As the New Year races on, World Sikh News re­flects on the year gone by and calls 2017 Year of the Sikh Di­as­pora. WSN also lists Sikh News­mak­ers of 2017 who have been the talk of the Sikh world and who have made a mark in their fields of en­deav­our.

2017 -Year of the Sikh Di­as­pora: With un­par­al­leled con­tri­bu­tion, Sikhs in the Di­as­pora brought re­lief and cheer to the Sikh world. For the Sikhs, the year 2017 as clearly the Year of the Sikh Di­as­pora.  The Sikh Di­as­pora brought cheer to the Sikhs. Sikh min­is­ters in the Cab­i­net of Canada, an in­creas­ing num­ber of mem­bers of Par­lia­ment of Pun­jabi and Sikh ori­gin in the same coun­try, the first Sikh fe­male judge of a se­nior court in Canada, in­creas­ing num­bers of par­tic­i­pants in the pub­lic life of USA, Eu­rope, Great Britain, the Pa­cific and South­east Asia -all con­tributed to the Sikh Di­as­pora dom­i­nat­ing the Sikh thought processes.  Ac­tive in­ter­ven­tion and on­line in­dul­gence in de­vel­op­ments in the Sikh home­land in var­i­ous spheres im­pacted the Sikhs in Pun­jab and other parts of In­dia. 

2017 as the Year of Sikh Cana­di­ans: In many ways, it was also the year of Sikh Cana­di­ans. Sikh politi­cians, par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, min­is­ters, judges and sportsper­sons -all had re­mark­able achieve­ments. The Cana­dian air space be­came more Sikh-friendly by al­low­ing Sikhs to carry small kir­pans on air flights. Sikh Cana­dian sports­peo­ple made it big in hith­erto banned sports and Sikhs whole­somely sup­ported queer com­mu­ni­ties as well as fully backed the abo­rig­i­nals. 

The Sikh Di­as­pora made its mark -fair and square. Hold­ing the Sikh head high, stand­ing up for the tur­ban and the Sikh iden­tity, ad­her­ing to the ba­sics of Sikhism, stu­dents, artists, so­cial wel­fare or­gan­i­sa­tions, ad­vo­cacy groups, busi­nessper­sons, CEOs, politi­cians, writ­ers and sports­men -all have risen to the the zenith of their in­di­vid­ual glory and have made the Sikh com­mu­nity proud world­wide.  

Books, movies, videos, paint­ings, speeches, rep­re­sen­ta­tions, in­ter­ven­tions in court  and ad­vo­cacy of con­cern be­yond the Sikh do­main, mak­ing an im­pact on the en­vi­ron­ment, reach­ing out to the com­mu­ni­ties through na­tion­wide cam­paigns -all have seen the Sikh Di­as­pora rise to the call of the times.  

We hope and pray that notwith­stand­ing the dif­fi­cult times faced from time to time, Sikhs in the Di­as­pora will stay stead­fast and fo­cussed. Home­land Sikhs ex­pect that they will bring in their suc­cess sto­ries and repli­cate them in Pun­jab too.

WSN cau­tions that as com­pe­ti­tion within the Sikh sphere in the Di­as­pora builds up, com­mu­nity lead­ers may en­deav­our to im­bibe the in­clu­sive poli­cies and prac­tices of the coun­tries they dwell in and not re­vive their caste, class or other di­vi­sive traits which sur­face in the face of com­pe­ti­tion and mar the rep­u­ta­tion and de­mo­c­ra­tic work­ing of the Sikh peo­ple -so­cially, re­li­giously and po­lit­i­cally. Any such de­vel­op­ment will be detri­men­tal to the smooth and amaz­ing progress of Sikhs in the Di­as­pora. 

Within In­dian too, we had a mix of good and not-so-good Sikh news­mak­ers. Politi­cians and re­li­gious per­sona dom­i­nate news and so it is with news­mak­ers too. How­ever we have a mix of books and web­sites too.  While Canada made air space Sikh-friendly by al­low­ing Kir­pans, the Cen­tral Board of Sec­ondary Ed­u­ca­tion in In­dia has framed a pol­icy to dis­al­low Sikh stu­dents with Karas and Kir­pans to ex­am­i­na­tion halls. News­pa­per Hin­dus­tan Times tested Sikh anger by dis­play­ing a Sikh smok­ing a cigar, which has not re­sulted in an up­surge of anger against the pub­li­ca­tion lead­ing a lame-duck apol­ogy and con­tin­u­ing to dis­play the im­age on the web­site. 

