As I approach 1000 uploads.....

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Many of you will know, I have a keen interest in videography and photography. As I approach 1000 videos (thank you to the Bhaji who pointed this out to me!) I had a trip down memory lane and remembered how and why I started recording.

Almost four years ago now, I started university. I'm still there now studying my Masters in Mathematics. Bring dropped off and my Dad saying 'bye' was an interesting experience and although I missed home, the thing that hit me the hardest was moving away from Sangat, the congregation, my family of Gursikhs. Up until being dropped of at university, 300 miles away from home, I was lucky enough to have my parents who drove me to keertan programmes and rhensabhis and I have the sangat in Bradford who raised me and taught me right from wrong, how to keep the faith in Maharaj (God) when you feel down, but more importantly, where to go when you have a question or a problem.

Actions speak louder than words ......

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"I want to note that many great things are already being done by Conservatives in government today and throughout our history…

Some on the Left would have you believe that they’re the ONLY ones who are all heart. It’s not true today and never has been. Look at this party’s history. It’s great history…

We’re the party of Wilberforce, of course. The leader of the campaign against the slave trade. The Duke of Wellington who introduced Catholic Emancipation. Robert Peel, the father of that essential underpinning of security - modern policing. Of Shaftesbury and the factory laws and legislation against child labour.

Bradford sangat gets together on Christmas Day to support Bhai Gurbaksh Singh

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ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖ਼ਾਲਸਾ॥ ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫ਼ਤਹਿ॥
To support and pray (ardas) for the spiritual uplifting and increase of physical strength for Bhai Gurbaksh Singh, Bradford Sangat are joining tomorrow (25th of December) for a day long endeavour:

AIM: to engross ourselves in Asa divar, Simran, keertan and Gurbani jaap.
PURPOSE: for our collective hearts and souls to join together to help strengthen Bhai Sahib through the help of Guroo Sahib.
METHOD: By joining his pain for a short period and attempting to refrain from food for 12 hours whilst focusing our minds on Guroojee's Baani & Naam. To beg for chardikla for him & the rest of the Panth
LOCATION; Guru Nanak Gurdwara Sahib, Wakefield Rd, Bradford

STARTING with Chaupai Sahib and Ardas before Asa Di Var - at 7am Sharp! 

POLICY DISCUSSION: A chance to discuss policy and submit a report to a minister

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Many of us have been having many discussions on various topics lately - Bhai Gurbaksh Singh, Political Prisoners, Brar case etc. So to continue this, in a constructive environment, there will be a policy discussion in two weeks time (5th of January) on 'secure state protects individual liberty.' Please see poster for more details.

Aim: to have our voice heard on all issues

Objective: to have regular meetings to discuss topics and put forward our views, concerns and realistic solutions.

All views will be written into a report and then sent to the relevant minister in Government for a response. AND We do get a response!

Please do come along and share your views. If you cannot make it, please send your views to harsimrat.kaur.fateh@googlemail.com and I will compile it into the report. Please share this event with others.

Full address for the Gurdwara: Wakefield Road, Bradford, BD4 7DP

Get Involved. Lets Have Our Voice Heard!

See the FaceBook event:

https://www.facebook.com/events/1417510675152783

Young Britons Conference 2013 - a reflection

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On the weekend I attended the Young Britons Foundation conference, or otherwise known as YBF. Now I wasn't sure what to expect, it was recommended to me by a friend and after seeing the list of confirmed speakers:

• Rt Hon Eric Pickles MP, Secretary of State for Local Government
• Douglas Carswell MP, Clacton
• Conor Burns MP, Bournemouth West
• Chloe Smith MP, Norwich North
• Steve Baker MP, Wycombe
• Robert Halfon MP, Harlow
• Chris Kelly MP, Dudley South

December - Secret Santas, Christmas ..... and the sacrifice of the Sahibzadey

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I've seen on many social network sites that people are shopping for presents and/or secret santa. I've also seen on many 'Sikh Society' pages encouraging Secret Santas.

