Anmol Narang becomes first observant Sikh to graduate from US Military Academy

Second Lieutenant Anmol Narang becomes the first observant Sikh to graduate from the United States (US) Military Academy. She will complete her Basic Officer Leadership Course in Oklahoma. The completion of the course will lead her to her first posting in Okinawa, Japan.

Daily Current Affairs Quiz 2020

Key-Points:

In 1987, the US Congress passed a law that prohibited Sikhs and several other religious communities from maintaining their articles of faith while in the military, despite a history of diverse service and simple accommodations.

In 2015, an elderly Sikh-American man was brutally assaulted and left with severe facial injuries by an assailant who yelled racial slurs like “terrorist” and “Bin Laden”, in an apparent hate crime just before the US commemorated the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. According to a 2009 Sikh Coalition report, 41 per cent of Sikhs surveyed in New York City had been called derogatory names, such as “Osama bin Laden” or “terrorist”.