As we move closer to 2019 -the 550th year of the ad­vent of Guru Nanak, it is time to evolve the Com­mon­wealth of the Khalsa with ap­pro­pri­ate Sikh-like be­hav­iour, Chardikala at­ti­tude, in­clu­sive strate­gies, fo­cussed tar­get-ori­ented ap­proach, in­ter­nal de­mo­c­ra­tic func­tion­ing, healthy crit­i­cism, seek­ing so­lu­tions to long pend­ing is­sues and prob­lems and a deep in­volve­ment in con­flict-res­o­lu­tion in the per­sonal, re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal do­main in re­spec­tive coun­tries and col­lec­tively for the Sikh peo­ple.

WSN pre­sents the top Sikh News­mak­ers for 2017

Jag­meet Singh: Un­ques­tion­ably, the rise of young, dash­ing, debonair, de­ter­mined Jag­meet Singh to be­come the leader of the Na­tional De­mo­c­ra­tic Party in Canada and lead the party to the next par­lia­men­tary elec­tions as a Prime Min­is­te­r­ial can­di­date is a huge leap for the in­di­vid­ual, a gi­ant stride for Sikh Cana­di­ans and a proud mo­ment for the Sikh world. For a be­lea­guered com­mu­nity, barely 2 per­cent in num­ber, Jag­meet Singh’s pol­i­tics, rooted in truth­ful­ness, in­clu­sive­ness and a bold out­look to­wards hu­man rights, is a trib­ute to the mul­ti­cul­tural cos­mos of Canada and a cul­mi­na­tion of the 100 years of ex­is­ten­tial strug­gle of the Sikhs in Canada.

Har­jit Singh Saj­jan: From the strug­gle to join the armed forces as a mil­i­tary re­cruit to be­come the Na­tional De­fence Min­is­ter of Canada, the soft-spo­ken, suave, gen­tle Har­jit Singh Saj­jan has brought re­spect to the Sikhs world­wide.  The mar­tial Sikh tra­di­tion has got a big boost with the Sikhs seen not just as sol­diers but as gen­er­als too. His in­ter­ac­tion with mil­i­tary au­thor­i­ties and de­fence min­is­ters across the world are widely cir­cu­lated by Sikhs in the so­cial me­dia with deep re­spect and awe. His visit to Pun­jab was in the spirit of a true Pun­jabi stick­ing to his roots.

Tan­man­jeet Singh Dhesi: The multi-re­li­gious, multi-cul­tural con­stituents of the Slough con­stituency in the UK elected the hand­some, lin­guist, so­cially-minded Tan­man­jeet Singh Dhesi as the first tur­baned Sikh Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment and his pres­ence in the por­tals of the House of Com­mons brings pride to the com­mu­nity not only in that coun­try but world­wide. His fo­cus on so­cial causes world­wide, in­clud­ing the con­cern for Ro­hingya Mus­lims is ex­em­plary of his large-heart­ed­ness and deep com­mit­ment to hu­man rights.

Pal­binder Kaur Shergill: A woman, a Sikh woman, nay a tur­baned Sikh woman, Pal­binder Kaur Shergill reached the high ech­e­lons of the Cana­dian ju­di­ciary, when she be­came the first Sikh lady judge of the Supreme Court of British Co­lum­bia in New West­min­ster. Her ju­di­cial ac­tivism for wor­thy Sikh causes and those of other com­mu­ni­ties has been ap­pre­ci­ated and ap­plauded. 

Harinder Kaur Malhi:  Mem­ber of the Provin­cial Par­lia­ment of On­tario, daugh­ter of the il­lus­tri­ous first tur­baned Sikh Mem­ber Par­lia­ment Gur­bux Singh Malhi, she boldly pre­sented, with sup­port from her Sikh col­leagues, and got ap­proved a mo­tion call­ing the No­vem­ber 1984 Sikh killings as geno­cide. Ob­vi­ously the guilty state of In­dia was hugely up­set but that has not de­terred the young politi­cian.

Navdeep Singh Bains: A mem­ber of the kitchen cab­i­net of the Cana­dian Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau and his con­fi­dante, af­ter his elec­tion as a par­lia­men­tar­ian, Navdeep Singh Bains is the Cana­dian Min­is­ter of In­no­va­tion, Sci­ence and Eco­nomic De­vel­op­ment. Rac­ing from one part of Canada to an­other, from one Com­mon­wealth coun­try to an­other, Navdeep Singh is mak­ing the right moves for Cana­dian com­mer­cial and eco­nomic progress.

Ms. Bardish Chag­gar:  Adding to the ever in­creas­ing Sikh women pres­ence in Cana­dian pol­i­tics, Ms. Bardish Chag­gar is the par­lia­men­tar­ian from the Wa­ter­loo rid­ing and the Cana­dian min­is­ter for Small Busi­ness and Tourism. With her ef­fec­tive role as an ac­tivist with the Kitch­ener-Wa­ter­loo Mul­ti­cul­tural Cen­tre, Ms. Bardish Chag­gar is a dis­tin­guished com­mu­nity per­son en­hanc­ing peo­ple’s par­tic­i­pa­tion in pub­lic life.

