TOY DRIVE A SUCCESS

Harvey Kooner

Benevolent Brotherhood Society

Santa’s job will be a bit easier this year, as the Lower Mainland came together to honour the memory of Victor Ghirra through an inaugural toy drive. Over 1,500 toys packed the Riverside Palace in Richmond on Saturday, December 15th. All to pay tribute to the legacy of the man with a goldenheart: Victor Ghirra. “Victor is not with us today, but looking around and seeing all the generousity from people in the community; his spirit is stillwith us,” said Bobby Ghirra, General Manager of Riverside Hall and Victor’solder brother. The toys will be evenly distributed to: Children’s Hospital, Lower Mainland Salvation Army and the Lower Mainland Christmas Bureau.

Victor had a big heart. He donated thousands of dollars worth of toys to Children's Hospital for over 14 years. Whenever they asked: “Who are you? Which organization are you from?” He would say: "It doesn't matter who I am, those toys are for the kids and that's all you need to know." The touching part of this story is that Victor never told anyone about it. Individuals close to him did not even know about this good deed. His funeral was very moving. He passed away at the age of 37; he left behind 4 young sons and his wife. There were close to 2,000 people at his funeral. The Ghirra Family, The Benevolent Brotherhood Society, Riverside Halls and Vancity Insurance hope that these toys bring smiles to children’s lives.

To find out more about the Benevolent Brotherhood Society and how you canhelp. If you wish to volunteer your time, energy and efforts please contactthem at: hkooner@shaw.ca or phone: 604.671.4180.

KANDOLA FAMILY IN DISBELIEF

Sudarshan Kandola is in disbelief that her son Baljinder Kandola, who the whole family was so proud of for being a Canada Border officer, faces six charges including importing cocaine and guns, breach of trust and bribery. "I don't know how he got involved in it. He was so protective about his job. He would tell his own brothers never to get on the wrong side of the law because that would reflect badly on him."
Sudarshan said that for her son, Canada Border job was a dream come true. "My son was so happy to get the job. He was on top of the world. He would always be very careful of who he is talking to and who he is meeting. My son was very cautious about his company too. He didn't want to mingle with the wrong kind of people. All this just to protect his job, because he was loyal and didn't want any stain on his uniform," Kandola added in Punjabi.
The 35-year old Surrey man, a six-year border services officer, was arrested late Thursday night and is accused of allowing two Richmond men with organized-crime links to enter Canada illegally, one with an SUV filled with $6 million in cocaine and three handguns. Shaminder Johal, 34, and Herman Riar, 26, were driving the two vehicles packed with contraband. The men allegedly used Kandola's border booth at the Pacific Highway truck crossing to enter Canada in similar-looking GMC Yukons. They were arrested a short distance away, after police determined Kandola had arranged "safe passage" for them.
The three accused appeared in the Surrey Provincial Court on Monday to fix a date for a bail hearing. Dressed in red jail uniform, Kandola entered the court room with his head held down. The other two accused, however, were seen whispering to each other and smiling. The court room was packed with family members - while some of them stayed composed, the others were heard sobbing.
Sudarshan Kandola said that no one in her family knew about her son's intentions. "No. Nobody in my family knew anything. We didn't know it until his arrest. We are a happy family and everyone is earning well. They are all doing well for themselves. We do not get involved in such things. I have five sons and all are happy with their lives." She also mentioned that her doesn't have any criminal record and was never involved in any illegal activity, "that's why when the police searched our home, they didn't find anything. Th police came with a search warrant immidiately after his arrest and there was nothing they found."
The Kandola family owns a clothes shop and a herbal store in Surrey. Sitting in the family store with one of her grandsons, Sudarshan explained what the family is going through. Shortly after, she starts to cry, followed by her grandson. "This is difficult for the family. Baljinder has a young son and he is very attached to his father. He keeps asking for his father. What do we tell him?"

"I still can't believe it. I feel this is just a nightmare and will get over soon. My son wasn't like this. He would tell others to keep away from drugs, gangs or anything illegal." Sudarshan Kandola said that her son is a baptised Sikh who prays every morning. "He was so happy. I feel somebody brainwashed him into it. There is nothing lacking in our family. His wife has a good paying job. I don't know how he got into it. Sometimes when i think of it I feel may be his mind just changed. The other times I feel this is destiny, it had to happen."

