Politics | | Page 14

Ravi Bhalla loses and wins

July 1, 2011 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

After coming in third in the election on June 7 in New Jersey for a state assembly seat, Ravinder Singh Bhalla, profiled here last month, has been elected as President of Hoboken, New Jersey’s city council by an 8-1 margin. Would he be the first turbaned Sikh to head a city council in the United States? UPDATE – January 11, 2012: Commenter A_itoj Singh brought to my attention that Harvinder “Harry” Singh Anand, another turbaned Sikh actually pre-dated Ravinder Singh as a […]

Categories: News Bits, Politics • Tags: Hoboken, New Jersey, Ravinder Singh Bhalla

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Breaking the political glass ceiling: Ravinder Singh Bhalla

May 27, 2011 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

It was a coincidence that after I wrote about what American Sikhs could learn from our Canadian counterparts on the political front, news began to circulate about New Jersey attorney and Hoboken city councilman Ravinder Singh Bhalla, a turban-wearing Sikh now running for a State Assembly seat in New Jersey (also see his election website, BhallaforAssembly.com as well). If he is successful, he will be the first turbaned Sikh elected to office at the state level in the United States.

Categories: Politics, Profiles • Tags: Harmeet Dhillon, New Jersey, Politics, Ravinder Singh Bhalla

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Could American Sikhs ever be as important as Canadian Sikhs?

May 13, 2011 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Our neighbors to the north, Canada, just went through a federal election in which a conservative government – one that had just lost a no-confidence motion that gave rise to this election – ended up strengthening their power for the next four years. It was an odd twist of events. A noteworthy character of this election was the wooing of the ethnic minority vote – and especially of the Canadian Sikh vote – by all parties across the political spectrum. The […]

Categories: News Bits, Politics • Tags: Canada, Conservative Party, Gurbax Singh Malhi, Herb Dhaliwal, Republican Party, Stephen Harper

Vetoed: Arizona Governor preserves memorial to Balbir Singh Sodhi

May 3, 2011 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

In recent days, I have heard concerns from some of the Arizona families directly affected by the 9/11 attacks and their aftermath. For their sake, I am sorry this issue has reared its head once more. — An excerpt from Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s letter to the Secretary of State, explaining why she vetoed Arizona’s state bill HB 2230, which sought to modify the state’s 9/11 memorial, including the removal of (post-9/11 hate crime victim) Balbir Singh Sodhi‘s name. The bill’s original […]

Categories: News Bits, Politics • Tags: 9/11 Memorial, Arizona, Balbir Singh Sodhi, Jan Brewer, John Kavanagh

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San Francisco Republican Party elects Sikh woman as chair

April 6, 2011 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

Well, the GOP Party of San Francisco unanimously elected me, an orthodox Sikh with a funny name, to be its chairwoman. So, as far as I’m concerned, it’s never been an issue here in my rise through the ranks of the party. To the contrary, I’d say that members of my party have actively reached out and encouraged me to run for leadership positions. I’m the chairman of outreach for the California Republican Party statewide. The party asked me to […]

Categories: News Bits, Politics • Tags: Ajit Singh Randhawa, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Harmeet Dhillon, Kamala Harris, Nikki Haley, North Carolina, San Francisco, South Carolina, Trilochan Singh Oberoi

The American “Muslim” hearings: radicalization takes different forms

March 30, 2011 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

“Regrettably, while nearly a decade has passed since 9/11, we continue to see a steady stream of violence and discrimination targeting Muslim, Arab, Sikh and South-Asian communities. In each city and town where I have met with leaders of these communities, I have been struck by the sense of fear that pervades their lives – fear of violence, of bigotry and hate. The headwind of intolerance manifests itself in many different ways.” — an excerpt of Assistant Attorney General Thomas […]

Categories: Civil Rights, Hate Crimes, News Bits, Politics • Tags: civil rights, Dick Durbin, hate crime, Islam, Islamophobia, Muslim, Peter King, SALDEF, Sikh American Legal Defense Fund, Thomas Perez, United States Department of Justice, US Attorney General

“On faith and the American Way”

January 20, 2011 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

It was an interesting day to be reminded about the American principle of separation of church and state, as enshrined by the First Amendment to the US Constitution. On a day when Robert Bentley, Alabama’s new governor, had to apologize for his controversial comments about non-Christians, Ameek Singh, writing on a separate topic in The State News (the student newspaper out of Michigan State University), discusses the first amendment: …the history of faith in America continues this tradition. Americans have […]

Categories: Civil Rights, Politics • Tags: Alabama, Ameek Singh, First Amendment to the United States Constitution, Michigan State University, Robert Bentley, separation of church and state, The State News

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The Sikh Coalition revises their Sikh Air Travellers Guide

January 13, 2011 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

The Sikh Coalition has announced an update to their Sikh Air Travellers Guide: Significantly, Sikhs should now expect to be secondarily screened 100 percent of the time at American airports, even after passing through so-called Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) machines. Although TSA publicly asserts on its website that such machines can see through “layers of clothing,” the TSA has made clear in both word and practice that such machines are not powerful enough to see through Sikh turbans. This means that, […]

Categories: Civil Rights, Politics • Tags: Air travel, Airport security, AIT machines, Bobby Scott, Judy Chu, Melvin Watt, Sheila Jackson-Lee, Sikh Coalition, Transportation Security Administration, TSA

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A “nikki” footnote, cont’d

December 29, 2010 by Rupinder Mohan Singh

A recently published letter to the editor of a Philadelphia-area newspaper laments the Republican Party’s growing focus to be more inclusive of non-white minorities (at the expense of the white majority), using South Carolina’s Governor-elect Nikki Haley as an example: But the GOP leadership is just as obsessed with diversity and skin color as white liberals are; in fact, they seem almost embarrassed to be the de facto party of whites, and they work hard to change this image. They have made inroads […]

Categories: News Bits, Politics • Tags: Nikki Haley, Republican Party, South Carolina

Considering the experience of Sikhs in America.

Category Archives: Politics

Ravi Bhalla loses and wins

Breaking the political glass ceiling: Ravinder Singh Bhalla

Could American Sikhs ever be as important as Canadian Sikhs?

Vetoed: Arizona Governor preserves memorial to Balbir Singh Sodhi

San Francisco Republican Party elects Sikh woman as chair

The American “Muslim” hearings: radicalization takes different forms

“On faith and the American Way”

The Sikh Coalition revises their Sikh Air Travellers Guide

A “nikki” footnote, cont’d