Firstly, I'm not a keen believer in Secret Santa (at least not as a Sikh). Why doesn't everyone donate their £5 share (or whatever the limit is) into a pot then the society/group sponsors a dog to become a guide dog - or sponsor a child for a year? Even better give to Khalsa Aid or a charity helping those in the Philippines get back on their feet.

This way, something good comes out of the Secret Santa rather than self indulgement.

New Page on Blog

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Many individuals from the sangat have been asking me for a while to compile a list of all the MP3s I have in one area to make it easier to download.

Please see http://www.share-inspiration.blogspot.co.uk/p/keertan.html for that list and instant access to downloading from the mediafire site. It will be updated on a regular basis.

Let me know if there are any issues and please share with others. 

Thank you

Waheguru!

Our record speaks for itself......

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Muslim debates a Sikh - Dawah Man and Basics of Sikhi

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A great conversation
#LearnSomethingNew

Gods love has no boundaries

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Dhan Guru Nanak Dev Ji.

naanak guramukh paaeeai dhaeiaa karae har heer ||4||21||

O Nanak, the Gurmukh finds the Diamond of the Lord, by Kindness and Compassion. ||4||21||

http://www.viralnova.com/pope-kisses-man/

Gods love has no boundaries

Vaheguru!

What The Pope Just Did Shocked Everyone. But It’s Absolutely Awesome.

The Day I Realized.....

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by Randeep Kaur, Surrey B.C

As I walked up the steps, thinking...memories rushed through my mind like a wind storm...the first time she taught me how to tie my keski, all the times we would go together to sangat, all the times we would stay up at night talking for hours, all the times I poured my heart out to her, all the times I went to her
with questions-went to her cause I knew that she would know, she always knew...all the times we had laughed, all the times we had cried, all the times she had held me close to her and told me everything would be okay... all the times she yelled at me for reading bani wrong... all the times she woke me up in the middle of the night and asked me to bring her something... she was always there...

I have been saved from death by the love of the maker of Japujee.......

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I make a personal confession here. I have been saved from death by the love of the maker of Japujee. I have doubted frequently with others of the age the merit of repeating the psalms of the Guru, but by actual experiments conducted by myself on myself, I find that without Japuji one dies, that the personal love for the Guru falls into the dust and dirt of daily life and that without Japuji one is famished.

Interview with Gareth Johnson MP

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Apologies for the delay in getting this uploaded -- some of the questions now are not topical but still intriguing.

In Conversation with Lord Adonis 18 November 2013

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Yesterday evening the Vice-Chancellor at University of Reading Sir David Bell hosted a 'In Conversation' with Lord Andrew Adonis.

Lord Adonis sat in the House of Lords for the first time at the age of 42 and considering that the average age in the Lords is 71, this is remarkably young. He became a Minister for Education under Tony Blair and the Minister for Transport under Gordon Brown.

Introducing the local Conservative Candidate to Willenhall Gurdwara 17 November 2013

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On the 17th of November, I introduced Douglas Hansen-Luke to Willenhall Gurdwara sangat (congregation). For me, voting is very important. We are taught about equality and freedom as Sikhs but with this comes responsibility. One of the responsibilities we have is voting for the party that best represents our views. 

Seven Kings rhensabhi LIVE BROADCAST November 2014

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Live broadcast of seven kings rhensabhi
http://youtu.be/sSbt-0p5PU0

Apologies for the late start - technology problems.

Waheguru!

All Things Politics - w/e 10 November 2013

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What a week:
- An alleged terror suspect escaping and disguising himself by wearing a Burka
- NHS
- BAE shipyard jobs lost mainly in Portsmouth
- Falkirk row
- Intelligence Agencies coming under scrutiny and being called to answer questions from a select committee
- Pay Day lender loans and high risk of personal debt with Christmas around the corner
- 'Plebgate' and the police officers being called in front of a select committee


Before I start with dissecting a few of the main stories this week, I'd like to take a minute and speak about Remembrance Day. Many of us wear poppies and donate to The Royal British Legion but do we really know why. So a little bit of history.....

