Devadasi System in Indian Temples
Zoya Zaidi
Devadasi literally means God’s (Dev) female servant (Dasi), where according to the ancient Indian practice, young pre-pubertal girls are ‘married off’, ‘given away’ in matrimony to God or local religious deity of the temple. These girls are not allowed to marry, as they were supposedly married to the temple.

USAMEDDAC & DENTAC Keynote Speech
Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month
Colonel G.B. Singh
I knew then that Gen. Shinseki was the first Asian American four-star general to occupy that high office but hardly anybody knew of the historical precedents. General Shinseki’s news flashed me back in history remembering the struggles of the first generation of Asian Americans joining the U.S. Army. Keep in mind the times were tough for this generation.

USDA & Indiana Department of Natural Resource (NRCS) Keynote Speech
Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month
By K.P.Singh
United States of America offers a very farsighted vision, a formidable promise, and each of us has a responsibility and solemn stake to honor this promise. As old and new daring souls, pioneers, innovators, and trailblazers in search of the possible and impossible we have to pick up the banner of generations of Americans before us and fully engage in building “A More Perfect Union” and taking it yet unimagined heights.

Marine Species Discovered Near Panglao Island
By Danny Chan
Biologists working in the Philippines have discovered thousands of new species of sea snails, crabs and other crustaceans and mollusks. The Panglao Marine Biodiversity Project made their discovery from 2004 to 2005 in the waters near Panglao island in Bohol province, about 620 kilometers southeast of Manila.

OBC Reservations - Mandal II and the Struggle for an Egalitarian Society
By Feroze H. Mithiborwala
The intellectual and political battle for reservations for OBC's or rather the Shudras within the Brahmanical caste hierarchy was won in the 1990's itself. But the OBC's, Dalits and Adivasis, who constitute the majority as well the historically oppressed masses of our country, continue to face a determined opposition from within the judiciary and the bureaucracy which are amongst the last bastions of the RSS, the fountainhead of Brahmanism.

Judicial Absurdity: Recent Ruling on Muslims in UP
By Yoginder Sikand
A recent ruling by Justice S.N. Srivastava of theAllahabad High Court declaring that Muslims in UttarPradesh could no longer be considered a minority, has, predictably, stirred up a hornet's nest. Although the ruling was stayed by a two-member bench of the same court the next day, it raised crucial questions that pertain to minority rights, secularism and democracy and the impartiality of the judiciary.

Bill of Rights in the Constitution of India
By G.B. Singh
Many admirers of India often go out of the way to depict India as the "world's largest democracy" and a "secular" state, which through its constitution guarantees fundamental human rights to all Indians - the implication being that such rights are in practice as a matter of routine. Yet, dismaying as it may seem, I have never come across any piece of written information analyzing the Indian Constitution itself.

Killing of Reporters Continues Unabated in Philippines: Report
By Danny Chan
Violence against journalists continues to impede press freedom in the Philippines, according to a new report. Reporters Without Borders, a non-governmental organization, stated in its annual report that murders, assaults, arrests, lawsuits and censorship all hindered freedom of the press in the Philippines last year.

Book: South Asian Cooperation and the Role of the Punjabs
By Tridivesh Singh Maini
One of my other objectives has been to show the importance of border provinces/regions as agencies for improving relations, specifically if they have some common cultural characteristic and a common heritage. Apart from this, for mutual economic benefits they will be keen to solve disputes at the earliest. In a way it may not be incorrect to call border regions as “vehicles” for South Asian Cooperation.

Punjab from a Washingtonian Perspective
By Tridivesh Singh Maini
In this article, I have tried to examine the relationship and understanding between USA and Punjab region in general and Washington DC (the capital of the world) and the Punjab (Indian and Pakistani) in particular. This is a new topic and what inspired me to write this was a recent visit to Washington DC, where I attended some events at the release of my book South Asian Cooperation and the Role of the Punjabs.

Colonising the Punjab
By Gurtej Singh
In a variety of ways the central government in India has given myriads of indications that it treats the Punjab as a colony of India and the Sikhs as an enslaved people. The history of looting the Punjab’s river water at gun point in the style of the Pindaris of the past, is the most disturbing and the most shameful chapter of this history.

Love Thy Neighbor
What is being propagandized, as the “Word of God,” is regrettably a true mythology, which had far-reaching effects in the past, present, and in all likelihood, will shape the future as well.

Un-academic, Unethical and Unsolicited Advice
By Baldev Singh
If I can remember correctly from the days when I was a graduate student at a university in the United States (1960s), academic freedom meant total freedom of thought – freedom to express, freedom to write, freedom to read and freedom to pursue any research interest. Censorship of literature in any form or manner was an anathema to academicians.

Do Sikhs Worship Guru Granth? Yes, But!
By Harbans Lal
To date, Sikhs have evolved traditions in which to worship their guru is a very enlightening experience. They go into a unique way of reading, reciting, listening, and contemplating on their scripture. The founders of Sikhism helped this process by laying foundation of several institutions of exegesis and expositions as part of religious practices. These practices inculcate intellectual deliberation, humbling wisdom and meditation, while keeping deep faith in the institution of the Word Guru.

The Democratisation of Sikh Society
By Jagpal Singh Tiwana
The Punjabi society is comparatively free from the caste biases which are otherwise so widely prevalent in the rest of India. A story Where people vote for charisma not caste in the Indian Express of January 27, 2007 on the eve of Punjab elections reported Punjabi voters paying little attention to the castes of the candidates.

Khushwant Singh and His Continuing Distortion of Sikhism
By Baldev Singh
If Khushwant Singh needs to be applauded for adhering to any degree of consistency, then it is his constant changing views of Sikhism, especially after his stint at the Princeton University in the early 1960s. He is one of the major sources of misinformation on Sikhism. What he has been saying or writing about Sikhism since the 1980s is nothing short of subversion of Nanakian philosophy.

My Favourite Author
By Baldev Singh
Notwithstanding what J.S. Grewal, Sant Singh Sekhon, Pritam Singh, Khushwant Singh, Gurinder Singh Mann, Jeevan Singh Deol, Pashaura Singh, Nikki Guninder Kaur Singh, Harjot Oberoi and I. J. Singh told Tiwana about McLeod, let us examine how W.H. McLeod got his PhD on Sikhism and became “one of the foremost scholars of Sikh studies in the world,” his credentials as a historian and his ethics in McLeod‘s own words.