News & Update

Sikhs will gather again to celebrate March 14th as the 2nd Annual Sikh Environment Day. This day marks the Gurgaddi Diwas of Guru Har Rai Ji who is remembered for his deep sensitivity to kudrat, or nature.

Worldwide, Gurdwaras and schools will focus Kirtan and Katha on the environment, plant trees, hold children’s activities, and make their own commitments to care for nature.

Did You Know?

Mangoes in Gurdwara Amb Sahib ripening again in January, reflect on the historical connection between our Gurus and Punjab’s native trees, including bohr, pipli, garna, karir, phalahi, reru, luhura, tahli, imli, ritha, kalp, ber, andamb.

Gurdwara Amb Sahib marks the area where the devotee Bhai Kuram was engaged in deep meditation, when he realized he did fulfill his promise to the Guru to provide mangoes for the sangat. Guru Har Rai Ji encouraged him to look at the tree he was meditating under to see the rare site of mangoes in the wintery off-season of Poh (mid-December), which Bhai Kuram then offered as parsad.

Today, a number of indigenous mangoes still grow in Punjab, such as those in the Inami Bagh in Hoshiarpur. Here exists a biodiversity heritage site and rare ecological treasure: ten acres of 165 mango trees and over 37 rare native varieties.

Dhan Sikhi! Dhan Dhan Guru Har Rai Ji!

Scientists have found the biggest and oldest reservoir of water ever–so large and so old, it’s almost impossible to describe.

The water is out in space, a place we used to think of as desolate and desert dry, but it’s turning out to be pretty lush.Researchers found a lake of water so large that it could provide each person on Earth an entire planet’s worth of water–20,000 times over. Yes, so much water out there in space that it could supply each one of us all the water on Earth–Niagara Falls, the Pacific Ocean, the polar ice caps, the puddle in the bottom of the canoe you forgot to flip over–20,000 times over.

The water is in a cloud around a huge black hole that is in the process of sucking in matter and spraying out energy (such an active black hole is called a quasar), and the waves of energy the black hole releases make water by literally knocking hydrogen and oxygen atoms together.The official NASA news release describes the amount of water as “140 trillion times all the water in the world’s oceans,” which isn’t particularly helpful, except if you think about it like this.

That one cloud of newly discovered space water vapor could supply 140 trillion planets that are just as wet as Earth is.

Mind you, our own galaxy, the Milky Way, has about 400 billion stars, so if every one of those stars has 10 planets, each as wet as Earth, that’s only 4 trillion planets worth of water.

The new cloud of water is enough to supply 28 galaxies with water.

Truly, that is one swampy patch of intergalactic space.

Equally stunning is the age of the water factory. The two teams of astrophysicists that found the quasar were looking out in space a distance of 12 billion light years. That means they were also looking back in time 12 billion years, to when the universe itself was just 1.6 billion years old. They were watching water being formed at the very start of the known universe, which is to say, water was one of the first substances formed, created in galactic volumes from the earliest time. Given water’s creative power to shape geology, climate and biology, that’s dramatic.

“It’s another demonstration that water is pervasive throughout the universe, even at the very earliest times,” says Matt Bradford, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and leader of one of the teams that made the discovery. (The journal article reporting the discovery is titled, without drama, “The Water Vapor Spectrum of APM 08279+5255: X-Ray Heating and Infrared Pumping over Hundreds of Parsecs.”)

It is not as if you’d have to wear foul-weather gear if you could visit this place in space, however. The distances are as mind-bogglingly large as the amount of water being created, so the water vapor is the finest mist–300 trillion times less dense than the air in a typical room.

And it’s not as if this intergalactic water can be of any use to us here on Earth, of course, at least not in the immediate sense. Indeed, the discovery comes as a devastating drought across eastern Africa is endangering the lives of 10 million people in Somalia, Kenya, and Ethiopia. NASA’s water discovery should be a reminder that if we have the sophistication to discover galaxies full of water 12 billion light years away, we should be able to save people just an ocean away from drought-induced starvation.

The NASA announcement is also a reminder how quickly our understanding of the universe is evolving and how much capacity for surprise nature still has for us. There’s water on Mars, there’s water jetting hundreds of miles into space from Enceladus, one of Saturn’s moons, there are icebergs of water hidden in the polar craters of our own Moon. And now it turns out that a single quasar has the ability to manufacture galaxies full of water.

But it was only 40 years ago, in 1969, that scientists first confirmed that water existed anywhere besides Earth.

by Charles Fishman
Source: www.fastcompany.com

Punjabi University formally launched “Punjabipedia”, an exclusive online treasure relating to Punjabi language. While describing it as a big leap in the direction of fulfilling ‘Mission Punjabi-2020’, furthering university’s aim of promoting Punjabi, vice-chancellor Jaspal Singh said the effort would help in putting Punjabi language among the top languages of the world.

He said it would soon be made available on smartphones, tablets and other online gadgets, free of cost.