The First World War ended on the 11th hour on the 11th day on the 11th month, 1918, known as Armistice Day. The act of a 2 Minute Silence began on the anniversary of Armistice Day in 1919 by those who did not want to forget the millions killed, injured and affected. Now generally called Remembrance Day, people stop what they are doing and observe a 2 Minute Silence at 11am on 11 November each year in the memory of those who have been affected in all conflicts. 

Remembrance Day is observed by all Commonwealth countries: Australia, Barbados, St. Lucia, Canada, India, Kenya, Mauritius, New Zealand, South Africa, United Kingdom, Northern Ireland and Bermuda. Similar memorial services are held in France, Belgium, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, Poland and United States.

Remembrance Sunday is the second Sunday in November and typically is when all the memorial services take place; including the one lead by The Monarch at the Cenotaph, London. Some photos from todays service (courtesy of the SkyNews and twitter):

              

         

Now, many people think about the Soldiers who fought (and are fighting currently) but we should also take a minute to think about their families and loved ones who supported (and supporting) their loved ones to go and fight for our freedom. 

I hope that was insightful.

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The two stories I'd like to look at this week are: the Falkirk row and the intelligence agencies coming under scrutiny and being called to answer questions from a select committee.

Falkirk row

Some of us will remember that Falkirk came under attack when it came about that Unite may have acted unfairly to get its favoured candidate chosen to stand in that area. 

On Tuesday this week, Ed Miliband gave a speech on 'the cost of living' but during the Q&A Falkirk and its inquiry took precedence. Miliband was asked 7 times whether he would re-open the inquiry into vote-rigging and he did not answer. Many senior Labour figures such as Jack Straw, Alistair Darling, Johann Lamont (Scottish Labour leader) are calling for Miliband to re-open the investigation. 

Lets look at the facts:

March 2013: Unite union, who have donated over £9m to Labour, are accused of trying to rig the Falkirk parliamentary candidate selection

July 2013: Labour place the Falkirk Constituency Labour Party into special measures, suspending Karie Murphy, Unite’s preferred candidate, and local Unite organiser Stephen Deans

September 2013: Miliband backs down. He reinstates Karie Murphy and Stephen Deans to the Labour Party, and a Labour internal inquiry claims that no-one broke any rules – despite Miliband previously admitting there was evidence of ‘bad practice’

October 2013: E-mails passed to the Sunday Times show that Unite deliberately subverted Labour’s inquiry

November 2013: Extracts of Labour’s report show widespread concerns about Unite’s activities, including ‘forgery, coercion, trickery and manipulation’

So do you think Ed Miliband should re-open the investigation?
Should Labour publish their inquiry report?

Other sources of information:

Emails show Unite ‘broke Labour rules in Falkirk’

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/news/uk_news/National/article1338747.ece?CMP=OTH-gnws-standard-2013_11_09

Why Falkirk is a 'cesspit' for Ed Miliband

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/iainmartin1/100245232/why-falkirk-is-a-cesspit-for-ed-miliband/

New evidence of Falkirk vote-rigging "puts further pressure on Ed Miliband"

https://twitter.com/RicHolden/status/399486585529724928/photo/1

Now Len McCluskey faces allegations over his own Unite leadership election

http://www.conservativehome.com/leftwatch/2013/11/now-len-mccluskey-faces-allegations-over-his-own-unite-leadership-election.html

How Unite plotted 'socialist takeover' of the Labour Party

https://twitter.com/RicHolden/status/399484067533848576/photo/1

Union boss elected by phantoms' - new vote row hits the union that is pushing Ed Miliband around

https://twitter.com/RicHolden/status/399479825309921281/photo/1

Intelligence Agencies

The Boss' from GCHQ, MI5 and MI6 were called, for the first time, in front of the Intelligence and Security Committee this week over allegations of 'phone tapping' and listening in on the publics conversations. The full Committee open session can be seen here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03h7h30/Select_Committees_Intelligence_and_Security_Committee/

The committee, who asked for this open session a year ago, are looking at this as a route to provide a more 'transparent' security service. 

