Monthly Archives: February 2012

Bringing WRFA to California

February 28, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

As discussed often on this blog, employment discrimination is still a challenge for many religious and visible minorities (such as Sikhs, who fall under both categories). According to the Sikh Coalition (a US-based Sikh advocacy organization): Sikhs suffer high levels of workplace discrimination because of their Sikh identity. Many are told to shave their beards; others are told to remove their turbans; some are told that they can only work out of public view. If enacted, WRFA would make it […]

Categories: Civil Rights, Politics • Tags: 1964 Civil Rights Act, California, John Kerry, Mariko Yamada, SALDEF, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund, Sikh Coalition, Title VII, Workplace Religious Freedom Act, WRFA

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Religiosity and perception of well-being

February 27, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

An interesting survey done by Gallup-Healthways suggests that a higher sense of well-being is correlated with how religious a person is: An analysis of more than 676,000 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index interviews conducted in 2011 and 2010 finds that Americans who are the most religious have the highest levels of wellbeing. The statistically significant relationship between religiousness and wellbeing holds up after controlling for numerous demographic variables. The study theorizes that this may be because of the habits and behaviors that […]

Categories: Interfaith, Reports/Studies • Tags: Gallup, Religiosity, United States

Picture of the Day: Pranav Singh, future scientist

February 24, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Irvine, California’s Pranav Singh, 16, was one of 60 finalists in YouTube’s Space Lab Competition: …a worldwide initiative that challenges 14-18 year-old students to design a science experiment that can be performed in space. The two winning experiments will be conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and live streamed on YouTube. Space Lab is part of YouTube’s larger commitment to highlighting and providing access to the wealth of educational content available on YouTube as well as Lenovo’s focus on […]

Categories: Picture of the Day, Profiles • Tags: California, International Space Station, Irvine, Pranav Singh, SpaceLab

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Reflections on Sikholars Sikh Graduate Student Conference: Day 1

February 23, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

This past weekend, I attended the third annual Sikholars Sikh Graduate Student Conference at California State University East Bay, held by Jakara Movement, the CSU East Bay Ethnic Studies Department and the Sabharwal Chair in Sikh and Punjabi Studies at CSU East Bay. I had also attended the previous conferences in 2010 and 2011. I’ve enjoyed all three of these meetings of the mind immensely, and I believe the 2012 iteration was a raising of the bar in the discourse it […]

Categories: Events, Reflections • Tags: 1947 Partition Archive, 1964 Civil Rights Act, Bandana Kaur, bhangra, biodiversity, California State University East Bay, Green Revolution, Guneeta Kaur Bhalla, Harjant Gill, Harpreet Neelam, Jakara Movement, Jasmine Singh, Kiran Preet Kaur, Neelamjit Dhillon, partaal, racialization, Roots of Love, Sabharwal Chair of Punjabi and Sikh Studies, Sikh art, Sikholars, Title VII

Picture of the Day: MITPT next to POTUS

February 22, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Navroop Mittar, an entrepreneur, was invited to stand behind President Obama at a White House event yesterday. He went with a bold pink turban so that he might get noticed: Mitter wore the pink turban, figuring he’d be lost in the back of the room, because it matched his tie and also because he hoped it would help him stand out. “I had no idea I would be standing behind the president,” he said. “I said, Mom, you’ll be able […]

Categories: News Bits, Picture of the Day, Politics • Tags: Barack Obama, Navroop Mitter, President of the United States

Propelling the American theocracy

February 21, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum is well-known for his Christian worldview that forms the basis of his platform, and his recent rhetoric about President Obama and his “different theology” has earned Santorum well-deserved criticism from a variety of faith groups, including Sikhism: There is a point, however, where an emphasis on religion in a political campaign becomes inappropriate and even unsettling in a religiously diverse society such as ours. Appealing to voters along religious lines is divisive. It is contrary […]

Categories: Civil Rights, Politics • Tags: Barack Obama, European Union, Rick Santorum, Simon Critchley, United States

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Washington, D.C.’s National Gurdwara closes

February 21, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

About six months ago, we received news of the dire financial situation surrounding the National Gurdwara located in the US Capitol district in Washington, DC. The Gurdwara has apparently finally succumbed to its financial issues and closed, but not without objections from its sangat (congregation): Said Sardar Bakhshish Singh, President of the Gurdwar,a in a communique, “I want to inform the Sikh sangat all over the United States of some very sad news that the National Gurdwara, DC has been […]

Categories: News Bits • Tags: "Washington, D.C.", National Gurdwara, Washington D.C.

T-shirts with derogatory anti-Sikh print sold on popular website

February 17, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

The Sikh Coalition alerted us today about t-shirts that were being sold on the popular website CafePress.com, which allows users to sell clothing and other items with custom designs. Users upload their designs to the website, and CafePress handles the printing of those designs on shirts and other products, the transaction, and the shipping. CafePress charges and retains from the user a base price on the products and the user adds in their own mark up on each sale. The […]

Categories: Hate Crimes • Tags: CafePress, freedom of speech, hate crime, Sikh Coalition

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‘Evil clown’ escaped Sikh grandfather, but not police

February 17, 2012 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

You will recall the story about the Sikh grandfather who thwarted a robbery attempt of his family’s convenience store in Sacramento, California three weeks ago. Eighty-year-old Baldev Singh had a history of fighting crime: That wasn’t enough to scare 80-year-old Baldev Singh, a retired cop, when the robber hit the family’s convenience store last weekend. “Yes, I am a policeman in Punjabi [sic], India,” Singh said. The suspect popped off one shot, but it didn’t hit anyone. Looking down the […]

Categories: News Bits • Tags: Baldev Singh, California, Convenience store, KISS Bandit, robbery, Sacramento

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