Ram Gopal gets promoted

/* April 14th, 2009 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
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Congratulations to Datuk Seri Ram Gopal for the promotion! Its kind of long overdue.

After 15 years in the Court of Appeal, Datuk Gopal Sri Ram will be elevated to the Federal Court together with two judges.

Sri Ram, Datuk Wira Ghazali Mohd Yusof and Datuk James Foong will receive their appointment letters from the Yang di-Pertuan Agong at Istana Negara tomorrow morning.

In the afternoon, the three will take their oath of office before Chief Justice Tan Sri Zaki Azmi.

Sri Ram, 65, has the distinction of being the first lawyer in private practice to be appointed straight to the Court of Appeal when it was set up in 1994. He never served as a judicial commissioner nor a High Court judge.

Occasionally, he has been invited to the Federal Court bench in the interest of justice and has written about 800 judgments.

Some of his landmark rulings are in the areas of public, contract and industrial law.

He is also known for giving on-the-spot oral judgments after hearing submissions from lawyers.

Highly-respected in the Commonwealth for his legal knowledge, Sri Ram has also presented papers locally and abroad.

He will turn 66 on Aug 16, the retirement age for judges, but the Federal Constitution allows for a six-month extension.

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RM80 million given to Tamil schools

/* April 12th, 2009 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
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I’m still confused over the allocation given to Tamil schools. No reply from Dr S Subra after I emailed him. Anyway, since everyone saying its RM130 million, so be it. I guess the second stimulus package allocation (RM300 million) is not equally divided.

The Sun provided following breakdown of the allocation released so far:

RM80 million, of which RM50 million comes from the first stimulus package and the rest from the Ministry of Finance allocation, was distributed by PM Najib as follows for 374 Tamil schools from eight states and Kuala Lumpur:

[I calculated the average per school for reference]
> Johor: 56 schools to get RM8.65 mil [ RM154k/school]

> Kedah: 49 schools (RM12.2 mil) [RM248.9k]

> Malacca: 13 schools (RM2.66 mil) [204.6k]

> Negeri Sembilan: 47 schools (RM1 mill) [21.3k]

> Pahang: 26 schools (RM5.28 mil) [203k]

> Perak: 85 schools (RM13.2 mil) [155.3k]

> Penang: 22 school (RM5.9 mil) [268k]

> Selangor: 67 schools (RM25.16 mil) [375.5k]

> Kuala Lumpur: 9 schools (RM5.86 mil) [651.1k]

If you total up the amount, its RM 79.91 million.

According to ex-Education Minister Hishamuddin, the money will be disbursed through the Public Works Department (PWD) as it is the most effective method, since not all schools have board of governors. All projects must be completed by the end of the year.

“We want to do it in the quickest way possible and the PWD has the necessary expertise,” he said after Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak presented the allocation to Tamil school representatives from several states at the ministry.

“But if the boards of the Tamil schools are ready next time, then by all means we can go through them.”

In an immediate response, Tamil School Headmasters Association general secretary M.S. Muthiah said he was thankful for the allocation.

“Many of the schools are in rural areas so the allocation will help improve the conditions there,” he said.

Perhaps MIC wants back Work Ministry so that it could monitor the usage of the funds properly and to avoid unnecessary leakages.

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Youngster rely on Internet more

/* April 12th, 2009 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
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This doesn’t really surprise many of us. We have seen the impact of Internet in highlighting social issues,elections, e-commerce, and even crime. The survey by Synovate had the following to report:

– about 45 percent of the Malaysian youth interviewed in the survey said they planned to use the Internet more than other media.

– young Malaysians were active bloggers with close to half (48 percent) spending a portion of their time blogging.

– a total of 21 percent of Malaysian youngsters create and update their blogs regularly and this figure is expected to rise

– young Malaysians aged eight to 24 spend an average of 1.2 hours a day on email, one hour and thirty-six minutes a day as part of online communities, two hours and 48 minutes on instant messaging and two hours and 36 minutes on other Internet activities.

“Young Malaysians are definitely turning to the Internet more for their information and entertainment needs and it’s not surprising that the Internet is slowly becoming the medium of choice,” said managing director of Synovate in Malaysia, Steve Murphy.