GET WITH IT, WE ARE A MULTICULTURAL COUNTRY

Pooja Sekhon

As a new Canadian I believed that I am needed and wanted in this country. That my life, my values, culture and religion are important to this country. But every now and then some boorish individual tries to shake that belief. This time, that individual is CKNW's Bruce Allen. His "Reality Check" is one of the segments I enjoy the most, because it hits you right in the face. But in his recent segment, he went too far.
I am talking about the Reality Check broadcast on September 13 on CKNW. After the segment was aired, I received a couple of mails condemning the comments. I ignored them because I didn’t want to be a part of their race game. I hate to admit it, I was wrong. When I listened to the segment, I realized what they meant.
Eight days after it was broadcast, Surrey’s radio station RED FM picked up the issue and held an open line talk show. Other Punjabi media outlets followed. People who called in the talk show were most hurt by comments such as "you are not needed in this country", "shut up and fit in", and "hit the door".
“Hit the door”, that hits hard.
I thought people form a nation, not shopping malls and pubs. If we all hit the door, and by all I mean Sikhs, Hindus, Muslims and all those who “don’t fit in”, what will be left of Canada. Has anyone ever thought of that?
Wherever there are different faiths, problem(s) arise. There are four main faiths in India, not to overlook the numerous unspecified ones. However, there is always a better way to solve every issue. We just have to look for it.
While I was writing this piece, I also found out that Sikhs in Los Angeles are planning a protest against a radio station after one its radio jockeys referred to turbaned Sikhs as wearing a “diaper” on their heads.
Coming back to Canada, what about the second generation Canadians whose parents immigrated from India and other South Asian countries. For this second generation, Canada is their mother country. They don’t want to “hit the door” and go back to India. They are born in a Sikh, Hindu or Muslim family, so they follow their religion. They don’t want to abandon their identity and be like the rest of them. They are as Canadian as any white Canadian. What are they suppose to do? Any suggestions.
Radio Station RED FM spoke to CKNW host Christy Clark on the issue. According to her, the comments were uncalled for. “We are not a homogenous European country where everybody has white skin and goes to the same Church. We are a country of people from all over the world, that’s our richness, that’s our strength. To tell people to go home if they don’t act like a European, that’s ridiculous. I think people who believe that if you live in this country, you should act like a European should go back to Europe. If that’s what they like, go back to Holland. Everybody is blonde and white in Holland.”
Clark further added, “Bruce is a great strength and he has very strong opinions. His views are from the Stone Age, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a right to express them. Fact is that in Canada there are people of European descent who still share those views. They are mostly older white people, but they are there and they have a right to express their views.”
Clark then spoke to Allen on her show and in his defense he said that he has always supported immigrant issues and that he was misunderstood. Eventually, he said, "I am sorry if I offended anyone."
Finally, this is not about Bruce Allen or some other individual. This is about the attitude that since we have come to this country we have to be like the rest. No, we don’t. We love this country. But, do I have to be like my neighbor to love this country. No, I don’t. We have our own identity, our own religion, culture and values. And, we are going to stick to it, whether someone likes it or not.
Nah, I am not doing Allen here. I am just trying to regain my belief that I am needed and wanted in this country.

RJ COMPARES TURBAN TO DIAPER, ANGERS SIKHS

Sikhs in Los Angeles are planning a protest against a radio station after one of its radio jockeys (RJs) referred to turbaned Sikhs as wearing a "diaper" on their head. RJ Al Rantel was discussing US airport security in his talk show "KABC 790AM" on September 10 where he allegedly said that if his own 80-year-old mother had to take off her shoes during a security screening, "... then why shouldn't a Sikh be required to take off the hat that looks like a diaper they wear on their heads?"
The comment has angered the Sikh community, which said they would start protests if the RJ did not apologise. "If he does not correct himself on the air, we're going to put pressure on him," Navraj Singh told India-West, an ethnic Indian newspaper. "I'm getting calls from around the country, and Sikh temples are collecting signatures," said Singh, a resident of Encino, California, adding he was ready to lead a protest outside the radio station. Singh has written a strongly worded letter to Rantel, challenging him to an on-air debate. Rantel's team has not yet responded.
According to a new Homeland Security Department policy, which came into force on August 4, Sikhs have to remove their turbans at US airports for security checks. The new security guideline has already upset the large Sikh population in the US. Sikhs have often been confused as Muslims, and its members often suffer due to anti-Muslim sentiments. Hate crimes against Sikhs increased after September 11, 2001.

SONIA GANDHI IS SIXTH MOST POWERFUL WOMAN - FORBES

SINGAPORE - German Chancellor Angela Merkel is the most powerful woman in the world while Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi has risen to second place in Forbes' magazine's annual list, the company said in a statement on Friday. "Merkel continued to impress the world with her cool leadership at two back-to-back summits, and stuck to her principles, getting G8 leaders to agree to significant cuts in carbon emissions, among other things," Forbes said. It said Wu Yi was a rising star in China's Communist Party, having hammered out trade agreements with Russia and overseeing the country's negotiations for accession to the World Trade Organization.
The magazine said the ranking is based on a composite of visibility - measured by press citations - and economic impact. The biggest mover on this year's list was Ho Ching - chief executive of Singapore state investment firm Temasek Holdings and wife of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong - who jumped to third place from 36th last year, trumping U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who fell from second to fourth place. "Ho Ching is rarely seen or heard from. But increasingly she is a force to be reckoned with, as her dealmaking ambitions span the globe," Forbes said in a short profile of Ho.

