Sikhs for Business Announces VISTAR 2.0

 According to The Print “ Sikhs for Business, a global business networking platform for entrepreneurs and business owners, has officially announced its flagship event VISTAR 2.0, a large-scale international business networking conclave designed to connect, empower, and accelerate business growth across industries.

The event will bring together *1,500+ entrepreneurs, startup founders, and business owners from India and global markets to create meaningful partnerships, collaborations, and growth opportunities.

Sikhs for Business operates under the Ustat Foundation with a mission to strengthen entrepreneurship, business networking, and economic development through a trusted ecosystem of Sikh founders and industry leaders.

BUSINESS NETWORKING FOR GLOBAL GROWTH

VISTAR 2.0 is designed as a high-impact business networking platform where entrepreneurs can:

* Connect with industry leaders and mentors

* Explore business partnerships and expansion opportunities

* Learn from experienced business founders

* Access cross-sector collaboration opportunities

* Build long-term business relationships

The focus is on *real business growth, execution, and scalable connections*

INDUSTRY LEADERS & MENTORS

VISTAR 2.0 will feature a curated group of leading entrepreneurs, industrialists, and business mentors from diverse sectors including manufacturing, infrastructure, engineering, food industry, automotive, exports, and entrepreneurship development.

The confirmed industry leaders include:

Dr. P. J. Singh – Chairman & MD, Tynor Orthotics

S. Hartek Singh – Chairman & MD, Hartek Group

S. Baljeet Singh Jubilee – Director, Jubilee Group

Harjinder Singh (Prayagraj) – Managing Director, Milan Group

Charanjit Singh Shah – Architect & Urban Design Professional

Rajinder Singh – Kartar Valves, Industrial Manufacturing Sector

Parvinder Sahney – Windsor Group, Business Leadership

Saranjit Singh – Gopal Sweets, Food & Hospitality Industry

Paramjit Singh – Regional Centre for Entrepreneurship Development

Rupinder Singh Sachdeva – Hi-Tech Industries, Engineering Sector

Arvinder Singh – Seedways Tyres, Automotive Industry

Amardeep Singh Hari – Africa (Ghana), International Trade & Export

Sandeep Kaur Minnie Riat – Akal Springs, Industrial Manufacturing Sector

H.S. Cheema – Cheema Boilers, Engineering & Energy Solutions

Upkar Singh – CICU & New Swan Group, Industrial Development

Onkar Singh Pahwa – Avon Cycles, Global Bicycle Manufacturing & Export Industry

These leaders represent a powerful mix of established enterprises and global business networks, offering insights into scaling, innovation, leadership, and international expansion.

ORGANISER STATEMENT

“VISTAR 2.0 is designed to create a platform where entrepreneurs, business owners, and industry leaders come together to build real opportunities for growth and collaboration. Our goal is to strengthen business ecosystems that go beyond networking and lead to real execution.”

— Baljeet Kaur, Entrepreneur ecosystem builder

Founder, Sikhs for business & Free Mind a school for Professional skills 

BUSINESS RECOGNITION PROGRAM

Alongside networking, VISTAR 2.0 will also recognize outstanding entrepreneurs through a nomination-based award initiative.

Categories include:

* Family Business Excellence

* Rising Women Entrepreneurs

* Emerging Business Leaders

* High-Growth Startups

This initiative aims to highlight businesses showing strong performance, consistency, and growth potential.

REGISTRATION & ACCESS

Due to limited seating and premium networking structure, participation is carefully curated.

* Registration: vistar.sikhs4business.com

* WhatsApp: +91 73992 50001

Sikh Community to Celebrate 200 Years of Settlement in Assam

 According to Sentinel Assam “ The Sikhs of Assam have a rich and glorious history. Guru Nanak, the founder of Sikhism, visited Assam during his first Udasi (missionary journey) in 1505. Later, at another important point in history, the ninth Sikh Guru, Guru Tegh Bahadur, visited Assam in 1667, adding further significance to the history of Sikhs in the state.

