title: Despacito

text: "Despacito" was the best-selling and most-streamed single of 2017 in the United States, with 2,692,000 downloads sold and 1,322,799,000 streams. It was also the sixth most-played song of 2017, with 608,000 spins across US radio stations and an audience of 3,076,935,000. It ranked at number two on the Hot 100 year-end chart and was the best-performing single on Hot Latin Songs for two years in a row in 2017 and 2018. In the United States, the single sold 2,983,000 downloads as of June 20, 2019 and received a 13× platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) on January 6, 2020, for units of over 13 million sales plus track-equivalent streams, making it the highest-certified single of all-time in the United States. It became the first Latin and 18th overall single to receive a diamond certification by the RIAA. It was the ninth best-performing single of the 2010s decade on the Hot 100 and was ranked at number one on the Hot Latin Songs chart. It is the best-performing track of all-time on Hot Latin Songs and the 33rd best-performing on the Hot 100.


title: Despacito

text: Internationally, "Despacito" has topped the charts of 47 countries, including the original version alone and combined chart entries with the remix version featuring Justin Bieber. The song spent 26 weeks at number one in Spain, 20 in Switzerland, 18 in France, 17 Germany, 16 in Canada, 14 in Italy, 13 in Australia and 11 in the United Kingdom, among others. Across Europe, the song was certified 13× platinum in Sweden and Spain, diamond in France and Italy and 4× platinum in the United Kingdom and Germany, among others. It also received a diamond certification in Canada and a 5× platinum certification in Australia. In Latin America, it was certified 6× diamond in Brazil and 5× diamond and 4× platinum in Mexico. The remix version alone topped the charts of five countries and was certified platinum in New Zealand and Brazil and gold in Germany.


title: Despacito

text: In the United Kingdom, "Despacito" was the second best-selling and most-streamed song of the year, with 2.3 million combined sales. It was also the best-selling single of 2017 in Canada, with more than 300,000 digital sales. It topped the 2017 year-end charts of 16 countries and was the second best-performing song in 15 others. In Latin America, it was the most-played radio song of 2017, with 580,450 spins, as well as the best-performing foreign song of the year in Brazil. "Despacito" was the second best-selling single of 2017 across the world, with 24.3 million sales plus track-equivalent streams. In 2018, it was the sixth best-selling song of the year, with 11.8 million sales plus track-equivalent streams, and was the 72nd most-played song in Latin America, with 107,980 spins. "Despacito" also peaked at number 114 on the recently inducted "Billboard" Global 200 chart on the issue date August 7, 2021.


title: Despacito

text: "Despacito" became the world's most-streamed song of all-time in July 2017, with 4.6 billion streams between the original and remix version. By this time, Universal Music Group awarded Luis Fonsi with a "Plutonium Disc" in recognition of global sales of "Despacito". It was streamed 7.5 billion times as of April 2018. The remix version became the first primarily-Spanish-language song to surpass one billion streams on Spotify in February 2018, while the original became the first non-English single to reach the milestone in June 2019. In the United Kingdom, it became the longest-reigning foreign language number-one and is the 30th best-selling single in the country with 1,900,599 combined sales as of September 19, 2017. It also became the song with most weeks at number one in Switzerland and Germany.


title: Despacito

text: The success of the song and its remix version led Daddy Yankee to become the most listened-to artist worldwide on streaming service Spotify on July 9, 2017, being the first Latin artist to do so. He later became the sixth most listened-to artist of 2017 on Spotify. "Despacito" was cited by "Billboard"s Leila Cobo as the song that renewed interest in the Latin music market from recording labels in the United States. Xander Zellner of "Billboard" credited the influence of the single's success for the Latin music domination in the US mainstream market during 2017, as 11 primarily-Spanish-language songs debuted on the Hot 100. American songwriter Desmond Child and Cuban musician Rudy Pérez expressed that "not since Ricky Martin's 'Livin' La Vida Loca' has there been a song in any genre that has had the global impact of 'Despacito', changing the course of pop music forever." In 2017, six out of the 10 most-viewed YouTube music videos were for songs performed in Spanish by Latin artists and "Billboard"s Lars Brandle referred to it as "the 'Despacito' effect."


title: Despacito

text: British Official Charts Company recognized it as the song that "helped Latin pop crossover to the mainstream once again." Nielsen's Erin Crawford stated that the track had "a halo effect on several other Latin hits ripe for crossover success", most notably on J Balvin and Willy William's "Mi Gente" "Rolling Stone" stated that the song "hastened a massive historical turn in American music, demonstrating the mainstream viability of Spanish-language pop." John Ochoa of "Rolling Stone" stated that "the resulting so-called 'Despacito effect' has advanced a wave of subsequent Spanish-language hits and mainstream crossovers."


title: Despacito

text: The Recording Industry Association of America reported that Latin music revenues grew 37% in 2017, mostly due to music streaming. Latin music's consumption in the United States increased 15% between the first half of 2016 and the first half of 2018. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) reported that revenue in Latin America grew 17.7% in 2017 and described "Despacito" as a "game-changing hit." In 2018, eight out of the 10 most-viewed YouTube music videos of the year were for songs performed in Spanish and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation referred to it as "the 'Despacito' effect."


title: Despacito

text: Sony/ATV Music Publishing President Jorge Mejía stated that the song marked a "before and after" in the global consumption of Latin music. Before its success, Sony "had a big Latin single roughly every two years," a situation that reverted into an "avalanche of Latin songs around the world." Andrew Unterberger of "Billboard" stated that "2017 was the year that Latin pop took over the United States" due to the song and its quick impact on "Mi Gente", Camila Cabello's "Havana", and the chart performance of acts including Maluma, Ozuna and Bad Bunny, who achieved their biggest hits in the country.


title: Despacito

text: In July 2017, it was reported that tourist interest in Puerto Rico increased by 45% since the worldwide success of the song. Tour operators cite the song's music video for increasing interest in locations such as Club La Factoría and La Perla district in Old San Juan, which were featured in the video.


title: Despacito

text: The music video for "Despacito" was directed by Puerto Rican director Carlos Pérez and produced by Joanna Egozcue and Roxy Quiñones. Filming took place in December 2016 in La Perla neighborhood and the bar La Factoría in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Carlos Pérez had previously worked with Luis Fonsi on "Corazón en la Maleta" (2014) and with Daddy Yankee on clips including "Gasolina" (2004), "Rompe" (2005), "Descontrol" (2010), and "Ven Conmigo" (2011), among others. 2006 Miss Universe Zuleyka Rivera co-starred in the video and was contacted by Fonsi to represent "the powerful Latina woman."


title: Despacito

text: Jorge Muñíz Ortíz of EFE stated that the music video "highlights some of the main cultural and folkloric symbols of Puerto Rico" by showing its "splendid beaches, the colorful landscape of La Perla, the rattle of the Puerto Rican cuatro and the barrels of the autochthonous genre of bomba, Zuleyka Rivera's hips movement and a pair of men enjoying a game of dominoes." On April 10, 2018, Luis Fonsi's YouTube Vevo account was hacked by an anonymous group, who removed the video from his channel for hours before becoming available again.


title: Despacito

text: The video shows both artists performing the song while participating on different parties on the island, featuring model Zuleyka Rivera. The clip starts with shots of La Perla's coast during daylight while showing Zuleyka Rivera arriving at the shanty town on foot. Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee perform the song in a street while elders are playing dominos, a child is getting his hair cut, two people are talking while listening to the radio, and couples are dancing in the background. The video intercalates with shots of Fonsi and Daddy Yankee singing in front of a car with people sitting on it and dancing next to it. As Daddy Yankee is finishing his verse, Zuleyka Rivera enters La Factoría bar while the artists are performing and dancing alongside other people, and men are playing bomba drums. Fonsi proceeds to dance with Rivera as the song ends. The outro consists of Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee singing the hook a cappella with the people at the bar.


title: Despacito

text: The official music video on YouTube was released on Fonsi's channel on January 12, 2017, and amassed one billion views in 97 days, becoming the second-fastest video on the site to reach the milestone. It also became the fastest video on YouTube to surpass two billion views, with 154 days. The clip became the first on YouTube to receive three, four, five, and six billion views on August 4, 2017; October 11, 2017; April 5, 2018; and February 24, 2019, respectively "(dates are based on UTC)". It has received over 8 billion views as of November 11, 2022 and was the most-viewed video on the site from August 4, 2017, until November 2, 2020, when Pinkfong's video for "Baby Shark" surpassed it, dethroning it to second place. It is also the site's most-liked video, with over 50 million likes as of October 23, 2022. On Vevo, the music video received 5.14 million views in its first 24 hours of release, which the website reported as being the most for a Spanish-language video's first day on its platform.


title: Despacito

text: The music video received a Latin Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video at the 18th Latin Grammy Awards and a "Billboard" Music Award for Top Streaming Song (Video) at the 25th "Billboard" Music Awards, and was nominated for an American Music Award for Video of the Year at the 45th American Music Awards.


title: Despacito

text: Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee performed "Despacito" live together for the first time at the 2017 "Billboard" Latin Music Awards on April 27, 2017, and later on "The Voice" season 12 finals on May 23, 2017. The only live performance by Justin Bieber and Luis Fonsi was at the José Miguel Agrelot Coliseum in Puerto Rico on April 18, 2017, during the former's Purpose World Tour. Bieber was not able to sing the song during live performances and was caught replacing portions of the lyrics with the word "blah" and nonsensical ramblings during one performance in a much publicized incident. Fonsi has defended him for not knowing the lyrics, saying that he has to be given "a little bit of a pass" because Spanish is not Bieber's main language.


title: Despacito

text: Luis Fonsi performed "Despacito" on American talk show "Conan" on June 12, 2017 -his first late-night television appearance in the United States- and on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" on September 14, 2017. He also performed the song with random lyrics alongside American television host Jimmy Fallon on "The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon" on January 30, 2019.


