Latest news with #PunjabiSikh
CBC
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- CBC
How Late Bloomer represents the breadth of the South Asian experience in Canada
Social Sharing Late Bloomer just wrapped up its second season, and the verdict is in: people love it. The Crave dramedy follows an aspiring content creator named Jusmeet Dutta, who's based on the show's creator and star, Jasmeet Raina (a.k.a Jus Reign). The series loosely mirrors Raina's own experience as a YouTuber and Punjabi Sikh millennial in Canada. Today on Commotion, host Elamin Abdelmahmoud speaks with journalists Jeevan Sangha and Joyita Sengupta about the acclaim for Late Bloomer and their favourite moments from this season. We've included some highlights below, edited for length and clarity. For the full discussion, listen and follow Commotion with Elamin Abdelmahmoud on your favourite podcast player. WATCH | Today's episode on YouTube: Elamin: Season two of Late Bloomer is being called the best one yet. Joyita, how did you feel about it? Joyita: I really liked it. I loved the first season, as well. I think the second season is even more ambitious than the first. And like it really leans into the drama side of the dramedy equation, although there are some really funny moments. But I think probably one of my favourite things about Late Bloomer, and specifically Season 2, is that in the canon of North American shows about South Asians, there's often, in my opinion, a huge lack of class representation. I always feel like I keep seeing the same stories about an upper middle class brown person whose parents are a doctor or something, and they want to go to an Ivy League school and blah, blah, blah. And they're made by great trailblazing creators, for sure — and they sometimes centre whiteness in a way that I don't appreciate — but it does speak to some people's experiences. But when it comes to Late Bloomer, you get to see a community that truly doesn't need to centre anyone else but themselves. And in terms of the class part of that equation, you see the first season ended with him [Jasmeet] falling out with his parents, mainly his dad. And now it starts with him living in a basement apartment with a bunch of international students. And there is a bit of tension there because those students are looking at him like, "You could just go home if you wanted to. You keep rocking the boat because you don't know struggle like we do." But then on the other hand, he's hanging out with this girlfriend who comes from a far more privileged and wealthier family, and there is a lot of discomfort around that and how they move through the world as South Asians. And I just think seeing that breadth of our experience from a class perspective? So refreshing. Elamin: Last week, [Joyita] was on this very show, talking about anti-Asian and anti-immigrant sentiments being aimed at Brampton, Ont. — specifically South Asian communities — being stoked by places like 6ixBuzz. Jeevan, what does a show like Late Bloomer offer to that conversation, do you think? Jeevan: I think this episode [Episode 6, which follows an international student who is also a food delivery person] of Late Bloomer, to me, is required reading for everyone in my life. I think that there are so many conversations about international students, about newcomers that are so vitriolic and so aggressive. One scene in that episode — it was very quick, but really important — is, after having the worst day ever, the protagonist of this episode opens his phone, and sees a video that he thinks is fun about folks that are just like him, and opens the comments, and it's just some of the most troubling and disgusting comments that you could ever see. And like any racialized person in Canada, but particularly South Asians in the last few years, know that feeling of seeing something on Instagram about someone in your community and just having to brace for impact. And I think the level of complexity that this episode brings to the international student experience, and presents to Canadians through the extensive research that was done, is so needed in this cultural moment in time. It is urgent to me, so if you haven't watched it please, please, please consider it.
Toronto Star
17-05-2025
- Toronto Star
‘We begged for protection': Mississauga businessman fatally shot after years of threats, daughter says
The daughter of a Toronto-area businessman killed in a brazen shooting in Mississauga says she believes her father would still be alive if police acted with greater urgency to the repeated threats against him. Speaking to the Star, Gurlin Dhadda identified the victim of Wednesday's killing as her father, Harjeet Singh Dhadda, 51. She called him a hardworking man, a proud Canadian resident and a leader in the local Punjabi Sikh community.
Business Recorder
09-05-2025
- Politics
- Business Recorder
Pakistan denies any action in Indian Punjab
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan, on Thursday, categorically denied taking any action that would endanger the civilian population in Indian Punjab. Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Ishaq Dar announced this while addressing a joint media briefing with the Director General (DG) Inter-Services Public Relations ISPR, Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry, here at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) on Thursday. He said India in the early hours of May 8 launched 'a highly provocative and dangerously escalatory' attack on its own territory in Amritsar (Indian Punjab), further terming it 'a dangerously sinister' attack. Three projectiles were deliberately dropped off in the capital of the Indian Punjab, the deputy prime minister said, adding, the fourth projectile entered Pakistan airspace and was neutralised by Pakistan's air defence. 25 Indian drones shot down, at least one dead: ISPR Dar said this Indian act appears to be a malicious design to falsely implicate Pakistan for targeting Indian civilians and incite anti-Pakistan sentiments among the Punjabi Sikh population to conveniently externalise the rising communal tensions within India. Briefing the media, the DG ISPR belies Indian claims about Pakistani attacks at 15 locations/cities in India. He termed it as a 'pack of lies'. He made it clear that the entire world will feel the echo and come to know when Pakistan will strike India at a time and place of its choosing. DG ISPR Gen Chaudhry said at least, 29 drones sent over by India have been destroyed by Pakistan so far. However, he clarified that only one managed to partially hit its target, which resulted in damage to some equipment and injuries to four soldiers. Three people were also martyred during the drone attacks. The DG ISPR said that the Indian government is living in a fool's paradise. The DG ISPR questioned whether the Indian government was living in the 21st Century or not, saying in the 21st Century, every projectile leaves a digital trace and signature. He also showed video footage of the tracking of the projectiles. He said when something was sent toward Pakistan, it was monitored and it had a digital signature. Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
