The attack on the Punjab Police intelligence HQ is a reminder that the Khalistan issue is still simmering. This time the separatists are using gangsters to do their dirty work - Issue Date: May 23, 2022
The former Punjab chief minister's exit from the Congress is all but certain, and what he does next is likely to reorder the state's political equations - Issue Date: Oct 18, 2021
ISSUE DATE: April 19, 2021
UPDATED: April 9, 2021 22:51 IST
Opening fire: SGPC chief Bibi Jagir Kaur at the organisation’s annual budget meeting on March 30, in Amritsar
As the Sukhbir Badal-led Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) struggles to regain the trust of its core support base in the state, Punjab’s rural farmers and religious Sikhs, the so-called Panthic voters, after quitting the NDA alliance over the farm laws in September last year, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has added fuel to the fire. On March 31, it passed a resolution condemning the BJP’s ideological parent, the RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) for attempting ‘to make India a Hindu Rashtra’. On April 3, it also convened a meeting of the Sant Samaj, Nihang sects, Kar Sewa organisations and traditional Sikh bodies in Amritsar to seek an endorsement of the resolution.
UPDATED: January 17, 2021 08:49 IST
New dawn: Farmers burn copies of the new farm laws while celebrating Lohri at the Ghazipur border protest site in Delhi (Photo: ANI)
As the national capital settled in for its coldest winter in the past 15 years, it did little to thaw the tensions between the government and the protesting farm unions. However, in a dramatic intervention on January 12, the Supreme Court bench of Chief Justice S.A. Bobde, A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramaniam suspended the implementation of the new farm laws and set up a four-member expert committee to hear the farm unions. But if they thought this would placate the agitating farmers, they were mistaken, as the farmers refused to appear before the expert committee, saying they would rather continue the dialogue with the Centre. They are also sticking to their demand of a complete rollback of the new Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Act, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection)