 2 of PGIMER and a stall is set up. In no time, people queue up for food. The langar outside GMCH-32 is organised in the afternoon.

“Not a single day has passed in the last 17 years that this langar was not organised outside PGIMER. We serve dal, chapatti, rice, halwa and banana. Apart from this, we also serve biscuits to cancer patients and kurkure, toffees, lollipops with whistles and balloons to children,” said Ahuja.

NO FAVOURS FROM OTHERS

However, these days, shortage of money has made it difficult to run the langar but that has not stopped him. Asking for financial help from others to run the langar is against Ahuja’s principles. Instead, he has chosen to cut down the supply. “Earlier, I made this langar for over 2,000 people daily; now it’s for 500. I have reduced the quantity after 2015,” he added.

The number of vegetable drums has reduced from 17 to seven, the carts of chapattis have reduced from six to three and only two boxes of bananas are distributed instead of six.

His motivation comes from those he feeds daily. He said, “Main apna bachpan dekhda haan, inna ch (I see my childhood in them).”

Now that baba is growing old and is fighting cancer, he only comes for a visit towards the end of the langar. That is when he distributes balloons, toffees and snacks to children.

“I have never sought a favour from anyone, but can only expect some help from the government. Kindly convey my message to the governor that I might need his help in continuing the langar in the near future,” said Ahuja.

Group of Akal Academies organised a walkathon in the four states of Punjab, Haryana, UP and Rajasthan in which 15,000 students of 116 Akal Academies participated.

The 2-km walkathon– Race against drug addiction– was flagged off at the school’s main gate and took a round of the nearby villages before finally dispersing at the school. The walkathon was held on the same day and at the same time.

In Hoshiarpur district, the students of all four academies participated in the event. As many as 150 students of Akal Academy, Makhangarh, 66 from Akal Academy, Pawein Jhinger and 50 students from Akal Academy in Dhugga Kalan in Hoshiarpur district participated in the walkathon. The students carried placards bearing messages on the harmful effects of drugs on individuals, society and economy.

The SMO of Dasuya hospital Dr Bagha flagged off the walkathon at Akal Academy Dhugga Kalan. Mandeep Kaur, principal of the Akal Academy at Khera, said the academies were being run by the Kalgidhar Trust, Baru Sahib, Sirmaur district in Himachal Pradesh, and offered “modern education with spiritual values” to help tackle the problem of drug and alcohol abuse.

At a time when Christian missionaries were propagating their religion in the state, two young Hindu men in Amritsar set out to counter it with a 20 by 26-inch four-page newspaper. Little did they know that ‘Akhbaar Sri Darbar Sahib Sri Amritsar Ji’, printed on lithographic limestone, would go into history as the first Punjabi newspaper.
Experts feel that even after 150 years, by and large Punjabi journalism is still to grow out of its religious boundaries.
“The newspaper was started on March 1, 1867. So, this year marks 150 years of Punjabi journalism,” says Prof Narinder Singh Kapoor, former dean, Punjabi University, Patiala.
Prof Narinder Singh has documented ‘Akhbaar Sri Darbar Sahib Sri Amritsar Ji’ as the “first-ever Punjabi newspaper published in Gurmukhi script” in his Punjabi book ‘Development of Punjabi Journalism’.
Munshi Hari Naryan was the editor of the newspaper and Firaya Mal, the manager. The two were followers of Hindi language.
Priced at two annas, the handwritten newspaper would carry a picture of Darbar Sahib on the masthead and the matter — mainly translated from other papers — was set in two columns.
The name — ‘Akhbaar Sri Darbar Sahib Sri Amritsar Ji’ — gave the impression that the newspaper was inclined towards Sikh religion but, in reality, the fortnightly from Amritsar was started for the propaganda of Hindu religion and would use Hindi written in Gurmukhi script.
“It was a pro-establishment newspaper as it didn’t have a single word on the anti-British Kuka Movement,” Prof Kapoor says.
As per different works on the history of Punjabi journalism, this paper was followed by a bilingual Hindi and Gurmukhi paper ‘Sukib Sambodhni’, which was brought out by Pandit Santokh Singh in 1875.
“Most of the newspapers in Punjabi brought out over the next 40 years were religiously-driven,” says Dr Megha Singh, former assistant editor, Punjabi Tribune. He is the author of a book titled ‘History of Punjabi Journalism’.
By the beginning of the 20th century, Punjabi newspapers started gaining ground as a weapon of resistance to the British colonial rule. Historians term first 19 years of the 20th century as a vibrant period in the history of Punjabi journalism, when 80 newspapers were brought out, but most of them did not last a year. Those were the times when distinction between views and news was easily made.
The Ghadar uprising and the Jallianwala Bagh massacre gave birth to political journalism in Punjabi language. Charan Singh ‘Shaheed’ was the most popular journalist of those times.
According to historians, the next 15 years of journalism starting from 1920 was influenced by the Akali movement.
It is remembered as the “most glorious period”.
“The popularity of Punjabi newspapers was such that they would sell in black. A large section of society learned Punjabi only to know what was being reported in the newspapers,” says Prof Kapoor.
This phase is marked by ‘invention of headlines’, beginning of publication of advertisements, and contribution to the development of modern Punjabi literature.
When it comes to contemporary times, experts feel that the maximum space in Punjabi journalism is still captured by newspapers started on communal lines.
“Like most newspapers in other languages, Punjabi journalism has failed to set new trends,” says Prof Kapoor.
About the current scenario, Navjit Johal, former head of the journalism department, Punjabi University, feels that except for one or two organisations, Punjabi journalism is not attracting the best of talent because of low salaries.