Although Sikhs migrated to Assam at different times for various reasons, the most significant permanent settlement began during the Burmese (Maan) invasion of Assam between 1818 and 1822. At the request of Swargadeo Chandrakanta Singha, the King of Assam, Maharaja Ranjit Singh of Punjab sent a force of 500 Sikh soldiers under the leadership of the brave Chaitanya Singh to fight against the Burmese. After the final battle of Hadirachaki, many of these Sikh soldiers settled permanently in Assam. This marked the beginning of the indigenous Sikh community in Assam, a history that now spans more than two centuries.

In fact, if the establishment of Gurdwara Mataji at Chaparmukh in 1820 is taken as the base year, the bicentenary of the permanent settlement of Assamese Sikhs should have been celebrated in 2020. However, the event could not be organised due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent Lok Sabha and Assembly elections.

Meanwhile, the Assamese Sikh Santha, the state's traditional social organisation of Sikhs, has become divided and weakened because of prolonged inaction by its leadership.

Against this backdrop, a special general meeting held on June 7, 2026, at the Borkola Central Gurdwara resolved to organise a grand bicentenary celebration of the permanent Sikh settlement in Assam. Accordingly, a general meeting of the Indigenous Sikhs of Assam has been scheduled for July 12 at the Borkola Central Gurdwara, the cultural and religious centre for Assamese Sikhs.

The meeting will discuss the present condition and future direction of the Assamese Sikh Santha. It will also initiate the formation of the organising committee for the grand celebration marking 206 years of the permanent settlement of Sikhs in Assam.

Kaur becomes first Sikh to serve on U.S. religious freedom commission

 

According to NorthWest Asian Weekly “ Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer announced on May 21 the appointment of Dr. Gunisha Kaur to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), making her the first Sikh to serve on the bipartisan federal panel.

Kaur, a physician, researcher and human rights advocate based in New York, was recommended by Schumer for a two-year term on USCIRF. The independent legislative branch agency monitors religious freedom conditions abroad and advises the president, Congress and the State Department on policy recommendations.

Kaur serves as the Salvatore Family Medical Director of the Weill Cornell Center for Human Rights and is the founding director of the Human Rights Impact Lab. She is also an associate professor of anesthesiology and director of the Anesthesiology Global Health Initiative at Weill Cornell Medicine.

An anesthesiologist by training, Kaur’s work has focused on displaced populations, including migrants, refugees and asylum seekers. Her research has received support from institutions including the National Institutes of Health and the National Academy of Medicine.

USCIRF was created under the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act. The commission is composed of nine members appointed by the president and congressional leaders and is tasked with monitoring violations of religious liberty worldwide.

Jubilee Health Insurance, Sikh Council launch community-based medical cover

 According to KBC “ Jubilee Health Insurance and the Sikh Council of Kenya have launched a tailored community medical cover for members of the Sikh community in Kenya, including their families and businesses.

This marks the first in a series of partnerships designed to extend healthcare access through organised affinity groups.

The scheme enables members to access quality healthcare through collective participation and pooled risk, making cover more affordable and sustainable than traditional individual plans. The solution offers essential inpatient and outpatient benefits, helping address one of the biggest barriers many households continue to face – the high upfront cost of accessing quality medical cover individually.

Eligibility spans from children as young as 38 weeks to senior citizens aged 65 years and above, with inpatient benefit options starting from Ksh 250,000 and extending up to Ksh 10 million. Enrolment will be facilitated through appointed agents within the community structure.

As the cost of healthcare continues to rise, more Kenyans are finding it increasingly difficult to access quality medical cover individually. Yet across the country, communities, associations, SACCOs, professional bodies, and faith-based groups already exist as trusted support systems for millions of people.

Jubilee Health Insurance is positioning these organised communities as one of the most direct gateways to affordable, dignified healthcare access.

Speaking during the announcement, Jubilee Health Insurance CEO and Principal Officer, Njeri Jomo, said the future of healthcare access will depend on how insurers design solutions around the realities of how people live, work, and organise themselves.

