Good tidings..

/* November 17th, 2009 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
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“Fully employed country” sounds great indeed! It seems economists defined a nation as having achieved full employment when the unemployment rate was below 4%. Since according to Statistics Department our unemployment rate was 3.6% in the second quarter of 2009 (down from 4% in the first quarter of 2009), the country has achieved “full employment”, says Deputy Human Resources Minister Datuk Maznah Mazlan.

Wondering about the fate of the 3.6% unemployed? Never fear, funds are here! Err..or “were” here. TheRM7 billion allocated under Working Capital Guarantee Scheme has been all used up and disbursed to 5,329 small and medium entrepreneurs. The scheme is given to those with working capital of less than RM20mil. The funds was increased from initial RM5 billion and was expected to last till END OF NEXT year, but alas, our deprived or overly-enthusiastic entrepreneurs couldn’t wait that long. International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed said 5,329 entreprenuers, 24% of them were bumiputras. The top borrowers are from the retail, wholesale and restaurant sectors (securing 36% of the funds),  followed by 25% in the construction sector and 24% in the manufacturing sector. The independent MP Ibrahim Ali had to play his part and ask why only 24% bumiputra. According to the minister, many of them had been affected by the slow economy and did not expand their business. Or maybe competition is tough. Or maybe just too many loans available for them. Or maybe they are rich already (no more entrepreneurs). Or maybe only given to cronies. Or whatever.

Not only locals are fully occupied, even foreigners are flocking into the country as tourism industry picks up momentum. Tourism Minister Dr Ng Yen Yen must be very proud when she mentioned the below:

Foreign tourists arrival have increased by 14.3% in October A total of 2,078,485 tourists visited Malaysia in October compared with 1,818,304 tourists for the same month last year. From January till October, foreign tourist arrival increased 7.2% to 19.45mil compared to 18.14mil for the same period last year. The 10 countries with the most number of tourists visiting Malaysia are : Singapore, Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei, China, India, Australia, United Kingdom, Philippines and Japan. Of the countries, Australia tourists increased by 23.6%, followed byUnited Kingdom 19.5% and Singapore 16.6%. Revenue for the period January to June recorded an increase of 0.03% from RM24.46bil to RM24.47bil.

So, there you go folks! Good news as the year comes to an end in about 44 days. So go ask for bonus from your boss! 🙂

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BSC, KPI, Star Rating…nice to hear

/* November 17th, 2009 by poobalan | View blog reactions 1 comment »
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Its good to hear that MIC is taking efforts to “re-“ itself. Re-invent, re-juvenate, re-energise, and so on.

They are also going into performance evaluation with use of Balance Score Card, KPIs, and Star-rating (copy from the government sector la). Perhaps they should take a step further and introduce something really innovative that others (parties and government sector) don’t have.  That’s will be awesome.

Evaluation is every three months, so expect the first reports somewhere in end of January.

The article below is full of feel-good words, so hopefully things will actually work out.

All the best!

The MIC has lunched its nationwide evaluation exercise on its leaders at all levels aimed at creating a ‘winning team’ and organizing programmes cutting across racial lines to face the next general election, said party president S Samy Vellu.

He said MIC was determined to “reinvent and re-energize’ the party to remain relevant and wrest back the six parliamentary and 12 state seats it lost in the last general election.

He said the evaluation process would be done through a high-level Balanced Score Card (BSC), Key Performance Indicators (KPI) and Star-Rating “that will now steer the party’s direction towards a people centric party through its internal transformations and reforms”.

Speaking to reporters after launching a workshop on ‘A Sense of Urgency’ for the party’s 150 divisional leaders in Kuala Lumpur, Samy Vellu said the three evaluation initiatives marked another milestone in MIC’s effort to remain relevant and to reinvent itself as a progressive, caring and innovative party.

“After the last general election, MIC has undergone various and numerous changes to reconnect with the people and the community by engaging in re-branding exercises, introducing new and young blood into the party as well as bringing about party liberalisation reforms to attract new members into the party,” he said.

He said the BSC would consist of six perspectives encompassing various areas of paramount importance such as internal party efficiency, developing a creative delivery system, engaging with the people through timely and need-based programmes and assistance, winning back and attracting new members, gauging people’s satisfaction and the 1Malaysia perspective.

He said the members’ perspective would focus on sustaining current members, attracting new members, win over members and conversion of members who are non voters to legitimate voters while the people’s perspective would consist of outreach programmes, economic well being initiatives, education and business ventures.

In line with the national agenda of 1Malaysia, Samy Vellu said the MIC has included the concept in the BSC to undertake programmes that would strengthen unity and understanding among the various races.