title: Despacito

text: Both Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee included the song on their setlists for the 2017–18 Love + Dance World Tour and the 2017 Tamo En Vivo Europe Tour, respectively. On November 16, 2017, Luis Fonsi sang "Despacito" featuring Puerto Rican singer Victor Manuelle, Colombian band Bomba Estéreo and American disc jockey Diplo at the 18th Latin Grammy Awards. On January 28, 2018, Luis Fonsi and Daddy Yankee performed the song at the 60th Grammy Awards on the Madison Square Garden, becoming the 12th and 13th Latin artists ever to perform at the Grammy Awards. Fonsi also participated on United States President Joe Biden's inauguration by performing "Despacito" at the "Celebrating America" special on January 20, 2021.


title: Despacito

text: The first two official remixes for "Despacito" were released on March 17, 2017: a solo pop version by Fonsi and a salsa version featuring vocals by Puerto Rican musician Víctor Manuelle. Two other remixes were released on May 5, 2017: an electronic dance version produced by American trio Major Lazer and Colombian DJ MOSKA and an urban version remixed by Colombian producer Sky. A Portuguese-language version written by Erika Ender and performed by Luis Fonsi featuring Brazilian singer Israel Novaes was released on July 14, 2017. A banda version by Luis Fonsi with Mexican group La Bandononona Clave Nueva De Max Peraza was released on September 1, 2017. A Spanish/Mandarin version by Luis Fonsi and Singaporean singer-songwriter JJ Lin was released on January 26, 2018. A Norwegian version was released by Carina Dahl and Adrian Jørgensen in February 2018. This version was certified Gold by IFPI Norway in 2019 and Platinum in 2021.


title: Despacito

text: The song has been covered by a wide range of artists around the world, including Korean singer J.Fla, a classical crossover by Croatian-based duo 2Cellos, a metal version by Norwegian musician Leo Moracchioli, a piano version by Hungarian pianist and world record-holder Peter Bence, an acoustic version by American band Boyce Avenue and a Broadway-style cover by American musical collective group Postmodern Jukebox. These covers garnered between seven and 47 million views on YouTube except for J.Fla's video, which has 172 million views. Leo Moracchioli's version peaked at number 35 on the Hungarian Single Top 40 chart on August 10, 2017.


title: Despacito

text: The song has been used, with altered lyrics, for political purposes. In Argentina, the melody was used by various politicians for their respective TV advertisements for the 2017 midterm elections, by scientists to protest against President Mauricio Macri and by feminists as an initiative to convoke people to a concentration about violence against women. Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro used it to call for voting in the controversial Constituent Assembly election. Luis Fonsi, Daddy Yankee and Erika Ender showed their displeasure with the unauthorized use of the song for political purposes in Venezuela, criticizing Maduro's government use of the song as propaganda. On August 16, 2017, English television host James Corden remixed the song to comment on American President Donald Trump during his talk show "The Late Late Show with James Corden". On September 15, 2020, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden played a few bars from the song at a campaign event headlined by Luis Fonsi. In response, Trump tweeted an edited video showing Biden instead playing N.W.A's "Fuck tha Police".


title: Despacito

text: Десь по світу ("Somewhere in the world") was a Ukrainian version of the song, produced featuring children in Drohobych Raion, to encourage the return of Ukrainians working abroad.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The Khalistan movement is a Sikh separatist movement seeking to create a homeland for Sikhs by establishing a sovereign state, called Khālistān ('Land of the Khalsa'), in the Punjab region. The proposed state would consist of land that currently forms Punjab, India and Punjab, Pakistan.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Ever since the separatist movement gathered force in the 1980s, the territorial ambitions of Khalistan have at times included Chandigarh, sections of the Indian Punjab, including the whole of North India, and some parts of the western states of India. Prime Minister of Pakistan Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, according to Jagjit Singh Chohan, had proposed all out help to create Khalistan during his talks with Chohan, following the conclusion of the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The call for a separate Sikh state began in the wake of the fall of the British Empire. In 1940, the first explicit call for Khalistan was made in a pamphlet titled "Khalistan". With financial and political support of the Sikh diaspora, the movement flourished in the Indian state of Punjab – which has a Sikh-majority population – continuing through the 1970s and 1980s, and reaching its zenith in the late 1980s. In the 1990s, the insurgency petered out, and the movement failed to reach its objective for multiple reasons including a heavy police crackdown on separatists, factional infighting, and disillusionment from the Sikh population.


title: Khalistan movement

text: There is some support within India and the Sikh diaspora, with yearly demonstrations in protest of those killed during Operation Blue Star. In early 2018, some militant groups were arrested by police in Punjab, India. Former Chief Minister of Punjab Amarinder Singh claimed that the recent extremism is backed by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and "Khalistani sympathisers" in Canada, Italy, and the UK. Simranjit Singh Mann, elected in 2022 from Sangrur, is currently the only openly Khalistani MP in the Indian Parliament and his party, Shiromani Akali Dal (Amritsar), is currently the only pro-Khalistan party in the Indian parliament.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Sikhs have been concentrated in the Punjab region of South Asia. Before its conquest by the British, the region around Punjab had been ruled by the confederacy of Sikh Misls founded by Banda Bahadur. The Misls ruled over the entire Punjab from 1767 to 1799, until their confederacy was unified into the Sikh Empire by Maharajah Ranjit Singh from 1799 to 1849.


title: Khalistan movement

text: At the end of the Second Anglo-Sikh War in 1849, the Sikh Empire dissolved into separate princely states and the British province of Punjab. In newly conquered regions, "religio-nationalist movements emerged in response to British “divide and rule” administrative policies, the perceived success of Christian missionaries converting Hindu, Sikhs and Muslims, and a general belief that the solution to the downfall among India's religious communities was a grassroots religious revival."


title: Khalistan movement

text: As the British Empire began to dissolve in the 1930s, Sikhs made their first call for a Sikh homeland. When the Lahore Resolution of the Muslim League demanded Punjab be made into a Muslim state, the Akalis viewed it as an attempt to usurp a historically Sikh territory. In response, the Sikh party Shiromani Akali Dal argued for a community that was separate from Hindus and Muslims. The Akali Dal imagined Khalistan as a theocratic state led by the Maharaja of Patiala with the aid of a cabinet consisting of the representatives of other units. The country would include parts of present-day Punjab, India, present-day Punjab, Pakistan (including Lahore), and the Simla Hill States.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Before the 1947 partition of India, Sikhs were not in majority in any of the districts of pre-partition British Punjab Province other than Ludhiana (where Sikhs formed 41.6% of the population). Rather, districts in the region had a majority of either the Hindus or Muslims depending on its location in the province.


title: Khalistan movement

text: British India was partitioned on a religious basis in 1947, where the Punjab province was divided between India and the newly-created Pakistan. As result, a majority of Sikhs, along with the Hindus, migrated from the Pakistani region to India's Punjab, which included present-day Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. The Sikh population, which had gone as high as 19.8% in some Pakistani districts in 1941, dropped to 0.1% in Pakistan, and rose sharply in the districts assigned to India. However, they would still be a minority in the Punjab province of India, which remained a Hindu-majority province.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Sikh historian Harjot Singh Oberoi argues that, despite the historical linkages between Sikhs and Punjab, territory has never been a major element of Sikh self-definition. He makes the case that the attachment of Punjab with Sikhism is a recent phenomenon, stemming from the 1940s. Historically, Sikhism has been pan-Indian, with the Guru Granth Sahib (the main scripture of Sikhism) drawing from works of saints in both North and South India, while several major seats in Sikhism (e.g. Nankana Sahib in Pakistan, Takht Sri Patna Sahib in Bihar, and Hazur Sahib in Maharashtra) are located outside of Punjab.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Oberoi makes the case that Sikh leaders in the late 1930s and 1940s realized that the dominance of Muslims in Pakistan and of Hindus in India was imminent. To justify a separate Sikh state within the Punjab, Sikh leaders started to mobilize meta-commentaries and signs to argue that Punjab belonged to Sikhs and Sikhs belong to Punjab. This began the territorialization of the Sikh community.


title: Khalistan movement

text: This territorialization of the Sikh community would be formalized in March 1946, when the Sikh political party of Akali Dal passed a resolution proclaiming the natural association of Punjab and the Sikh religious community. Oberoi argues that despite having its beginnings in the early 20th century, Khalistan as a separatist movement was never a major issue until the late 1970s and 1980s when it began to militarize.


title: Khalistan movement

text: There are two distinct narratives about the origins of the calls for a sovereign Khalistan. One refers to the events within India itself, while the other privileges the role of the Sikh diaspora. Both of these narratives vary in the form of governance proposed for this state (e.g. theocracy vs democracy) as well as the proposed name (i.e. Sikhistan vs Khalistan). Even the precise geographical borders of the proposed state differs among them although it was generally imagined to be carved out from one of various historical constructions of the Punjab.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Established on 14 December 1920, Shiromani Akali Dal was a Sikh political party that sought to form a government in Punjab.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Following the 1947 independence of India, the Punjabi Suba movement, led by the Akali Dal, sought the creation of a province ("suba") for Punjabi people. The Akali Dal's maximal position of demands was a sovereign state (i.e. Khalistan), while its minimal position was to have an autonomous state within India. The issues raised during the Punjabi Suba movement were later used as a premise for the creation of a separate Sikh country by proponents of Khalistan.


title: Khalistan movement

text: As the religious-based partition of India led to much bloodshed, the Indian government initially rejected the demand, concerned that creating a Punjabi-majority state would effectively mean yet again creating a state based on religious grounds.


title: Khalistan movement

text: However, in September 1966, the Union Government led by Indira Gandhi accepted the demand. On 7 September 1966, the "Punjab Reorganisation Act" was passed in Parliament, implemented with effect beginning 1 November 1966. Accordingly, Punjab was divided into the state of Punjab and Haryana, with certain areas to Himachal Pradesh. Chandigarh was made a centrally administered Union territory.