Ruby Sa­hota:  Join­ing Sikhs at the un­furl­ing of the Sikh flag -Nis­han Sahib in the fore­ground of the Cana­dian Par­lia­ment in Ot­tawa, par­lia­men­tar­ian Ruby Sa­hota ap­plauded the con­tri­bu­tion of Sikhs and other mi­grants. Her web­site aptly de­scribes her as “ a ded­i­cated mother of a four-year-old and a nat­ural leader, she is pas­sion­ate about en­gag­ing the youth vote, and is ex­pe­ri­enced in gal­va­niz­ing peo­ple to­ward a com­mon goal.”

Sarab­jit Singh Mar­wah: Cana­dian Prime Min­is­ter Justin Trudeau ap­pointed to the Cana­dian sen­ate for­mer se­nior banker and founder of Sikh Foun­da­tion of Canada Sarab­jit Singh Mar­wah “to show­case the rich di­ver­sity of Sikh and South Asian art and cul­ture”.  Kolkata-born Sabi Mar­wah, as he is gen­er­ally known has served on the boards of many fa­mous Cana­dian in­sti­tu­tions such as the Toronto Star, the Toronto In­ter­na­tional Film Fes­ti­val, the C.D. Howe In­sti­tute, the Royal On­tario Mu­seum, the United Way Cam­paign, and the Hos­pi­tal for Sick Chil­dren.

The Na­tional Sikh Aware­ness Cam­paign: Stung by ris­ing hate crime against the Sikhs in the US and the ap­palling lack of aware­ness about the Sikh peo­ple, ac­tivist and in­flu­encer Dr Ra­jwant Singh lead a fo­cussed US-wide me­dia and so­cial aware­ness cam­paign on “Who are Sikhs?”  While the re­sults are still pour­ing in for this ex­pen­sive en­deav­our, there is def­i­nitely a height­ened in­ter­est about the iden­tity of the Sikhs in the me­dia and in the aca­d­e­mics. Ex­i­gen­cies of con­stituency pol­i­tics has been in­flu­enced with politi­cians tai­lor­ing their out­reach to in­clude the needs and as­pi­ra­tions of the Sikh peo­ple.

Khalsa Aid:The pres­ence of Khalsa Aid in Bangladesh to feed and care for the Ro­hingya refugees from Myan­mar made the or­gan­i­sa­tion make a mark in the Mus­lim world who were agog with praise and sup­port to the In­dian and other rep­re­sen­ta­tives who gave a to­tally new twist to Sikh Lan­gar tra­di­tion.  With his readi­ness to move in the most dif­fi­cult ter­rains, Ravi Singh is ably demon­strat­ing the Bhai Ghanaiya Ji tra­di­tion of the Sikhs.

Lord In­dar­jit Singh:  85 year old Lord Singh of Wim­ble­don, one of the two oc­to­ge­nar­ian Lords of the British House of Lords, Lord In­dar­jit Singh CBE won the Life­time Achieve­ment Award at the 17th An­nual Asian Achiev­ers Awards. He has stood stead­fast to his view about Sikhs and eth­nic­ity and the de­bate con­tin­ues un­abated. As the di­rec­tor of the Net­work of Sikh Or­gan­i­sa­tions (UK), he is the chief rep­re­sen­ta­tive of the Sikhs at British of­fi­cial func­tions. His ra­dio talks have a good au­di­ence, his in­ter­faith di­a­logues are ad­mired and he con­tin­ues to in­spire many through his writ­ings and speeches.

Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja: Ace trav­eller and so­cial me­dia in­flu­encer, WSN as­so­ci­ate Har­jin­der Singh Kukreja gar­nered a mil­lion Twit­ter fol­low­ers through so­cial ac­tivism, sup­port to hu­man­i­tar­ian causes, dar­ing to go where no one has gone be­fore, up­hold­ing the sanc­tity of the tur­ban, do­ing sports feats and en­gag­ing his fol­low­ers on a reg­u­lar ba­sis for unique events and causes.

Sik­li­gar Sikhs: For­got­ten no more, Sik­li­gar Sikhs -the tra­di­tional weapon mak­ers of the Sikhs, ho­n­oured by the Gu­rus, now dis­con­nected from the Sikh world, made a come­back into the Sikh psy­che af­ter a few of their ilk were hounded by the In­dian po­lice for their weapon-mak­ing skills. It is heart­en­ing to note that many in the coun­try and the Di­as­pora are now fo­cussing on im­prov­ing their habi­tat, im­part­ing ed­u­ca­tion to their chil­dren and mak­ing a dif­fer­ence in their lives.

