MEANING OF NIHANG-
Nihang is a Persian word meaning crocodile.
Nihangs constitute an order of Sikhs who, abandoning the fear of death, are ever ready for martyrdom and remain unsullied by worldly possessions. A Nihang is one who has nothing and is free from anxiety. The order is said to have been founded by Guru Gobind Singh himself as a fighting body of the Khalsa

TWO DIVISIONS AMONG NIHANGS

1. Nihang of the Buddha Dal with traditional "Dastar Bunga" turban, mostly worn on occasions such as Hola Mohalla.


2.Nihang of Taruna Dal with traditional turban known as "Dastar Bunga".


Most interesting thing i find about them is their language.. this is so interesting.. :smile:

Like many nomadic communities, the Nihang Singhs have through the centuries developed a distinguishable dialect. This language is historically known as GarrGaj Bole ('The Thundering Language') of the Khalsa.

It combines a mixture of Punjabi, Hindi, Persian and other dialects used in the various regions of Punjab.

A portrait of Sikh ruler Maharaja Ranjit Singh made by celebrated artist Sobha Singh will go under hammer in the US in March, an official of Singh’s art gallery said on Friday. The painting has been listed for auction at the renowned New York-based auction house Sotheby’s on March 24.

“We received a communication from Anuradha Ghosh-Mazumdar, assistant vice-president of Indian and Southeast Asian Art at Sotheby’s that the painting of Maharaja Ranjit Singh by Sobha Singh will be featured in the auction,” Hriday Paul Singh, general secretary of Sobha Singh Memorial Art Society in Kangra, told IANS.

Paul, who is a grandson of Sobha Singh, said the auction house has listed the painting for $300,000-$400,000.

The oil-on-canvas portrait is 39 by 29 inches in size. The Sobha Singh gallery has its replica, he added.

The gallery, visited by around 25,000 art lovers every year, is located in the picturesque Andretta village near Palampur in Kangra Valley of Himachal Pradesh, some 250 km from Shimla, where Sobha Singh spent 38 years.

According to Sotheby’s catalogue preview, the portrait shows the Maharaja seated on a lion-crested silver throne wearing a richly brocaded coat and a jewelled turban, his sword resting on his lap.


Sobha Singh, whose 110th birth anniversary falls November 29, 2011, achieved acclaim for his strikingly beautiful paintings, particularly after he made in 1969 the portrait of Guru Nanak Dev for the 500th birth anniversary of the first Sikh master.

The artist made Andretta his home, and painted over 50 portraits of freedom fighters, including Bhagat Singh in 1981. The government of India conferred Padma Shri on him in 1983.

“The government should do something to get his work back to the country,” Paul added. Sobha Singh, who died in Chandigarh Aug 22, 1986, at the age of 85, left behind more than 2,000 works of his art.

Sindhuja Rajamaran, a 14 year old girl studying 9th standard in India, has now become the world’s youngest CEO. Raised in Chennai, this girl is the Chief Executive Officer of his father owned company called Seppan. Seppan is an animation firm in Chennai. The recognition of youngest CEO was made by National Association of Software and Service Companies. This girl has won awards and recognitions in the past as well. Last year she was awarded the Fastest 2D Animator by Nasscom in Hyderabad.


Sindhuja gives all her credits to her dad who is a cartoonist himself. She is now working on a few projects like the 2D movie called Virtual T-Nagar which reveals the true nature of the specific location called T-Nagar in the city of Chennai. She is also doing an Ad-Film with Joy-Alukas, a famous Jewelery Retailer. Corel has also certified her as the youngest digital caricaturist in the world.

HAPPY HOLI SARE PJ USERS NU... :smile: :smile:
 :smile: :smile:
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[/size]Holi is the time to develop understanding and love for each other.[/size][/color]
 Here, is a platform for you all to renew your friendship and to express[/font]
 [/size][/color]heartiest love by scribbling a beautiful Holi message for loved ones…[/font][/size]

Today, across India, an estimated 30,000 to 40,000 young women live to regret marriages that have left them alone, miserable and consumed with shame.



According to Balwant Singh Ramoowalia of the the Lok Bhalai party, a small political organisation in Punjab, over 22,000 abandoned brides have registered criminal cases against their NRI (Non-Resident Indian) grooms in Punjab alone.