– Tribune

ਅਕਾਲ ਅਕੈਡਮੀ ਦਦੇਹਰ ਸਾਹਿਬ ਦੀ ਵਿਦਿਆਰਥਣ ਸਾਹਿਬਪਾਲ ਕੌਰ ਹੈ ਜਿਸ ਦੇ ਪਿਤਾ ਸਰਦਾਰ ਸਰਦਾਰਾ ਸਿੰਘ ਅਤੇ ਮਾਤਾ ਮਲਕੀਤ ਕੌਰ ਹਨ।ਸਾਹਿਬਪਾਲ ਕੌਰ 10 ਵੀਂ ਕਲਾਸ ਦੀ ਵਿਦਿਆਰਥਣ ਹੈ ਜਿਸ ਸ੍ਰੀ ਗੁਰੂ ਅਰਜਨ ਦੇਵ ਸਾਹੋਦਾ ਜਿਲ੍ਹਾ ਕਲੱਸਟਰ ਸੀ.ਬੀ.ਐਸ.ਈ ਵਿਚੋਂ ਸ੍ਰੇਸ਼ਟ ਵਿਦਿਆਰਥੀ ਦਾ ਦਰਜਾ ਪ੍ਰਾਪਤ ਕੀਤਾ ਹੈ।ਸਾਹਿਬਪਾਲ ਕੌਰ ਨੇ ਇਹ ਐਵਾਰਡ ‘ਚਿਲਡਰਨ ਡੇ’ ਮੌਕੇ ਕਰਵਾਏ ਗਏ ਸਮਾਗਮ ਵਿਚ ਪ੍ਰਾਪਤ ਕੀਤਾ ਜਿਸ ਨੇ ਇਹ ਰੁੱਤਬਾ ਵਿਦਿਅਕ ਖੇਤਰ,ਖੇਡਾਂ ਅਤੇ ਹੋਰ ਸਕੂਲੀ ਗਤੀਵਿਧੀਆਂ ਵਿਚ ਵੱਧ-ਚੜ੍ਹ ਕੇ ਹਿੱਸਾ ਲੈਣ ਕਰਕੇ ਮਿਲਿਆ ਹੈ।ਸਾਹਿਬਪਾਲ ਕੌਰ ਇਕ ਹੋਣਹਾਰ ਵਿਦਿਆਰਥਣ ਹੈ ਜੋ ਹਰ ਖੇਤਰ ਵਿਚ ਚੰਗਾ ਨਾਮਣਾ ਖੱਟ ਰਹੀ।ਜ਼ਿਕਰਯੋਗ ਹੈ ਕਿ ਅਕਾਲ ਅਕੈਡਮੀ ਵਲੋਂ ਹਰ ਸੰਭਵ ਮਦਦ ਅਜਿਹੇ ਵਿਦਿਆਰਥੀਆਂ ਦੀ ਪ੍ਰਤੀਭਾ ਨੂੰ ਨਿਖਾਰਨ ਸਮੇਂ-ਸਮੇਂ ਤੇ ਕੀਤੀ ਜਾਂਦੀ ਰਹਿੰਦੀ ਹੈ।

India’s weightlifter Gurdeep Singh created scripted his name into the history after creating three national records in the IWF World Weightlifting Championships at Anaheim in the USA

Gurdeep Singh created three new senior national records in +105kg weight category in the just-concluded IWF World Weightlifting Championships at Anaheim in USA.

Unfortunately, Gurdeep Singh finished 13th overall with a total lift of 388kg (172 + 216) but created national records in snatch, clean and jerk, and the total lift.

In the snatch, weightlifter Gurdeep Singh bettered his own earlier national record of 171kg by one Kg. In the total lift also, Gurdeep bettered the earlier national record of 384kg. While in clean and jerk, Gurdeep broke the earlier national record of 215kg set by Sarabjit Singh by clearing 216kg.

Indian Weightlifting Federation Secretary General Sahdev Yadav said in a release that 12 new senior national records were created during the IWF World Weightlifting Championships which is a rare achievement never made before by Indian athletes.