A little of background information about the three Intelligence Agenciesand their 'official' tasks:

Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ): Safety and security of the UK's cyber- connections and infrastructure
Security Service (MI5): Protection of national security against threats from espionage, terrorism and sabotage
Secret Intelligence Service (MI6): Collects Britain's foreign intelligence

The Intelligence Agencies were asked whether they are failing to predict events like the end of the Cold War, 9/11, the Arab uprisings. The response was 'we are not crystal ball gazers. We are Intelligence Agencies. We need to understand, part of our work is to understand foreign countries......... But I think you need to understand what Intelligence Agencies do. We acquire the secrets that other countries don't want us to know or other organisations don't want us to know; we are not all, all-knowing specialists in what is going to happen next month or next year.'

We were told that 34 terror plots had been disrupted since the 7 July, 2005, attacks in London.

There was a lot of controversy regarding the 'phone tapping' or 'snooping.' The Intelligence Agencies have been accused of 'widespread snooping' particularly after the leaks from ex-US security contractor Edward Snowden.

" First of all, just to clarify a couple of things, we do not spend our time listening to the
telephone calls or reading the e-mails of the majority, of the vast majority. That would not
be proportionate, it would not be legal. We do not do it. It would be very nice if terrorists
or serious criminals used a particular method of communication and everybody else used
something else. That is not the case. It would be very nice if we knew who all the
terrorists or serious criminals were, but the internet, as I said earlier, is a great way to
anonymise and avoid identification.
We have to do detective work and I will give you an analogy and it has been used in the
press recently, but I will just try and draw it out a bit more. If you think of the internet as
an enormous hay field, what we are trying to do is to collect hay from those parts of the
field that we can get access to and which might be lucrative in terms of containing the
needles or the fragments of the needles that we might be interested in, that might help our
mission.
When we gather that haystack, and remember it is not a haystack from the whole field, it is
a haystack from a tiny proportion of that field, we are very, very well aware that within that
haystack there is going to be plenty of hay which is innocent communications from
innocent people, not just British, foreign people as well. And so we design our queries
against that data, to draw out the needles and we do not intrude upon, if you like, the
surrounding hay. We can only look at the content of communications where there are very
specific legal thresholds and requirements which have been met. So that is the reality.
We don't want to delve into innocent e-mails and phonecalls. I feel I have to say
this: I don't employ the type of people who would do. My people are motivated by saving
the lives of British forces on the battle field, they are motivated by fighting terrorists/serious
criminals, by meeting that foreign intelligence mission as well. If they were asked to
snoop, I would not have the workforce. They would leave the building.

My fundamental belief is that everyone should be held to account. If an individual breaks the law, they are held to account by the courts. Similarly the Press should also be held to account on things that they publish - and if they publish something that would put the security of this country at risk, I feel something should be done to prevent this. 

My last thought on this topic is:  if you have nothing to hide I don't see why letting the security forces listen in is an issue. I would state though: I don't think that the Agencies would just listen in to anyone conversation, they have a hard task in front of them and we should support them and let them get on with the job as with proper regulations are already in place.

Other sources of information:

BBC News - UK intelligence work defends freedom, say spy chiefs 

http://bbc.in/17dIi2F

Spooks are too vital to be given this much power and funding

http://www.thesundaytimes.co.uk/sto/comment/columns/article1295697.ece

Spy Chiefs: Terrorists 'Rubbing Hands In Glee'