Harvin­dar Singh: A young Sik­li­gar Sikh, one of the first grad­u­ates in So­cial Work, an ac­tivist of the A Lit­tle Hap­pi­ness Foun­da­tion, passed away be­cause of a rare kid­ney ail­ment. He made a huge im­pact through his ac­tivism in the lives of Sik­li­gar youth -boys and girls in Al­war, Jaipur, Agra, Kas­ganj and Delhi. His fam­ily and friends now man­age the Harvin­dar Singh Cen­tre of Learn­ing in Al­war. 

J.J. Singh Ka­pur: All of 20, the en­er­getic, ef­fer­ves­cent, smil­ing J. J. Singh Ka­pur de­liv­ered the Speech of 2017, when he won the Orig­i­nal Or­a­tory Con­cert or­gan­ised by the Na­tional Speech and De­bate As­so­ci­a­tion of the USA.  His word de­liv­ery in this speech and in other fo­rums com­pares to the im­promptu skills of for­mer Pres­i­dent of the US -Barack Obama.

The Black Prince: The movie on the life of the last Ma­haraja of the Sikhs caught the fancy of Sikhs across the Sikh world, notwith­stand­ing the naysay­ers and nit-pick­ers.  With­out join­ing cause with the his­toric­ity of each frame and se­quence, this first Sikh Hol­ly­wood movie in three lan­guages not only evinced in­ter­est about Sikhs, but also about Sikh Raj amongst Sikhs and non-Sikhs alike.

When Ab­dal­i’s Palan­quin Trem­bled: Ajay Singh Brar and his sis­ter Navjot Kaur in their new style pro­vide an in­sight into the Sikh Raj in this book. In the words of the au­thors, “This book is an en­deav­our to study the Misl pe­riod of the Sikh his­tory and un­der­stand the re­cent past and pre­sent. Misl pe­riod, be­sides be­ing one of the most trau­matic pe­ri­ods for the Sikh Quam, was also a pe­riod of com­plete meta­mor­pho­sis.”  Mar­veling the role of the Sikhs, the book demon­strates how “dur­ing the in­va­sions of Ah­mad Shah Ab­dali, an Afghan war­lord and a more pow­er­ful for­eign in­vader than the Mughals, the Sikhs from be­ing free­boot­ers and plun­der­ers turned into an elite fighter force and sov­er­eign rulers.”

The World Sikh News:  A new star on the hori­zon of Sikh jour­nal­ism, the launch of The World Sikh News has been wel­comed in the Sikh world and the WSN team is happy to share that the true Sikh per­spec­tive on world events and Sikh de­vel­op­ments has been ap­pre­ci­ated and well re­ceived. The WSN team will strive to do more and con­tinue its mis­sion to be­come the Sikh me­dia of the fu­ture, be­cause the truth needs to be told.

Mool Nanakshahi Cal­en­dar App: Tech­nol­ogy over­rides whims and fan­cies of lead­ers who en­tan­gle a com­mu­nity in a rot. This app, ap­plic­a­ble uni­ver­sally, is a tool de­vel­oped to en­sure that the anom­alies of the Bikrami cal­en­dar, the goofs of his­to­ri­ans and the un­nec­es­sary in­ter­ven­tion of self-pro­claimed his­to­ri­ans is to­tally done away with. To syn­chro­nise the so­cial and re­li­gious of Sikhs in all coun­tries, adop­tion of this will make per­sonal and so­cial lives easy. It will also en­able re­spec­tive coun­tries to de­clare Sikh hol­i­days should they choose to do so.

Ajay Singh Banga: Mas­ter­card Global CEO Ajay­pal Singh Banga makes the Sikh world proud of his con­tri­bu­tion in mak­ing the world “free of pa­per money.” He is known to have said, “my com­pe­ti­tion is with money.”  Mas­ter­card Pres­i­dent Ajay­pal Singh Banga was be­stowed with many pres­ti­gious awards in 2017. The Asian Awards called him as the Most In­flu­en­tial Busi­ness Leader in the World whereas he re­ceived the Hero Hunger Award from the World Food Pro­gramme for his con­tri­bu­tion in as­sist­ing 2.2 mil­lion refugees in Syria and Lebanon. 

Preet Kaur Gill: Preet Kaur Gill is the first fe­male British Labour Co-op­er­a­tive Sikh Mem­ber Par­lia­ment from Birm­ing­ham Edg­bas­ton who was backed by many Sikh groups but had the over­whelm­ing sup­port of other con­stituents too. She con­tin­ues to pur­sue causes of all com­mu­ni­ties.

Ravin­der Singh Bhalla: As the suc­cess sto­ries of Canada closely af­fect the po­lit­i­cal nerve of the Sikhs in the US, many young Sikhs make it big in pol­i­tics with var­i­ous posts in the US ad­min­is­tra­tion, cap­ping it all was the first elected Sikh Mayor of New Jer­sey -the young and dy­namic, well-read lawyer Ravin­der Singh Bhalla. 

