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Kuala Selangor District SJKT UPSR Education Seminar

July 19th, 2007
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This program was organised by Majlis Guru Besar Daerah Kuala Selangor and Sabak Bernam together with United Malaysian Indian Club on 14th July 2007 at Sri Subramaniam Temple, Kuala Selangor. 250 students from 25 primary SJKT schools took part. List of schools who participated are available here. 5 speakers talked on examination techniques and tips for the 5 subjects. Guest of honor was MP for Kuala Selangor. Dato Palanivel and YB Partibhan were supposed to attend as well but were unable to make it. It was a whole day program which ended at 5.30pm.

A follow up program consisting of two talks by Prof. Dr. Kadeer Ibrahim will be held at the same venue on 23rd July 2007. The afternoon talk (3 – 5pm) is for students and the evening session (8 – 10pm) for the parents. We welcome members who are in the vicinity to join in the function and meet up with us.

We look forward for your continuous support in our upcoming programmes – back to school 2008, fustal, pool, and Treasure Hunt , just to name a few.

Some of the photos of the seminar are available at: Picasa

For more about UMIC, click here

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Posted in I Was Here, Tamil-Schools, UMIC

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YFC Restaurant, Bandar Puteri

July 9th, 2007
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I was here not once or twice, but FOUR times within the past one month. This indian restaurant is located near AM Bank/OCBC (near Giant Bandar Puteri), and facing the construction site.

My first visit – I ordered nasi goreng ayam (that’s Fried Rice with Chicken) without onions, and it came full of it, onion I mean. When i asked them to change it, the guys stared back at me like I asked for the Taj Mahal or something!

My second visit – My wife took the crab dish, which was promoted by the owner as only RM3 per serving. When our bill came, it was wrongly calculated and the staff seemed unsure/confused of the prices.

Third visit – I know…want to give another chance. Brought some relatives there. Sister in law ordered a drink which was lacking in sugar. She asked to add sugar water, and the bloke added tap water! Aiyoo…

Fourth visit – Right, I’m an idiot. Ordered roti telur. A quarter of it already in my stomach and i found dead bugs (those you find in flour) in my roti. Not one, not two, but FOUR! Complained to the lady owner and advised her to check the flour. She said will look into it. Great! Builds up my confidence to make my fifth visit!

Make your own conclusions.

update:

This is the comment I received from a reader named Anthony (and my reply to it):

Anthony: Hello, anyone well adjusted reading your comment will know that your writing is a total lie and you are upto something. Don’t do this. We are Hindus and I believe you are also one. If you are a good hindu and want a better life in your next birth you should ask for apology for what you have done. I know who you are? We hindus believe in Karma. ANy wrong you think and do to a place where you earned lot of money and free food one time will always come back to you.

So If you can’t do any good at least you can refrain from doing bad things. Hope this is a good advice to you and those motivated you. God bless you

MP: Hi Anthony. I’m not in the habit of lying. I suppose you are the owner or part of the management. Please improve on the service before someone falls ill. You declaring yourself being a Hindu makes it worse since the way you run the restaurant spoils the Hindu name. By the way, in all my four visits, we did not notice any deities picture at the place. So, stop hiding behind the such flimsy excuses and buck up. If you prefer, we can come to your restaurant and I’m sure your staff and management will remember us.

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Posted in I Was Here

Bloggers Buff 2007

July 8th, 2007
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My Sunday was occupied with the Blogger’s Buff 2007 organized by Putera MIC. What is Bloggers Buff, you ask? It was described as “a workshop cum forum organized to gather Malaysian bloggers from different genres together to network and explore various issues and aspects of blogging”. Grand huh?

The event started about 30 minutes late at 9.30am. Luckily I had my dose of roti telur and teh halia before arriving at the venue Even though the organizers targeted 60 people, I think about 40 only turned up in the end, including last minute walk-in participants.

We got ourselves registered, and it cost a minimal fee of RM5 per person. While waiting for the seminar begin, the participants mingled among ourselves. I met Amutha, Mahendran, Praveen, Sarala, Mohan, Prem, Asohan, Rani, Segara, May, Malcolm, Norhidayah, Shan, Tharma, Steven, Segara, and Sook Chin among others.