New York Times
29-03-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
A Novel That Offers a Chilling Peek Into U.S. Intelligence
Rav Grewal-Kök's intriguing novel seems intent on unsettling us from its opening pages, with coolly precise prose that sneaks nimbly around the periphery of its characters' darkest thoughts and actions. In that sense, you might say that this accomplished debut, 'The Snares,' has adopted the techniques of the world it depicts — a realm of shadowy intelligence dominions where even the deadliest actions are carried out with calm detachment. We view this world largely through the eyes of Neel Chima, who, as the son of Punjabi Sikh immigrants, has never felt fully accepted by America even after graduating from an Ivy, serving as a naval officer, marrying a patrician young woman from the Beltway suburbs, and becoming a deputy assistant attorney general in the Department of Justice. As a federal prosecutor, he catches the attention of two mysterious schemers deep within the C.I.A., who see in Neel a bright young man with yearnings and vulnerabilities that might be leveraged to make him do their bidding, even when their plans go beyond the usual moral and legal boundaries of clandestine service. They engineer his hiring as a deputy director of the Freedom Center, which, with its newness, vague powers and bunkerlike headquarters in Northern Virginia, feels like a fictional version of the National Counterterrorism Center, an agency created in 2004. The book is set about seven years after 9/11, in the final months of the George W. Bush administration and the first term of President Barack Obama, who, in attempting to establish his toughness against foreign adversaries, liberally employed some of the deadliest tools at his disposal, especially drones. At the Freedom Center, Neel is expected to assess and identify worthy targets for those strikes. His sponsors' stated goal for Neel — to build the Freedom Center's influence with the White House by orchestrating high-value killings — comes with its own emotional costs, which weigh heavily on him from the beginning. But it is their enlistment of Neel in even more sensitive plans — involving targets on U.S. soil — that alerts him to the depths of the morass he has entered, especially after they entrap him with a compromising event designed to keep him more firmly under their thumb. In chronicling Neel's descent, Grewal-Kök offers us vivid glimpses into one room after another of push-button remote warriors, not just the trailers in the Nevada desert where crews pilot drones thousands of miles away, but also the cavernous operations chambers of the Freedom Center, where Neel's commands play out on video screens with horrifying results. Richer still is the author's depiction of rival agencies as they compete for influence, at war with one another as bitterly as with their enemies abroad. Grewal-Kök's icily clean prose is one of the novel's greatest strengths, yet also its most off-putting feature. While delivering the necessary chill with such precision, at times he holds us at arm's length from his characters. Neel often does the same with everyone in his orbit, including his wife and children, and only heightens this distancing effect. Some of the book's most oddly intimate scenes occur when Neel encounters other dark-skinned players within his world of secrets. In those moments, a code seems to arise organically between them, allowing them to finally speak freely of the hurdles and barriers they have faced since birth. The ending, arising with a jarring suddenness, feels like a bit of a puzzle — either a hapless stab at redemption or a surrender posing as resistance. But the chill, at least, is finally gone.
Yahoo
07-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How U.S. dairy trucking relies on immigrant labor
This story is part of a CBS Reports documentary, "The Price of Milk," that goes inside the supply chain, from farm-to-table. It airs Sunday, March 9, on CBS News 24/7 at 9 p.m. Eastern Time. Petaluma, California — In California, America's No. 1 dairy producer, Manuel Castro from El Salvador plays a vital role in getting milk to market. "It's a process, and in this process, it's 24 hours, every day…no holidays," Castro told CBS News. Castro has resided in California for about 30 years and became a U.S. citizen in 2009. On this particular day, he loads nearly 5,000 gallons of milk into a tank, which will be taken to a processing plant before eventually making its way to stores within 24 hours. Castro works for Moga Transportation, a company with humble beginnings that has grown over the last two decades into a fleet of dairy haulers. "We have close to 90 trucks," said Harwinder Singh Brar, who co-owns Moga Transportation with his wife, Prab Gill. More than three billion tons of agricultural products are moved across the U.S. every year, according to Bureau of Transportation statistics, with trucks carrying the majority of that freight. Brar is a Punjabi Sikh from India who first came to the U.S. in 1998 with his field hockey team. Instead of returning home, he stayed and sought asylum because of the religious persecution he faced in his home country. Some of his employees have been with the company for a decade or more. Brar says he tries to ensure they are well-treated. "Well, this is my family," Brar said. "They're not employees. They're family to us." Brar says trucking relies on immigrant labor. He speculates that without it, the industry would "shut down." "Well, trucking would shut down because it's primarily immigrants now," Gill explained. "It's changed so much." The Trump administration has begun a major crackdown on immigration. But a study by the National Milk Producers Federation, a group that advocates for dairy producers, indicates that eliminating immigrant labor would lead to a 90% increase in retail milk prices. A Wisconsin dairy farmer told CBS News last month that about 90% of the work on the farm is done by immigrants. "If I hired Americans to do the work, I would have to pay probably about $100,000 a year per person, and they would only work maybe 40-50 hours a week at that rate," farmer John Rosenow said. "Clearly, I couldn't be able to afford to pay Americans as much as they want." Says Castro, "It's about working hard. These people, wake up, two o'clock in the morning, one o'clock in the morning, they go out. You know, they finish around 11, 10 at night. The milk doesn't stop. It doesn't stop." Ex-Army recruiter flees state with 17-year-old girlfriend after estranged wife's murder Takeaways from Trump's joint address to Congress Watch: Sen. Elissa Slotkin refutes Trump's speech to Congress in Democratic rebuttal
