Dhahan informed the gathering about the incorporation of “dhol” in the band performing multiple shows at different locations in Amritsar on April 13th and 14th, one show in Nawanshahar on April 15 and the final show in Chandigarh on April 16th. In January 2014, the mayor awarded Vancouver’s highest honour, the Freedom of the City Award, to the men and women of the band. Dressed in a non-military bagpiper’s uniform, she impressed audiences during the Armistice Day Remembrance Ceremony at the Delhi War Cemetery on November 11th and a couple of times at the residence of the British high commissioner, Dominic Asquith. The department’s band performs at various events for the Punjabi diaspora, including the annual Baisakhi Parade in Vancouver. For the band’s centenary in June 2014, it travelled to England to play for the changing of the guard, at both Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle.Scottish bagpiper player Laura MennieThe band’s delegation was headed by Chief Constable Adam Palmer of the Vancouver Police, accompanied by Deputy Chief Constable Steve Rai and Barjinder S. While Indian Army bagpipers began with and played mainly Scottish tunes till Independence, since then many Indian compositions based on Indian folk music have been added to their repertoire. The band, with its 24 members — the youngest are in their 20s and the oldest, almost 75 — thereafter, played their “usual repertoire” as Pipe Maj.

They also visited the Golden Temple at Amritsar and the Wagah Border post.The heady sound of bagpipes preceded the Vancouver Police Pipe Band as it came marching into the lawns of Canada House playing a grand march, “Sixth of June”.Constable Sukhi Sunger with the dholThe Vancouver Police Pipe Band has spent the last 100 years entertaining people around the globe and at the same time acting as ambassadors for their country, province and city. The bands participating were from France, Britain, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and from India, which was represented by bands from Indian Army, Navy and Air Force.If a head count is to be made of the number of pipes and drums bands, considering that every infantry battalion of the Indian Army has its integral band, India may well turn out to be leading in the world.One wonders as to how many people — both foreigners and Indians — are aware of bagpipe music played in the Indian Army.Bagpipe sounds are produced through reeds as are some traditional Indian instruments like the “shehnai” famously used in Indian classical music and during weddings as well as the “been” popularly played by snake-charmers. Its stalwart, strapping members have long been regarded in the city with great pride and affection.It will be indeed interesting to match Indian bagpipers with the Scottish and those of Commonwealth countries, which also play traditional Scottish tunes.While Indian military bands have been invited since decades to perform in many countries, India held its first-ever military music festival in March 2010, when military bands from six countries cast a spell over audiences in Delhi at the Army Parade Ground, Purana Qila and India Gate. The pipe band, which is the “official band of Vancouver”, and its many individual members, have had a distinguished past and shows no sign of letting past tradition fall by the wayside.Known for being ethnically diverse, the Vancouver Police Department has a growing number of Punjabis in its fold.Bagpipe music has caught the fancy of Indians and has become popular in some parts of the country.Another lone non-military bagpiper in Delhi is a Scottish lady, Laura Mennie, who works in the office of the British Defence Attache at the UK High Commission. In 1925 the band’s uniform was changed to the one it wears to this day, the Prince Edward Charles Stewart tartan.

The band has previously toured Britain, China, Switzerland, France, the USA, Mexico, Scotland, Germany, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Singapore, Japan, the Netherlands, Italy, and Portugal. With the high commissioner being out of town, the deputy high commissioner, Soyoung Park, hosted the event which began with the Indian Air Force Band playing a series of catchy Indian film tunes.The Vancouver Police Pipe Band, raised in 1914, is the oldest non-military pipe band in British Columbia and ranks amongst the most senior police pipe bands in the world.Then came a marvellous surprise. This was followed by the last four tunes, Caber Feidh, Garb of old Gaul, Scotland the Brave and Sarie. When the Scottish deputy first minister John Swinney attended a reception in his honour at the British high commissioner’s residence in December 2018, he walked to the tune of the bagpipes played by Ms Mennie. The British, who used bagpipes in their Army bands, introduced the instrument to Indian troops in the 19th century. Dhahan, member, the Vancouver Police Board from Canada.Initially, the band performed in their regular police department uniforms. The full dress uniforms were patterned after those worn by the pipes and drums of the famed Scots Guards. One of them is in the mountainous region of Garhwal in Uttarakhand, where bagpipers are proud members of civilian bands requisitioned for weddings. This privilege was officially conferred upon the band 14 years later by King George VI during a visit to Vancouver. A few years later, from 1918 through to 1925, the band wore the Davidson tartan. This was the first time in the 300-year history of the iconic, internationally recognised ceremony that a non-military band was granted the honour. Besides armed forces bands, Kalaripayattu (the traditional martial arts of Kerala), the Bhangra, the Ladakhi dance and Maharashtra’s Lezim dance performed by soldiers also captivated audiences.

Their tour of India was timed to straddle the 100th  year of the July 13, 1919 massacre at Jallianwala Flow Control Valve Manufacturers Bagh, which they visited and paid homage to at the memorial to the martyrs. Like the band of the Seaforth Highlanders of Canada formed only a few years previously, the Vancouver Police Pipe Band has during its long history occupied a special place in the hearts of Vancouverites. Each infantry battalion of Indian Army has its own pipes and drums band. Constable Sukhi Sunger, the only turbaned Sikh bandsman — a drummer — unhooked the Scottish drum and took up a colourfully tasselled Punjabi “dhol”.The writer, a retired Army officer, is a defence and security analyst based in New Delhi. For over the next few minutes, the summer evening air was filled with Muhammad Iqbal’s “Sare Jahan Se Accha”, rendered most melodiously by the Canadian bagpipers to the unmistakable beat of Sunger’s dhol. Constable Cal Davis, put it, which included Lord Lovat’s Lament, Pathfinder, Crescent Beach, Jig Set — Walking the Floor, Donald Willie and his Dog, Ricking the Baby, Battle of the Somme and Heights of Darghai.In the late evening of April 9, 2019, the Vancouver Police Pipe Band visiting India for the first time and the Indian Air Force (IAF) Brass Band, invited by the Canadian High Commission, regaled an audience on the lawns of Canada House, the residence of Canada’s high commissioner to India, Nadir Patel.

