A com­mem­o­ra­tive Spe­cial Print edi­tion of the World Sikh News -WSN was launched at the In­ter­na­tional Sikh Con­fer­ence on 1 De­cem­ber in Jakarta ac­knowl­edg­ing the one-hun­dred-year-old pres­ence of Sikhs in In­done­sia and ef­forts be­ing made by Gur­d­wara Guru Nanak cel­e­brat­ing its 25th year to the Re­vival of Sikhi among Sikh youth in the coun­try.

On the first day of the 3-day, first In­ter­na­tional Sikh Con­fer­ence at Jakarta on 1 De­cem­ber, a com­mem­o­ra­tive Spe­cial Print Edi­tion of The World Sikh News -WSN was re­leased by the Chief Guest of the oc­ca­sion, K.S Ar­sana Ke­tua Hubun­gan An­tar Lem­baga, of the Parisada Hindu Dharma In­done­sia Pusat -Hindu Dharma Coun­cil of In­done­sia -PHDI Bali, in the pres­ence of Bal­want Singh, chair­man Yayasan So­cial Guru Nanak Tangerang Se­le­tan -Gur­d­wara Guru Nanak, Con­tribut­ing Ed­i­tor of the spe­cial edi­tion Harsaran Singh and mem­bers of the ed­i­to­r­ial board Sangeet Kaur and Man­mith Kaur. The first copy of the print edi­tion was pre­sented to the one and only for­mer Sikh min­is­ter in the In­done­sia cab­i­net, for­mer deputy min­is­ter Harbinder­jit Singh Dilon, who was guest of ho­n­our at the oc­ca­sion. 

Speak­ing on the oc­ca­sion, the chief guest ap­pre­ci­ated the idea of a print edi­tion of the WSN. He said that “In this day and age of chil­dren’s dig­i­tal en­gage­ment, the art of read­ing the print me­dia has been lost and it was very en­cour­ag­ing to see a newslet­ter at such im­por­tant sem­i­nars.” He fur­ther said that he would like this to be em­u­lated dur­ing Hindu sem­i­nars in Bali as well. It is sig­nif­i­cant to men­tion that Ba­li­nese Hin­dus main­tain very cor­dial re­la­tions with the Sikhs and Bal­want Singh is a mem­ber of the PHDI.

“When the ed­i­tor of WSN mooted the idea of a print edi­tion for the In­ter­na­tional Sikh Con­fer­ence, he and his as­so­ci­ates had no idea what was in store for them. Now, he and his team, es­pe­cially the youth are so happy and ex­cited that it has be­come a sub­ject of dis­cus­sion at the meet.”

Bal­want Singh, Chief Or­gan­iser, In­ter­na­tional Sikh Con­fer­ence

Ap­pre­ci­at­ing the role of the World Sikh News, Bal­want Singh shared that “when the ed­i­tor of WSN mooted the idea of a print edi­tion for the In­ter­na­tional Sikh Con­fer­ence, he and his as­so­ci­ates had no idea what was in store for them. Now, he and his team, es­pe­cially the youth are so happy and ex­cited that it has be­come a sub­ject of dis­cus­sion at the meet.” He in­vited Jag­mo­han Singh to In­done­sia to cover the Sikh world there es­pe­cially youth ac­tiv­i­ties in the near fu­ture. Tak­ing his words se­ri­ously, he urged the youth in Jakarta and In­done­sia at large to reg­u­larly read the on­line ver­sion of The World Sikh News and also be­come con­trib­u­tors for this won­der­ful pro­ject.

Con­tribut­ing ed­i­tor Harsaran Singh out­lined the na­ture and role of the World Sikh News in bridg­ing the gap be­tween false­hood and truth, in bring­ing the Di­as­pora nearer home and vice versa and pre­sent­ing the Sikh view point on sig­nif­i­cant world de­vel­op­ments in the Eng­lish lan­guage. He told the au­di­ence that it was a no­ble en­deav­our much-needed for the Sikh com­mu­nity. He em­pha­sized that the pa­per is boldly on the side of truth and does not hes­i­tate in speak­ing about the truth­ful­ness of events, whether in the Sikh world or be­yond.

“World Sikh News has al­lowed the youth to write about their Sikhi ex­pe­ri­ence em­pha­siz­ing that none in Sikhi is too young to voice their opin­ion.”

Prab­jit Kaur, stu­dent, Gur­mat School, Jakarta

He told the gath­er­ing that, “The pol­icy of speak­ing for the Sikh world and bring­ing out the truth with­out fear or prej­u­dice is a key fea­ture of WSN.”  He thanked Bal­want Singh, his team and the Global Sikh Coun­cil for mak­ing the print edi­tion hap­pen. The ed­i­to­r­ial sup­port from Man­mith Kaur and Sangeet Kaur was lauded with­out whose daily in­ter­ac­tion in the last two weeks prior to the sem­i­nar, the is­sue would not have been pos­si­ble.

Speak­ing ex­clu­sively to the World Sikh News, Man­mith Kaur Bhuller said, “WSN con­nects Sikhs from around the world and plays a very im­por­tant part in the re­vival of Sikhi, fo­cus­ing on youth par­tic­i­pa­tion and shar­ing of views of the younger gen­er­a­tion.”

“It is a great feel­ing to be as­so­ci­ated with the World Sikh News from such a dis­tance. I cer­tainly wish to stay in touch with this. Al­low­ing the youth to ex­press their  views and con­cerns is a very pos­i­tive thing and so is shar­ing in­for­ma­tion about Sikhi in to­day’s world,” said Sangeet Kaur Ra­hal, speak­ing to WSN. 

Jakarta Gur­mat School stu­dent, Prab­jit Kaur said, “World Sikh News has al­lowed the youth to write about their Sikhi ex­pe­ri­ence em­pha­siz­ing that none in Sikhi is too young to voice their opin­ion.”

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The pre­sent WSN spe­cial print edi­tion may per­haps be­come a pre­cur­sor of a fu­ture reg­u­lar print edi­tion of the World Sikh News cir­cu­lated around the world in the times to come.