The South Asian Post and its sister papers were among the first newspapers in Canada to highlight and investigate this social menace five years ago.

A 2007 report by the Punjab University stated that about 25,000 abandoned women in Punjab alone faced an uphill battle against a legal system which provides little hope of justice.

It suggested the Indian government should stamp the marital status of NRIs in their passports and bring in new laws to protect vulnerable women.

With an estimated 30,000 brides being abandoned every year, usually by husbands living overseas, India’s Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs also recommends that families hire private detectives to vet suitors and avoid being conned into giving away dowries, which are officially outlawed but are still common among the wealthy.

The ministry estimates that hundreds of thousands of brides are lied to or misled each year.
While arranged marriages between Indo-Canadians and Indian nationals have a time-honoured and successful history, police in the state of Punjab, from which 75 per cent of B.C.’s Indo-Canadian population originates, say half of these marriages today are frauds.

Jalandhar, where the crackdown has begun is in Punjab’s Doaba region where this phenomenon–some have likened to organized crime – occurs at an alarming rate. Of the nearly 30,000 women deserted by NRI husbands and roughly 15,000 of them belong to the Doaba region.

Jalandhar Passport officer Parneet Singh told reporters that the passports of those grooms were impounded who did not respond to the show-cause notices sent to them within 15 days.

In a concerted effort to stop a social scourge that has left over 30,000 women desperate and looking for their husbands, a government team in the town of Jalandhar, Punjab has begun impounding the passports of the so-called Non-Resident Indian (NRI) runaway bridegrooms.

and example of one successful implementation of these efforts ..

In one case, an NRI man’s passport was impounded even before the show-cause notice was issued because he was set to fly abroad when the complaint against him was received. Complainant Parveen Bhatti, talking to The Indian Express, revealed that her husband Pradeep Singh had deserted her just after her marriage in 2008 and he was about to fly abroad after showing himself as unmarried, but she made a complaint to the passport officer, who acted immediately and impounded Pradeep’s passport just a few hours before the flight on February 22. 

Bathinda, Punjab- At his daughter’s wedding last year when Jaswant Singh decided to organize a blood donation camp to welcome the bridegroom’s “baraat”, people in Kot Shamer village in Bathinda district in Punjab were pleasantly surprised.

On the wedding invitation card Jaswant Singh mentioned that instead of offering “shagun” in money, his guests would donate blood.

As about 45 of his guests lined up to donate blood, the “baraatis” in turn offered roses to blood donors making it a spectacle so unusual for the Punjabi culture of pomp and show.

Following his example in nearby Harrajpura village 27-year-old Harvinder organized a blood donation camp on his wedding in December last year

Jaswant and Harvinder have been part of the blood donation campaign undertaken by the United Welfare Society for the last about five years during which the society volunteers have donated over 60,000 units of blood to various hospitals in the region.

Vijay Bhatt, one of the founder members of the society said in fact the blood donation was a two decade-old custom in Bathinda and in many other towns, including Bhucho Mandi and Raman Mandi. “There’s a virtual competition to donate the maximum blood units on any given occasion.” he said. The society organizes 80-90 blood camps every year.

Some even organize blood donation camps on the death anniversary of family members. That’s what the family of Harish Bhutani, former general secretary of the society, does every year on his death anniversary. “What could be a better tribute to our father?” asks one of his sons.

Bathinda is perhaps the only district in the country where every year, a fair is organized ‘Mela Khoon Daniyan Da’ to honour donors, so that more people are motivated to join the campaign, says Vijay Goel, chairman of Sahara Jan Seva, a voluntary organization.

People here are so enthused with the idea of donating blood, that often the blood bank can’t stock all the units. The remaining is sent to nearby medical colleges in Faridkot and Patiala.

Bahut Shanti mildi mann nu ah shabad sun ke sadi hostel di mess vich hamesha chalda hunda c..

HAR JIYO NIMAANIA TU MAAN

From the seat of his bicycle, Avijit Chakraborty has come to embrace a simple, optimistic truth.


"The world is run by the good people," he said. "The bad people are microscopic.

"You can avoid the bad people areas, but you cannot avoid the good people."

Avijit Chakraborty has ridden 49,000 kilometers - 30,447 miles through 46 countries in 15 months.He started his journey on Feb. 3  to California, then through Nevada and Texas until he ultimately reaches his final stop in Argentina.

