Usha Nandhini and Chandrasegar appointed as senators

/* July 15th, 2008 by poobalan | View blog reactions 1 comment »
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Congratulations to Puteri MIC chief Usha Nandhini S.Jayaram and MIC member Datuk Chandrasekar Suppiah who were appointed as senators effective today for a two year term. A bit of biodata on them:

Usha, 36, who has an undergraduate degree in anthropology, sociology and history from Universiti Malaya is a lecturer at CQ-TEC College. She entered politics in 1990.

Chandrasekar, 46, is a corporate figure. Among positions he has held are Bandar Tun Razak MIC division chairman and deputy chairman of the Federal Territory MIC liaison committee.

Hope they do serve their purposes with honor and diligence.

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Goodbye Shabeery…maybe not

/* July 15th, 2008 by poobalan | View blog reactions 29 comments »
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Well, I guess Information Minister Shabery Cheek will be handing in his resignation tomorrow. I saw first 20 minutes of the debate only, but gave me a good idea of how it went on. I personally don’t trust both the debaters, but from the point of debating and handling the questions, I think the more popular guy had the edge.

Later from 10.20 till 10.40 pm surfed the net for initial responses. Nothing appeared on Star, Malaysiakini or NST sites, but 7 blogs were returned in Google blog search. All mentioned the samething, which I rather not write in here. But i guess the post title above clears the air.

As for the papers, I was wondering how the papers will write it since many, many Malaysians would have seen the debate. No chance to lie or twist the article. Malaysiakini and NST were first to report at about 10.50pm. NST declared no winner, while Malaysiakini did not talk about the content of the debate.

Hmm..wait a minute, didn’t Shabery say he will leave his fate in the hands of the PM? Can see a lifeline there.

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ISA waits for Waytha if he returns

/* July 15th, 2008 by poobalan | View blog reactions 1 comment »
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If one remembers right, the question of whether Waytha will be arrested if he returns was asked in parliament (June 26) but rejected by the Speaker on the grounds that it was a hypothetical questions since there was no information of such arrest warrant at that time.Today, Malaysiakini reported that the Home Minister Syed Hamid Albar said that there is an arrest warrant for Waytha under the Internal Security Act (ISA), which allows detention without trial, but according to him the warrant was issued before he was appointed home minister.

I still remember some NGOs asking Waytha to come back and fight his cause here. Did this people know that the ISA was waiting for him or not? I guess not.

According to minister, there was a order to revoke his passport (I received a copy of the email instruction, which is unverifiable at the moment) by the previous Home Minister (no prizes for guessing who). But after Syed Hamid took over, he did not cancel the passport, so its still valid.

Syed Hamid did not clarify if the ISA warrant is still valid, but I guess we all can deduce this easily. Waytha will join his fellow friends in Kamunting if he returns.

Even yesterday the Deputy Foreign Minister said the Government would welcome Waythamoorthy if he wanted to return to the country and cooperate with the authorities in reply to Karpal’s question. Not sure whether he knew if arrest warrant was out.

But if he (Waythamoorthy) feels that he has done nothing wrong, he can come back

Earlier in May, Waytha said his passport was revoked, but the minister denied it. I see that the order to revoke was made, but not executed. Technically that makes the minister’s statement correct and Waytha’s statement wrong. Unless it was revoked and immediately “unrevoked”.

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MAS goes Tamil

/* July 15th, 2008 by poobalan | View blog reactions 1 comment »
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Yes! now you can talk in Tamil to book your MAS airline tickets via its call centre through the toll-free number 1-300-88-3000

According to Star, the service is available from 8am to 9pm on weekdays, and from 9am to 6pm on weekends. The move was also in response to the increasing number of Tamil-speaking customers who patronised MAS flights.

The Tamil language option is available for all existing services available through the Malaysia Airlines Call Centre, except those related to Enrich, Customer Feedback and Mishandled Baggage Status

I think Customer Feedback should also be in Tamil la. Then only can effective channel feedback from those customers. Anyway, its a good start.

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HINDRAF may reject Pakatan Rakyat

/* July 15th, 2008 by poobalan | View blog reactions 8 comments »
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Well, if earlier there was discontent due to selection of councillors in Perak (only 48 Indians were selected), now HINDRAF outrightly declares that it will support only to those parties that is able to improve the Indian community’s standing. So say its national information coordinator S. Jayathas who foresee a time when Hindraf would have to split ranks and support Barisan Nasional instead, if Barisan proved it could do better:

It would be up to the Hindraf chairman to decide whether to split from Pakatan. The challenge now is for Pakatan and Barisan to prove who can do better. We will wait and see. Until then, we will keep on demanding that Pakatan work for the betterment of the Indians.

 

 

Jayathas said Hindraf sought support from the Opposition because MIC had failed to address the community’s issues in Parliament. Jayathas stressed that Hindraf was a group that also wanted better job opportunities, respect and dignity for the Indian community. He added that Hindraf’s allegiance with the Opposition parties did not mean that the group had given up on MIC.

 

 

Now, this can be read in many ways –

 

1. HINDRAF may realise that Pakatan Rakyat is not able to help in its quest as fast as it wanted too.

 

2. Government is beginning to introduce policies and goodies for the community.

 

3. MIC is trying to change itself to be better.

 

Even though the above three are all “work in progress”, I’ll say that groups like HINDRAF are not political parties. They are civil rights or pressure groups who fight for a particular issue – in this case Indian community rights vis-a-vis equal rights for Malaysian citizens.

 

So, they will see who will best support their ideals. Earlier, Waytha asked the community to support opposition and we saw the effect in last General Elections. Many of the safe seats fell.

 

If now Waytha says don’t support Pakatan Rakyat coalition in Perak, what will happen? Can we see the assemblymen like Sivanesan, Keshvinder, Sivakumar etc. jump to BN or at least be independent? Will this help BN to gain back Perak by August 31st?

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