title: Khalistan movement

text: As Punjab and Haryana now shared the capital of Chandigarh, resentment was felt among Sikhs in Punjab. Adding further grievance, a canal system was put in place over the rivers of Ravi, Beas, and Sutlej, which flowed through Punjab, in order for water to also reach Haryana and Rajasthan. As result, Punjab would only receive 23% of the water while the rest would go to the two other states. The fact that the issue would not be revisited brought on additional turmoil to Sikh resentment against Congress.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The Akali Dal was defeated in the 1972 Punjab elections. To regain public appeal, the party put forward the Anandpur Sahib Resolution in 1973 to demand radical devolution of power and further autonomy to Punjab. The resolution document included both religious and political issues, asking for the recognition of Sikhism as a religion separate from Hinduism, as well as the transfer of Chandigarh and certain other areas to Punjab. It also demanded that power be radically devolved from the central to state governments.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The document was largely forgotten for some time after its adoption until gaining attention in the following decade. In 1982, the Akali Dal and Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale joined hands to launch the Dharam Yudh Morcha in order to implement the resolution. Thousands of people joined the movement, feeling that it represented a real solution to such demands as larger shares of water for irrigation and the return of Chandigarh to Punjab.


title: Khalistan movement

text: According to the 'events outside India' narrative, particularly after 1971, the notion of a sovereign and independent state of Khalistan began to popularize among Sikhs in North America and Europe. One such account is provided by the Khalistan Council which had moorings in West London, where the Khalistan movement is said to have launched in 1970.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Davinder Singh Parmar migrated to London in 1954. According to Parmar, his first pro-Khalistan meeting was attended by less than 20 people and he was labelled as a madman, receiving only one person's support. Parmar continued his efforts despite the lack of a following, eventually raising the Khalistani flag in Birmingham in the 1970s. In 1969, two years after losing the Punjab Assembly elections, Indian politician Jagjit Singh Chohan moved to the United Kingdom to start his campaign for the creation of Khalistan. Apart from Punjab, Himachal, and Haryana, Chohan's proposal of Khalistan also included parts of Rajasthan state.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Parmar and Chohan would meet in 1970 and formally announce the Khalistan movement at a London press conference, though being largely dismissed by the community as fanatical fringe without any support.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Following the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, Chohan visited Pakistan as a guest of such leaders as Chaudhuri Zahoor Elahi. Visiting Nankana Sahib and several historical gurdwaras in Pakistan, Chohan utilized the opportunity to spread the notion of an independent Sikh state. Widely publicized by Pakistani press, the extensive coverage of his remarks introduced the international community, including those in India, to the demand of Khalistan for the first time. Though lacking public support, the term "Khalistan" became more and more recognizable. According to Chohan, during a talk with Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto of Pakistan, Bhutto had proposed to make Nankana Sahib the capital of Khalistan.


title: Khalistan movement

text: On 13 October 1971, visiting the United States at the invitation of his supporters in the Sikh diaspora, Chohan placed an advertisement in the "New York Times" proclaiming an independent Sikh state. Such promotion enabled him to collect millions of dollars from the diaspora, eventually leading to charges in India relating to sedition and other crimes in connection with his separatist activities.


title: Khalistan movement

text: After returning to India in 1977, Chohan travelled to Britain in 1979. There, he would establish the Khalistan National Council, declaring its formation at Anandpur Sahib on 12 April 1980. Chohan designated himself as President of the Council and Balbir Singh Sandhu as its Secretary General.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In May 1980, Chohan travelled to London to announce the formation of Khalistan. A similar announcement was made in Amritsar by Sandhu, who released stamps and currency of Khalistan. Operating from a building termed "Khalistan House", Chohan named a Cabinet and declared himself president of the "Republic of Khalistan," issuing symbolic Khalistan 'passports,' 'postage stamps,' and 'Khalistan dollars.' Moreover, embassies in Britain and other European countries were opened by Chohan. It is reported that, with the support of a wealthy Californian peach magnate, Chohan opened an Ecuadorian bank account to further support his operation. As well as maintaining contacts among various groups in Canada, the US, and Germany, Chohan kept in contact with the Sikh leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale who was campaigning for a theocratic Sikh homeland.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The globalized Sikh diaspora invested efforts and resources for Khalistan, but the Khalistan movement remained nearly invisible on the global political scene until the Operation Blue Star of June 1984.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In later disclosures from former R&AW special secretary G.B.S. Sidhu, R&AW itself helped "build the Khalistan legend," actively participated in the planning of Operation Blue Star. While posted in Ottawa, Canada in 1976 to look into the "Khalistan problem" among the Sikh diaspora, Sidhu found "nothing amiss" during the three years he was there, stating that "Delhi was unnecessarily making a mountain of a molehill where none existed," that the agency created seven posts in West Europe and North America in 1981 to counter non-existent Khalistan activities, and that the deployed officers were "not always familiar with the Sikhs or the Punjab issue." He described the secessionist movement as a "chimera" until the army operation, after which the insurgency would start. According to a New York Times article written just a few weeks after the operation, "Before the raid on the Golden Temple, neither the Government nor anyone else appeared to put much credence in the Khalistan movement. Mr. Bhindranwale himself said many times that he was not seeking an independent country for Sikhs, merely greater autonomy for Punjab within the Indian Union...One possible explanation advanced for the Government's raising of the Khalistan question is that it needs to take every opportunity to justify the killing in Amritsar and the invasion of the Sikhs' holiest shrine."


title: Khalistan movement

text: Khushwant Singh had written that "considerable Khalistan sentiment seems to have arisen since the raid on the temple, which many Sikhs, if not most, have taken as a deep offense to their religion and their sensibilities," referring to the drastic change in community sentiments after the army attack.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The Akali leaders, having planned to announce a victory for Dharam Yudh Morcha, were outraged by the changes to the agreed-upon settlement. In November 1982, Akali leader Harchand Singh Longowal announced that the party would disrupt the 9th annual Asian Games by sending groups of Akali workers to Delhi to intentionally get arrested. Following negotiations between the Akali Dal and the government failed at the last moment due to disagreements regarding the transfer of areas between Punjab and Haryana.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Knowing that the Games would receive extensive coverage, Akali leaders vowed to overwhelm Delhi with a flood of protestors, aiming to heighten the perception of Sikh "plight" among the international audience. A week before the Games, Bhajan Lal, Chief Minister of Haryana and member of the INC party, responded by sealing the Delhi-Punjab border, and ordering all Sikh visitors travelling from to Delhi from Punjab to be frisked. While such measures were seen as discriminatory and humiliating by Sikhs, they proved effective as Akali Dal could only organize small and scattered protests in Delhi. Consequently, many Sikhs who did not initially support Akalis and Bhindranwale began sympathizing with the Akali Morcha.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Following the conclusion of the Games, Longowal organised a convention of Sikh veterans at the Darbar Sahib. It was attended by a large number of Sikh ex-servicemen, including Major General Shabeg Singh who subsequently became Bhindranwale's military advisor.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Widespread murders by followers of Bhindranwale occurred in 1980s' Punjab. Armed Khalistani militants of this period described themselves as "kharku", most likely meaning 'noise maker,' from the Punjabi "kharaka" ('noise') in reference to their strident activity. In the period between 4 August 1982 and 3 June 1984, more than 1200 violent incidents took place, resulting in the death of 410 people and the injury of 1180.


title: Khalistan movement

text: On its own, the year 1984 (from 1 January to 3 June) saw 775 violent incidents, resulting in 298 people killed and 525 injured. One such murder was that of DIG Avtar Singh Atwal, killed on 25 April 1983 at the gate of the Darbar Sahib, whose corpse would remain at the place of death for 2 hours as even police officers were afraid to touch the body without Bhindranwale's permission. This showed the power and influence that Bhindranwale had over the region.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Though it was common knowledge that those responsible for such bombings and murders were taking shelter in gurdwaras, the INC Government of India declared that it could not enter these places of worship, for the fear of hurting Sikh sentiments. Even as detailed reports on the open shipping of arms-laden trucks were sent to Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, the Government would choose not to take action. Finally, following the murder of six Hindu bus passengers in October 1983, an emergency rule was imposed in Punjab, which would continue for more than a decade.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The Akali Dal began more agitation in February 1984, protesting against Article 25, clause (2)(b), of the Indian Constitution, which ambiguously explains that "the reference to Hindus shall be construed as including a reference to persons professing the Sikh, Jaina, or Buddhist religion," while also implicitly recognizing Sikhism as a separate religion: "the wearing and carrying of kripans ["sic"] shall be deemed to be included in the profession of the Sikh religion." Even today, this clause is deemed offensive by many religious minorities in India due to its failure to recognise such religions separately under the constitution.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Members of the Akali Dal demanded that the removal of any ambiguity in the Constitution that refers to Sikhs as Hindu, as such prompts various concerns for the Sikh population, both in principle and in practice. For instance, a Sikh couple who would marry in accordance to the rites of their religion would have to register their union either under the "Special Marriage Act, 1954" or the "Hindu Marriage Act, 1955". The Akalis demanded replacement of such rules with laws specific to Sikhism.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Operation Blue Star was an Indian military operation ordered by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, between 1 and 8 June 1984, to remove militant religious leader Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his armed followers from the buildings of the Harmandir Sahib complex (aka the Golden Temple) in Amritsar, Punjabthe most sacred site in Sikhism.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In July 1983, Akali Dal President Harchand Singh Longowal had invited Bhindranwale to take up residence at the sacred temple complex, which the government would allege that Bhindranwale would later make into an armoury and headquarters for his armed uprising.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Since the inception of the Dharam Yudh Morcha to the violent events leading up to Operation Blue Star, Khalistani militants had directly killed 165 Hindus and Nirankaris, as well as 39 Sikhs opposed to Bhindranwale, while a total of 410 dead and 1,180 injured came as result of Khalistani violence and riots.