The workshop was officiated by Dato’ V.Sivaparanjothi following the welcoming speech by the organizing Chairman, Mahendran. Dato’ Siva mentioned about possible creation of new cyberlaws to regulate bloggers as a method of stopping false information dissemination in his speech. This was followed by Putera MIC’s National Coordinator, Mr Kamalanathan’s speech touched on examples of bloggers exposing the truth before the mainstream media, and future plans to organize similar workshops in other states, such as Penang. We adjourned for tea break before the next session started.

The workshop started with a talk by Timothy Tiah from NuffNang, one of the prominent ad aggregator companies in Malaysia. He gave a useful insight about monetizing a blog and the various options available. His advice: don’t have too high an expectation of making mega bucks. It was a good talk and I’m sure many of the participants would have benefited.

Next to take the stand was Kamarul Ariffin from MPOB who provided some basic information on blogging since some of the participants are new to blogging. For those who are well into blogging, this was a bit boring, but I suppose we didn’t mind as Kamarul made his presentation short and sweet. Among the thing he mentioned was definition of blogging, tools available for blogging, comparison of tools, and monetization channels available.

This was followed by a Sharing Session. Two guests come to share their blogging experience. Firstly, a touching tale from Yvonne Foong who is diagnosed with neurofibromatosis. She is a strong young lady who has written an autobiography on her experiences. She talked about her blog and the challenges she faced while blogging. Secondly, Sandra from Laundry Bar, a restaurant cum bar, shared her experience of blogging. She used the blog as an archiving tool and also to capture personalized review of her patrons. According to her, blogging was the chosen medium since it was simple to set up as compared to setting up a full blown website.

The “talk” session took a break, and it was time for action. The participants were divided into groups – Green, Blue, Red, Pink, and Yellow. I ended up in the Green group, together with Malcolm, Hidayah, Freda, and May. Our first task was to decide on a group name. After a long brainstorming session of 10 minutes, we voted on Hulk as our team name. Then, we had a story-telling session based on prompt cards. It was hilarious making a story and to continue from the previous person.

In the midst of the story-telling session, a surprise guest turned up – Kenny Sia, among the most popular blogger in Malaysia. Turned out he missed a flight and decided to drop by. He shared some of his experience and did a bit of Q & A. We ended the session and it was lunch time.

After lunch, we continued with another team activity. Each group were given a topic and asked to present in front of others. It was hilarious especially when the last group presented phrases that are translated from other languages into English.

Then, we had Dr Sankara from Media Plus Consultancy giving some tips on avoiding libel or defamation suits.

Finally, the last item on the agenda was a forum on “Responsible Blogging” consisting of Dato’ Ahmad Talib (ex NST editor), Mr Kamalanathan, and Ms Li Tsin (Malaysiakini). The panelists shared their thoughts on various issues ranging from media’s role, ethics, blogger responsibility, their reason for blogging, and future of blogging and online media.

The workshop ended at 5.30pm and we all had tea before taking leave.

I would say that for an inaugural event by Putera MIC on such a new area, it can be considered a success. They managed to get good speakers for the topics which cover the broad spectrum of participants who came. There were some hiccups which I’m sure will be rectified in future events. The turnout was not a much as expected, and hopefully a bigger audience will turn up for future program. The organizers plan to have a follow-up workshop in 6 months’ time, so hopefully this young bloggers’ network will be able to meet up again.

Sad to say, I did not bring my camera along, so will post picture once I get them from the organizers. I was writing this while watching The Making of Sivaji, so pardon the errors!

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Posted in I Was Here, TechStuff

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1st Malaysian Indian IT Conference 2007 – review

March 29th, 2007
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Hi all,

As you all may know, MIC and MDEC jointly organised the 1st Malaysian Indian IT Conference yesterday, 26th March 2007 at PWTC. The event also marked the launch of MIC’s Malaysian Indian Technology and Innovation Bureau (MITIB – www.mitib.net).

Registration began at about 8.15am. There were few booths set up outside the hall for the sponsors – Murawa, Celcom, Aptech, Nestle. The event began slightly late, I think at 9.20am. By then, there were about 1000 participants, nearly double the earlier estimates. Many students/youths were there, as was businessmen, IT professionals, those interested in IT, MIC members, and even insurance agents :). Dato Veerasingam as organising chairman gave the opening speech followed by Datuk Seri Samy Vellu, and then keynote address by Dato Sri Jamaluddin Jarjis (MOSTI Minister). The Minister held an impromptu Q and A session, before he launched MITIB and the conference. One of the hot question was why “bumiputra status” was needed when want to register company. The minister managed to evade by citing that competition is now at global level and so on. Then there was a surprise birthday cake presentation from him to Datuk Seri Samy Vellu. The participant sang “Happy Birthday” while Datuk Seri cut the cake. Following that there were 3 MoU exchanged between various local IT companies and Mimos. Tea break and press conference were next.