He said a committee has been set-up to implement the three initiatives (BSC, KPI and Star-Rating) and evaluate the party leaders every three months.

“With this initiative, the MIC has elevated its seriousness and commitment to reach out to every Indian in Malaysia utilising its proven system and structure nationwide.

“Indeed, it is expected to position MIC as a dynamic, caring and as a people centric party by making all its grassroots leaders more responsible and accountable to the community as well as the party,” he said.

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Crime rates and Indians

/* November 16th, 2009 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
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Yet another dead Indian. This time the suspect who allegedly murdered his mother over a dispute was found hanged to death in his prison cell. Relatives who saw the body said there were injury marks, but the officials didn’t allow them to take photos. Police report have been made.

Two weeks back, 5 Indians were shot death, one of them underaged, suspected to be part of a crime gang. The sister of one of them victims drank poison and fed her four kids the same, apparently overcome with grief. All of them are recovering in the hospital.

A day after that, suspected leader of a gang also shot death and police in unmarked car chased him, and he allegedly shot at them.

Just few days ago, police shot dead a Malay youth who went berserk with a kitchen knife. The public is questioning why the youth was shot in the chest, since the police were aiming for the below the knee. And I don’t remember the Human Rights Party making any noise over that. So, they focus mainly on Indian deaths only, I guess.

Is it true that Indians commit the most crimes in this country? According to 2007 statistics, 1.6 murders and  9.7 rapes were committed EVERY day.

According to statistics, Indians commit crime that are not proportionate to their population (in other words, high percentage). And specifically involve the serious crimes.

More stats from 2002:

Among the negative statistics are the Indians recording the second-highest infant mortality rates; the highest school drop-out rates, best seen in the data that only five per cent of Indians reach the tertiary level compared with the national average of 7.5 per cent; the highest incidence of alcoholism, that cuts across all classes; the highest incidence of drug addiction in proportion to population; the highest number of prisoners in proportion to population and the largest number of gangs. Sixty per cent of serious crimes are committed by Indians.

I’m interested to see the breakdown of crimes and races for the recent years. I remember the police saying that foreigners don’t actually commit that many crime (low percentage only). So is certain crime committed by certain groups/races only? Or is it across the board? I’ve read about Chinese, Malay, Indonesia, and Indian robbers. Kidnappers – Nigerians, Sri Lankans, Myanmarese, Chinese, Indians. Rapists – Indians, Malays, Indonesians. Snatch thieves – Indians, Malays. How about drugs, organised crimes, gambling, vice, human trafficking, smuggling etc? And not to forget white collar crimes too.

If its true Indians are “attracted” to crime, what are the reasons? Greed? Lazy? Media Influence? Poverty? Genes? Other that shooting them to death, what are the possible solutions to this? If Mat Rempits can get much support and millions of ringgit for rehabilitation programs, why not others?

Indians are the bulk of urban displaced people. The groups that were moved from estates and villages into cities end up trapped in the vicious cycle. Yes, some manage to find their way out and eke out a good living. Others not so fortunate. And when a shorter way to make money is introduced, what else is there to think about? You got nothing much to lose.

I would suggest that the low-income people are relocated to areas with low-cost of living. Yeah, sounds cruel and unfair idea. But, if we look at the poor states like Perlis, Kelantan, and Terengganu, the crimes are less. Most of the its incest, rape or petty theft. Cost of living low, so people can make do with less income. But in the cities, how to live with RM1500? That’s why bak kut teh sellers also become part-time robbers.

I remember being a crime victim thrice. One was a mugging, the other two were robberies. The mugging was by two Indians who gave me just enough cash to go back home from KL. The robberies (one was opportunistic since the main door was left unlocked) were committed by an Indian and a Chinese drug addict respectively. Luckily, I was not harmed in all three cases. The drug addict took some clothes and money, and ate the food, while I was sleeping away!

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12 years effort to get Tamil language in USM

/* November 16th, 2009 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
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This is an interesting letter in Malaysiakini. I respect the spirit and effort of the students to persevere against the discrimination. Of course this is view of one person. Wonder what the university would say to this.

USM’s 12-year Tamil language saga

by Senthil Nathan

It was indeed very surprising that there are suggestions to make Japanese a third language whereas learning Mandarin will be much more useful and economical as well as universal. Mandarin-speakers are the largest in the world with over one billion of them.

This also makes us wonder if importance is being given to our own citizens and their cultures. Having ‘little Napoleons’ in various places only makes such simple things seems so difficult to be exercised.

