At Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Joth Singh admitted the assault, which took place in November 2007, and was jailed for 17 and a half months.

The court heard that his victim, Eric Wingate, 31, suffered a fractured skull and needed emergency surgery. He had to have titanium skull plates fitted and has since suffered panic attacks, headaches, nausea and breakdowns and can no longer work full-time.

Singh admitted causing him severe injury, endangering his life and leaving him permanently impaired and disfigured.

He got out of his car in Edinburgh’s old town and attacked Mr Wingate, from Australia, when the pedestrian kicked his car after colliding with the vehicle.

Singh, a father of two, was found at an address in Piershill Square East. He claimed he did not know that Mr Wingate was unconscious when he drove off in his car, which his lawyer said was his pride and joy.

Singh was sent to prison for 33 months in August 2005 for acting as a heroin courier.

He was released early in August 2006 but at Edinburgh High Court in August this year was ordered to serve the unexpired three-month portion of his original sentence.

The event exhibited all the crafts that the volunteers used to run the workshops, which were very successful amongst all community groups, and schools, where the workshops were taught. The TEEYAN event attracted over 450 women and girls, who enjoyed various spectacles, from traditional giddha, to yoga demonstrations; there was also a laughter show: that surely got the crowd giggling.

The event called TEEYAN, was and still is celebrated in India. It is a time just before the monsoon season, where girls and women, would often decide to congregate under a huge tree, only to enjoy a day full of singing, dancing, sharing each others anxieties and worries, but more importantly share life experiences.

The event on Friday the 11th July was a huge success, and some of the volunteers organised a drama based on some of the recent issues that newly married girls and boys are experiencing, as they come into England….The event ended with everyone in high spirits, dancing and singing and enjoying traditional Indian food.

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S.C.C.P and DIPP is partnership in 2007 established a community based preventative health programme called DIPP – which stands for Diabetes Intervention Prevention Programme. This programme delivers various health seminars, health days, exercise sessions, such as the new Bhangra aerobics sessions, which are proving very popular.

To learn more about The Sikh Community Care Project (SCCP), please click here.

Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan and actress Anushka Sharma pray at Golden temple prior to the shoot of their upcoming film Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi.

Sandeep Singh “Sonny” Caberwal, 29, was recruited for a campaign promoting the Kenneth Cole men’s clothing brand, but it was also used by the controversial fashion mogul to support diversity by exposing stereotypes.

The campaign was entitled “We all walk in different shoes”.

As well as Sonny Caberwal, it featured a paralympic athlete, a feminist, Israeli and Palestinian film directors, a quadraplegic rugby player, a US soldier wounded in Afghanistan, a gay married couple, an HIV positive journalist and an immigrant mother.

Kenneth Cole has previously made headlines by raising issues ranging from Aids awareness to homelessness and the use of fur in clothing manufacture.

Seeking a suitable Sikh male, Mr Cole’s casting agency not unexpectedly drew a blank among modelling agencies which have traditionally seen turban wearing as a limitation for models. The agency had to contact Sikh organisations and that’s how the search reached the ears of Sonny Caberwal, who has always worn a turban.

Kenneth Cole stipulated that his Sikh had to be highly educated and Sonny Caberwal certainly fits the bill.

Son of a doctor, he was born in North Carolina, and graduated from Duke University and the Georgetown University Law Centre. He was a practising attorney in Manhattan before changing direction to co-found tea retailer Tavalon Tea.

He entered the fashion world in October 2007 hoping the awareness generated by the ad campaign would benefit his community in a country where violent attitudes towards Muslim extremists sometimes spill over on to Sikhs. His brother-in-law is among those who have been subjected to taunts, physical threats and job discrimination.

Kenneth Cole wanted his campaign to teach that Sikhs are ordinary US citizens “who wear cool clothes and think just like other Americans”, said Mr Caberwal and he himself now uses his poster boy celebrity to speak out about religious intolerance and negative stereotyping.

On a website associated with Harvard University, he draws attention among other things to harassment experienced by many Sikh children in American schools.

He says the US schools curriculum glosses over the Sikh religion and many American youngsters’ perceptions of turbans and beards are influenced by media portrayals of the Taliban and terrorism.

Mr Caberwal says the Kenneth Cole campaign has given Sikh children the opportunity to feel proud of their Sikh identity at school, where they may previously have experienced hatred.

Mr Johnson, who has a reputation for committing resounding political gaffes with ill-judged comments, says he is going to work to unite communities in the capital.

The mayor has declared that he wants to support events that bring people together.

He will be expected to build bridges with the city’s ethnic minority groups, after being accused during his election campaign of being a divisive figure who could not represent all of the metropolis.

The Vaisakhi celebration was the triumphant Tory’s first official engagement after his victory over Labour’s Ken Livingstone.

He dismissed suggestions he would not support such festivals as “a canard floated by the outgoing mayor”.