World's 10 most powerful women in 2007 according to Forbes:

1. Angela Merkel, Chancellor, Germany

2. Wu Yi, Vice premier, China
3. Ho Ching CEO, Temasek Holdings, Singapore
4. Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, U.S.
5. Indra K. Nooyi, Chairman, CEO, PepsiCo U.S.
6. Sonia Gandhi, Political party chief, India
7. Cynthia Carroll CEO, Anglo American, U.K.
8. Patricia A. Woertz, Cochairman, ADM U.S.
9. Irene Rosenfeld Chairman, CEO, Kraft Foods U.S.
10. Patricia Russo CEO, Alcatel-Lucent U.S.

For the full list click on www.forbes.com

SIKH OUTRAGE IN US AS TURBANS COME UNDER SECURITY CHECK

Washington: Sikhs in the US have complained of ethnic profiling after airport authorities forced community members to remove their turbans for security checks in the wake of a new federal policy that subjects travellers wearing headgear to additional scrutiny. "The federal government has equated our most precious article of faith with terrorism," said Amardeep Singh, the executive director of the Sikh Coalition, an advocacy group for Sikhs. "It sends a message that the turban is dangerous. It sends a wrong message to society," he said. A Sikh businessman, Prabhjit Singh, said he was made to leave the screening line when he balked at the secondary search at Baltimore/Washington International Airport.
"The supervisor made me feel like I had done something wrong," said the businessman, a motivational speaker from Maryland. "I felt for the first time in America that I had been targeted, and it was because of the way I looked," he was quoted as saying by The New York Times. The fact that the policy was put into effect without consulting Sikhs also rankled the Sikh Coalition, which puts the number of Sikhs in the US at 280,000. The Transportation Security Administration, which adopted and is enforcing the policy, said it was aimed not just at turbans but at any headgear and that it was one of the periodic adjustments made to address changing threats.
The change allows for screeners to pat down anyone who is wearing a hat or other head covering, even if the person clears a metal detector. The change was part of several new security measures initiated on August 4, but the change regarding headgear was not publicised and came to light only after many Sikh passengers underwent additional screenings.

KANISHKA TRAGEDY

Fifteen years after Babbar Khalsa International leader Talwinder Singh Parmar, one of the two alleged masterminds of the mid-air bombing of Air India’s Kanishka airplane, was shown as having being killed in an encounter in Punjab, retired Punjab Police DSP Harmail Singh Chandi, who nabbed Parmar from Jammu in September 1992 and interrogated him for five days before he was killed along with five others, has come forward with the claim that Parmar was killed in police custody on the orders of senior police officers, who also asked his confession record to be destroyed.

In his confession, Parmar had named Lakhbir Singh Brar “Rode”, nephew of the late Bhindranwale and head of the banned International Sikh Youth Federation, as the mastermind of the bombing. Rode, who is now said to be holed up in Lahore, has never figured in the investigations of either the CBI or the Canadian authorities. Chandi has brought forward the entire record of Parmar’s confession, including audio tapes and statements, before the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the John Major Commission of Inquiry that is reinvestigating the June 23, 1985 blast that claimed 331 lives off the Irish coast.

Chandi had been ordered by senior officers to destroy the records but he retained them secretly. The record was brought before the Major Commission due to seven-year-long investigations by the Punjab Human Rights Organisation (PHRO), a Chandigarh-based ngo that conducted interviews of Parmar’s associates in India and Canada and pieced together a comprehensive report. The PHRO’s Principal Investigator Sarbjit Singh and lawyer Rajvinder Singh Bains flew to Canada along with Harmail in June and produced their findings before the Commission’s counsels.

A Canadian citizen, Parmar was shown as having been killed in an exchange of fire between police and six militants in the wee hours of October 15, 1992, near village Kang Arian in Phillar sub-division. However, evidence brought forward by Harmail (who was then DSP, Phillaur) shows that Parmar was interrogated between October 9 and 14 by senior police officers, where he revealed that the blasts were instigated by Lakhbir Singh Brar Rode. Parmar’s confession reads: “Around May 1985, a functionary of the International Sikh Youth Federation came to me and introduced himself as Lakhbir Singh and asked me for help in conducting some violent activities to express the resentment of the Sikhs.

