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Thursday, March 21, 2013 By

Lee Kuan Yew and the power of one

I am disappointed that the Straits Times did not give a full report of Lee Kuan Yew’s talk at the Standard Chartered Singapore Forum yesterday where he shared the stage with the former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker.

The two reports on the Straits Times’ page 3 did not mention what he said when asked about China-India relations. You can see it in this video, shown on the Straits Times’ own website.

India does not have the same dynamism as China for many reasons, he said. “First, because they are not one nation, they are multiple nations.” India does not have “one cohesive core, as you have in China”.

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Monday, March 18, 2013 By

India, Singapore among world’s biggest arms importers

India, China, Pakistan, South Korea and Singapore were the top arms importers between 2008 and 2012, reports the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). India, China and Pakistan received the bulk of their arms from Russia while America was the top supplier to South Korea and Singapore.

India’s share of international arms imports went up from 9 per cent in 2003-2007 to 12 per cent in 2008-2012. China’s fell from 12 per cent to 6 per cent, as this chart from the SIPRI fact sheet shows.

Singapore accounted for 4 per cent of the international arms imports in 2008-2012, up from 1 per cent in 2003-2007.

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Thursday, April 19, 2012 By

Mamata Banerjee among world’s most influential people

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee is the only Indian leader on Time magazine’s 2012 list of the 100 most influential people in the world, joining the likes of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.  (Here’s the full Time magazine list.) Ironically, the news came on a day when teachers in her state capital, Kolkata, staged a protest rally because a university professor was arrested by the police for emailing a cartoon about her. 

Honest, plain-living, courageous but intolerant of criticism, she has already alienated some people after coming to power last May after 34 years of communist rule in the state.  Five days ago, Kolkata’s leading newspaper published a fiery article demanding her resignation.  The newspaper didn’t even carry the news of her making the Time magazine list, as Derek O’Brien, a Trinamool Congress member of parliament, pointed out.

Mamata Banerjee’s influence doesn’t really extend beyond West Bengal.  Her party, Trinamool Congress, holds only 19 seats in the 542-member Lok Sabha, the Lower House of the Indian parliament. All  the 19 Trinamool Congress members of parliament in the Lok Sabha were elected from West Bengal. But Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s coalition government needs their support to remain in power.

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Friday, January 27, 2012 By

Twitter can censor tweets by country

Twitter has announced that it now has the technology to selectively block tweets on a country by country basis. It’s a victory for countries like China and India which block or threaten to block websites carrying “objectionable” content. Twitter seems to be giving in to countries with restrictions on freedom of expression to expand its global business.

On its blog, Twitter said it could “reactively withhold content from users in a specific country”.

But it said the removed content would be available to the rest of the world. Previously when Twitter deleted a tweet, it would disappear worldwide.Continue Reading

Filed Under: India, Media Tagged With: , , , ,
Thursday, January 26, 2012 By

India 131st, Singapore 135th on Press Freedom Index

India continues to slide down the Press Freedom Index while Singapore has moved up one place.  Singapore is ranked 135th on the 2011-2012 Press Freedom Index while India is 131st, having dropped nine places. India was 122nd on the 2010 Press Freedom Index, down from 105th in 2009.Continue Reading

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Wednesday, January 25, 2012 By

Salman Rushdie raps ‘the real enemies of Islam’

It’s a shame Salman Rushdie wasn’t allowed to address the Jaipur Literature Festival even by video link because of opposition from Muslim groups. “Even seeing his face is intolerable,” said Muslims protesting against the proposed video conference with the author of The Satanic Verses, which is banned in India.Continue Reading

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Friday, January 20, 2012 By

Salman Rushdie avoids India after death threats

Salman Rushdie has announced he won’t be attending the Jaipur Literary Festival in India because of death threats. Who is to blame?Continue Reading

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Saturday, November 13, 2010 By

56% of Singapore immigrants are women

The World Bank has come out with the Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011, which shows immigrants now make up 40.7 per cent of Singapore’s five million population. And 56 per cent of the immigrants are women.

Only Denmark, Russia and Hong Kong have a higher percentage of women immigrants among countries I checked on the factbook, though Israel and Japan follow close behind. All the figures in the table below are in percentages. I looked only at rich Western nations and selected countries in South Asia, Southeast Asia and the Pacific, the Middle East and Africa.

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Sunday, September 19, 2010 By

The world’s biggest selling newspapers

The internet is said to be taking its toll on newspapers, but circulation is still healthy in highly wired countries like Japan and South Korea. Tokyo seems to be the newspaper capital, boasting the two most widely circulated newspapers in the world: Yomiuri Shimbun and Asahi Shimbun.

Tokyo has, in all, four of the 10 most widely circulated newspapers in the world. Two are published from London: the News of the World and the Sun. One is German: the Bild. Two are in China. And the other one is the Times of India.

So why aren't any American newspapers on the top 10 list? It can't be because of the internet. The internet is as widely used in Britain, Japan and South Korea as in America.

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Thursday, September 16, 2010 By

MM Lee at 87

Singapore's Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew turned 87 today. "I know if I rest, I'll slide downhill fast," he said in an interview which appeared in the New York Times last week, and now he is visiting Moscow and Paris.

An election seems round the corner with the government listening to the people, tightening immigration, offering more Housing and Development  Board (HDB) flats.

So, I have been wondering today, will MM Lee stand in the next election?

He will be in his 90s when the next parliament is dissolved.

Even then he won't be the oldest lawmaker on record.

That honour goes to Strom Thurmond, who was a senator representing North Carolina when he died at the age of 100 in 2003. He had been a senator since 1956.

The oldest US senator now is Robert Byrd, in his 90s, who has been representing West Virginia since 1959.

Born in November 1917, he is five years older than MM Lee.

MM Lee was only 35 when he was elected prime minister in 1959, much younger than Obama, who became president at 47 in January 2009.

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