title: Khalistan movement

text: As negotiations held with Bhindranwale and his supporters proved unsuccessful, Indira Gandhi ordered the Indian Army to launch Operation Blue Star. Along with the Army, the operation would involve Central Reserve Police Force, Border Security Force, and Punjab Police. Army units led by Lt. Gen. Kuldip Singh Brar (a Sikh), surrounded the temple complex on 3 June 1984. Just before the commencement of the operation, Lt. Gen. Brar addressed the soldiers:


title: Khalistan movement

text: However, none of the soldiers opted out, including many "Sikh officers, junior commissioned officers and other ranks." Using a public address system, the Army repeatedly demanded the militants to surrender, asking them to at least allow pilgrims to leave the temple premises before commencing battle.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Nothing happened until 7:00 PM (IST). The Army, equipped with tanks and heavy artillery, had grossly underestimated the firepower possessed by the militants, who attacked with anti-tank and machine-gun fire from the heavily fortified Akal Takht, and who possessed Chinese-made, rocket-propelled grenade launchers with armour-piercing capabilities. After a 24-hour shootout, the army finally wrested control of the temple complex.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Bhindranwale was killed in the operation, while many of his followers managed to escape. Army casualty figures counted 83 dead and 249 injured. According to the official estimate presented by the Indian Government, the event resulted in a combined total of 493 militant and civilian casualties, as well as the apprehension of 1592 individuals.


title: Khalistan movement

text: U.K. Foreign Secretary William Hague attributed high civilian casualties to the Indian Government's attempt at a full frontal assault on the militants, diverging from the recommendations provided by the U.K. Military. Opponents of Gandhi also criticised the operation for its excessive use of force. Lieutenant General Brar later stated that the Government had "no other recourse" due to a "complete breakdown" of the situation: state machinery was under the militants' control; declaration of Khalistan was imminent; and Pakistan would have come into the picture declaring its support for Khalistan.


title: Khalistan movement

text: According to the Mitrokhin Archive, in 1982 the Soviets used a recruit in the New Delhi residency named “Agent S” who was close to Indira Gandhi as a major channel for providing her disinformation regarding Khalistan. Agent S provided Indira Gandhi with false documents purporting to show Pakistani involvement to create religious disturbances and allegedly initiate a Khalistan conspiracy. After Rajiv Gandhi's visit to Moscow in 1983, the Soviets persuaded him that the US was engaged in secret support for the Sikhs. By 1984, according to Mitrokhin, the disinformation the Soviets provided had influenced Indira Gandhi to pursue Operation Blue Star.


title: Khalistan movement

text: On the morning of 31 October 1984, Indira Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi by her two personal security guards Satwant Singh and Beant Singh, both Sikhs, in retaliation for Operation Blue Star. The assassination would trigger the 1984 anti-Sikh riots across North India. While the ruling party, Indian National Congress (INC), maintained that the violence was due to spontaneous riots, its critics have alleged that INC members themselves had planned a pogrom against the Sikhs.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The Nanavati Commission, a special commission created to investigate the riots, concluded that INC leaders (including Jagdish Tytler, H. K. L. Bhagat, and Sajjan Kumar) had directly or indirectly taken a role in the rioting incidents. Union Minister Kamal Nath was accused of leading riots near Rakab Ganj, but was cleared due to lack of evidence. Other political parties strongly condemned the riots. Two major civil-liberties organisations issued a joint report on the anti-Sikh riots, naming 16 significant politicians, 13 police officers, and 198 others, accused by survivors and eyewitnesses.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Many Sikh and Hindu groups, as well as organisations not affiliated to any religion, have attempted to establish peace between the Khalistan proponents and the Government of India. Akalis continued to witness radicalization of Sikh politics, fearing disastrous consequences. In response, President Harchand Singh Longowal reinstated the head of the Akali Dal and pushed for a peace initiative that reiterated the importance of Hindu-Sikh amity, condemning Sikh extremist violence, therefore declaring that the Akali Dal was not in favor of Khalistan.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In 1985, The Government of India attempted to seek a political solution to the grievances of the Sikhs through the Rajiv-Longowal Accord, which took place between Longowal and Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. The Accordrecognizing the religious, territorial, and economic demands of the Sikhs that were thought to be non-negotiable under Indira Gandhi's tenureagreed to establish commissions and independent tribunals in order to resolve the Chandigarh issue and the river dispute, laying the basis for Akali Dal's victory in the coming elections.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Though providing a basis for a return to normality, Chandigarh evidently remained an issue and the agreement was denounced by Sikh militants who refused to give up the demand for an independent Khalistan. These extremists, who were left unappeased, would react by assassinating Longowal. Such behavior would lead to the dismissal of negotiations, whereby both Congress and the Akali parties accused each other of aiding terrorism.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The Indian Government pointed to the involvement of a "foreign hand," referring to Pakistan’s abetting of the movement. Punjab noted to the Indian Government that militants were able to obtain sophisticated arms through sources outside the country and by developing links with sources within the country. As such, the Government believed that large illegal flows of arms were flowing through the borders of India, with Pakistan being responsible for trafficking arms. India claimed that Pakistan provided sanctuary, arms, money, and moral support to the militants, though most of the accusations were based on circumstantial evidence.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Air India Flight 182 was an Air India flight operating on the Montréal-London-Delhi-Bombay route. On 23 June 1985, a Boeing 747 operating on the route was blown up by a bomb mid-air off the coast of Ireland. A total of 329 people aboard were killed, 268 Canadian citizens, 27 British citizens and 24 Indian citizens, including the flight crew. On the same day, an explosion due to a luggage bomb was linked to the terrorist operation and occurred at the Narita Airport in Tokyo, Japan, intended for Air India Flight 301, killing two baggage handlers. The entire event was inter-continental in scope, killing 331 people in total and affected five countries on different continents: Canada, the United Kingdom, India, Japan, and Ireland.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The main suspects in the bombing were members of a Sikh separatist group called the Babbar Khalsa, and other related groups who were at the time agitating for a separate Sikh state of Khalistan in Punjab, India. In September 2007, the Canadian Commission of Inquiry investigated reports, initially disclosed in the Indian investigative news magazine "Tehelka", that a hitherto unnamed person, Lakhbir Singh Rode, had masterminded the explosions. However, in conclusion two separate Canadian inquiries officially determined that the mastermind behind the terrorist operation was in fact the Canadian, Talwinder Singh Parmar.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Several men were arrested and tried for the Air India bombing. Inderjit Singh Reyat, a Canadian national and member of the International Sikh Youth Federation who pleaded guilty in 2003 to manslaughter, would be the only person convicted in the case. He was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for assembling the bombs that exploded on board Air India Flight 182 and at Narita Airport.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In 1986, when the insurgency was at its peak, the Golden Temple was again occupied by militants belonging to the All India Sikh Students Federation and Damdami Taksal. The militants called an assembly (Sarbat Khalsa) and, on 26 January, they would pass a resolution ("gurmattā") in favour of the creation of Khalistan. However, only the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) had the authority to appoint the "jathedar", the supreme religio-temporal seat of the Sikhs. The militants thus dissolved the SGPC and appointed their own jathedar, who turned out to refuse their bidding as well. Militant leader Gurbachan Singh Manochahal thereby appointed himself by force.


title: Khalistan movement

text: On 29 April 1986, an assembly of separatist Sikhs at the Akal Takht made a declaration of an independent state of Khalistan, and a number of rebel militant groups in favour of Khalistan subsequently waged a major insurgency against the Government of India. A decade of violence and conflict in Punjab would follow before a return to normality in the region. This period of insurgency saw clashes of Sikh militants with the police, as well as with the Nirankaris, a mystical Sikh sect who are less conservative in their aims to reform Sikhism.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The Khalistani militant activities manifested in the form of several attacks, such as the 1987 massacre of 32 Hindu bus passengers near Lalru, and the 1991 killing of 80 train passengers in Ludhiana. Such activities continued on into the 1990s as the perpetrators of the 1984 riots remained unpunished, while many Sikhs also felt that they were being discriminated against and that their religious rights were being suppressed.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In the parliamentary elections of 1989, Sikh separatist representatives were victorious in 10 of Punjab's 13 national seats and had the most popular support. The Congress cancelled those elections and instead hosted a Khaki election. The separatists boycotted the poll. The voter turnout was 24%. The Congress won this election and used it to further its anti-separatist campaign. Most of the separatist leadership was wiped out and the moderates were suppressed by end of 1993.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Indian security forces suppressed the insurgency in the early 1990s, while Sikh political groups such as the Khalsa Raj Party and SAD (A) continued to pursue an independent Khalistan through non-violent means. GlobalSecurity.org reported that in the early 1990s, journalists who did not conform to militant-approved behaviour were targeted for death. It also reported that there were indiscriminate attacks designed to cause extensive civilian casualties: derailing trains, and exploding bombs in markets, restaurants, and other civilian areas between Delhi and Punjab. It further reported that militants assassinated many of those moderate Sikh leaders who opposed them, and sometimes killed rivals within the same militant group. It also stated that many civilians who had been kidnapped by extremists were murdered if the militants' demands were not met. Finally, it reported that Hindus left Punjab by the thousands. Whereas to take iron from the terrorists in the village Bhikhiwind, district Tarn Taran 'Sandhu' family fought everyday like the last day and defeated terrorists several times. One such incident was on 30 September 1990, when about 200 terrorists attacked Balwinder Singh's house. In retaliation, the Sandhu family using weapons provided by state police killed several and compiled the rest of the terrorists to run away.  The Family awarded the Shaurya Chakra to show most conspicuous bravery, indomitable courage.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In August 1991, Julio Ribeiro, then-Indian Ambassador to Romania, was attacked and wounded at Bucharest in an assassination attempt by gunmen identified as Punjabi Sikhs. Sikh groups also claimed responsibility for the 1991 kidnapping of Liviu Radu, the Romanian chargé d'affaires in New Delhi. This appeared to be in retaliation for Romanian arrests of Khalistan Liberation Force members suspected of the attempted assassination of Ribeiro. Radu was released unharmed after Sikh politicians criticised the action.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In October 1991, the "New York Times" reported that violence had increased sharply in the months leading up to the kidnapping, with Indian security forces or Sikh militants killing 20 or more people per day, and that the militants had been "gunning down" family members of police officers. Scholar Ian Talbot states that all sides, including the Indian Army, police and the militants, committed crimes like murder, rape and torture.


title: Khalistan movement

text: From 24 January 1993 to 4 August 1993, Khalistan was a member of the NGO Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. The membership was permanently suspended on 22 January 1995.


