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When I immigrated to Canada, I bought three cars for the price of one in Singapore and a 4,000 sq. ft house for the price of a 5-room HDB apartment. A similar house in Singapore would have cost S$2 million Yes, the Canadian taxes are high but the citizens are well treated. Contrary to what...

The ongoing debate on the benefits of being a PR versus a citizen in ST discussion board has turned ugly with one netizen digging out Sweta Agarwal’s Facebook account: Most netizens are appalled at the arrogance and impetulance displayed by Ms Agarwal in her second letter in which she...

The man, or rather, the lady at the center of the controversy, Ms Swetal Agarwal has replied. (read article here) In a letter to the Straits Times Forum on 20 August 2009, Ms Swetal Agarwal wrote that she is happy being a PR though she does not get equal benefits in housing and other aspects...

“Gratitude to the PAP” is a recurring unspoken theme of every National Day. This year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong spent almost 20 minutes of his National Day Rally showing clips of Singapore in the 1950s and 1960s to illustrate the tremendous progress we have made for the last 50 years...

The letter written by PR Ms Agarwal who threaten to leave Singapore if her children are not given equal chance in Primary 1 registration has continued to attract criticisms from Singaporeans with many describing her as an “obnoxious” PR and asking her to “bugger off” back to India. Wrote...

In his National Day rally, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong issued a rallying call for unity across different races and religions. A large part of his speech in English was devoted to addressing the climate of rising religious fervour. He said that social cohesion was critical to Singapore’s...

The equal chance granted to PRs in the Primary 1 admission exercise has become a contentious issue for Singaporeans again. It was sparked by a letter written by a Mr Eduard Tay to the Straits Times last Thursday about his son’s unsuccessful application for a place in a neighborhood school...

The issue of foreign talent cropped up again recently during Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s National Day speech. He urged Singaporeans to welcome new citizens and make them feel part of the community. This is followed a few days later by MM Lee Kuan Yew who reiterated the importance of...

The Chief Editor of socio-political blog The Online Citizen (TOC) has launching a scathing attack on the “new” P65 blog. In a letter published in the Straits Times Forum today, Choo wrote that “it is disappointing that after 21/2 years of poor readership, the P65 Members of Parliament have...

The Singapore Foreign Ministry has received a tongue-lashing from a Burmese journalist Aung Zaw from influential online magazine “The Irrawaddy”, run by the Burmese exile community in Thailand for its ambivalent response to the conviction of Burmese opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi. (read...

A decade ago, national flags were hung by more than half the households in Singapore to celebrate the country's independence. There was a prevasive fear in the community that they will be 'punished' by the government if they do not express their "patriotism" explicity. Later on, when the...

The newly minted Minister in the Prime Minister’s office, Ms Lim Hwee Hua has spoken out in defence of Temasek Holdings. “We have to ask ourselves if transparency is an end in itself, or if it is the means to an end,” said the Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office to Petir. “If all our...

The Young Democrats, the Youth Wing of the Singapore Democratic Party (SDP), has elected a commando as its President during a meeting last week. Mr Priveen Suraj is currently serving his remaining few months in the National Service and will pursue a law degree after he finishes his army...

The online debate between Singapore’s foreign minister George Yeo and opposition politician Dr Chee Soon Juan rages on in Facebook. As to Dr Chee’s queries on Temasek’s performance, George Yeo replied: “As for Temasek, it has done well against the market which was fully explained in...

MM Lee has always emphasized to the West that Singapore is a “Confucian” society, whose embodied values enabled us to build a stable, prosperous and successful country in the span of four decades. Confucianism can be considered as a teaching, a philosophy or as a form of governance based on...

The spin doctors at state-controlled Straits Times are having a busy time of late trying desperately hard to salvage the battered reputation of Temasek Holdings and that of its beleaguered CEO Ho Ching. For the second time in less than a week, Temasek’s chief apologist Gabriel Chen wrote...

The PAP’s P65 blog which was run by the post-65 PAP MPs has undergone a major revamp. There were wholesale changes made to its website, content and even the writers. Started in 2006 just after the General Elections, the P65 blog was originally meant as a vehicle for the young PAP MPs to reach...

Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong proclaimed during a lunch-time talk recently that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is looking for somebody “clean and green” in his 30s and 40s to take over him by the next general election. Is Goh counting his chicks too early? How can he be absolutely sure that...

For those of you who have watched last night’s National Day Parade (as well as previous years), you will not fail to realize a recurring theme: the images of MM Lee Kuan Yew either from the past or the present. He was shown no less than 5 times on TV including a 1 minute clip of he making a...

The Secretary-General of the Reform Party, Mr Kenneth Jeyaretnam has taken the Singapore government to task over its management of the nation’s sovereign wealth over the last 30 years. In an article titled “Who holds the sovereign wealth of this nation and why?”, Jeyaretnam questioned the...