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Tag: Lee Kuan Yew

  • MCI: Janadas Devan Did Not Interfere In LKY Musical

    MCI: Janadas Devan Did Not Interfere In LKY Musical

    The Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI) has claimed that it has not interfered with the production of the stage play, The LKY Musical.

    The ministry’s statement comes after an actor involved in the production, Tan Shou Chen, blogged about the alleged interference on Monday.

    Mr Tan, who plays former deputy prime minister, Toh Chin Chye, in the production, had written that Tony Petito, who wrote the musical, has given a historical biopic treatment to the piece, and “has been extremely open to inputs from a government official, Janandas Devan [sic].”

    Mr Tan wrote:

    “Factual corrections were made to the script, including the late hour (4 days before previews) addition of the latter part of the famous broadcast of Mr Lee crying. Dex [the director] communicated to the company of actors that this was suggested to Tony to be added to the script when it was communicated that speech will be broadcast again in it’s [sic] entirety nationwide on Aug 9th, and that there will be a concerted effort to share the latter part of that broadcast.

    “To put it extremely bluntly, it reeks of the oily propaganda machine.”

    The MCI, however, has disputed this.

    According to a TODAY report on Friday, the ministry said it was in fact the producers of the musical who had approached Mr Janadas for advice on certain aspects of the play because they needed help with “historical accuracies” concerning the script.

    TODAY reported:

    “In a statement, Metropolitan Productions said Mr Janadas, who is from the Ministry of Communications and Information (MCI), had provided “invaluable feedback” on the accurate chronology of events.”

    The producers said:

    “At no time did he or anyone else ask us to change any part of the story.”

    Mr Tan removed his blog post soon after, for unknown reasons.

    Mr Janadas Devan, who is the son of Singapore’s former president, Devan Nair, was appointed to the position of Chief of Government Communications in 2012, under the purview of the MCI.

    He was also a former editor with the Straits Times, and had “served as the paper’s leader writer for many years, writing unsigned editorials on a wide variety of subjects.” (See here.)

    Mr Janadas is also currently the director of research institute, The Institute of Policy Studies, at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore.

    Questions about his dual roles at both the MCI and the IPS were raised in Parliament in March 2014 by Workers’ Party MP and chairman, Sylvia Lim.

    Ms Lim asked the MCI MInister, Yaacob Ibrahim, if he felt “that such a dual role…is not quite a desirable state of affairs because it might raise some questions about the role of the IPS”.

    In his reply, Dr Yaacob said the ministry “had considered his appointment seriously” and felt that it is “very clear that what IPS has done is very different from what the CGC is supposed to do.”

    Dr Yaacob said the Government did not see any conflict of interest in Mr Janadas’ roles.

     

    Source: www.theonlinecitizen.com

  • Meet Joan Pereira – Lee Kuan Yew’s Replacement At Tanjong Pagar GRC

    Meet Joan Pereira – Lee Kuan Yew’s Replacement At Tanjong Pagar GRC

    One of the doyens of Lianhe Zaobao, Ho Sheo Be, scored a scoop.

    In a Lianhe Zaobao article published three days ago, the senior political correspondent noticed a new face that emerged from the walkabouts at Tanjong Pagar GRC.

    Joan Pereira’s her name and she is affectionately known as “Indranee’s sister” due to her height and hairstyle.

    If you can recall, five-member Tanjong Pagar GRC now have four parliamentarians after the passing of founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew.

    Indranee told Channel NewsAsia that she “has begun assisting Mr Lee” in his ward after 2011, including his Meet-the-People sessions and his walkabouts.

    indranee and joan 8

    Enter “Indranee’s sister” to fill in the gap.

    The 47-year old former Director (Family Life & Active Ageing) at the People’s Association had been seen walking the ground with Indranee as long as a year ago.

    Ho also observed that Pereira had been actively involved in the wellness programme in Tanjong Pagar GRC, encouraging the elderly to be involved in various activities.

    And kudos to Ho, who even found out that Pereira has joined Temasek Cares to assist the General Manager there, heightening the expectation that the former public servant would probably be a woman in white. This is because one cannot be a public servant if he or she wants to enter politics.

    According to Ho, Pereira declined comment on whether she would participate in the next General Election (GE).

    Try to spot the “two Indranees” from these photos that we found from the Senior Minister of State’s Facebook page:

    Test 1

    indranee and joan 6

    Test 2

    indranee and joan 4

    Test 3

    indranee and joan 3

    Test 4

    indranee and joan

    Source: http://mothership.sg

  • Selamat Hari Raya From Amos Yee

    Selamat Hari Raya From Amos Yee

    So I was awake at around 8am (It’s a miracle) and I wondered why the fuck is my mother telling me to ‘hang my clothes nicely’ at 8am, she usually does it at 9:30 at night. So I inquired on the divergence of the constant variable, and apparently, she had a weekday off (fuck), because it was Hari Raya.

    Now apparently, Hari Raya comparatively to the Chinese towards Chinese New Year (At least the ones in Singapore) Hari Raya is a fucking big deal to Malays, with their meetings of extended families that reach the 100s, profuse amounts of Malay delectables (Like the Onde-Ondes I treasure),and there’s only 1-2 days of the national holiday, but you guys can extend the celebration to over a week.