“Healthcare should not feel out of reach. We are seeing a powerful shift where communities and affinity groups are becoming gateways to access. By designing solutions around how people naturally organise themselves – through faith, profession, or shared identity – we are making healthcare simpler, more affordable, and more human.”

“But affordability is only the entry point. Organised communities give us a platform to do something more important: embed preventive care, simplify referrals, and design care pathways around real member journeys. Healthcare cost in Africa is fundamentally a system-design problem, and partnerships like this are where the next generation of value in health insurance will be created.”

On his part, Jubilee Holdings Limited Chairman, Zul Abdul, noted that driving insurance uptake will require innovative and inclusive models that reflect the cultural reality of how communities support one another, including a strong tradition of pooling resources.

“In our society, the culture of pooling resources – whether through harambees, SACCOs, or other community structures – is deeply rooted. This presents a powerful opportunity to design solutions that enable people to come together and pool risk in a structured way. As a company, our focus on organized groups is deliberate, as we continue to expand access to protection and make insurance more inclusive, accessible, and relevant to more people.”

National Chairman of the Sikh Council of Kenya Gurdeep Singh Flora said the partnership reflects the community’s long-standing values of collective support and shared responsibility.

“Our community has always believed in standing together and supporting one another. This partnership reflects that spirit by ensuring our members and their families can access healthcare with dignity, peace of mind, and financial protection.”

The partnership forms part of Jubilee Health Insurance’s broader strategy to expand healthcare inclusion by embedding insurance solutions within trusted ecosystems and organised communities, rather than relying solely on traditional retail models. The model is designed to complement, not compete with, the Social Health Authority framework, providing structured private cover that strengthens overall protection for participating households.

As healthcare financing continues to evolve, Jubilee Health Insurance sees community-based models as one of the most practical levers for closing Kenya’s insurance penetration gap, particularly for groups that may otherwise remain uninsured.

The shift in the market is from selling insurance products to building healthcare access around people, communities, and everyday realities, because healthcare becomes more powerful when no one has to face it alone.

600,000 people set to attend largest Vaisakhi parade outside India in Surrey

 According to CBC “ Hundreds of thousands of people are set to attend the Vaisakhi parade in Surrey, B.C., on Saturday, as the annual Sikh harvest festival draws the largest parade crowd of its kind outside of India.

Organizers estimate at least 600,000 people will attend the annual parade — with attendees celebrating delicious food, community and the Sikh faith's commitment to service and selflessness.

Road closures will be in place for the duration of the event, according to Surrey police, who said commuters should expect significant delays between 72 Avenue and 88 Avenue, as well as between Scott Road and King George Boulevard.

The colourful parade will kick off at 9 a.m. PT at the Gurdwara Sahib Dasmesh Darbar on 85 Avenue. On The Coast10:10 Surrey Vaisakhi parade takes place this weekend

One of the largest Vaisakhi parades outside of India takes place on Saturday. Two organizers, Moninder Singh and Akashdeep Singh, join host Gloria Macarenko for a conversation on the upcoming festivities.

Akashdeep Singh, who has attended the parade since he was a child, has helped organize it for over half a decade now.

He said that the parade allowed the local Sikh community to showcase its traditions — especially that of serving free food, in honour of the traditions of seva and langar.

"It means more than just looking out for your own ... the ability for a Sikh to go and be there for everyone and anyone," he said on CBC's On The Coast.

"A lot of our events and programming and our celebrations definitely revolve around that." Everything you need to know about Vaisakhi

The CBC's Anita Bathe explains what Vancouver and Surrey's massive Vaisakhi celebrations are all about

Vaisakhi celebrates the creation of the order of the Khalsa in 1699, a defining moment in Sikh history that gave the Sikh faith its final form.

Moninder Singh, a spokesperson for the Gurdwara Sahib Dasmesh Darbar who has been helping organize the event since 2007, said it has grown from one that attracted 55,000 people to the massive celebration it is today.