Kan­waljit Singh Bak­shi:Prov­ing his met­tle, Kan­waljit Singh was elected for the fourth time in a row to the New Zealand Par­lia­ment.  Fol­low­ing him many more Sikh and other In­dian-ori­gin as­pi­rants are pur­su­ing pub­lic of­fice -from pol­i­tics to po­lice in New Zealand.

Dr. Paramjeet Kaur Par­mar: A sec­ond time Mem­ber of the New Zealand par­lia­ment, Dr. Par­m­jeet Par­mar rep­re­sents Mt Roskill, Auck­land and is a doc­tor­ate in Bi­o­log­i­cal sci­ences. Rep­re­sent­ing the Na­tional Party, she is cur­rently a mem­ber of the Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Eco­nomic De­vel­op­ment, Sci­ence and In­no­va­tion.

Man­jit Singh Puri: A ca­reer diplo­mat, typ­i­cally soft-spo­ken and fo­cussed, this gen­tle­man has served as In­dian am­bas­sador in many coun­tries and fo­rums, in­clud­ing Ger­many, Bel­gium and the United Na­tions. This year he took of­fice as In­di­a’s am­bas­sador to Nepal. He was part of In­di­a’s Se­cu­rity Coun­cil team dur­ing the years 2011-2012, when In­dia served on the UN Se­cu­rity Coun­cil.

Amar Singh: Malaysia is a Mus­lim coun­try with a Sikh po­lice chief of­fi­cer. Amar Singh suc­ceeded his Mus­lim pre­de­ces­sor and was one of the first such pub­lic per­son­al­ity of the .16 per­cent Sikhs of the Malaysian pop­u­la­tion. He is a de­scen­dant of the fam­ily which joined the Malay states po­lice forces in the early pe­riod of the last cen­tury. He is now in­charge of the Bikut Aman -as the Malaysian po­lice head­quar­ters are called. 

Sikhs in Aus­tralia: With the re­lease of the cen­sus fig­ures of Aus­tralia 2016 cen­sus, 126,000 Sikhs, be­ing 0.5 per­cent of the to­tal pop­u­la­tion, have be­come the fifth largest re­li­gious com­mu­nity in Aus­tralia.  Though Sikh set­tle­ment is 150 years old, a gush of stu­dents over the last five years has re­sulted in a huge ex­o­dus from the Pun­jab. There have been prob­lems of recog­ni­tion of the tur­ban and other 5 Ks of the Sikhs in Aus­tralian schools and pub­lic life, but with in­creas­ing pres­ence of Sikhs in po­lice and pub­lic spheres, these will likely set­tle down.

Preet Did­bal: She braved a phys­i­cal as­sault, lives life as a sin­gle mother, ad­heres to the fam­ily tra­di­tion of ris­ing out of the phoenix -a trait she learned from her par­ents. Preet Did­bal is the first fe­male Sikh mayor of Sikh-dom­i­nated Yuba city in Cal­i­for­nia. 

Man­mo­han Singh Khalsa: Doyen of Dal Khalsa, this UK based Sikh ac­tivist -a core Sikh na­tion­al­ist at heart, kept the dreams of the Sikh world alive for self-rule till his last breath. His never-say-die at­ti­tude will be re­mem­bered for a long time and will serve as an in­spi­ra­tion for up­hold­ing the dis­tinct iden­tity and sta­tus of the Sikh na­tion.

Gur­bir Singh Gre­wal: From pol­i­tics to law, the US is catch­ing up with Canada in terms of Sikh pub­lic pres­ence. Gur­bir Singh Gre­wal was nom­i­nated as the At­tor­ney Gen­eral in New Jer­sey and he was the first Sikh to get the ho­n­ours. Se­lected by Gov­er­nor-elect Phil Mur­phy, Speak­ing about Gre­wal, Gov­er­nor elect Mur­phy stated, “Our State needs some­one with a steel back­bone, who will not be afraid to stand up to Pres­i­dent Trump and the Re­pub­li­can lead­er­ship in Con­gress to pro­tect the rights and val­ues of our State and of all 9 mil­lion of our res­i­dents.”

Delhi Sikh Gur­d­wara Man­age­ment Com­mit­tee: A new man­age­ment com­mit­tee was elected un­der the pres­i­dentship of Man­jit Singh GK.  Elected rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the DS­GMC, no­tably Man­jin­der Singh Sirsa -the Gen­eral Sec­re­tary of the body chose to re­nege on their elec­tion promises and oath to God and Guru, by con­test­ing and win­ning elec­tion as an MLA and Paramjit Singh the Chair­per­son of the Dharam Par­char Com­mit­tee of the body, con­tested and won as a coun­cil­lor. Mak­ing good pub­lic noises on Sikh is­sues has been the hall­mark of DS­GMC but de­liv­er­ance on is­sues is still a far cry.  