    However, other than the Malays,the 13.3% (~0.718067 million (2013)), or other races compelled by neighbor pressure, typically no one else gives a fuck about the festival other than the fact that there is a work/school holiday. And also seeing what I had planned to do today, watching Attack On Titan and indulging in the 1st social gathering since I’d been released from prison (Yeah it actually took that long, I’m still a loner, I’m really just leading the life of a famous hermit), I didn’t even know.

    Now most people opine that the majority of prisoners in Singapore, are black, and from what I have observed(Which of course, isn’t empirically substantive), they’re right. And if they’re mostly Black, they’re mostly Malay, which means my cellmates were mostly Malay, which means that most of them, celebrated Hari Raya. And since I was in prison for 5 weeks (Or 3 weeks in prison, and 2 weeks in the worst fucking place ever), that is the only reason I’m giving a solitary shit about this festival.

    Now the benefits of being in prison while Malays are fasting a month before Hari Raya, is that their desires to be generous (Does that come from fasting?) and their resolute spirit to either eat less daily or engage in a full day hardcore fast (Which unlike me, they didn’t have the assistance of a mental stimulus fueled by unrelenting thoughts of suicide) while we were transitioning a move to the yard, they’d cover the food with a travel catalog and sneak the bread into my cell, so that my buddies and I could eat it later.

    My Muslim cellmates, would tell me how important the festival was to them. One of them, dictated when he wanted to reveal his crime of Awol (which is apparently really easy to pull off), based on the date of Hari Raya, because if he admits his crime early enough, he could have the chance to finish his sentence before the festive season, so he can celebrate it with his children and family.

    One of my fellas at IMH, who was intended to be discharged during Hari Raya, (and then subsequently be sent back after it was over, in the eyes of the family, there’s somehow an exception for tolerance to mental hysteria during Hari Raya) made the highly compelling argument that he was obligated to be released earlier, because he had to attain a suitable Hari Raya Baju.

    Now, due to genetics or food (Probably the latter), he’s really fucking fat, and shops in Geylang Serai do not have shirts of sizes up to 3XL, and the man was measured to need 5, so if he wants the Malay shirt, it has to be tailor-made, and since he was probably released only like a day or two before, he probably won’t be able to get it. I hope he doesn’t have to celebrate Hari Raya nude, Muhammad wouldn’t like that, which is unfortunate for Australian Muslims.

    So as I was in prison, frequently exposed to my Malay buddies’ love and desires to celebrate Hari Raya, I recalled that quote from Roger Ebert, which I can’t seem to remember and fucking find, so somebody if they can, please identify it and write it down on the comments section, but he said something along the lines of, there’s always something fascinating from the things that people derive great joy from. And thus from there, I too, started to develop a liking (Just a little), of this festival, of Hari Raya.

    And this shows that even if initially you don’t give a solitary shit about something, if you take the chance to open your mind(or be obligated to due to boredom in Prison) from other people’s different passions and hobbies, you can develop an interest to those yourself, or at least, enough to write a Facebook post about.
    And as I wander the world rife with fans of Twilight, Transformers, Justin Bieber and fucking K-pop, I resolve that though I might disagree with their preferences, and interests and tastes in general, I sure as hell won’t say that mine is somehow better, unless of course it concerns the existence of God, in which case, it’s pretty definitive.

    And for all my Muslim pals who are unfortunate enough to have to be in prison during Hari Raya, because once I went out from prison, I heard from their family members that instead of backdating their months in remand, they were instead sentenced to RTC. It feels absolutely horrible I know, even more so when you can’t even see the message I’m writing that’s directed to you, it’s quite futile on my part I know. Do be assured, that for most cordial Malay families, they’re probably hoping that you’re doing well in prison, or gossiping and viciously lambasting you for committing a crime, either way, they’re thinking about you, which means you’re more important than the family member who attends the festive gathering, only to then sit quietly in the corner of the house, attempting to hide his complete inability to talk to people by flipping back and forth, the windows on his phone (That was me, it was fucking depressing) .

    So fellow Malay friends, as I stay confined in my room staring at blood-spilled gore bursting from the entrails of exploding Titans, I’m glad people outside are experiencing the pleasures of social activities and food that took more than 5 minutes to prepare.
    Happy Hari Raya. I hope you enjoy it.

     

    Source: https://amosyee.wordpress.com

     

  • SMRT Fiasco – Time For Heads To Roll

    SMRT Fiasco – Time For Heads To Roll

    To call it a disaster may be an understatement for the quarter of a million people stranded by the train breakdowns last evening. Yes, we do see breakdown pretty often but what happened last night was unprecedented. 250,000 commuters were affected when no less than 57 train stations were rendered obsolete.

    Some scenes of the fiasco last night
    Some scenes of the fiasco last night

    The scenes around the red dot last night were befitting of an apocalyptic blockbuster. Bus stops became obsolete, queues formed were so long that it gave the queues at Lee Kuan Yew’s funeral a good run for its money and people were lost, angry and unsatisfied, to say the least.