"I think the growth has been really [about] ... a vibrant community in Surrey, the multiculturalism that is in Canada, other people wanting to learn about the Sikh faith and us obviously wanting to learn about our neighbours as well," he said. Moninder said that the parade had never seen any significant security breaches in the nearly two decades since it has been organized in Surrey.

But in light of the car-ramming that claimed 11 lives at the Lapu-Lapu Day festival in Vancouver last year, he said police and organizers would be stepping up security.

"Major arterial roadways are blocked [so] that cars and other larger vehicles are not able to make it through into the parade route," he said. 

"So, it has been that way for a few years. But we are definitely upping the security just to make sure that people feel safe coming to the event."  The Surrey Police Service advises families attending the event to have safety plans in place and keep children within eyesight at all times.

It also says drones would be prohibited over the parade.

Full details on road closures are available on the City of Surrey website. Organizers are recommending that attendees take transit to the event, which would drop them off near the parade's starting point.

Sikh Canadians Today: A Community Shaping Canada’s Future

 According to Weekly Voice “ Sikh Heritage Month is not only a time to reflect on the past but also an opportunity to recognize the growing influence of Sikh Canadians across the country. According to the 2021 census, Canada is home to 771,790 Sikhs, representing approximately 2.1 percent of the national population, making Sikhism the fourth largest religion in Canada.

The largest Sikh populations are found in Ontario, British Columbia, and Alberta, with major communities in cities such as Brampton, Surrey, Calgary, and Edmonton. In fact, Canada now has the second largest Sikh population in the world after India and the highest national proportion of Sikhs anywhere globally.

Sikh Canadians have played an increasingly visible role in politics and public leadership. Leaders such as Jagmeet Singh, who became the first visible minority leader of a major federal political party, represent the growing participation of Sikh Canadians in shaping national policy and public debate. Over the years, Sikh Canadians have also served as cabinet ministers, premiers, mayors, and Members of Parliament.

Beyond politics, Sikh Canadians continue to contribute strongly to sectors such as transportation, manufacturing, agriculture, healthcare, and education. Community institutions such as gurdwaras remain central to social life and continue the tradition of langar, service, and volunteerism that has defined Sikh identity for generations.

As Canada celebrates Sikh Heritage Month each April, it recognizes not only the sacrifices of early pioneers but also the achievements of a modern community that continues to strengthen the country’s multicultural foundation and national identity.

GNDU makes ‘Basic Knowledge of Sikhism’ course mandatory for undergraduates

 According to Babushahi “ The Academic Council of Guru Nanak Dev University (GNDU) has decided to introduce a compulsory course titled “Basic Knowledge of Sikhism” for all undergraduate programmes starting from the 2026–27 academic session.

The course, prepared by the Guru Nanak Studies Department, will carry two academic credits. The decision was taken during a meeting of the Academic Council chaired by Vice-Chancellor Dr Karamjeet Singh.

The council approved the recommendations of the Board of Control of the Guru Nanak Studies Department for implementing the course across various departments of the university. According to the proposal, the subject will be delivered through online mode by the Directorate of ODL and Online Studies.

During the meeting, the council also approved the renaming of the Centre for South Central Asia Studies as the Centre for Central Asia Studies, located on the university campus.

Another major decision taken by the council was to introduce several common courses through online mode from the 2026–27 academic session under programmes of the Directorate of ODL and Online Studies. These courses include Environmental Studies, Drug Abuse Problem Management and Prevention, Human Rights, and Human Values and Understanding Harmony, which are already being taught in universities and affiliated colleges.

Addressing the members, Vice-Chancellor Dr Karamjeet Singh said the Academic Council plays a crucial role in framing academic policies and improving the university’s curriculum. He welcomed members attending both online and offline, including principals and faculty members from affiliated colleges.

He emphasised that while introducing new courses, the university must carefully assess infrastructural facilities and required resources. “The university is not in a hurry to start new programmes without proper planning, but updating the curriculum according to contemporary needs is essential,” he said.