“It will take another four months to complete,” he said.

As part of the Guinness criteria, the native of Kolkata, India, must stop at local police stations and have his mileage verified. His most recent stop was Oak Creek, where he added a letter from the local police to his growing file, and spent two days resting in the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin on S. Howell Ave.

Sincere and thoughtful, Chakraborty is 38, a sports coach and veteran cyclist who left behind his wife and 8-year-old daughter in an earnest pursuit: to persuade people to reduce pollution in the world.


He has no delusions of changing the world on a single bike ride, no matter how many miles it encompasses. But lecturing to students at hundreds of schools, in his mind, can be a significant start. By convincing even a few children that the world needs to be protected, he expects to lead a positive change.

Pursuing his form of an inoculation, Chakraborty has biked through snow in Scandinavia and brutal heat in Florida.

He is unsupported; carries his tent and all of his gear, along with a well-justified fear of being hit by a car, on his Cannondale touring bike. Per Guinness rules, he has no sponsor, and expects the trip will cost him $10,000.

He thinks about the daunting distance only in small increments.

The standard question, of course, is how he pedals across the oceans. He doesn't. The route detailed by Guinness allows him to travel by plane and ship, and to bypass Antarctica entirely.


 For more information- (http://bicyclearoundtheworld.blogspot.com/)

From left, Twitter Vice-President International Katie Stanton and Google employees Ujjwal Singh and Steve Crossan pose for a portrait at Google headquarters in Mountain View , Calif.,

Even before his first day on the job at Google, Ujjwal Singh was trying to figure out how to use his passion for the spoken word and the company's technological prowess to help Egyptians bypass government efforts to muzzle the massive protests there.

Ujjwal Singh, 38, helped start an online service that lets fans share voice messages with the likes of Miley Cyrus and the Jonas Brothers. Google bought the startup Jan. 25, and a Google product team leader trying to figure out a way around Egypt's recent Internet blackout asked Singh for help before he reported to work.
A weekend of brainstorming and programming later, Speak2Tweet was born - a service that lets people call a phone number and leave a message, then posts a link to the message to Twitter.

It allowed Egyptians to communicate even as the regime of President Hosni Mubarak cut Internet and cell phone services for days, trying to squelch furious protests in the streets of Cairo demanding an end to his three decades of authoritarian rule.
By the time Singh started his job Monday, his service was already part of the uprising.

Almost 2,900 spoken tweets had been posted as of Friday afternoon on the Twitter account (at) speak2tweet. Some of the heaviest volume came after access to both Twitter and the Internet was restored in Egypt earlier this week. The alternative method of tweeting has turned into a forum for longer-form expression because the voice recordings aren't confined to Twitter's 140-character limit.

Even so, it provided a vital link between Egypt and the rest of the world, says Cynthia Wong, director of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Project on Global Internet Freedom. As the word of the service spreads, York expects it to attract more voice messages because only about one-fourth of Egypt's population has Internet access.

ROME — Italian researchers who specialise in resolving art mysteries said Wednesday they have discovered the disputed identity of the model for Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa -- and claimed he was a man.
Silvano Vinceti, chairman of the Italian national committee for cultural heritage, said the Florence-born Renaissance artist's male apprentice and possible lover Salai was the main inspiration for the picture.
However his claim was immediately disputed by experts at the Louvre in Paris, where the painting is on display.
Salai, real name Gian Giacomo Caprotti, an effeminate young artist who worked with da Vinci for 25 years, is thought to have served as a model and muse for several of his paintings. The pair had an "ambiguous" relationship and were probably lovers, Vinceti said.
Comparisons between the facial characteristics of figures from several of da Vinci's works -- such as "St. John the Baptist" and the "Angel Incarnate" -- reveal striking similarities with the Mona Lisa's nose and mouth, he said.
"There are remarkable similarities," Vinceti told reporters.
What is more, Vinceti said da Vinci had left clues to the model's identity in tiny letters L and S which he and his team found painted into the eyes of the Mona Lisa.
"Close examination of a high-quality digital copy of the portrait had revealed an L for Leonardo and an S for Salai," he said.
But Vinceti's claims have been disputed by the Louvre museum.
The museum said it had carried out "every possible laboratory test possible" on the picture in 2004 and then again in 2009, and insisted that "no inscriptions, letters or numbers, were discovered during the tests."