On my personal experience in USM, for more than 30 years there, were many, many languages in the Pusat Bahasa. This included Arabic, French, Thai and many more foreign languages. For some reason, there were no Tamil language and when we enquired , the dean said there was a lack of support from students etc.

So to prove a point, student volunteers became part-time teachers to teach other students the language as a trial programme. Mind it, it was on personal basis as no club or even the Indian Cultural Society not willing to undertake this cause.

After one year, the classes had many students but the dean said, ‘We need to see statistics, please show us statistics’. So the second year was full of paperwork while the students-cum teachers ran their classes on Fridays from 12- 3pm for an entire year.

When presented with the statistics on attendance, the dean, simply said, ‘You did not have exams for the students, so there is proof the teaching was done properly’.

Third and fourth year volunteer teachers kept on with their Tamil-language private classes without fail and even streamlined four different levels and had exams for the students. All this was happening while they themselves had their own coursework and degrees to think about.

After applying for recognition from the university authorities for the fifth time, they realised that the authorities were simply delaying the approval hoping that the matter would eventually be forgotten after those who started it left the university upon graduation.

Nevertheless, the torch was passed from seniors to juniors who kept the work going and even recruited Chinese students who were at the mercy of the whims and fancy of the Pusat Bahasa management.

I was among those who came in the sixth year and stayed on until the ninth year. Seeing the dedication of the student/teachers and the unsupportive university authorities, we pushed the matter to the vice-chancellor who again told us to meet the dean.

Some students who graduated even continued with their masters just to ensure the success of this project but to no avail. No arguments were valid for the university authorities; they gave us all kind of excuses including the economic value of the Thai and Japanese languages compared to Tamil and unsupportive students once the language is offered (this is ironic, because they never tried offering it in the first place).

They even had the cheek to say students who took Tamil for SPM might score high results for the university Tamil paper examination.

After 12 years of non-stop effort, The Pusat Bahasa in USM finally accepted Tamil language as a paper and classes are now officially run. Thanks to the dynamic students who wanted to make a difference while sacrificing their quality time in university.

This has been entirely their effort from the start and it only proves that we have to struggle for what should have been given to us in the first place.

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More allegations on the Kampar bridge tragedy

/* November 15th, 2009 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
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A four-hour public inquiry held by the PR investigation committee produced more shocks. Malaysiakini reported that about 50 people. mainly parents,  attended the inquiry.

One of the victim’s father said:

Lorry driver T Nathan, 44, who lost his 11-year-old daughter Dina Deve in the incident, demanded for the camp’s closure.

The visibly distraught father said he did not want the same fate to befall other parents.

“The lives of my daughter and her friends were sacrificed needlessly in the name of the 1Malaysia concept of (Prime Minister) Najib (Abdul Razak) which is a political stunt to fool Malaysians.

“My daughter would be still alive if not for the 1Malaysia concept camp,” he added.

Nathan cited seven reasons as to why the camp should be closed. They were:

1. There is a durian tree inside the compound of camp and there is a danger of the fruits falling on the children and killing them.

2. There is a six feet deep pond filled with greenish smelly water located in the compound which participants cross over using ropes.

3. There is a one-foot high broken wire squared maze on the ground where the children have to jump from one square to another to reach the other end of the maze. There is a danger that the children might hurt themselves in jumping from these broken wire squares.

4. The area of the 1Malaysia camp across the river is too small to accommodate the 298 pupils.
5. The area of the present camp is a former Orang Asli burial ground.

6. There is no proper water supply to the camp and the children had to break the closed water pipe to quench their thirst. [wah! this is serious!!!]

7. There is no proper lighting for the camping area.

Met later, Nathan told Malaysiakini that when he went looking for his daughter on the other side of the river on that fateful night, he saw that the camp tents were only about five feet from the edge of the river bank.

According to him, the camp authorities quickly dismantled the tents located near the river after the bridge collapsed.

More serious is the comment by some of the children:

Meanwhile, some of the children who attended the camp told the inquiry that they were the ones who threw the life-jackets to the 19 pupils who fell into the water and not the teachers as reported in the media.

They added that the life-jackets were kept in a storeroom away from the bridge.

Committee chairman assemblyman Sivakumar said that the contractor did not get permission from the relevant authorities with regards to building the bridge and the main reason it collapsed was because the foundation was weak.

Speaking to reporters later, Sivakumar said that the committee could not meet up with the director of the Perak state education co-curriculum centre situated in Pangkor Island as the state education director, the Kinta Selatan district education officer and the co-curriculum director were urgently called up by the Education Ministry to Putrajaya on Friday.

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