http://news.sky.com/story/1165220/spy-chiefs-terrorists-rubbing-hands-in-glee

Bandi Chhor message from Prime Minister David Cameron

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November 2013 View this email in your browser Bandi Chhor message from Prime Minister David Cameron After months of communicating with the Conservative Party and speaking to the right people at the right time, with Maharaj's Kirpa, I was able to convey the message that Sikhs celebrate Bandi Chhor and not Divali. The party showed great interest and intrigue about what Bandi Chhor stood for and why we as Sikhs celebrate it thus leading to Prime Minister David Cameron sending his warm wishes to the Sikhs celebrating Bandi Chhor. Please see below for the Prime Minister's message. Many people have asked my why I'm getting involved with politics on a grassroots level and whether politicians in the Conservative led Government actually listen to us. I firmly believe that they do and this message is just one example on how they are listening. If we look back in history, when we had the issue regarding crash helmets and riding motorbikes, it was Margaret Thatcher's Conservative Government who listened and took on board why our Dastar is so important to us. Michael Portillo remembers ''As a 22-year-old researcher, I was allowed to attend a shadow cabinet meeting discussing immigration policy. She had recently become leader of the opposition and was still surrounded by the "giants" from the Heath cabinet, men thought to be her intellectual and social superiors. A bell announcing a vote in the House of Commons interrupted proceedings. Chris Patten, as secretary to the shadow cabinet, said it was a motion to allow any turban-bearing Sikh to be exempt from the requirement to wear a crash helmet on a motorcycle. "I must go," she said. "I am pledged to support them." One of the giants, Lord Carrington, muttered something she didn't catch. Like a schoolboy, he was made to repeat it. "I said it was ironic that here we are devising how to keep people out of the country, while you are off to vote for the Sikhs." Silence. "It was a joke." She looked at the former defence secretary as though he were a piece of dirt. "Well, it wasn't very funny. These people fought for us in the war, Peter, fought for us in the war. Have you got it?" And off she flounced to record her vote.' There a plenty of other examples I can give where the Conservative Party have listened to us when we've communicated with them.  YourBritainYourSay @Harsimrst__Kaur Share Inspiration Harsimrat Kaur Follow me on Twitter: www.twitter.com/Harsimrat__Kaur  and see my website: www.share-inspiration.blogspot.co.uk/ Please support my initiative www.facebook.com/YourBritainYourSay to encourage more BME voters, mainly British Sikhs and Indian/Asian community, to vote at the next election and have their voices heard. See www.YourBritainYourSay.blogspot.com Share Tweet Forward to Friend +1 Prime Minister's Diwali and Bandi Chhor message “I send my best wishes to everyone in Britain and around the world celebrating Diwali and Bandi Chhor. “At this important time of year for the Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhist faiths we will see friends and families all over the country come together to celebrate these holy festivals. “The glorious ‘festival of light’ will be celebrated with lighting lamps, devotional singing and prayers at brightly decorated temples and homes, while at Gurdwaras and Sikh households families will celebrate the ‘day of freedom’ and pray for freedom and empowerment for all mankind. “While the festivals of Diwali and Bandi Chhor have different origins, their universal message of hope over despair, light over darkness and good over evil is something that we should all celebrate. “Together with other autumn festivals of Eid al-Adha and Chanukah, Diwali and Bandi Chhor demonstrate many of the common values that we all share. “I’d like to take this opportunity to thank Britain’s Hindu, Sikh, Jain and Buddhist communities for all they do for our country. You make an enormous contribution to Britain in so many ways. From hardworking families that are doing the right thing to entrepreneurs and businesses that are helping create prosperity; from excelling in science and public service to achieving in the arts and sport, your role in our nation is a shining example of how communities can integrate and succeed while retaining a strong and proud identity. “To all those celebrating Diwali or Bandi Chhor I send my warmest greetings.” https://www.gov.uk/government/news/diwali-2013-david-camerons-message Previous #AllThingsPolitics blog - w/e 18 October 2013 http://www.share-inspiration.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/all-things-politics-we-18-october-2013.html This weeks blog will be released in due course . Supporting the armed forces for remembrance day? See www.khandapoppy.com to buy your Khanda Poppy where all proceeds go to Royal British Legion. 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