Jathedar Gi­ani Gur­bachan Singh: The Jathedar of Akal Takht Sahib -the high­est tem­po­ral au­thor­ity of the Sikhs re­mained in the news for all the wrong rea­sons. From par­don­ing the pseudo-saint Gurmeet Ram Rahim to not tak­ing a stand on the 5 Jan­u­ary Parkash Purab of Guru Gob­ind Singh to toe­ing the Badal Akali Dal line, the Jathedar’s role was dis­cussed, de­bated and ridiculed over the so­cial me­dia a great deal.

Chief Jus­tice Jagdish Singh Ke­har: Af­ter decades of be­ing ig­nored for high of­fices in In­dia, a Sikh judge found his way to the high­est ech­e­lons of the In­dian ju­di­ciary to be­come its first Sikh Chief Jus­tice this year. Hold­ing the of­fice for barely 7 months, he main­tained his im­age as a no-non­sense judge till the last, main­tain­ing the su­premacy of the ju­di­ciary over the ex­ec­u­tive. 

Ma­haraja Amarinder Singh: Ma­haraja Amarinder Singh, the scion of the Pa­tiala dy­nasty, bounced back as the chief min­is­ter of Pun­jab, ex­pressly for “my last term in pol­i­tics”, but love for Pun­jab soon made him say that, “in the in­ter­est of Pun­jab, I may con­tinue”. With no per­cep­ti­ble change in style and achieve­ments, peo­ple of Pun­jab have ac­cepted him with­out much ex­pec­ta­tion. Farm­ers are dy­ing, hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions con­tinue and the Pun­jab as­sem­bly con­tin­ues to dys­func­tion to­tally snuff­ing out op­po­si­tion opin­ion.

KPS Gill: He died in 2017 and he died in ig­nominy. Much like the thou­sands of young Sikh rebels whom he killed ex­tra­ju­di­cially dur­ing his tenure as po­lice chief of Pun­jab. Hardly any se­nior gov­ern­ment func­tionary mourned his death while Sikhs re­called the vast hu­man rights vi­o­la­tions done by him per­son­ally and by the Pun­jab po­lice and para­mil­i­tary forces un­der him.

Sikh Farm­ers Sui­cide: With an av­er­age of 2 to 3 sui­cides a day, the provider of the food bas­ket of In­dia -the hard work­ing Sikh farmer has taken to sui­cide to get over his agony of ever-in­creas­ing debt. With the gov­ern­ment play­ing pol­i­tics over the is­sue, so­cial, re­li­gious and po­lit­i­cal or­gan­i­sa­tions have not brain­stormed to evolve a so­lu­tion.  Pun­jabis seem to have be­come im­mune to the daily sui­cide re­lated news and just skip to the next news item.

www.pun­jab­dis­ap­peared.org: The Pun­jab Doc­u­men­ta­tion and Ad­vo­cacy Pro­ject (PDAP) re­leased their in­terim re­port about dis­ap­pear­ances in Pun­jab through the 1980’s and 1990s in in­sur­gency-torn Pun­jab, through their sys­tem­atic and com­pre­hen­sive data doc­u­men­ta­tion. Keep­ing mem­o­ries alive, the re­port puts pres­sure on the In­dian state to fol­lows norms of in­ter­na­tional ju­rispru­dence and ap­por­tion blame on the guilty for crimes against hu­man­ity and try them as per in­ter­na­tion­ally recog­nised pro­ce­dures and prac­tices.

The Quest Con­tin­ues: Lost Her­itage -The Sikh Legacy in Pak­istan:  Sin­ga­pore based avid re­searcher and pho­tog­ra­pher, in­spired by the life and times of his an­ces­tors, Amardeep Singh trav­elled to Pak­istan to has done a fas­ci­nat­ing work trac­ing the im­ages of Sikh his­tory. This sec­ond vol­ume of his re­search was re­leased this year and has fur­ther en­hanced in­ter­est in con­ser­va­tion and care of re­li­gious and his­tor­i­cal mon­u­ments of Sikhs in their erst­while home­land, now in Pak­istan.  For his pic­tures, it has been aptly said, “His pic­tures come alive at every step. I can al­most hear the foot­falls of time.”

Air Mar­shal Ar­jan Singh: Oc­to­ge­nar­ian Air Mar­shal Ar­jan Singh passed away af­ter com­plet­ing his jour­ney on planet earth of 98 years, win­ning lau­rels for his brav­ery and earn­ing the dis­tinc­tion of be­ing the only of­fi­cer of the In­dian Air Force to be given a dis­tinc­tion equiv­a­lent of a Field Mar­shall. His lead­er­ship in the 1965 Indo-Pak war is re­mem­bered to this day.