He said: “One of the wonderful things we have got in London is fantastic diversity – we have got the whole world in a city.”

Mr Johnson’s indiscretions have incurred the wrath of the cities of Liverpool and Portsmouth and he also caused controversy when he described past Tory Party in-fighting as “Papua New Guinea-style orgies of cannibalism and chief-killing”.

Papua New Guinea’s high commissioner in London objected to this comparison and drew an apology of sorts from Mr Johnson, who said: “I meant no insult to the People of New Guinea who I’m sure lead lives of blameless bourgeois domesticity in comparison to the rest of us.”

Men’s magazine GQ voted Boris Johnson its Politician of the Year at its annual awards ceremony on September 3.

In March 2008, after resolving the issue of wearing her dastaar on-the-job, with the help of the Sikh Coalition, Arpinder Kaur was officially hired by American Airlines Corporation (AMR) as a First Officer. She filed her grievance for accommodation of her religious article of faith based on American Airlines’ allowance of “regulation approved hats”. An agreement was reached that is consistent with state and federal anti-discrimination law. In June 2008 she finished her pilot training program and is now flying Embraer Jets for American Eagle, a regional airline that is part of AMR based out of the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

When Arpinder Kaur was asked why she chose to do this, she said:

“Two of the reasons I did this were: first, my love of flying and, second, to set a precedent for the community so they know you can be in your Sikh appearance and do anything out there; so that my younger brothers and sisters [the rising generation] will pursue their passions while practicing their Sikh faith.”

Her passion for flying first started when at the age of 15 she got to sit in the cockpit of an airplane when moving from Panjab. Despite having a degree in Information Systems and her mother’s belief that it was too dangerous for a girl to be a pilot, Kaur has chosen to follow her passion; while using it as a means for supporting her family. Kaur said it was the love and support of her husband, Pritpal Singh that pushed her forward on the path toward becoming a pilot. Kulbir Singh Sandhu, captain with AMR mentored her throughout her aviation career. From 2003 to 2005 Kaur was trained by Jesse Sherwood in Kansas. With the help of these individuals and others along with her own perseverance and determination, Kaur and American Airlines have shown that accommodation and not assimilation is the way to harness the strength of diversity in America.

Now it has emerged that the school‘s legal costs have risen to around £200,000.

This includes £60,000 to human rights group, Liberty, who brought the case for Sarika Watkins-Singh, now 15, from Cwmbach. The student was suspended from Aberdare Girls’ School after insisting she should be allowed to wear her kara wrist bangle, one of the five symbols of Sikh identity.

Sarika is thought to be in line for five-figure damages as well, for disruption to her education.

The Daily Express broke news of the huge hike in legal costs, which, it says, would be borne from the school budget of £2.2 million if an appeal against £80,000 of the bill did not succeed.

The school had denied racial discrimination and Sarika spent nine weeks being taught in isolation because the bangle was against its uniform policy.

Later she was suspended and although the school said it would welcome her back after the court ruling she never returned and has been receiving home tuition ever since.

Local Labour MP Ann Clwyd used Freedom of Information legislation to uncover the costs figure of £76,000, which she condemned as a waste of taxpayers’ money as she and others had warned the school it would lose the case.

Sarika’s family brought a claim under race relations and equality laws after the girl was excluded in November 2007, for breaking the school’s “no jewellery” rule.

Judge Mr Justice Silber ruled in Sarika’s favour in the summer and she was given permission to return to school to start her GCSE studies, wearing the bracelet.

Judge Mr Justice Silber said he had been told the kara denoted “God’s infinity” and was effectively a “handcuff to God”. He rejected a claim that it could be seen as a “symbol of affluence” and said many watches allowed at the school were more expensive than the steel bracelet.

Sarika, who called herself a “proud Welsh and Punjabi Sikh girl”, said she was happy that no other Sikh girl would ever be banned from wearing a religious bracelet.

Ann Clwyd said that MPs for Midlands areas where there were large Sikh populations had told her that Sikhs were a protected minority under the Race Relations Act and the school had been warned of this.

The news of the escalating costs brought mixed reactions according to the Daily Express.

TaxPayers’ Alliance spokesman Mark Wallace said the taxpayer would have to stump up the money. He condemned political interference – schools needed to be given full control of their rules and regimes without risk of “politically correct enforcement”.

Nick Seaton, chairman of the Campaign for Real Education, thought the school had been unwise to pursue its battle to the High Court.

In Brisbane, Australia, a school was forced to apologise for refusing to enrol a 12-year-old Sikh boy because he would not discard his turban and cut his hair to conform to uniform regulations.

Ormiston College was taken to Queensland’s Anti-Discrimination Commission by his parents.

The family received an undisclosed out-of-court settlement but said their main aim was to create understanding in the community of the importance of being able to choose an education while maintaining your religious beliefs and identity.

The boy was refused admission to exclusive Ormiston College in 2006. He now attends another private school.