title: Khalistan movement

text: On 31 August 1995, Chief Minister Beant Singh was killed in a suicide bombing, for which the pro-Khalistan group Babbar Khalsa claimed responsibility. Security authorities, however, reported the group's involvement to be doubtful. A 2006 press release by the Embassy of the United States in New Delhi indicated that the responsible organisation was the Khalistan Commando Force.


title: Khalistan movement

text: While the militants enjoyed some support among Sikh separatists in the earlier period, this support gradually disappeared. The insurgency weakened the Punjab economy and led to an increase in violence in the state. With dwindling support and increasingly-effective Indian security troops eliminating anti-state combatants, Sikh militancy effectively ended by the early 1990s.


title: Khalistan movement

text: There have been serious charges levelled by human rights activists against Indian Security forces (headed by Sikh police officer, K. P. S. Gill), claiming that thousands of suspects were killed in staged shootouts and thousands of bodies were cremated/disposed of without proper identification or post-mortems. Human Rights Watch reported that, since 1984, government forces had resorted to widespread human rights violations to fight the militants, including: arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention without trial, torture, and summary executions of civilians and suspected militants. Family members were frequently detained and tortured to reveal the whereabouts of relatives sought by the police. Amnesty International has alleged several cases of disappearances, torture, rape, and unlawful detentions by the police during the Punjab insurgency, for which 75–100 police officers had been convicted by December 2002.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Present-day activities by Khalistani militants include the Tarn Taran blast, in which a police crackdown arrested 4 terrorists, one of whom revealed they were ordered by Sikhs for Justice to kill multiple Dera leaders in India. Pro-Khalistan organisations such as Dal Khalsa are also active outside India, supported by a section of the Sikh diaspora. As of 25 December, there also have been inputs by multiple agencies about a possible attack in Punjab by Babbar Khalsa and Khalistan Zindabad Force, according to Indian Media sources, are allegedly in contact with their Pakistani handlers and are trying to smuggle arms across the border.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In November 2015, a congregation of the Sikh community (i.e. a Sarbat Khalsa) was called in response to recent unrest in the Punjab region. The Sarbat Khalsa adopted 13 resolutions to strengthen Sikh institutions and traditions. The 12th resolution reaffirmed the resolutions adopted by the Sarbat Khalsa in 1986, including the declaration of the sovereign state of Khalistan.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Moreover, signs in favour of Khalistan were raised when SAD (Amritsar) President Simranjeet Singh Mann met with Surat Singh Khalsa, who was admitted to Dayanand Medical College & Hospital (DMCH). While Mann was arguing with ACP Satish Malhotra, supporters standing at the main gate of DMCH raised Khalistan signs in the presence of heavy police force. After a confrontation with the police authorities that lasted about 15–20 minutes, Mann was allowed to meet Khalsa along with ADCP Paramjeet Singh Pannu.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Despite residing outside India, there is a strong sense of attachment among Sikhs to their culture and religion. As such, Sikh groups operating from other countries could potentially revive the Khalistan Movement. There is persistent demand for justice for the Sikh victims during the peak of the Khalistan movement. In some ways, The Sikh diaspora can be seen as torch-bearers of the Khalistan movement, which is now considered to be highly political and military in nature. Recent reports indicate a rise in pro-Khalistan sentiments among the Sikh diaspora overseas who can revive the secessionist movement. Some people were even spotted during the World Cup 2019 in pro-khalistan jerseys, but were then whisked out of the stadium.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Recently, many signs have been raised in several places in support of the Khalistan movement, although the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRCC) reports that Sikhs who support Khalistan may themselves be detained and tortured. Notably, on the 31st anniversary of Operation Bluestar, pro-Khalistan signs were raised in Punjab, resulting in 25 Sikh youths being detained by police. Pro-Khalistan signs were also raised during a function of Punjabi Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal. Two members of SAD-A, identified as Sarup Singh Sandha and Rajindr Singh Channa, raised pro-Khalistan and anti-Badal signs during the chief minister's speech.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In retrospect, the Khalistan movement has failed to reach its objectives in India due to several reasons:


title: Khalistan movement

text: Simrat Dhillon (2007), writing for the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, noted that while a few groups continued to fight, "the movement has lost its popular support both in India and within the Diaspora community."


title: Khalistan movement

text: During the late 1980s and the early 1990s, there was a dramatic rise in radical State militancy in Punjab. The 1984 military Operation Blue Star in the Golden Temple in Amritsar offended many Sikhs. The separatists used this event, as well as the following 1984 anti-Sikh riots, to claim that the interest of Sikhs was not safe in India and to foster the spread of militancy among Sikhs in Punjab. Some sections of the Sikh diaspora also began join the separatists with financial and diplomatic support.


title: Khalistan movement

text: A section of Sikhs turned to militancy in Punjab and several Sikh militant outfits proliferated in the 1980s and 1990s. Some militant groups aimed to create an independent state through acts of violence directed at members of the Indian government, army, or forces. A large numbers of Sikhs condemned the actions of the militants. According to anthropological analysis, one reason young men had for joining militant and other religious nationalist groups was for fun, excitement, and expressions of masculinity. Puri, Judge, and Sekhon (1999) suggest that illiterate/under-educated young men, lacking enough job prospects, had joined pro-Khalistan militant groups for the primary purpose of "fun." They mention that the pursuit of Khalistan itself was the motivation for only 5% of "militants."


title: Khalistan movement

text: There are several militant Sikh groups, such as the Khalistan Council, that are currently functional and provides organization and guidance to the Sikh community. Multiple groups are organized across the world, coordinating their military efforts for Khalistan. Such groups were most active in 1980s and early 1990s, and have since receded in activity. These groups are largely defunct in India but they still have a political presence among the Sikh diaspora, especially in countries such as Pakistan where they are not prescribed by law.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Most of these outfits were crushed by 1993 during the counter-insurgency operations. In recent years, active groups have included Babbar Khalsa, International Sikh Youth Federation, Dal Khalsa, and Bhindranwale Tiger Force. An unknown group before then, the Shaheed Khalsa Force claimed credit for the marketplace bombings in New Delhi in 1997. The group has never been heard of since.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The U.S. Department of State found that Sikh extremism had decreased significantly from 1992 to 1997, although a 1997 report noted that "Sikh militant cells are active internationally and extremists gather funds from overseas Sikh communities."


title: Khalistan movement

text: In 1999, Kuldip Nayar, writing for Rediff.com, stated in an article, titled "It is fundamentalism again", that the Sikh "masses" had rejected terrorists.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Reported in his paper, titled "From Bhindranwale to Bin Laden: Understanding Religious Violence", Director Mark Juergensmeyer of the Orfalea Centre for Global & International Studies, UCSB, interviewed a militant who said that "the movement is over," as many of his colleagues had been killed, imprisoned, or driven into hiding, and because public support was gone.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Operation Blue Star and its violent aftermaths popularized the demand for Khalistan among many Sikhs dispersed globally. Involvement of sections of Sikh diaspora turned out to be important for the movement as it provided the diplomatic and financial support. It also enabled Pakistan to become involved in the fueling of the movement. Sikhs in UK, Canada and USA arranged for cadres to travel to Pakistan for military and financial assistance. Some Sikh groups abroad even declared themselves as the Khalistani government in exile.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The Sikh place of worship, gurdwaras provided the geographic and institutional coordination for the Sikh community. Sikh political factions have used the gurdwaras as a forum for political organization. The gurdwaras sometimes served as the site for mobilization of diaspora for Khalistan movement directly by raising funds. Indirect mobilization was sometimes provided by promoting a stylized version of conflict and Sikh history. The rooms in some gurdwara exhibit pictures of Khalistani leaders along with paintings of martyrs from Sikh history. Gurdwaras also host speakers and musical groups that promote and encourage the movement. Among the diasporas, Khalistan issue has been a divisive issue within gurdwaras. These factions have fought over the control of gurdwaras and their political and financial resources. The fights between pro and anti-Khalistan factions over gurdwaras often included violent acts and bloodshed as reported from UK and North America. The gurdwaras with Khalistani leadership allegedly funnel the collected funds into activities supporting the movement.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Different groups of Sikhs in the diaspora organize the convention of international meetings to facilitate communication and establish organizational order. In April 1981 the first "International Convention of Sikhs," was held in New York and was attended by some 200 delegates. In April 1987 the third convention was held in Slough, Berkshire where the Khalistan issue was addressed. This meeting's objective was to "build unity in the Khalistan movement."


title: Khalistan movement

text: All these factors further strengthened the emerging nationalism among Sikhs. Sikh organizations launched many fund-raising efforts that were used for several purposes. After 1984 one of the objectives was the promotion of the Sikh version of "ethnonational history" and the relationship with the Indian state. The Sikh diaspora also increased their efforts to build institutions to maintain and propagate their ethnonational heritage. A major objective of these educational efforts was to publicize a different face to the non Sikh international community who regarded the Sikhs as "terrorists."


title: Khalistan movement

text: In 1993, Khalistan was briefly admitted in the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization, but was suspended in a few months. The membership suspension was made permanent on 22 January 1995.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Pakistan has long aspired to dismember India through its "Bleed India" strategy. Even before the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, then a member of the military regime of General Yahya Khan, stated, "Once the back of Indian forces is broken in the east, Pakistan should occupy the whole of Eastern India and make it a permanent part of East Pakistan... Kashmir should be taken at any price, even the Sikh Punjab and turned into Khalistan."


