Did You Know?

[balraj singh khalsa]

Did you know?

Lynne Jones the Labour MP for Birmingham, Selly Oak recently asked a Parliamentary Question regarding grants to faith communities.

The response by the Home Office Minister on 9 January 2006 indicated in 2004-05 the former Faith Communities Unit awarded grants for a range of capacity building projects to the following two Sikh organisations:

British Sikh Consultative Forum

Network of Sikh Organisations

The amounts are £23,500 and £6,300 respectively. The response to the Parliamentary Question has indicated the grants were awarded by the Home Office conditional on the organisation completing the project within an agreed timescale.

Question 1 - The first question that arises is which British Sikh Consultative Forum has received the grant. Is it the breakaway 'secret' BSCF as referred to it by its General Secretary Dr Jasdev Singh Rai and whose committee members according to its web site are:

Chairperson

Bhai Mohinder Singh: 0121 511 125

Vice chairpersons

Dr Sadhu Singh: 07958378776

Mr Avtar Singh Sanghera: 012476 684 802

General Secretary

Dr Jasdev Singh Rai: 07956 212 343

Secretary

Apardeep Singh: 07771 834 934

Liaison Secretary

Balwinder Singh: 0121 522 4828

Press Secretaries

Jaswinder Singh Nagra (English press): 07956 950 591

Kulwant Singh Dhesi: 07916 126 589

or is it the 'open' BSCF that appointed Principal Gurmukh Singh as its Administrative Secretary and an Administrative Team (Kashmir Singh, Sukhvinder Singh, Balvinder Kaur, Ranjit Singh, Balwinder Kaur and Dabinderjit Singh) that can be replaced at any meeting of the 'open' BSCF based on the wishes of its participating members.

Gurmukh Singh has provided a list of participants (and will no doubt do again) and is empowered to share the minutes of any of its dozen or so meetings.

Question 2 - Are the member organisations (not yet disclosed) or the officers of the "secret" BSCF listed above or the Administrative Secretary and Administrative Team and participating organisations of the 'open' BSCF aware of the grant to the BSCF (to whichever BSCF it may apply)?

Question 3 - What did the "capacity building project" undertaken by the BSCF comprise and who was aware of it?

Question 4 - Has the "capacity building project" undertaken by the BSCF been completed within the agreed timescale (condition of the Home Office grant)?

Question 5 - Which Sikh organisations have applied for grants from the Home Office Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund? The assessment process is currently under way and the successful organisations will be awarded grants in February 2006.

[Singh_Shiromani]

http://www.shrg.net/work/bscf/bscf_main.htm

bscf activities

 

BRITISH SIKH CONSULTATIVE FORUM

FORMS FOR MEMBERSHIP AND NEXT MEETING TO SELECT RESPONSIBILITIES

Location: Guru Nanak Nishkam Sewak Jatha, Soho Road, Birmingham

Date and Time: 21st June 2003, 5.30 pm.

Participation will be for those invited on the basis of having sent a letter of intention and a constitution by the 19th June 2003. If the application fulfils the criteria, participants will be invited to send one member as official delegate

The original deadline of 14th June has been extended to 19th June now as some institutions needed to have internal meetings to make their decisions final.

The membership criteria is as follows. The Organisation must:

be a Sikh organisation.

have a constitution.

have been in existence for at least a year.

have made a significant contribution to the Sikh Panth

either be representative of a number of organisations or have specialist skill with reasonable number of members.

It is suggested that if an organisation is an affiliate of a larger organisation and can be represented by the larger organisation, then it should not seek separate membership.

Membership Applications will be processed by a five member Panel selected on the 31st May 2003 consisting of

Harjeet Singh

Jasdev Singh rai

Bhai Mohinder Singh Ji

Ravinder Singh Pawar

Sadhu Singh

The forms or the constitutions may be sent either to the office in Ealing at

British Sikh Consultative Forum

2 Chignell Place

London W13 0TJ

Or they may be sent to

Ravinder Singh Pawar

Guru Nanak Gurdwara

130 High Street

Smethwick

Birmingham B66 3AP

i know DEFO that a few from the top list are involved in "hera feri" anyways where do these grants go?

ONE NAME HAS DEFINATLY BEEN MENTIONED IN A POST ON SIKH SANGAT'S POLITICAL SECTION!!

[kurtas]

Pawar is the man. He has his finger in so many pies.

>>The response by the Home Office Minister on 9 January 2006 indicated in 2004-05 the former Faith Communities Unit awarded grants for a range of capacity building projects to the following two Sikh organisations:

I bet Pawars ears pricked up when he heard "capacity BUILDING projects". I bet he stood up in the meeting and said "I am builder, I can build good building for 20K cash".

(BTW before anyone says anything, yes I know what capacity building really is)

[balraj singh khalsa]

Posted by Jasvir Kaur on Learning Zone:

What is the Sikh Human Rights Group (SHRG) up to these days -

anything on the Professor Davinderpal Singh Bhullar case, Kulvir

Singh case, Swiss hijackers case, release of Sikh political prisoners

in Indian jails, justice for the victims of the November 1984 anti-

Sikh pogroms, exerting pressure on India to gain access to Punjab for

Amnesty International or the UN Rapporteur on Torture etc.

All we seem to hear about is SHRGs role in pushing the "secret"

British Sikh Consultative Forum, getting grants from the UK

Government for capactity building, helping advise the Jathedhar of

the Akaal Takht, attending some UN Conference (irrespective of the

subject) etc. - the real HEART of the SIKH HUMAN RIGHTS agenda!

Please tell me I'm wrong and you are doing all this fantastic work on

SIKH HUMAN RIGHTS that apprears to be never publicised. Silent

opposition to protect human rights - that's a new one!

Now the SHRG needs to be "sanctioned" by the Home Office to do a

project - what is the world coming to - at one time SHRG was always

talking about why it was important to be independent! Or

is "sanctioned" a word which means the SHRG has received another

grant from the Home Office and must be seen to be doing something for

the money. Also is this the same grant received by the "secret"

BSCF, which operates from the addrtess of the SHRG, that was

disclosed in a recent Parliamentary Question.