    Bus stops became a thing of the past (Source: Renald Loh)
    Bus stops became a thing of the past (Source: Renald Loh)

    On social media, many Singaporeans lamented about how, in the face of constant breakdowns and now the nationwide disaster, unjustified the increases in the salaries of CEOs and fares were. In the past 5 years alone, commuters have seen fares increased 3 times.

    To add salt to the wound, just last week SMRT CEO’s Desmond Kuek’s salary increased yet again. His salary has increased mulitfold  in just a span of three years and he is now paid at least 2.2 million annually. With increases in salaries of the men in-charge and fare hikes, it is only natural that commuters expect a parallel increase in service standards, or at the very least, the maintenance of current standards.

    However, that was not to be. The lack of satisfaction amongst millions of Singaporeans is justified, definitely more justified than the fare hikes and Desmond Kuek’s remuneration package.

    SMRT CEO Desmond Kuek
    SMRT CEO Desmond Kuek

    Instead of taking responsibility and being seen on the ground to ensure commuters affected by the countless breakdowns get home safely, there was little else other than statements of ‘concern.’ from Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew. From a layman’s perspective, stranded at bus stops and faced with the never ending queue in the hot, humid and sweltering crowd, reflecting on the astronomical salaries the people behind the trains and the fare hikes is a real kick in the face.

    Even if we can accept occasional breakdown, or even systemic infrastructural faults, complete lack of accountability should not be tolerated. And we saw a decent dose of that last night.

    But things weren’t always like that, were they? There was once a time where the MRT was the pride of all Singaporeans alike and breakdowns were as alien as curry puff syndicates . So much so, in fact, that the PAP itself incorporated the MRT in it’s election posters.

    A PAP campaign poster from 1998.
    A PAP campaign poster from 1998.

    Now, that is one poster we’ll probably never see revived. Not with the way things are going. This poster surfaced in 1988, when the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew was our Prime Minister. Reflecting on last night’s fiasco, I can’t help but wonder, what would he have done?

    I for one feel that, if the man was still around, such an incident wouldn’t even have happened. In fact, he would have tackled the problem at its core before it snowballed to the constant breakdowns Singaporean commuters face today. See, if there were one thing that separated PAP’s Lee Kuan Yew from the PAP of today, it would boil down to this – he never hesitated to make heads roll.

    Let us cast our minds back to Mr Lee’s National Day Rally in 1984,

    “Everything works, whether its water, electricity, gas, telephone, telexes, it just has to work. If it doesn’t work, I want to know why, and if I am not satisfied, and I often was not, the chief goes, and I have to find another chief. Firing the chief is very simple.”

    Mr Lee and Mdm Kwa entering the train station
    Mr Lee and Mdm Kwa entering the train station

    To cut the long story short, if Mr Lee was in charge, heads will roll. Mr Kuek and Mr Lui would be lucky to even stay in their positions, let alone collect millions of dollars. The PAP of the past sure is a far cry from what it is today.

    As then Chief District Judge Tan Siong Thye during the Committee of Inquiry on the slate of breakdowns concluded:

    That the incidents were preventable and that there was a “a gaping disconnect between what was formally on record and what was happening on the ground”.

    And that gap is ever-widening. The PAP of today is great for soundbites, but when it actually comes to acting on their words – well, I’ll leave you to decide for yourself.

    untitled

    It’s about time that Singaporeans started voicing out for, as Mr Lee said, heads to roll. And the ballot box is a pretty good place to start.

     

    Source: www.theonlinecitizen.com

  • Amos Yee Given 4 Weeks Backdated Jail Sentence

    Amos Yee Given 4 Weeks Backdated Jail Sentence

    Teen blogger Amos Yee Pang Sang was on Monday (Jul 6) sentenced to four weeks’ jail, backdated to Jun 2.

    Yee was found guilty of two charges – one for making offensive or wounding remarks against Christianity and another for circulating obscene imagery. A third charge, for the teen blogger’s statements on the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew in a YouTube video, was withdrawn.

    Yee intends to appeal against the conviction, said his lawyer Alfred Dodwell.

    “The journey here has been long and arduous, ridden with lots of obstacles and hurdles. We have somehow gotten here,” said Mr Dodwell. “We have confirmed with our client that he wants to appeal against the conviction.”

    “Let’s not run away with the idea that just because he’s remorseful and stuff, that is in relation to the social context. Whether this was a crime or not, still remains a question we want to determine in High Court,” Mr Dodwell added.

    The 16-year-old has been remanded at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for the past two weeks to assess his suitability for a mandatory treatment order, after a doctor said that Yee may have autism-spectrum disorder.

    Mr Dodwell on Sunday night confirmed reports that the blogger was in hospital. Yee has “not been eating well, perhaps loss of appetite or no appetite, understandably so and hence his blood sugar went down,” he said.

    “I’ve not been told of a hunger strike,” added Mr Dodwell, referring to the blogger’s hospitalisation.

    Yee had previously rejected the option of probation and a term in the Reformative Training Centre as a sentence, sticking to his original plea for a jail term

     

    Source: www.channelnewsasia.com