Taking a leaf out of online encyclopaedia Wikipedia’s book, the university has published Punjabipedia to help internet users get details relating to the state’s history, culture, literature, traditions and other information in Punjabi.

Introducing the project, Devinder Singh, director, planning and monitoring, who is also coordinator of the Punjabipedia, said that though Punjabipedia had been designed on the pattern of Wikipedia but it would be more authentic and reliable as the entries will be controlled and monitored by the university staff and not by the public in general as in case of Wikipedia.

He said at present Punjabipedia contain more than 72,000 entries. Its database will soon be enlarged to cover topics relating to not only Punjabi language, art and culture but other subjects as well.

“The data is available in Gurmukhi script “, he said.

As per available, ‘Encyclopaedia of Sikhism’, all four volumes of ‘Bal Vishav Kosh’ (children’s encyclopaedia), a first Punjabi-based encyclopaedia published exclusively for the 6-14 years age group and a Punjabi conceptual dictionary has been added in the Punjabipedia content.

However, another master piece, Encyclopedia of Sikhism, also a four-volume publication with a total of nearly 20,000 printed pages, comprises nearly 3,500 entries on various aspects of Sikh history, philosophy and customs. Social, religious movements, art, architecture and shrines also found place in the contents of Punjabipedia.

“We had planned to upload Punjabi language encyclopaedia ‘Mahan Kosh’ compiled by Kahn Singh Nabha but could not do so due to some technical glitches. It will be uploaded soon”, he said.

– HT

Johannesburg, March 3: A retired South African Indian educationist, who went back to college to complete his qualifications at the age of 55, has been honoured for a lifetime of service.

Kunwar Singh (80), who is better known across the country by his nickname Kokkie, received the annual award titled “To Honour Those Who Serve”, made by Shree Bharat Sharda Mandir.

Singh explained how he had been teaching for many years with a Junior Certificate teaching qualification when he joined his son and nephews at the Transvaal College of Education for Indians here to gain a higher diploma.

“I had to upgrade myself because I would never have got a promotion otherwise,” Singh said. “I also succeeded in getting 30 women teachers to join me in getting a better qualification at the Johannesburg College of Education,” he said.

Singh was particularly thrilled when the Rector called him in to say that in spite of 170 young people being at the College, the staff had decided to give him the Leadership Award for changing the College in the two years that he was there, he said. “Singh has received so many accolades from many organisations. He is clearly a role model for all of us,” said Rafique Jajbhay of the School, as he introduced Singh.

Singh dedicated his award to the women who had stood behind the successes of many men, in his case his wife and mother, as he requested a popular Hindi song dedicated to mothers to be played during the proceedings. — PTI

A special turban owned by the British Museum provided the focal-point as an exhibition celebrating Sikhism was officially opened in Bradford. The Earl of Harewood welcomed about 100 people to Cartwright Hall art gallery yesterday as the Sikh Fortress Turban exhibition got under way.

The exhibition explains the importance of the turban to the Sikh faith and includes the conical Fortress Turban alongside items from Bradford Museums and Galleries’ collections and the city’s Sikh community. “I was very honoured to be asked to come and open this exhibition,” said the Earl, who also spoke of the “richness of Sikh culture. “I am delighted to be here.”

The Fortress Turban, which features various weapons, was worn by a group of skilled warrior Sikhs called Akali Nihangs, to protect their head and hair from sword blows. It has been brought to Bradford as part of the British Museum’s Spotlight Tour, and has been in its collection since the early 20th century. Mohinder Singh Chana, a trustee of Bradford Museums and Galleries, said: “It gives us great pleasure to come to Cartwright Hall and be able to be involved in an exhibition here.”

Jill Maggs, head of loans at the British Museum, said: “The Spotlight Tour is about shining a light on the object itself, and also the collections of the host venue.” The exhibition will run at the gallery until May 18.

Read about the Inter Faith History behind Origin and Evolution of Turban – http://goo.gl/oxlN4K

The railways has decided to launch another Panj Takht special train from March 21, 2014. According to IRCTC Chief Regional Manager RK Sondh, the train would start from Jammu on March 21 and cover all five Takhts of Sikhs, including Takht Sri Hazur Sahib, Nanded; Takht Sri Patna Sahib, Takht Sri Damdama Sahib, Takht Sri Kesgarh Sahib, Anandpur Sahib; and Akal Takht (Harmandar Sahib), Amritsar, up to March 30.

The train will halt at Kathua, Bharoli, Gurdaspur, Batala, Amritsar, Beas, Kartarpur, Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Ambala Cantt and Delhi’s Safdurjung railway station.

He said the decision to run another Panj Takht train was taken after the success of Panj Takht special train in February and keeping in view the demand of the devotees from areas other than Punjab.

Booking of Panj Takht Train is available online on IRCTC website. Booking can also be done through Railway’s Tourist Facilitation Center, Zonal Offices and Regional Offices.

Itinerary Dated :- 21/03/2014 & 18/04/2014

Package Tariff :- Rs 8250/- (Including Service Tax)

For Offline Booking, Please contact or visit at: http://goo.gl/u05kT4