She had been out shopping at the time of the explosion and immediately run out of the store, the Post report said. The Ministry of Emergency Management said that 88 people were rescued from the scene.It is the worst industrial accident since the massive explosion rocked the port area of Tianjin in 2015 in which 173 people were killed. The China earthquake centre reported an earthquake of 3.Over 640 people were injured in the incident. Li Hongmei, a hotel owner from Chenjiagang, said she had seen a three-year-old boy being thrown into air by the force of the shockwave that left him visibly terrified.0 earthquake, officials said Saturday. Survivors of the devastating chemical plant blast in eastern China told media that they had seen giant fireballs exploding and children being shot into air by the force of the blast.Some survivors of the blast told how they had been left trapped in the wreckage and had to endure an agonising wait to be rescued. Since Friday, injured people began streaming into the emergency ward at Xiangshui Peoples Hospital – one of the biggest in Xiangshui county, about 300 km north of Shanghai, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Saturday. Thirty-four people were in a critical condition and 73 seriously injured, state-run China Daily reported. Officials claimed that the rivers outside the chemical industrial park were not polluted.Such is the scale of the devastation that the entire industrial park in the Yancheng resembled an area struck by a massive earthquake with almost all buildings demolished in one go.Executives of the chemical plant have been taken into police custody.

The impact smashed windows and uprooted roofs of some buildings and reduced others to rubble.”I was standing along the wall and my helmet was immediately blown away,” the worker Filter Regulator Lubricators Manufacturers told Caixin. Wang Qiang was in a meeting 300 metres from the plant when the blast rocked the building and left him buried under a pile of rubble in what used to be the conference room.com. Schools and kindergartens had been closed while the authorities monitored air and water quality, an official said.As rescuers continued to search for survivors following the explosion, those caught up in the “earth-shattering” said that people living 10 km away from the blast site had been left choking on toxic clouds. Gao, a member of a local Christian congregation, said many of the windows at his church had been blown out, forcing the group to cancel their regular Friday prayer meeting.The explosion occurred after a fire in the fertilizer factory in Jiangsu province on Thursday, according to the government of Xiangshui county.

The officials said that 24 others were missing.Gao Congbiao from Shadang village, 6 km away from the plant, had been working on his land when he saw a “big fireball exploding into wild flames” and said the “earth-shattering” blast had left his home and farmland seriously damaged.0 magnitude during the time of the blast.Xi ordered that the cause of the accident must be identified as early as possible and that authoritative information should be timely released.Jiangsu Tianjiayi Chemical plant, where the blast took place, was flattened and 16 neighbouring factories were left with varying degrees of damage.She later found one member of her family crushed in the rubble of their home near the site while her house, in the neighbouring village of Haianju, suffered extensive damage.While President Xi Jinping has urged all-out rescue efforts, the central cabinet has ordered an inquiry. The death toll is expected to rise as several people have been critically injured. Wang Xinfang said shards of glass from the windows had been “falling like rain” in a village six kms away from the plant.Beijing: The death toll climbed to 64 in one of the worst industrial accidents of China in recent times which knocked down buildings, tossed children into air and caused a tremor equivalent to a magnitude-3. An aerial video posted by China Daily which provided the first detailed view of the area showed shocking images of the blast which has destroyed the entire neighbourhood, causing an extensive damage showcasing the destructive side of Chinas unbridled industrial development. Xi, who is in Europe on an official tour, said that all-out efforts must be made to search those trapped, and the injured must be timely treated and relief work must be well carried out to maintain social stability. More than 3,000 workers and around 1,000 residents have been relocated to safe places.He said the flames rose to height of around four storeys and then triggered a chain of explosions, by setting off a nearby benzol storage tank. The fire fighter brigade of Jiangsu has mobilised 176 fire trucks with 928 personnel to join the rescue mission, the Ministry of Emergency Management said. “After the second explosion, the road was full of people running for their lives,” the Post quoted him as saying.

Make them play to our strengths now,” the National Conference (NC) vice-president said.”Every time we talk about Pulwama or Balakote we leave the door wide open for the PM & the BJP to play to their strengths in front of their home audience.The Indian air strike at a Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) terror camp in Pakistans Balakot on February 26 came days after the suicide bombing in Pulwama, claimed by the JeM, in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.The way to do it is to keep the messaging focused on the economy, rural distress, unemployment, agriculture & all the other things BJP doesnt want discussed,” Abdullah wrote on his Twitter handle.

The opposition parties need to switch tracks & deny the PM the space to politicise the recent terror attack/air strikes. Logic would dictate we switch strategies. The way to do it is to keep the messaging focused on the economy, rural distress, unemployment, agriculture & all the other things BJP doesn’t want discussed.Srinagar: NC leader Omar Abdullah said Tuesday the opposition parties need to switch strategies by focussing on issues such as rural distress and unemployment in order to deny Prime Minister Narendra Modi low voltage solenoid valves the space to “politicise” the Pulwama terror attack and the Balakot air strike.”The opposition parties need to switch tracks & deny the PM the space to politicise the recent terror attack/air strikes.