The Vice-Chancellor also informed the council that the university has initiated the process of signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the University of Maryland in the United States for academic collaboration. Under this initiative, students will gain opportunities to engage with emerging fields such as Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Cyber Security.

He said the collaboration will offer international academic exposure to students without imposing heavy financial burdens. In the initial phase, around 60 students from the Computer Science stream will be shortlisted, out of which 30 students will participate in online interactions and joint academic programmes with the partner university.

The council was also informed that proposals for 14 new courses from different faculties were presented during the meeting. These include programmes in Psychology, a four-year course in Social Sciences, certificate courses, and an M.Tech programme in Electronics and Communication.

Dr Karamjeet Singh further said the university is planning to revive some previously functional academic centres, including departments related to Philosophy as well as the Centre for Central Asia Studies.

Highlighting the importance of employability, he noted that the university is exploring new models such as remote learning and remote employment, enabling students to connect with global opportunities through modern technology.

Referring to the rapid advancement of technology, particularly Artificial Intelligence, the Vice-Chancellor stressed that both teachers and students must equip themselves with new technological skills to remain relevant in the evolving academic and professional landscape.

At the beginning of the meeting, Dean Academic Affairs Dr Harvinder Singh Saini welcomed the members and highlighted the major achievements of the university. Later, the meeting agenda was presented by Registrar Dr K. S. Chahal.

Fleetwood Park Secondary Sikh Students Association hosts school’s first-ever langar

 According to Surrey Schools “ Members and volunteers from Fleetwood Park Secondary's Sikh Students Association hosted the first-ever langar for the school community, serving 280 vegetarian meals to students and staff. In Sikhism, a langar is a free community kitchen at gurdwaras that provides meals to anyone regardless of caste, creed or religion.

Sikh students at Fleetwood Park Secondary recently showed their generosity as the school’s Sikh Students Association organized its first langar for the school community, serving 280 meals while spreading awareness about Sikh values of equality, service and community.

In January, students from the association and dozens of volunteers organized and ran the inaugural langar, known in Sikhism as a free community kitchen found in every gurdwara that provides vegetarian meals to anyone who wishes to join, regardless of caste, creed or religion. The goal of the event was to introduce the school community to this meaningful aspect of Sikh culture while creating an opportunity for students and staff to come together, connect and learn through a shared meal.  

Fleetwood Park Secondary's first-ever langar served as an opportunity for students to give back through service, raise awareness for Sikh values and connect with others through a shared meal.

“The idea came from students who wanted to create an inclusive experience where everyone, regardless of background, could sit together and share a meal as equals,” said teacher Jasdeep Kaur Sandhu. “Langar represents unity and humility, and students felt this was a meaningful way to bring those principles into our school environment.

“It was also an opportunity to educate the broader school community about Sikh traditions in a hands-on and welcoming way.”

The association began two years ago after students from Sandhu’s Punjabi class expressed interest in learning more about Sikh history, and was formed to create a safe and supportive space where Sikh students could explore their identity and deepen their understanding of their faith and heritage.

As the students began learning more, Sandhu said they wanted to share their history and practices with their school community, leading to the langar and other events at Fleetwood Park. Last June, the association organized a day to serve chabeel, a refreshing rose-flavoured summer drink.

“Through events and education, the group encourages leadership, service, and cultural pride among students,” she said. “It also aims to promote intercultural understanding and build bridges within the broader school community.”

Sandhu said the generosity of the association’s members and volunteers aligns with the three pillars of Sikhism:

• Naam Japna (meditation and remembrance of God);
• Kirat Karni (earning an honest living); and
• Vand ke Chakna (giving and sharing with others).

“The students’ willingness to volunteer their time and energy reflects the deep-rooted value of seva, or selfless service,” said Sandhu. “The level of student engagement demonstrated a strong sense of ownership and pride in hosting the langar for the school community.

“Their generosity extends beyond cultural events – it is reflected in how they support peers, staff and the wider community. They see service not as an obligation, but as a privilege and responsibility.”