I told him to come after a few days so that I could arrange for dynamite and battery etc. He told me that he would first like to see a trial of the blast...After about four days, Lakhbir Singh and another youth, Inderjit Singh Reyat, both came to me. We went into the jungle (of British Columbia). There we joined a dynamite stick with a battery and triggered off a blast. Lakhbir and Inderjit, even at that time, had in their minds a plan to blast an aeroplane. I was not too keen on this plan but agreed to arrange for the dynamite sticks. Inderjit wanted to use for this purpose a transistor fitted with a battery...That very day, they took dynamite sticks from me and left.
“Then Lakhbir Singh, Inderjit Singh and their accomplice, Manjit Singh, made a plan to plant bombs in an Air India (AI) plane leaving from Toronto via London for Delhi and another flight that was to leave Tokyo for Bangkok. Lakhbir Singh got the seat booking done from Vancouver to Tokyo and then onwards to Bangkok, while Manjit Singh got it done from Vancouver to Toronto and then from Toronto to Delhi. Inderjit prepared the bags for the flights, which were loaded with dynamite bombs fitted with a battery and transistor. They decided that the suitcases will be booked but they themselves will not travel by the same flights although they will take the boarding passes.

After preparing these bombs, the plan was ready for execution by June 21 or 22, 1985. However, the bomb to be kept in the flight from Tokyo to Delhi via Bangkok exploded at the Narita airport on the conveyor belt. The second suitcase that was loaded on the Toronto-Delhi ai flight exploded in the air.” Sarabjit said the PHRO’s probe has shown that Parmar was killed to hide the name of Lakhbir, who was an Indian agent. “After the Khalistan movement gained in sympathy in the West, especially in Canada, after the 1984 Blue Star operation and the killing of Sikhs in Delhi, a plot was hatched to discredit the Sikh movement. Parmar was roped in by Lakhbir at the behest of his masters.

The Punjab Police got orders to finish off Parmar as he knew too much about the main perpetrators. On the day of the Kanishka blast, an explosion took place at Japan’s Narita airport, where two Japanese baggage handlers were killed. The plot was to trigger blasts when the two aircraft had de-embarked their passengers but the 1 hour 40 minute delay in Kanishka’s takeoff led to the bomb exploding mid-air,” Sarbjit said. What gives credence to Sarabjit’s charge is the Source Report (in Tehelka’s posession) prepared by the Jalandhar Police soon after Parmar was killed. Based on information provided by Parmar — though not attributing it to his interrogation — the report makes no reference to Lakhbir.

Interestingly, Lakhbir, accused in many acts of terrorist violence, is wanted by the Indian Government in only a minor case registered in Moga, Punjab. The Red Corner Interpol notice, A-23/1-1997, put out by the CBI against Lakhbir states: “OFFENCES: House breaking, theft, damage by fire.” The PHRO told Canadian authorties that conclusive evidence existed of Parmar being killed in police custody and not in the “encounter” shown in FIR No 105 registered at Phillaur police station on October 15, 1992.

The PHRO report, AI Flight 182 Case, states “On October 14, 1992, a high-level decision was conveyed to the police that Parmar had to be killed...The contradiction in the FIR and post-mortem report (PMR) is too obvious. As per the FIR, Parmar was killed by AK-47 fire by SSP Satish K Sharma from a rooftop. The PMR shows the line of fire of the three bullets is different. It cannot be if one person is firing from a fixed position. The PMR is very sketchy and no chemical analysis was done. Moreover, the time of death is between 12am and 2am according to the PMR, whereas the FIR records the time of death at 5.30am.” Then Jalandhar SSP and now IGP, Satish K Sharma, denied the charge. “It was a clean encounter. The RCMP is bringing this up because they botched their investigations and failed to get convictions,” he said.

