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Abdul Salim Harun: If Halimah Yacob Becomes President, By-Election Should Be Called For Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC

As a resident and voter of Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC and residing under the Marsiling Constituency helm by Mdm Halimah Yacob, I hope that she can be forthcoming and inform her residents of her intention on the upcoming Presidential Election.

If she intents to run for the Presidency, a By-Election should be called considering that a GRC should consist of a minority MP. Currently, all her other colleagues in the GRC are all Chinese.

Aside from that, it is only right that residents and voters of Marsiling Constituency should have their own MP and representative in Parliament, an MP they can called their own, and not MPs loan from other wards.

The next General Election will only be held 3 years down the road and it is not right for Marsiling Constituency to be left without their own MP.

Furthermore, the Government had already stated that the GRC scheme was implemented to enshrined minority representation in Parliament and at least one of the MPs in the GRC must be from the minority race.

As can be seen from the current Marsiling-Yew Tee GRC, Mdm Halimah is the only minority MP in the GRC while the other 3 are of the Chinese race. If she intents to run for the Presidency, the GRC will be left without a minority MP.

So, Chan Chun Sing is totally wrong when he says that there’s not a need for any By-Election in regards of his “Mdm President” if she were to leave the GRC.

I hope Mdm Speaker will not leave her residents hanging and a By-Election should be called if she really leaves the GRC to contest the Presidential Election.

Source: Abdul Salim Harun

February 13, 2017
New Award For Students Pays Tribute To Malay War Hero, Lt Adnan Saidi

A war hero’s name now graces a new award for tertiary students who embody his fighting spirit, 75 years after he died valiantly in battle defending Singapore.

The SMEF-Lieutenant Adnan Award from the Singapore Muslim Education Fund (SMEF) will go to students who have excelled in their studies in the face of adversity, or proven their leadership mettle in a uniformed group.

It pays tribute to Lt Adnan Saidi who died fighting the Japanese in the Battle of Pasir Panjang during World War II. His platoon in the Malay Regiment was vastly outnumbered, but Lt Adnan rallied his men in a battle to the bitter end.

SMEF chairman Ameen Talib told The Sunday Times yesterday: “Lt Adnan is a symbol of bravery, leadership, resilience and determination, which we thought were perfect virtues for our younger generation to aspire towards.”

He noted that the introduction of the award was timely, coming on the 75th anniversary of the fall of Singapore.

The $700 award was given out for the first time yesterday, in a ceremony at Mamanda Restaurant in Kampong Glam.

Among the three recipients was 19-year-old Nurhaliza Ramli who, despite her troubled family background, has excelled in her media management course at Nanyang Polytechnic.

She has never met her mother, and her father, who was released from jail two years back and is partially blind, lives in a halfway house.

After her grandmother died in 2007, Ms Nurhaliza spent years shuttling between her relatives’ homes. She now lives with her taxi-driver uncle and his family.

After she graduates, she plans to find a job to help her save up for part-time university courses.

“I want to support myself and lighten the burden on my uncle, who has to think of his three children too,” she said. “Sometimes I do feel down, but I always tell myself to focus on the future. That’s something I can control.”

At the ceremony, Minister of State for Communications and Information and Education Janil Puthucheary gave out $41,000 worth of awards to a bumper crop of 12 students.

This is the SMEF’s largest disbursement since it was set up in 2013. Its initial focus was on supporting Malay/Muslim students pursue law and medicine overseas.

Yesterday, six medical students received the $5,000 SMEF Medicine Award, while three law students were given the $3,000 SMEF-Professor Ahmad Ibrahim Award, which is named after Singapore’s first attorney-general.

Said Dr Ameen: “There were very few Malay/Muslim professionals in these fields, and so we wanted to encourage and support students doing law and medicine.”

“Now, we want to look at other segments. We want to encourage those who have done their best against all odds, in any field.”

Source: www.straitstimes.com

February 13, 2017
Jufrie Mahmood: Yaacob Ibrahim Must Stop Thinking The Malay Community Are Fools

Dr Yaacob appeals to Malays to allow themselves to be made pawns in the PAP’s on going grand design to ward off any serious challenge to its absolute hold on all levers of power – at the expense of the community’s self worth and dignity.