The conference continued after tea break with 2 keynote speakers. Sadly, about 10% of the crowd had dissappeared when Dato Seri Samy Vellu left, probably MIC members. The first speaker was Mr Badlisham – CEO of MDEC. He spoke on the role of MDEC, the various grants available, and how MDEC can help IT ventures. This was followed by, (in my opinion, the best part of the conference), a speech by Mohandas Pai of Infosys India. His topic was the IT Revolution in India and how Malaysia (and Malaysian Indians) can learn, adapt and use the strategy implemented by the Indians. His speech was full of facts and figures, and he captivated the audience well. However, those not fluent in English would have had some problem understanding. Among the points mentioned were establishing excellent education centers, introducing meritocracy, allowing tax breaks, inviting MNC to set-up in Malaysia, provide role models in IT for Indian.

By the way, there was one question from the floor about why ATM machines does not have Tamil language option. As expected, Dato Veerasingam declined to answer.

After lunch, the event continued with speeches by the persons below. About 50% of the participants were still around.

– Azlin Alias (MTDC) – focused on types of funds available at MTDC and its role

– Ms Janice (MSC) – focused on funds available at MSC Technopreneur Development Programs

– Anand Sudarshan (Manipal) – Manipal’s role in education

– Mr Vignesh (Jobstreet) – current job situation, problems getting employment, what employers want etc.

– Mr Kumaran (CISCO) – his rise in IT industry, background on Cisco, Cisco certification

– Mr David Kuchommen (InSyncro) – problems with starting a own business and hurdles of being entrepreneur

– Mr Leo (Scicom) – opportunities in BPO, Call Centers

– Mr Jacques de Villiers (QuickTrak) – new technology using DSS (radio frequency) communication

One common theme was advice to students to master English, improve on people and communication skills, and to get employed even if salary is low so that can gain experience.

Finally, Dato Vijay Eswaran of QI international – known for Questnet (and gold coin?) and other businesses came on to the stage followed by another 30 plus entourage. He was personally introduced by Dato Veerasingam. We had a video on him before he began his speech. Dato Vijay talked about Information Technology, relating to ancient India. He covered a little his experiences, his business and so on.

The event ended with a closing remarks by Dato Veerasingam in which he mentioned that MIC will come out with a book that highlights Indian ICT giants to be a role model to current young generation. The books will be distributed to schools and hopes that the student will emulate the successful ICT entrepreneurs.

The event ended with tea at about 5.45pm.

Overall, I feel it was a good effort, being a first for the newly launched MITIB. However, the conference covered too wide an area – entrepreneurs, students, employees etc. Perhaps they should run parallel sessions in the future. I did not hear much about emerging technologies, and the coverage on the funds was vague, with the speakers keep on repeating about “it is all on the website”. Personally, I enjoyed the talk by Mr Mohandas, Mr Kumaran, Mr David, and Mr Leo. Others were average. There were some problems with lighting syncronisation, video projection etc, which indicates lack of rehearsal or miscommunication between the organising team members.

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Posted in I Was Here, Indian

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Thaipusam at Batu Caves

February 8th, 2007
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Thaipusam beckoned again on 1st Feb this year. Initially, I thought of going to Batu Caves on the eve and come back early in the morning, but decided against that. Instead, went to Putrajaya to see the Federal Territories Day celebration. On Thaipusam proper (Feb 1), left for Batu Caves at 7.45am and surprisingly, no jam! Reached the place at 8.15, managed to get parking by PAYING RM15. Even though there’s a campaign for using public transport, I still drive since I may need to go back suddenly, and don’t want to take chances with the public transport. Noticed that a lot of enterprising individuals collecting money from those who park under the overhead highway and public space. Don’t want to pay? Then you risk damages to your vehicle.

It was a short walk to the temple, since the carpark was just immediately after the Divine Life Society (DLS) ashramam. Oh ya, the crowd was swelling. I felt it was about the same as last year. The presence of non-Indians seem to be slightly more than last year as well. Anyhow, we searched for the mudi kaanikai stalls. Found the one next to the railway track, and within 10 minutes, my hair was gone. All for another RM15.