Air Chief Mar­shal Biren­der Singh Dhanoa: B S Dhanoa took over as the Chief of the Air Staff on 1 Jan­u­ary 2017.   He has served as a fighter pi­lot and is an alumni of the In­dian Rashtriya In­dian Mil­i­tary Col­lege, the Na­tional De­fence Acad­emy and the De­fence Ser­vices Staff Col­lege, Welling­ton.

Sikh So­cial Me­dia Champs: With­out nam­ing any one in­di­vid­ual or or­gan­i­sa­tion, it was heart­en­ing to see the pres­sure cre­ated by Sikh so­cial me­dia ac­tivists who brought the RSS off­shoot Rashtriya Sikh San­gat to its knees when they at­tempted to rope in the Sikhs for their ob­tuse ver­sion of the 350 year cel­e­bra­tions of Guru Gob­ind Singh Ji in Delhi at the fag end of the year.

Her­man­preet Kaur: Wear­ing the 1984 shirt dur­ing her plays as a re­mem­brance for the No­vem­ber 1984 car­nage, this young all round crick­eter from Pun­jab has brought lau­rels through her sheer hard work and dili­gence. Awarded the Ar­juna Award for cricket this year by the Min­istry of Youth Af­fairs and Sports. 

Sat­deep Singh: This young film­maker through his short videos is mak­ing a huge im­pact on how the Sikhs view them­selves and how the Sikhs are viewed by oth­ers. Tak­ing a bold stand on is­sues touch­ing the Sikhs, Sat­deep Singh is the Sikh lens­man of the fu­ture.  

Teena Kaur: Mum­bai-based in­de­pen­dent film pro­ducer and di­rec­tor Teena Kaur Pas­richa, with many a doc­u­men­tary to her credit, brought to life the 33-year anti-Sikh geno­cide of No­vem­ber 1984 in Delhi through her rare doc­u­men­tary film, “When the Sun did­n’t Rise.” Ac­claimed at film fes­ti­vals, the doc­u­men­tary made through ded­i­cated re­search and per­sis­tence, is the film mak­er’s quest to get jus­tice for the vic­tims as in­di­vid­u­als and also the vic­tim com­mu­nity as a peo­ple.

Gurme­har Kaur: A stu­dent leader with strong opin­ions about pol­i­tics and pub­lic life, Delhi Uni­ver­sity stu­dent Gurme­har Kaur was chal­lenged by fire­brand na­tion­al­ists and holier-than-thou film stars and crick­eters when she raised con­cern about vi­o­lence on stu­dents cam­puses. She stood up to them and did not buckle. She is am­bas­sador for Post­cards for Peace with a clear stand on pro­mo­tion of peace in the In­dian sub­con­ti­nent.

Prof. Pan­dit Rao Dharen­navar: Kan­nadiga man Pan­dit Rao Dharen­navar, a pro­fes­sor in so­ci­ol­ogy at Gov­ern­ment Col­lege, Chandi­garh, has lit­er­ally come from the skies as a sav­iour and cham­pion of the Pun­jabi lan­guage. Hold­ing a ban­ner above his head, trav­el­ling the nook and cor­ner of Pun­jab, he has boldly chal­lenged the shrill, un­savoury and vul­gar Pun­jabi songs which are pro­mot­ing a sub-cul­ture of glo­ri­fi­ca­tion of drug abuse, women as ob­jects and the pe­cu­niary ben­e­fits of a crim­i­nal life. 

Ni­tish Ku­mar: Rarely does some­one from out­side the Sikh fold show so much grace and re­spect than that which was show­ered by Bi­har Chief Min­is­ter Ni­tish Ku­mar on the Sikh San­gat dur­ing the open­ing and clos­ing cer­e­monies of the 350th birth an­niver­sary of Guru Gob­ind Singh dur­ing 2017.  Keep­ing his pol­i­tics aside, he re­ceived well-de­served ac­co­lades from one and all and his out­look for the fu­ture of Patna Sahib has en­deared him to the Sikhs.

Hard­eep Singh Puri: The only Sikh in the Naren­dra Modi cab­i­net in In­dia, Hard­eep Singh Puri is the cur­rent Union Min­is­ter of State with In­de­pen­dent Charge in the Min­istry of Hous­ing and Ur­ban Af­fairs. The tran­si­tion from be­ing a diplo­mat to a poli­cial per­sona has been quick.   A writer on in­ter­na­tional diplo­matic af­fairs, Hard­eep Singh Puri, with his heart in the right place is mak­ing moves for hous­ing for the poor through af­ford­able hous­ing schemes. 