Tehelka

BIHAR TO HELP INDO-MAURITIANS TRACE ANCESTRAL ROOTS

Mauritians of Indian origin, most of them from Bihar, will no longer find it difficult to trace their roots with the state government setting up a special cell to aid them. State Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who is visiting Mauritius later this month, said he understood the pain of Mauritians of Bihar origin who are desperate to discover their ancestral lineage. His government would collaborate with Mauritius to prepare a comprehensive database of all Biharis who had migrated to the Indian Ocean country in an effort to help them track their roots.
A large number of Biharis, known as Girmitiya labourers, had travelled to various parts of the world, including Mauritius, in the 19th century to work in sugarcane and rubber plantations. The Bihar chief minister will visit Mauritius from July 27-31 on a special invitation of the Mauritian government. He will attend the Bihar Week there and address the National Assembly of Mauritius. Mauritius University will confer a doctorate degree on him. Prime Minister Navinchandra Ramgoolam invited Kumar to inaugurate the Bihar Week celebrations being organised by the Global Organisation of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) in collaboration with the Mauritius government.
The week will mark the contribution of the people from Bihar to the island nation. It will also showcase the cultural bond between the two places, Mauritius High Commissioner to India Mukteshwar Chuni said. The Bihar Week celebrations in Mauritius will be the first of its kind outside India. It will help attract investments to the state and establish people-to-people contact on a bigger scale, officials said. "Our great grandfathers had sailed from India to Mauritius and had made important contributions to the socio-economic development of the country," Chuni said.
"The people of Mauritius have an emotional bond with Bihar as nearly 70 per cent people there are of Bihari origin," he said. The Bihar government had announced early this year that it would install a lifesize statue of former Mauritius Prime Minister Sir Seewoosagur Ramgoolam, who originally hailed from Bihar. Ramgoolam, who belonged to a village in Bihar's Saran district, was the first prime minister of Mauritius from 1961 to 1982. He is considered to be the father of the nation as he led his country to independence from Britain.
Chuni said Mauritius would help develop Ramgoolam's native village in Bihar as a historical and tourist destination. About 70 per cent of the 1.2 million population of Mauritius is of Indian extraction, a large number of them from Bihar with Bhojpuri as their native language.

14,000 ATTEND TELUGU MEET IN US ADDRESSED BY BILL CLINTON

Over 14,000 people attended the Telugus' conference in Washington DC, July 5-7, addressed by former President Bill Clinton, former Andhra Pradesh chief minister N Chandrababu Naidu and spiritual guru Sri Sri Ravi Shankar. The 16th biennial conference was organised by Telugu Association of North America (TANA) representing 2,50,000 Telugus in the US and Canada. It was attended by Chief Minister YS Rajasekhara Reddy's emissary, Heavy Industries Minister J Geeta Reddy, and the Union minister of state for HRD, Daggupati Purandhareshwari, besides business leaders and film stars.
Clinton, in his keynote address at the conference opening, referred to talk in the US about outsourcing to India. "What about in-sourcing?" he asked, referring to the Indians settled here who contributed significantly to the US economy. Clinton's remark, a TANA spokesperson said, was "an electrifying moment for the Indian community." Clinton added that India was becoming more and more important in the world. He cited the example of an AIDS medicine whose prices US manufacturers had to cut drastically because of competition from Indian pharma companies.
Clinton's presence at the conference was made possible by K Krishna Prasad, a Detroit businessman, who presented a $1 million check to the Bill Clinton Foundation. Prasad, also a conference sponsor, has been encouraging Telugus to make their presence felt in US politics. Telugus held a separate fundraiser for presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton in the city on July 5. The final sum raised was not available but it was said to be more than the $1 million they had pledged.
In his message to TANA, Chief Minister Reddy asked NRI Telugus to set up businesses back home, assuring them that their proposals would be cleared within a fortnight from a 'single window'. Naidu too looked for more NRI involvement in the state. "They should pool resources, adopt villages and develop them," he said. He also announced that he had raised $1 million for NTR Trust, which will use the funds for uplift of the poor. He is its managing trustee. The trust was set up in the memory of NT Rama Rao, former Andhra Pradesh chief minister and Naidu's father-in-law.
The business forum themes at the convention included biotech/pharma, IT, entrepreneurship/venture capital and real estate. They drew Telugu business and technology leaders from India and abroad. Prominent among the people at the forum were Vikram Akula, founder-chief of SKS Microfinance named Time magazine's 100 most influential people; KI Varaprasad Reddy, MD of Shantha Biotech; and Ramachandra Naidu Galla, chairman of Amararaja Batteries. Addressing the business forum, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, Art of Living founder, said: "India had a tradition of entrepreneurship before the British Raj turned us into babus. That tradition has been revived now and needs to be encouraged."
The conference theme was the promotion of the Telugu language, following concerns that it is being edged out by English. N Balakrishna, leading Telugu film star and NTR's son, directed and played the lead role in Telugu Vijayam, a stage production about Krishnadevaraya, the 16th century king of the Vijayanagara empire, coming to earth and inquiring about the plight of the Telugu language today. Other celebrities at the convention included film heroine Illeana, comedian Sunil, dancer Shobha Naidu and thespian Gummadi. Actor Mahesh Babu dropped out at the last minute.
The convention also attracted second generation Telugu professionals. Three hundred of them had pre-registered for matchmaking. A tenth of them reportedly succeeded in finding suitable matches. Yadla Hema Prasad was the conference convenor. At the conference, presidentship of TANA passed from Bandla Hanumiaiah to Prabhakar Chowdhury, who runs an accounting firm in Houston. The next TANA conference will be held in 2009 in Orlando, Florida.