title: Khalistan movement

text: General Zia-ul Haq, who succeeded Bhutto as the Head of State, attempted to reverse the traditional antipathy between Sikhs and Muslims arising from the partition violence by restoring Sikh shrines in Pakistan and opening them for Sikh pilgrimage. The expatriate Sikhs from England and North America that visited these shrines were at the forefront of the calls for Khalistan. During the pilgrims' stay in Pakistan, the Sikhs were exposed to Khalistani propaganda, which would not be openly possible in India. The ISI chief, General Abdul Rahman, opened a cell within ISI with the objective of supporting the "[Sikhs']...freedom struggle against India". Rahman's colleagues in ISI took pride in the fact that "the Sikhs were able to set the whole province on fire. They knew who to kill, where to plant a bomb and which office to target." General Hamid Gul argued that keeping Punjab destabilized was equivalent to the Pakistan Army having an extra division at no cost. Zia-ul Haq, on the other hand, consistently practised the art of plausible denial. The Khalistan movement was brought to a decline only after India fenced off a part of the Punjab border with Pakistan and the Benazir Bhutto government agreed to joint patrols of the border by Indian and Pakistani troops.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In 2006, an American court convicted Khalid Awan, a Muslim and Canadian of Pakistani descent, of ""supporting terrorism"" by providing money and financial services to the Khalistan Commando Force chief Paramjit Singh Panjwar in Pakistan. KCF members had carried out deadly attacks against Indian civilians causing thousands of deaths. Awan frequently travelled to Pakistan and was alleged by the U.S. officials with links to Sikh and Muslim extremists, as well as Pakistani intelligence.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In 2008, India's Intelligence Bureau indicated that Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence organisation was trying to revive Sikh militancy.


title: Khalistan movement

text: "The New York Times" reported in June 1984 that Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi conveyed to Helmut Schmidt and Willy Brandt, both of them being former Chancellors of West Germany, that United States' Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was involved in causing unrest in Punjab. It also reported that "The Indian Express" quoted anonymous officials from India's Intelligence establishment as saying that the CIA "masterminded" a plan to support the acolytes of Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale, who died a few days ago during Operation Blue Star, by smuggling weapons for them through Pakistan. The United States embassy denied this report's findings.


title: Khalistan movement

text: According to B. Raman, former Additional Secretary in the Cabinet Secretariat of India and a senior official of the Research and Analysis Wing, the United States initiated a plan in complicity with Pakistan's General Yahya Khan in 1971 to support an insurgency for Khalistan in Punjab.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Immediately after Operation Blue Star, authorities were unprepared for how quickly extremism spread and gained support in Canada, with extremists "...threatening to kill thousands of Hindus by a number of means, including blowing up Air India flights." Canadian Member of Parliament Ujjal Dosanjh, a moderate Sikh, stated that he and others who spoke out against Sikh extremism in the 1980s faced a "reign of terror".


title: Khalistan movement

text: On 18 November 1998, the Canada-based Sikh journalist Tara Singh Hayer was gunned down by suspected Khalistani militants. The publisher of the "Indo-Canadian Times," a Canadian Sikh and once-vocal advocate of the armed struggle for Khalistan, he had criticised the bombing of Air India Flight 182, and was to testify about a conversation he overheard concerning the bombing. On 24 January 1995, Tarsem Singh Purewal, editor of Britain's Punjabi-language weekly "Des Pardes", was killed as he was closing his office in Southall. There is speculation that the murder was related to Sikh extremism, which Purewal may have been investigating. Another theory is that he was killed in retaliation for revealing the identity of a young rape victim.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Terry Milewski reported in a 2007 documentary for the CBC that a minority within Canada's Sikh community was gaining political influence even while publicly supporting terrorist acts in the struggle for an independent Sikh state. In response, the World Sikh Organization of Canada (WSO), a Canadian Sikh human rights group that opposes violence and extremism, sued the CBC for "defamation, slander, and libel", alleging that Milewski linked it to terrorism and damaged the reputation of the WSO within the Sikh community. In 2015, however, the WSO unconditionally abandoned "any and all claims" made in its lawsuit.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Canadian journalist Kim Bolan has written extensively on Sikh extremism. Speaking at the Fraser Institute in 2007, she reported that she still received death threats over her coverage of the 1985 Air India bombing.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In 2008, a CBC report stated that "a disturbing brand of extremist politics has surfaced" at some of the Vaisakhi and the Buddhist Vesak parades in Canada, and The Trumpet agreed with the CBC assessment. Two leading Canadian Sikh politicians refused to attend the parade in Surrey, saying it was a glorification of terrorism. In 2008, Dr. Manmohan Singh, Prime Minister of India, expressed his concern that there might be a resurgence of Sikh extremism.


title: Khalistan movement

text: There has been some controversy over Canada's response to the Khalistan movement. After Amarinder Singh's refusal to meet Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2017, calling him a "Khalistani sympathizer", Singh ultimately met with Trudeau 22 Feb 2018 over the issue. Trudeau assured Singh that his country would not support the revival of the separatist movement. Shiromani Akali Dal President Sukhbir Badal was quoted saying Khalistan is "no issue, either in Canada or in Punjab". Justin Trudeau has declared that his country would not support the revival of the separatist movement.


title: Khalistan movement

text: A 2020 report by Canadian ex-journalist Terry Milewski criticized the Khalistan movement as driven by the Pakistani government, and as a threat to Canadian interests.


title: Khalistan movement

text: In February 2008, BBC Radio 4 reported that the Chief of the Punjab Police, NPS Aulakh, alleged that militant groups were receiving money from the British Sikh community. The same report included statements that although the Sikh militant groups were poorly equipped and staffed, intelligence reports and interrogations indicated that Babbar Khalsa was sending its recruits to the same terrorist training camps in Pakistan used by Al Qaeda.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Lord Bassam of Brighton, then Home Office minister, stated that International Sikh Youth Federation (ISYF) members working from the UK had committed "assassinations, bombings, and kidnappings" and were a "threat to national security."


title: Khalistan movement

text: The ISYF is listed in the UK as a "Proscribed Terrorist Group" but it has not been included in the list of terrorist organisations by the United States Department of State. It was also added to the US Treasury Department terrorism list on 27 June 2002.


title: Khalistan movement

text: Andrew Gilligan, reporting for The London Evening Standard, stated that the Sikh Federation (UK) is the "successor" of the ISYF, and that its executive committee, objectives, and senior members ... are largely the same.


title: Khalistan movement

text: The Vancouver Sun reported in February 2008 that Dabinderjit Singh was campaigning to have both the Babbar Khalsa and International Sikh Youth Federation de-listed as terrorist organisations. It also stated of Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day that "he has not been approached by anyone lobbying to delist the banned groups". Day is also quoted as saying "The decision to list organizations such as Babbar Khalsa, Babbar Khalsa International, and the International Sikh Youth Federation as terrorist entities under the Criminal Code is intended to protect Canada and Canadians from terrorism." There are claims of funding from Sikhs outside India to attract young people into these pro-Khalistan militant groups.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: The BAE Systems Tempest is a proposed sixth-generation fighter aircraft that is under development in the United Kingdom for the Royal Air Force (RAF). The aircraft is intended to enter service from 2035, gradually replacing the Eurofighter Typhoon. It is being developed as part of the Future Combat Air System (FCAS) programme by a consortium known as "Team Tempest", which includes the Ministry of Defence, BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, Leonardo, and MBDA UK. £2 billion is planned to be spent by the British government on the initial phase of the project up to 2025.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: Both Italy and Sweden signed a Memorandum of Understanding in 2020 committing to explore collaboration on the FCAS programme. The UK and Japan announced they are working together on the joint development of engine and radar demonstrators. This was followed by an announcement in December 2022 of the Global Combat Air Programme; a collaboration between Italy, Japan and the UK for a sixth-generation fighter aircraft.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: On 16 July 2018, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) published its Combat Air Strategy. The key elements of this are:


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: The document describes combat air as "An aircraft, manned or unmanned, whose prime function is to conduct air-to-air and/or air-to-surface combat operations in a hostile and/or contested environment, whilst having the ability to concurrently conduct surveillance, reconnaissance, electronic warfare and command and control tasks." On the same day, the Tempest programme was introduced at the Farnborough Airshow as part of the Combat Air Strategy to maintain UK's combat aircraft development capabilities.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: The Tempest will be a sixth-generation jet fighter incorporating several new technologies including deep learning AI, ability to fly unmanned, swarming drones, directed-energy weapons, virtual cockpit in helmet and hypersonic weapons. £2 billion was earmarked until 2025. It was developed by a group called "Team Tempest", consisting of the BAE Systems, project leader and systems integrator; Rolls-Royce, working on power and propulsion; Leonardo S.p.A., working on sensors, electronics and avionics; MBDA, working on weapons; and the Royal Air Force (RAF) Rapid Capabilities Office. The maiden flight is anticipated to occur by 2025 ahead of entry into service by 2035. Tempest will replace the Eurofighter Typhoon in RAF service. The RAF's Second World War Hawker Tempest fighter also followed a Typhoon. Some technology developed for Tempest will be implemented in Typhoon.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: In 2018 it was reported that the MoD was in talks with officials from Sweden about a common fighter jet aircraft. On 8 February 2019, it was reported that the MoD and BAE Systems planned to approach the Indian MoD and Air Force regarding collaboration for the design and manufacture of the Tempest.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: In July 2019, Team Tempest revealed that they planned to use a Boeing 757 as a testbed for technology developed for Tempest. The aircraft, named "Excalibur", will be the only stealth fighter testbed outside the United States.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: On 19 July 2019, Sweden and the United Kingdom signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to explore ways of jointly developing sixth-generation air combat technologies. Swedish public service TV SVT reported that Sweden is now a part of the Tempest project, however "Jane's Defence Weekly" later clarified that Sweden was not formally part of the Tempest project, but is rather cooperating on the broader Combat Air Strategy. A decision on full commitment to Tempest by Sweden was expected by the third quarter of 2020.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: Italy announced its involvement in Team Tempest on 10 September 2019. The Statement of Intent was signed between the UK participant bodies and Italian participant companies (Leonardo Italy, Elettronica, Avio Aero and MBDA Italy).