After shaving my head, we started our journey to the top of the hill. We followed the devotees coming from the river. The crowd started to grow. The big kavadis were coming in one by one. Those carrying paal kudam (milk pots) were also making their way to the temple. It will be like this until evening. It took us nearly an hour to finally reach the temple inside. Many took this chance to take photos from the stairs. The bottleneck at the temple foothill was terrible. I find that the foreigners from India seems to behave worse than locals. They just push their way in. After covering 272 stairs, we felt relieved. The air was cool inside, aided by a moderate weather condition.

Our relief was shortlived. as we approached the deity, the crowd was getting unruly. There seemed to be chaos as the paal kudam bearers blocked the outgoing path of those who finished praying to Lord Muruga. Devotees were getting restless and some started to push their way through. There was a family of four next to us who found out that they could not do the archanai since they did not buy the items earlier. The thought it was like in temples where you just pay and the temple provides the prayers items. The girls were quite upset that nothing was mentioned about this earlier. They were grumbling and complaining but nothing can be done, since there’s no way you can turn back and walk against the tide. However, we managed to say our prayer and ask for HIS blessings without much disruption, since I didn’t bother buying the prayer items. Never did so for so many years…

AS we left Lord Muruga’s abode, RELA members were being summoned to control the crowd. We did not spend much time up in the cave since many more devotees were inching closer. We began to move back towards the cave’s entrance. I tooks some snaps of the crowd, just to give an idea of the size.

Our descent started. I managed to get some shots from the top of the stairs. The crowd was unbelievable! On the way down, we were entertained by Mr Nadarajah’s (Batu Caves Committee Chairman) and Dato Seri Samy Vellu’s speeches. There was a mention of plans to introduce cable cars. Mr Nadarajah also took this opportunity to launch his book on Batu Caves. Other than that, the same old points were repeated.

We made our way towards the Batu Caves entrance, not before having cool orange juice served by the Indian police officers association volunteers at their thannir panthal (drinks booth). We did not stop any other stalls in the temple. Their locations actually hamper the movement of the devotees. Looks like the temple management never seemed to have learned anything from organising this festival for the last few decades. Noticed a row of beggars sitting down along the central walkway, probably foreigners who plan to make a quick buck from the devotees and tourists.

Next stop was Nestle’s mooru panthal which is always a hit. We visited Unggal Choice vegetarian burger booth, but was informed that the operation will start at 3pm only. As we passed by Sai Association’s Blood Donation Campaign under the MRR flyover, we heard the talk on organ donation. Thus on this holy day, we decided to be organ donors. Now the donor cards are sitting in the wallet, waiting for its day. Met Anand and Parani, two old university friends who are ardent Sai devotees.

It was already 12pm. We walked back towards our car slowly, hoping that all our prayers will be answered by the Lord. Many more devotees were making their way to the entrance, faces filled with anticipation and hope. Well, that’s my day at Batu Caves. Now for my comments….

I’ve been going to Batu Caves since coming back to KL, bar in 2005. I feel that many things can be improved. For example, I found undiyals (donation box) located at ackward positions such as in the middle of pathways at the hilltop. The crowd couldn’t move smoothly due to this. Secondly, there should be more dustbins provided. The amount of rubbish strewn around can’t be explained by words. The least the organisers can do is provide proper place to dispose rubbish! I also dearly hope that consultants can be hired to draw a proper crowd dispersal plan. This should cover signages, rest areas, location of toilets, stalls, etc. Another thing is the wearing of footwear in the cave. Some devotees leave their footwear at the bottom of the stairs as they go in. But when they come down the stairs, they are on the other side, and find it mighty impossible to get back their footwear. Perhaps the whole Batu Caves compound can be paved and declared as no footwear zone.

Thaipusam is first and foremost a religious event. However, due to abuse of the terms “multi-ethnic and multi-cultural”, and lure of tourist moolah, Thaipusam is on the verge of being reduced to a money-making show (or is it already?). People are being overcharged from parking to prayer items. With all those free food (annathanam and thannir panthals), why do we allow food stalls? Is Thaipusam the place to buy pots and pans, or decorative items? Sure, more than 1 million people visit Batu Caves, but this is not an excuse to create business opportunities. It should be focusing on the visitors’ comfort and safety.

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Posted in BornInMalaysia, I Was Here, Indian, Religion

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