He then wayang by saying, “the Malay community is concerned not just about the president, but also Malay permanent secretary, Malay general ,,,, because we want to see representation across the entire Singaporean life”.

Then he contradicts himself saying “but we believe it must come about because of meritocracy ……”.

Good try Dr Yaacob. You think we are fools?

Source: Mohamed Jufrie Mahmood

February 13, 2017
Yaacob Ibrahim: Give Elected Presidency A Chance To Develop

Give the elected presidency (EP) a chance to develop and allow it to evolve, Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Yaacob Ibrahim yesterday urged the Malay community, in particular, its youth.

He made the appeal in response to a question during a dialogue with tertiary students on whether the upcoming presidential election, which has been reserved for Malay candidates, is “mere tokenism”.

“I think, let’s give it a chance and see how it works because no policy is cast in stone. One day, the Government might change its mind and decide that this reserved election doesn’t work. You never know,” he added.

“You’ve to sort of recognise the fact that we must continue to evolve and learn from the experiences on the ground.”

Dr Yaacob was speaking publicly on the EP for the first time since the Presidential Elections (Amendment) Bill was passed last week.

The Bill provided details such as the election period and the size of the committees to assess whether candidates are eligible to contest. It follows broader constitutional changes passed last November that spell out how a presidential election will be reserved for a particular racial group if no one from that group has been president for five terms in a row.

The upcoming election is reserved for the Malay community, which has not seen a Malay president for 46 years since Singapore’s first president Yusof Ishak, who died in office on Nov 23, 1970.

In his reply, Dr Yaacob, who reiterated that he will not contest the election, said his preference “would have been clearly an open election, where a Malay could actually win the EP on his or her own merit”.

“But I think we also have to ask ourselves whether or not we are able to achieve that if we take that risk,” he added.

He said tribal tendencies “are still very strong” and “run deep”, not just among the miniorities, but even among the majorities.

“So how you ensure that the imbalance doesn’t become a burden on the minority is something which the Government has to think about all the time,” he added.

He said the Malay community is concerned “not just about the president, but also Malay permanent secretary, Malay general… because we want to see representation across the entire Singaporean life”.

“But we believe it must come about because of meritocracy. Even for the elected president, you don’t just pick up somebody from Geylang Serai – the person must qualify, the person must earn the respect of all Singaporeans,” he added.

Source: www.straitstimes.com

February 13, 2017
Special Constable Irfan Fandi – Keeping Singapore Transportation Services Safe

For 50 years, more than one million National Servicemen have served Singapore with pride and distinction, helping to fulfil our vital need for defence and safety.

The contributions of these National Servicemen will be recognised throughout 2017 as part of NS50, a year-long celebration to recognise past and present National Servicemen from the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), Singapore Police Force (SPF) and Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF).

For Special Constable 2 (SC2) Irfan Fandi Ahmad, 20, NS was something which took him some time to settle into.

“Before I enlisted into the SPF to serve my NS, I had been focusing on my football career so I took a while to adjust. But after awhile I started to enjoy myself. I made a lot of new friends and learnt a lot of new things,” said SC2 Irfan, who is now serving his NS as a Public Transport Security Command (Transcom) officer.

SC2 Irfan recalls his first two weeks of training as being both mentally and physically challenging.

“After my first book-out, the first thing I did was to go home and have a good dinner with my family. Those first two weeks were really challenging because you don’t get to see your family and your Field Instructors really pushed you to your limits,” said SC2 Irfan.

Despite the initial challenges he faced, SC2 Irfan credits his mentors with building up his discipline and fortitude. Today, he enjoys solving cases and meeting new people while continuing to serving his NS as a Transcom officer.

“NS has taught me the importance of sleeping early, waking up early, training hard and just being focused in everything that I do. I know this is a platform where I can learn new life experiences so I’m going to take it positively and just never give up,” remarked SC2 Irfan.

Source: www.hometeam.sg

February 13, 2017