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: At the virtual Farnborough Airshow in July 2020, Defence Secretary Ben Wallace announced seven new companies were joining the Team Tempest consortium: GEUK, GKN, Collins Aerospace, Martin Baker, QinetiQ, Bombardier in Belfast (now Spirit Aerosystems) and Thales UK, along with UK universities and SMEs. The companies will develop more than 60 technology prototypes and demonstration activities. By July 2020, trilateral industry discussions between UK, Sweden and Italy had begun; also announced was an initial investment of £50m in the project by Saab and the opening of a Future Combat Air Systems centre in the UK. Saab did not however explicitly commit to Tempest.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: The involvement of Italy and Sweden was confirmed by the signing of a trilateral MoU with the UK, called Future Combat Air System Cooperation (FCASC), on 21 December 2020, "defining general principles for co-operation on an equal basis between the three countries".


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: On 29 July 2021, the project moved into the Concept and Assessment phase, with BAE Systems being awarded a £250 million contract to advance the design. In August 2021 Italy announced its intention to invest €2 billion by 2035 starting with a €20 million contribution in 2021 followed by the same amount in 2022 and 2023. In the July 2022 Italian defence budget, the development of the fighter was accelerated with Italy now budgeting a spend of €220 million in 2022 and €345 million in 2023, with a forecast total investment of €3.8 billion by 2036.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: On 22 December 2021, it was announced that the UK and Japan would jointly develop an engine testbed, with the UK initially contributing £30m for design to be followed by £200m for production of the testbed. On 15 February 2022, the UK and Japan also agreed on the joint development of next-generation fighter radar demonstrator named JAGUAR (Japan And Great Britain Universal Advanced RF sensor), led by Leonardo UK and Mitsubishi Electric.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: On 18 July 2022, the UK announced that a demonstrator aircraft would be flown for the first time "within the next five years". According to the MOD press release, the demonstrator's development is already underway at the BAE Systems facility in Preston, England and it has already been flown in simulators.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: Discussions to combine efforts on Tempest with Japan's own Mitsubishi F-X fighter project as a means to cut development costs began as early as 2017. The final decision made towards the end of 2022 to merge the development and deployment of a common fighter jet under a project called the "Global Combat Air Program" (GCAP) with development shared with Italy.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: Tempest will be modular, both to be easily role-adapted to fit the particular mission as well as have easily upgradeable components during its lifetime. It has delta-wings and a pair of outwards-pointing vertical stabilisers. It will incorporate stealth technology, be able to fly unmanned, and use swarming technology to control drones. It will incorporate artificial intelligence deep learning and carry directed-energy weapons. The aircraft will have a Cooperative Engagement Capability which is the ability to share data and messages with other aircraft and coordinate actions. Tempest will feature virtual cockpit shown on a pilot's helmet-mounted display using a Striker II unit, and an adaptive cycle engine that utilises composite materials and improved manufacturing process to be lightweight and have better thermal management while still keeping costs low.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: Leonardo has proposed a radar warning receiver that is four times as accurate at 1/10th of the size of current units.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: The aircraft has a slightly raised rear fuselage section, to accommodate “S-shaped” ducting behind its twin-engine inlets, to reduce its frontal radar cross-section. Its two engines are placed deep inside the fuselage to minimise radar and infrared signatures.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: The aircraft's two generators are able to provide 10 times more electrical power than the Typhoon's. One of the generators serves as an electrical starter, eliminating the need of a mechanical or compressed-air starting system for the engine.


title: BAE Systems Tempest

text: The pilot's helmet will monitor brain signals and other medical data, amassing a unique biometric and psychometric information database for each pilot, that will grow the more the pilot flies. The aircraft's AI will work in conjunction with the database to assist the pilot, for example taking over flight controls if the pilot blacks out due to g-force or increasing its own workload when the pilot is overwhelmed or under increased stress e.g. taking over terminal guidance after weapon deployment if the pilot's attention is focused on a more imminent threat to the aircraft. The AI is also intended to act as a gatekeeper that will parse the overwhelming quantity of sensor and intelligence data collected by the aircraft to identify key threats, while throttling the rate processed data is provided to the pilot to prevent the pilot being overloaded.


title: Christopher Nolan filmography

text: Christopher Nolan is a British-American film director, producer, and screenwriter. His feature directorial debut was the neo-noir crime thriller "Following" (1998) which was made on a shoestring budget of $6,000. Two years later, he directed the psychological thriller "Memento" (2000) which starred Guy Pearce as a man suffering from anterograde amnesia (short-term memory loss) searching for his wife's killers. Similar to his debut feature it had a non-linear narrative structure, and was his breakthrough film. It was acclaimed by critics and was a surprise commercial success. For the film Nolan received his first nomination for the Directors Guild of America Award for Outstanding Directing – Feature Film, and for writing its screenplay he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay. He next directed the mystery thriller remake "Insomnia" (2002) which starred Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank. It was his first film for Warner Bros., and was a critical and commercial success.


title: Christopher Nolan filmography

text: In 2005, Nolan directed Warner Bros' superhero film "Batman Begins" which starred Christian Bale and told an origin story of the title character. The following year, he directed psychological thriller "The Prestige" (2006) in which Bale and Hugh Jackman played rival 19th-century stage magicians. His next film was the sequel to "Batman Begins", "The Dark Knight", in which Bale reprised his role as Batman opposite Heath Ledger as the Joker. The film grossed a worldwide total of over $1 billion, and was the highest grossing of 2008. It received eight nominations at the 81st Academy Awards, and Nolan received his second nomination at the Directors Guild of America Awards. In 2010, he directed the action film "Inception" starring Leonardo DiCaprio as a thief who leads a team who steal information by entering a person's subconscious. It was nominated for Best Film at the Academy Awards, British Academy Film Awards, and Golden Globe Awards, and Nolan received his third nomination at the Directors Guild of America Awards.


title: Christopher Nolan filmography

text: Two years later, he directed "The Dark Knight Rises" (2012), which grossed a worldwide total at the box office of over $1 billion. He followed this by producing Zack Snyder's superhero film "Man of Steel" (2013) and directing the science fiction film "Interstellar" (2014), which starred Matthew McConaughey, Anne Hathaway, and Jessica Chastain. It won the Saturn Award for Best Science Fiction Film. In 2017, Nolan directed the acclaimed war film "Dunkirk", for which he received his first nomination for the Academy Award for Best Director. Three years later he directed the science fiction film "Tenet" (2020). His next feature will be "Oppenheimer," a biopic centred on J. Robert Oppenheimer, with Cillian Murphy starring as the titular character. It is set to release in 2023.


title: New World

text: The term New World is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas. The term gained prominence in the early 16th century, during Europe's Age of Discovery, shortly after the Italian explorer Amerigo Vespucci concluded that America (now often called "the Americas") represented a new continent, and subsequently published his findings in a pamphlet he titled . This realization expanded the geographical horizon of classical European geographers, who had thought the world consisted of Africa, Europe, and Asia, collectively now referred to as the Old World, or Afro-Eurasia. The Americas were thus also referred to as "the fourth part of the world".


title: New World

text: The Florentine explorer Amerigo Vespucci is usually credited for coming up with the term "New World" ("Mundus Novus") for the Americas in his 1503 letter, giving it its popular cachet, although similar terms had nonetheless been used and applied before him.


title: New World

text: The Venetian explorer Alvise Cadamosto used the term un altro mondo" ("another world") to refer to sub-Saharan Africa, which he explored in 1455 and 1456 on behalf of the Portuguese. This was merely a literary flourish, not a suggestion of a new "fourth" part of the world; Cadamosto was aware that sub-Saharan Africa was part of the African continent.


title: New World

text: The Italian-born Spanish chronicler Peter Martyr d'Anghiera doubted Christopher Columbus's claims to have reached East Asia ("the Indies"), and consequently came up with alternative names to refer to them. Only a few weeks after Columbus's return from his first voyage, Martyr wrote letters referring to Columbus's discovered lands as the "western antipodes" ("antipodibus occiduis", letter of 14 May 1493), the "new hemisphere of the earth" ("novo terrarum hemisphaerio", 13 September 1493), and in a letter dated 1 November 1493, refers to Columbus as the "discoverer of the new globe" ("Colonus ille novi orbis repertor"). A year later (20 October 1494), Peter Martyr again refers to the marvels of the New Globe ("Novo Orbe") and the "Western hemisphere" ("ab occidente hemisphero").


title: New World

text: In Columbus's 1499 letter to the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, reporting the results of his third voyage, he relates how the massive waters of South America's Orinoco delta rushing into the Gulf of Paria implied that a previously unknown continent must lie behind it. Columbus proposes that the South American landmass is not a "fourth" continent, but rather the terrestrial paradise of Biblical tradition, a land allegedly known (but undiscovered) by Christendom. In another letter (to the nurse of Prince John, written 1500), Columbus refers to having reached a "new heavens and world" ("nuevo cielo é mundo") and that he had placed "another world" ("otro mundo") under the dominion of the Kings of Spain.


title: New World

text: The term "New World" ("Mundus Novus") was coined by Amerigo Vespucci, in a letter written to his friend and former patron Lorenzo di Pier Francesco de' Medici in the Spring of 1503, and published (in Latin) in 1503–04 under the title "Mundus Novus". Vespucci's letter contains arguably the first explicit articulation in print of the hypothesis that the lands discovered by European navigators to the west were not the edges of Asia, as asserted by Columbus, but rather an entirely different continent, a "New World".


title: New World

text: According to "Mundus Novus", Vespucci realized that he was in a "New World" on 17 August 1501 as he arrived in Brazil and compared the nature and people of the place with what Portuguese sailors told him about Asia. In fact, a famous chance meeting between two different expeditions had occurred at the watering stop of "Bezeguiche" (the Bay of Dakar, Senegal)—Vespucci's own outgoing expedition, on its way to chart the coast of newly discovered Brazil, and the vanguard ships of the Second Portuguese India armada of Pedro Álvares Cabral, returning home from India. Having already visited the Americas in prior years, Vespucci probably found it difficult to reconcile what he had already seen in the West Indies, with what the returning sailors told him of the East Indies. Vespucci wrote a preliminary letter to Lorenzo, while anchored at Bezeguiche, which he sent back with the Portuguese fleet—at this point only expressing a certain puzzlement about his conversations. Vespucci was finally convinced when he proceeded on his mapping expedition through 1501–02, covering the huge stretch of coast of eastern Brazil. After returning from Brazil, in the Spring of 1503, Amerigo Vespucci composed the "Mundus Novus" letter in Lisbon to Lorenzo in Florence, with its famous opening paragraph:


title: New World

text: In passed days I wrote very fully to you of my return from new countries, which have been found and explored with the ships, at the cost and by the command of this Most Serene King of Portugal; and it is lawful to call it a new world, because none of these countries were known to our ancestors and to all who hear about them they will be entirely new. For the opinion of the ancients was, that the greater part of the world beyond the equinoctial line to the south was not land, but only sea, which they have called the Atlantic; and even if they have affirmed that any continent is there, they have given many reasons for denying it is inhabited. But this opinion is false, and entirely opposed to the truth. My last voyage has proved it, for I have found a continent in that southern part; full of animals and more populous than our Europe, or Asia, or Africa, and even more temperate and pleasant than any other region known to us.