6 YEARS FOR BEATING 2 INDO CANDIAN MEN TO DEATH

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has sentenced a 17-year-old boy to six years in prison for his part in the vicious beatings of two Indo-Canadian seniors in Surrey's Bear Creek Park in July 2005. The youth was found guilty of manslaughter, aggravated assault and robbery after he and another teen attacked the two elderly men with baseball bats in two separate attacks. Shingara Singh Thandi, 76, died of his injuries three weeks later in hospital. Mewa Singh Bains, 83, died of a stroke a month after the brutal attack. The other teen was sentenced to 3 years in April this year.

In delivering his sentence at the New Westminster courthouse on Thursday, Justice William Grist said he considered the extreme youth of the boy, even though he's been sentenced as an adult. But the judge said he also considered the magnitude of the crime, noting that both seniors died following the beatings. The youth, who has been in custody for 23 months, will now have to serve another 49 months. The Crown had asked for a seven-year sentence.

Families of the victims are not happy with the sentence. Mewa Singh Bains' son Dalvinder Bains said the sentence is too less and doesn't give a strong message to other youngsters against committing such a gruesome crime. Jhalmal Thandi, Shingara Singh Thandi's son, said the sentence wasn't decided in accordance to the crime.

RANDHAWA GETS 12 YEARS FOR KIDNAPPING

A Surrey man who kidnapped a 22-year-old woman for ransom has been given 12 years and two months in jail for the January abduction of a Surrey businessman’s daughter. Amandeep Randhawa, 26 was sentenced today. He’d earlier pleaded guilty to kidnapping and robbery.
Surrey Provincial Court judge Peder Gulbransen also imposed a 10-year ban on owning firearms. Randhawa’s co-accused, Gurpreet Hundal, 33, is scheduled to begin a B.C. Supreme Court trial in New Westminster on Sept. 17 on charges of assault causing bodily harm, kidnapping with intent to hold for ransom, unlawful confinement, extortion and robbery.

Both men were arrested after the adult daughter of Surrey entrepreneur Jeet Jaswal was kidnapped and held for ransom by two abductors who demanded what RCMP described as “a large sum of money” from her family. It was several hours before she was freed. Jaswal owns MJM Furniture Showcase, a chain that describes itself as “one of the largest independent furniture stores in the Lower Mainland of B.C.” with outlets in Surrey, Coquitlam and Abbotsford.

JATINDER WARAICH'S TRIAL STARTS JUNE 16, 2008

Surrey: The murder trial for Jatinder Waraich will start on June 16, 2008, at the New Westminster Supreme Court. The trial will go on for 10 days and the jury will be selected on May 26, 2008. The trial date was fixed on May 17, 2007.

On the same day, Jatinder and Navreet Waraich's son's custody hearing was held at the Surrey provincial court. The interesting thing is that Jatinder too has applied for his son's custody. And, therefore, Children and Family Development Ministry has now intervened to ensure Jatinder doesn't get the custody. The custody fight is going on between the maternal and paternal grandparents. The baby at present lives with maternal grandparents, Dalwinder Kaur Gill and Dilbag Singh Gill. The decision regarding the custody would be made on October 23, 2007. The next hearing is on August 2, 2007.

WHY DONT'T MORE INDIAN FILMS DO WELL GLOBALLY

The big cultural movie gap between India's vast film market and the rest of the world acts inhibits the nation's films from conquering new territory in global markets, a forum at the Cannes Film Festival was told on Sunday. "There is a huge rupture in tone, style and taste between Indian films and winners at international film festivals," Cameron Bailey, a representative of the Toronto Film Festival told the forum on Indian filmmaking. "Indian filmmakers could do more to educate audience about how to watch Indian films," he said.
The forum, hosted by Indian filmmaker and Cannes veteran Krishna Shah as well as Hollywood film producer Bhuvan Lall, sought answers to the lack of global box office acclaim for Indian film productions. Bailey went on to point out that films by Indian directors like Deepa Mehta's "Water" and Mira Nair's "The Namesake" had enjoyed international success because "their filmmaking sensibilities do not come from India, but from other cultures." The Indian movie business' lack of success in international markets compares to the recent accomplishments chalked up by South Korean, Iranian or Chinese filmmakers. No Indian film has yet earned $100 million globally or won a top film award.
This is despite the recent popularity of Bollywood movies, which some Indian filmmakers see as undercutting their attempts to forge a new global reputation for their country's industry. "Bollywood is stifling," Indian filmmaker Piyush Jha said. Jha, a director whose films include "Chalo America" and "The King of Bollywood", added, "Every time I go to a distributor and say I'm Indian, they say 'Oh, Bollywood' and the accompanying label of song and dance routines attached to that, have to be overcome yet again."
This year's Cannes is marking the co-anniversaries of 60 years of Indian independence and 60 years of the festival with a two-day mini-festival focusing on Indian cinema, which is being mounted as part of Cannes' Tous les Cinemas du Monde (Cinema of the world) section. Altogether, seven Indian films will be screened to reflect the linguistic, historical and creative depth of the nation's moviemaking and the growth of Bollywood. The Indian film business also has a big presence at the festival, as a consequence helping to compensate for the lack of entries in the competition this year.
But Hannah Fisher, a representative of the Bangkok Film Festival, said dealing with the Indian film business was extremely confusing as there were so many states on the sub-continent, making it a very bureaucratic and slow-moving process. Fischer went on to say she also "would like to tone down the melodramatics" in Indian films. Villages in an Indian film appear "glossy and not realistic" as in a Chinese film, said Mira Advari, a representative of the Hollywood Reporter. She also stressed that audiences have to be able to relate to the manner in which a story is told.
Apart from these factors, Derek Malcolm, film reviewer for London's daily Evening Standard, said one problem facing many Indian films was that they were very long and that the quality of their print was very poor. The subtitles are awful and done by bureaucrats in India, Malcolm said. Canadian movie producer David Hamilton believes that while film-making skills are available in India, the business side of the nation's movie sector needs to step up the pressure on the country's filmmakers.

