Leaping advancements in communication technology are the hallmark of the 20th century, wherein print, electronic and other media have become the vital instruments of information dissemination. Immediate information in turn has become the life line of socioeconomic cultural and political process taking place around the world.

In this technological whirlwind of progress, “journalism” has evolved and is shining to its powerful heights, piloting and maneuvering world events. No wonder good journalism is being disciplined by self-imposed and religiously guarded standards of truthful and investigative reporting, which sometimes could be life threatening to the reporters. The epic events of the past decades have been witnessed on the television screen simultaneously by millions, continents apart. Unwittingly their course has been transformed by the arousing of forceful human sentiments that changed the opinions of the people globally e.g. the fall of Marcos in the Philippines, the war in Afghanistan and the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. Whenever totalitarian governments like that of China, South Africa or India, have wanted to defy the winds of time, offensive to the Government authority, they had clamped or controlled the media. The media that fuels the moral supportive energy to the justifiable causes of the populace, through truthful reporting of suppressive activities of the regimes.

In the family of nations poor channels of information amongst the people form vital arteries and bridges. Any community or nation that is not linked to the rest of human race through the available information systems, cannot exercise its right of survival effectively. Instead it would fail to create world opinions in its favor in adverse circumstances that may be fall,

To fulfill this necessity, leaders of the Sikh community, woke up after the rude shock of the invasion of Golden Temple in Amritsar and the Sikh genocide in India in 1984 and started the World Sikh News weekly.

World Sikh News was needed to expose to the world and inform the Sikh people, of the atrocities committed on the Sikhs in Punjab, India and abroad; to rebut the international media blitz of misinformation and disinformation conducted by the then Govt of India against the Sikhs the world over; to bring together the Sikh Diaspora socially, culturally, and politically, to give a legitimate voice of the people which could be heard in international courts of justice, parliaments and congresses.

WSN has been going through teething troubles since its inception but it will take some time before it is accepted as a “must have paper” by every Sikh family. Unless we all believe in the validity of its existence in these historic times of Sikh nation’s misfortunes, we cannot have a handle on events affecting us today or in our future. Thus it is still not very late for us all to put in our dime where our pulse is and let posterity be the harvest of our toils.

At this time at the anniversary of the WSN, the pioneers and the sustainers of this vital effort have to be commended and congratulated. They need all the backing that anyone can muster. Our own news media stands as the only measure of our advancement in the civilized world.

S.K. Dhamoon, M.D. New York

Article extracted from this publication >> January 19, 1990