title: New World

text: Vespucci's letter was a publishing sensation in Europe, immediately (and repeatedly) reprinted in several other countries.


title: New World

text: Peter Martyr, who had been writing and circulating private letters commenting on Columbus's discoveries since 1493, often shares credit with Vespucci for designating the Americas as a new world. Peter Martyr used the term "Orbe Novo" (literally, "New Globe", but often translated as "New World") in the title of his history of the discovery of the Americas as a whole, which began to appear in 1511. (Cosmologically, "orbis" as used here refers to the whole hemisphere, while "mundus" refers to the land within it.)


title: New World

text: The Vespucci passage above applied the "New World" label to merely the continental landmass of South America. At the time, most of the continent of North America was not yet discovered, and Vespucci's comments did not eliminate the possibility that the islands of the Antilles discovered earlier by Christopher Columbus might still be the eastern edges of Asia, as Columbus continued to insist until his death in 1506. A 1504 globe, perhaps created by Leonardo da Vinci, depicts the New World sans North and Central America. A conference of navigators known as "Junta de Navegantes" was assembled by the Spanish monarchs at Toro in 1505 and continued at Burgos in 1508 to digest all existing information about the Indies, come to an agreement on what had been discovered, and set out the future goals of Spanish exploration. Amerigo Vespucci attended both conferences, and seems to have had an outsized influence on them—at Burgos, he ended up being appointed the first "piloto mayor", the chief of the navigation of Spain. Although the proceedings of the Toro-Burgos conferences are missing, it is almost certain that Vespucci articulated his recent 'New World' thesis to his fellow navigators there. During these conferences, Spanish officials seem to have finally accepted that the Antilles and the known stretch of Central America were not the Indies as they had hoped. (though Columbus still insisted they were). They set out the new goal for Spanish explorers: find a sea passage or strait through the Americas, a path to Asia proper.


title: New World

text: The term "New World" was not universally accepted, entering English only relatively late, and has more recently been subject to criticism.


title: New World

text: While it became generally accepted after Vespucci that Columbus's discoveries were not Asia but a "New World", the geographic relationship between the two continents was still unclear. That there must be a large ocean between Asia and the Americas was implied by the known existence of vast continuous sea along the coasts of East Asia. Given the size of the Earth as calculated by Eratosthenes this left a large space between Asia and the newly discovered lands.


title: New World

text: Even prior to Vespucci, several maps, e.g. the Cantino planisphere of 1502 and the Canerio map of 1504, placed a large open ocean between China on the east side of the map, and the inchoate largely water-surrounded North American and South American discoveries on the western side of map. However, out of uncertainty, they depicted a finger of the Asian land mass stretching across the top to the eastern edge of the map, suggesting it carried over into the western hemisphere (e.g. the Cantino Planisphere denotes Greenland as "Punta d'Asia"—"edge of Asia"). Some maps, e.g., the 1506 Contarini–Rosselli map and the 1508 Johannes Ruysch map, bowing to Ptolemaic authority and Columbus's assertions, have the northern Asian landmass stretching well into the western hemisphere and merging with known North America (Labrador, Newfoundland, etc.). These maps place the island of Japan near Cuba and leave the South American continent—Vespucci's "New World" proper—detached and floating below by itself. The Waldseemüller map of 1507, which accompanied the famous "Cosmographiae Introductio" volume (which includes reprints of Vespucci's letters) comes closest to modernity by placing a completely open sea (with no stretching land fingers) between Asia on the eastern side and the New World (being represented two times in the same map in a different way: with and without a sea passage in the middle of what is now named Central America) on the western side—which (on what is now named South America) that same map famously labels simply ""America"". However, Martin Waldseemüller's map of 1516 retreats considerably from his earlier map and back to classical authority, with the Asian land mass merging into North America (which he now calls "Terra de Cuba Asie partis"), and quietly drops the "America" label from South America, calling it merely "Terra incognita".


title: New World

text: The western coast of the New World—the Pacific Ocean—was only discovered in 1513 by Vasco Núñez de Balboa. It was a few more years before another Portuguese—Ferdinand Magellan's voyage of 1519–22—determined that the Pacific definitely formed a single large body of water that separated Asia from the Americas. It would be several more years before the Pacific Coast of North America was mapped, dispelling lingering doubts. Until the discovery of the Bering Straits in the 17th century, there was no absolute confirmation that Asia and North America were not connected, and some European maps of the 16th century still continued to hopefully depict North America connected by a land bridge to Asia (e.g. the 1533 Johannes Schöner globe).


title: New World

text: In 1524, the term was used by Giovanni da Verrazzano in a record of his voyage that year along the Atlantic coast of North America, land that is now part of the United States and Canada.


title: New World

text: The term "New World" is still commonly employed when discussing historic spaces, particularly the voyages of Christopher Columbus and the subsequent European colonization of the Americas. It has been framed as being problematic for applying a colonial perspective of discovery and not doing justice to either the historic or geographic complexity of the world. It is argued that both 'worlds' and the age of Western colonialism rather entered a new stage, as in the 'modern world'.


title: New World

text: In wine terminology, "New World" uses a particular definition. "New World wines" include not only North American and South American wines, but also those from South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, and all other locations outside the traditional wine-growing regions of Europe, North Africa and the Near East. The usefulness of these terms for wines though have been questioned as arbitrary and too generalized.


title: New World

text: In a biological context, species can be divided into those in the Old World (Palearctic, Afrotropic) and those in the New World (Nearctic, Neotropic). Biological taxonomists often attach the "New World" label to groups of species found exclusively in the Americas, to distinguish them from their counterparts in the "Old World" (Europe, Africa and Asia)—e.g., New World monkeys, New World vultures, New World warblers.


title: New World

text: The label is also often used in agriculture. Asia, Africa, and Europe share a common agricultural history stemming from the Neolithic Revolution, and the same domesticated plants and animals spread through these three continents thousands of years ago, making them largely indistinct and useful to classify together as "Old World". Common Old World crops (e.g., barley, lentils, oats, peas, rye, wheat), and domesticated animals (e.g., cattle, chickens, goats, horses, pigs, sheep) did not exist in the Americas until they were introduced by post-Columbian contact in the 1490s. Conversely, many common crops were originally domesticated in the Americas before they spread worldwide after Columbian contact, and are still often referred to as "New World crops"; common beans ("phaseolus"), maize, and squash—the "three sisters"—as well as the avocado, tomato, and wide varieties of capsicum (bell pepper, chili pepper, etc.), and the turkey were originally domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples in Mesoamerica, while agriculturalists in the Andean region of South America brought forth the cassava, peanut, potato, quinoa and domesticated animals like the alpaca, guinea pig and llama. Other famous New World crops include the cashew, cocoa, rubber, sunflower, tobacco, and vanilla, and fruits like the guava, papaya and pineapple. There are rare instances of overlap, e.g., the calabash (bottle-gourd), cotton, and yam, and the dog, are believed to have been domesticated separately in both the Old and New World, their early forms possibly brought along by Paleo-Indians from Asia during the last glacial period.


title: RedTube

text: RedTube is a pornographic video sharing site, which in September 2009 held an Alexa ranking within the world's top 100 sites. It is one of several pornographic websites owned by Mindgeek. In June 2010 it had fallen out of the top 100, but it made a return in mid-2012. As of mid September 2020 its Alexa ranking was 520. Its popularity has been ascribed to its non-sexual name, which is a reference to the non-pornographic video sharing website YouTube. The website is based in Houston, Texas and has servers in San Francisco, New Orleans and Montreal.


title: RedTube

text: In 2009, it was one of twelve pornographic sites blocked by the Sri Lankan court because access to the site, which housed images of Sri Lankan women and children, "corrupted society".


title: RedTube

text: In September 2013, one of the videos was blocked in Russia due to the "Federal Law On Protection of Children from Information Harmful to Their Health and Development".


title: RedTube

text: In 2018, the Government of India banned RedTube, among other porn websites, after a Uttarakhand High Court court order demanding the same in a rape case where the perpetrators stated they were motivated to do so after watching online pornography.


title: RedTube

text: As of 2009, three of the largest porn sites "RedTube, YouPorn and Pornhub — collectively only make up 100 million unique visitors". MindGeek has since acquired all three sites.


title: RedTube

text: In December 2013, the German law firm "Urmann und Collegen (U+C)" sent up to 30,000 cease and desist letters ("Abmahnungen" in German) giving legal warnings to German Internet users who allegedly viewed streams from RedTube containing certain copyrighted videos, demanding them to pay a fine of 250 EUR to the law firm of which 15.50 EUR would be distributed as compensation to the company claiming ownership of copyright for the videos, the Switzerland-based "The Archive AG". By December 13 more than 20,000 people had already received such letters. It is not clear how exactly the law firm was able to collect the IP addresses of RedTube's users.


title: RedTube

text: In documents filed in court in order to obtain the personal data of the individuals involved, the plaintiff claims that he had charged a company called ITGuards, Inc. (allegedly of San Jose, California) who used a proprietary software by the name of "GLADII 1.1.3", allowing them not only to collect the IP addresses of users accessing certain URL's on redtube.com, but also to determine the exact time at which the user started playing or paused the videos embedded on each of those pages.