FORMER CRICKETER MANINDER ARRESTED WITH COCAINE

Former Indian cricketer Maninder Singh was arrested along with a suspected drug peddler in New Delhi late on Tuesday and an amount of cocaine recovered from him. Sleuths of Delhi Police' Anti-Narcotics Cell conducted raids at Maninder's east Delhi residence and arrested the duo. The courier was identified as Sayan Siddique. "Maninder was nabbed near Preet Vihar area and one-and-a-half grams of the banned narcotics recovered from him. We were keeping a close watch over the two for the past 15 days," a senior police official said.

CANADIAN TEMPLE IN NEED OF GOVERNMENT FUNDS

A Hindu temple, which was burnt down after 9/11, was repeatedly rejected financial help from the provincial government even though millions were handed out to other multicultural groups, alleges the Ontario-based temple's outgoing secretary. "I see everyday in the newspapers that the government is handing out money to various organisations and I appreciate it, but why are you forgetting us?" Ram Kamath of Hamilton's Hindu Samaj Temple said. Community members are upset by reports that other multicultural organisations that received grant money apparently had links to the Liberal party, Ram added. "The Ontario government has ignored the community's pleas for help," the Toronto Star newspaper quoted Kamath as saying.

The government has said that no money was available for religious projects, adding that the funds could only go to community groups. Kamath said the temple doubled as a community centre - with free services, including classes in traditional languages, religion, song and dance. MP Andrea Horwath said she has raised the temple's cause in the legislature several times. "They (the temple authorities) are very frustrated because the message they continued to get for the last five years is that there are no funds available," she said. "They were extremely shocked to find out that for a select few, in fact, there were funds available to the groups that I guess had an inside track," the MP added.

TEEN SENTENCED TO THREE YEARS IN BEATING DEATH OF TWO INDO CANADIAN MEN

A young offender has been sentenced to three years in custody in connection with the vicious beatings of two elderly Indo-Canadian men in a park in Surrey. The 15-year-old boy, who had been found guilty of manslaughter, aggravated assault and robbery, received the maximum sentence under the Youth Criminal Justice Act. In July 2005, Mewa Singh Bains, 83, and Shingara Singh Thandi, 76, were beaten with baseball bats by two teenagers in the public washrooms at Bear Creek Park. Thandi died three weeks later in hospital. Bains, who was beaten the day before Thandi, died of a stroke a month after being attacked. The boys, who cannot be identified because they were 13 and 15 at the time of the attack, had initially been charged with second-degree murder in the beating death of Thandi.

But the charge was reduced to manslaughter after B.C. Supreme Court Justice William Grist said the boys lacked the experience and foresight to show murderous intent. The two youths were not charged with murder in Bains's death because it could not be linked directly to the attack. In handing down his sentence on the one teen Wednesday, Grist said he considered the violent nature of the attacks on Bains and Thandi. He said the actions of the teen were shocking considering he was only 13 at the time. Grist acknowledged the youth expressed remorse for his actions but questioned if he was really sorry for what he did.

Families outraged

The families of the men expressed outrage at the sentence. Thandi's son Jhalman said the justice system has ignored his family's loss. "What [the judge] should keep in mind [is] that they killed two people and it was a planned attack, it did not happen … accidentally." The mother of the teen — who, under a court order, can't be identified — expressed her condolences to both families. "I feel really bad for what my son has done, but I just want to let them know that we're praying for them and their families." The second teen will be sentenced as an adult in mid-June.