The survey covers 12 markets across Asia, including Japan and Vietnam for the first time. Besides Malaysia, the other markets were China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan and Thailand.

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Posted in BornInMalaysia, TechStuff

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MIC to pull out of Cabinet?

/* April 11th, 2009 by poobalan | View blog reactions 2 comments »
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UPDATE 12/4: As expected, there’s a slew of denial issued by Palanivel in Malaysiakini, Saravanan and Dr S Subra (NST).

“We have not heard about such a move. Whatever decision on any matter concerning the party has always been discussed with the party president in the central working committee.

“If there are any differences within the Barisan Nasional, they will be discussed behind closed doors and resolved amicably.”

————————————————————————————————————————————————————-

I was quite surprised with the title of Malaysiakini article – “MIC mulls pulling out of new cabinet“. MIC is not the type to rock the boat, and the info revealed came from a “party insider”, meaning we can expect Samy or other top honchos to issue denial tomorrow.

The reason for MIC’s anger is the treatment given to it by Najib. Not being allocated a more powerful ministry (Works Ministry is seen as more powerful than Human Resources) is seen as an insult to the Indian community. MIC have appealed many times to get back Works Ministry, but nothing materialised. So, MIC wants bigger posts, and using community name to gain it.  For them, the status of Human Resource Ministry does not reflect the position of Indians as the third largest community (err..aren’t the Indonesians more than us?)

“The decision is expected to be made soon, perhaps at the next MIC central working committee meeting later this month,” he said.

The party insider said topping the list of grouses is the fact that the Indians were still being ‘treated as second or even third class’ citizens in the country.

MIC claims to slowly getting back the support of the community as seen in the two Bukit by-elections, so the lack of reward/incentive in the new line-up is unacceptable.

MIC also find it hard to accept that parties that claim to represent communities which did not vote for BN most of the time is given more positions (MCA – 4 ministers and 7 deputy, Gerakan – 1 minister and 2 deputy).  Well, grow up la…that’s politics. The new government need to please the Chinese a bit so that can boost the economy. Indians, apa ada? duit tadak, bising banyak., semua mau mintak kerajaan. And, the other parties have changed leadership, so got some new faces. MIC apa ada? Same old faces only. I think the main problem is that the leader has not changed. So, this may be a snub to Samy rather than punishing the community.

When contacted, Samy Vellu declined to comment on the matter but those close to the veteran politician conceded that he was very unhappy with the current situation.

Well, what to do, nasi dah nak jadi bubur. If MIC pull out now, then it can be more “independent” says the party insider. But it will be toothless tiger. No one will entertain them anymore. Good opening for PPP’s Murugiah to step in and take lead.

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Posted in Indian

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Drugs with deities

/* April 11th, 2009 by poobalan | View blog reactions No comments »
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What a disgrace. Criminals making use of religion to do their business:

CHENNAI: Customs officials uncovered the unholy intentions of a syndicate when they seized ketamine concealed in a plywood box packed with statues of Hindu deities bound for Malaysia.

The drug, worth about RM1 million, was headed for a Malaysian address in Central Plaza, Jalan Sultan Ismail, Kuala Lumpur.

The box, meant to be an air consignment, bore a label which indicated it was a gift to a Tamil association and was declared as paper mesh holy deities.

It was only when a team of customs officers became suspicious of the unusual weight of the box and opened it, that they discovered there was nothing divine about its contents.

Commissioner of Customs (Imports), C. Rajan said his officers became suspicious of a wooden box weighing 44.8kg at the courier terminal on Thursday.
He said the box was said to contain eight statues bearing the likeness of Hindu deities.

“But the box was heavy, and upon breaking open its false bottom, we discovered three polythene parcels.

“The sender is suspected to be from Chennai,” Rajan said.

He said each packet weighed 5kg and in total, there were 15kg of ketamine, valued about RM1 million in the international market.

“As the sender had provided fictitious details, the Customs Department was unable to trace the suspect.

“He had given a copy of his driving licence at the counter but when we checked the address, it was found to be fictitious,” added Rajan.

Of late, Chennai has become a popular gateway for local and international traffickers, mainly for buyers based in Malaysia.

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Posted in Indian, Religion

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