Diljit Singh Dosanjh:While the Pun­jabi film in­dus­try, now called Pol­ly­wood is throw­ing up re­hashed Bol­ly­wood, bring­ing in the anti-women cul­ture and mouthing di­a­logues do­ing in­jus­tice to Pun­jabi cul­ture and her­itage, in his char­ac­ter­is­tic style, Diljit Singh Dosanjh has high­lighted the drug abuse sit­u­a­tion in the Pun­jab through his well-ac­claimed Bol­ly­wood and Pol­ly­wood films with the ac­tor get­ting Film­fare awards dur­ing the year. 

Gurmeet Ram Rahim Singh: Neme­sis catches up, some­times a bit late. In this case, though it was far too late, no one would have imag­ined that this pseudo-saint, his co­horts and gang, who were on Cloud Nine be­cause of pa­tron­age, sup­port and sym­pa­thies of the In­dian gov­ern­ment, would end up with a 20-year sen­tence in a rape case, with more to fol­low. His “king­dom” is again catch­ing up, but it is now not even a shadow of its past. 

Gob­ind Singh Lon­gowal: While no one could re­ally un­der­stand the re­li­gio-po­lit­i­cal rea­sons for the Akali Dal chief Sukhbir Singh Badal to choose him as the SGPC Pres­i­dent, one-time as­sis­tant of Sant Harc­hand Singh Lon­gowal, a for­mer min­is­ter of Pun­jab, Gob­ind Singh Lon­gowal looped out of the Akali en­ve­lope and was “elected unan­i­mous­ly’ by the SGPC mem­bers with­out a mur­mur. With promises ga­lore, it re­mains to be seen what he will achieve to ar­rest apos­tasy and drug abuse in Pun­jab.

Jag­tar Singh Jo­hal: British cit­i­zen Jag­tar Singh Jo­hal, on his sec­ond trip to Pun­jab for pur­poses of mar­riage, has been in Pun­jab po­lice cus­tody for weeks to­gether, with po­lice re­mand in one case af­ter an­other. Con­cern by par­lia­men­tar­i­ans, in­clud­ing British Prime Min­is­ter Theresa May did not de­ter the Pun­jab po­lice to con­tinue his ha­rass­ment and tor­ture ex­cept that they sim­ply de­nied it.  Hu­man Rights lawyer Jas­pal Singh Man­jh­pur stands solid as a rock de­fend­ing the rights of the vir­tu­ally in­de­fen­si­ble sit­u­a­tion in which Jag­tar Singh Jo­hal and his as­so­ci­ates find them­selves.  

Jimmy Singh: An­other British cit­i­zen, ar­rested along­side Jag­tar Singh Jo­hal, he too is do­ing the rounds of courts and po­lice sta­tions.  While le­gal as­sis­tance is avail­able to him, con­sular ac­cess has been de­nied in both the cases and ju­di­ciary is play­ing ball to the whims and fan­cies of po­lice re­quests.

Gau­ravdeep Singh Lud­hi­ana: He is the Gau­rav -pride of Lud­hi­ana, Pun­jab and In­dia. All of 18, with a thor­ough nur­tur­ing in the ba­sics of Sikh liv­ing, ded­i­cated to so­cial causes and a com­mit­ted life, young Gau­ravdeep Singh was cho­sen to be one of the 20 Na­tional Youth Awardees. His pres­ence on the in­ter­net and on live tele­vi­sion as a host of spe­cial causes en­dears him to one and all. Mak­ing a start with the “I vote I lead” cam­paign in Lud­hi­ana, Gau­ravdeep Singh made his way to peo­ple’s hearts through his sim­ple ded­i­cated ap­proach and is now an icon for many.

Dr Daljit Singh:  Oph­thal­mol­o­gist par ex­cel­lence, Dr Daljit Singh passed away at the ripe age of 82, leav­ing be­hind a fam­ily of oph­thal­mol­o­gists and thou­sands of pa­tients whom he cured through his mag­i­cal hands and pi­o­neer­ing lens im­plant tech­nol­ogy. Be­fore the tech­nol­ogy spread across the coun­try, there was a bee­line of pa­tients from across the coun­try to Am­rit­sar, with many Gu­jrati pa­tients say­ing, “God could not have been every­where, so he sent Daljit Singh to spread good vi­sion.”

Cha­ran­jit Singh Chadha: He and his team turned the Bhai Vir Singh in­spired and es­tab­lished Chief Khalsa Di­wan into a pri­vate trust, killing the very spirit and mis­sion of the his­toric body, which has con­tributed sub­stan­tially to Sikh ed­u­ca­tion move­ment. He capped the year 2017 with his over­tures to a fe­male teacher of a Chief Khalsa Di­wan school, which has brought ig­nominy and shame to him, his fam­ily, the Chief Khalsa Di­wan and the Sikhs at large.