INDIA PROTESTS PORTRAYAL OF TERRORIST AS A MARTYR IN SURREY VAISAKHI PARADE

Vancouver: The government of India is launching a diplomatic protest over a parade in Surrey this month that included a float with alleged terrorist leader Talwinder Singh Parmar portrayed as a Sikh martyr. "We are very much concerned that this happened," said Zile Singh, India's deputy consul-general. "Diplomats from the High Commission office in Ottawa intend to raise the matter with the Canadian officials," he added. "This is not acceptable to us. We intend to convey that it is not acceptable, so the [Canadian] government understands. This should not happen again."

Parmar, a militant Khalistani advocate, has been identified in a B.C. court case as the mastermind behind a mid-air bomb explosion aboard an Air-India flight in 1985, en route from Canada to London, England. Born in Punjab and later made a Canadian citizen, he was killed by police during an encounter in India in 1992. There were 329 people killed in the Air-India bombing, which remains one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in aviation history. Singh said the portrayal of Parmar as a martyr was "very objectionable."

Indian officials were also concerned that some people involved in the parade showed their support for groups considered terrorist organizations and banned in Canada, the International Sikh Youth Federation and Babbar Khalsa. The Sikh community in Greater Vancouver holds two competing parades to mark the beginning of the harvest season in Punjab. Gurdwara Sahib Dasmesh Darbar of Surrey held its annual Vaisakhi parade this year on April 7. The Vaisakhi Parade organized by Vancouver's Khalsa Diwan Society was held on Aoril 14.

The parade in Surrey attracted thousands of people including prominent B.C. and federal politicians. The parade had a float that included Parmar among the portraits of Sikh martyrs and some organizers wore work jackets with the word "Khalistan," the name proposed for an independent state for the Sikhs carved out of India.

DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SURVIVOR SPEAKS OUT

A Port Coquitlam woman who survived being shot in the face by her estranged husband is speaking out against what she calls an epidemic of domestic violence in the Indo-Canadian community. In an exclusive interview with CBC News, Gurjeet Kaur Ghuman described how her husband climbed into her car last October in Port Coquitlam with a gun, shot her and then turned the gun on himself. Gurjeet Kaur Ghuman was left blind after her husband shot her twice in the head in October. Parmajit Singh Ghuman died, but the woman he intended to kill lived. "He actually shot me twice in my head, one right by my eyes and one right through my brain," she said. Ghuman, who is now blind, said she felt the need to tell her story because so many other Indo-Canadian women in B.C.'s Lower Mainland have been victims of domestic violence. Several have not survived.

NAVEEN ANDREWS UPSET OVER NOT KNOWNING HINDI

British Indian actor Naveen Andrews, who plays Aishwarya Rai's abusive husband in Provoked, calls himself a fraud because he can't speak Hindi. Andrews' parents migrated to Britain in 1965 and endured all kinds of hardship and racism before his birth. Now, the Lost star is ashamed of himself and feels bad for his parents who might be disappointed in him because he can neither speak their mother tongue nor does he have any interest in discovering his roots, reports www.hollywood.tv. "As I get older I appreciate what my parents had to go through... They had to endure a lot of what I would've found unendurable," he said. "Life was very hard for them and yet they had this kid (Andrews) growing up in the 1970s speaking differently, acting differently, moving differently. It must've been very distressing to them. I'm a complete fraud. I go to India and I can't even speak my own language. They laugh at me."

SUNITA WILLIAMS TO RUN BOSTON MARATHON - IN SPACE

Of the 24,000 runners taking part in the Boston Marathon this year, one woman is planning to join from more than 300 km above the actual venue. Sunita Williams, an Indian-American astronaut in the middle of a six-month stint in orbit on the International Space Station, is an official entrant in the April 16 race. A Massachusetts native, Williams plans to run the 42 km on the space station's treadmill as the first person to participate in a marathon from space. She even has a so-called bib number, 14,000, forwarded to her electronically by the Boston Athletic Association.
Williams, 41, qualified for the race by finishing among the top 100 women in last year's Houston Marathon, with a time of three hours, 29 minutes and 57 seconds, and has been working up her stamina in space over the last few months. "I think it's going as well as it can go," Williams said in interviews from the ISS broadcast on NASA TV, noting that she had already completed a 16-mile (25.6-km) run in preparation. "I think I'm almost there." The conditions are not quite the same.

There is no way of simulating the Boston race's most infamous stretch, known to runners as Heartbreak Hill: "Thank God, we can't," said Williams. But for anyone who thinks being in orbit gives an advantage, running on a treadmill in nearly gravity-less space carries its own challenges. "The treadmill itself isn't the easiest thing to run on," Williams said in a televised interview from the station with The Boston Globe. "It's going to be a little bit of a pain." The hip and shoulders of Williams will be strapped into a harness, connected to the treadmill by bungee chords.