TR EMERITUS

Reform Party leader and CEC member Mr Tony Tan Lay Thiam (陈礼添) has made an impassioned appeal on his blog to young Singaporeans to be more actively involved in politics. A former SAF scholar (overseas merit scholarship) and an engineering graduate of the prestigious Cambridge University, Tony wrote frankly that young Singaporeans is a reason behind him joining politics to fight for change in the present political system to allow them to be involved in politics: "There is much work to be done. It has to start now with the young Singaporeans. As a voter, I am convinced we need change, to realize the vision of an inclusive society, a transparent and an accountable government. Deep in my heart, the young people gives me the reason to do this...... That is why I am working towards building a platform for our young people to be involved in politics." Tony opined that there is a need for more young Singaporeans to stand up and have their voices and ideas heard because they are the leaders of the future. "The world has changed. Singapore has changed. Our young people are more educated, well read and discerning. None of the leaders now may be around in leadership position 15-20 years from now. The younger generation is all we have. What must we do to allow their voices and ideas to be heard? Young people need greater political freedom, freedom of developing their potentials and expressing their thinking," he added. Singapore's political landscape is completely dominated by the ruling PAP which does not have an in-built system of leadership renewal itself. Potential candidates are invited to its "tea-parties" to be screened by senior leaders before they are fielded in general elections where they are almost guaranteed to win either due to walkovers or in a GRC "shielded" by a heavyweight minister. Few Singaporeans dare to join the opposition especially those in the civil service out of fear of being "marked" for life and have their rice-bowls broken. With its tight control over the bureaucracy, media and police, the despotic PAP has used several methods in the past to "fix" its political opponents, as admitted tacitly by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong himself during an election rally in 2006. Past victims of the PAP's "fixing" and the Singapore media's smear campaign includes Mr Francis Seow, Mr Jufrie Mahmood, Mr Tang Liang Hong, Mr J.B. Jeyaretnam, Dr Chee Soon Juan and the latest being Mr James Gomez. Tony ended his well-written blog post with an open appeal to young Singaporeans to step forward and serve the nation: For the young people of Singapore, Your voices today are for our future. Your one voice will change our future. Your one vote will decide our future. Because you are our future. Singaporeans should vote wisely in the coming election. Do we want caring, empathetic and humble leaders like Tony who understand our concerns, worries and aspirations or arrogant, callous and insensitive leaders who talk down to us and call us derogatory names like "lesser mortals", "third class citizens" and "dogs"? We will have the chance to make ourselves heard soon. Read the full article by Mr Tony Tan here.   Related articles: >> Kenneth Jeyaretnam asks netizens to step forward to fight for democracy >> Netizens express support for Reform Party >> Reform Party leader voices concerns over police harassment of netizens >> Favorable response from Toa Payoh residents to RP/SPP walkabout >> Reform Party’s response to PM Lee’s National Day Rally speech >> Reform Party calls for a more rational labor policy >> National Day message from Reform Party >> Kenneth Jeyaretnam: 45 percent of Singapore’s GDP goes to foreigners >>Proposed strategem for Reform Party for next 10 years     Please join our Facebook page here and invite your friends to do so to create awareness of the current affairs affecting Singaporeans. Please use our online web form to contact us.  Read More →

I am a student currently studying in NTU SCE. I agree with the blogger that the 3 Indian International students with YOG 2011 deserved to be blacklisted. In fact, the 3 of them would definitely top the rank for “avoid at all cost” award. I can tell you that almost half of the SCE students graduating in 2011 can tell you about the experiences they had working with those 3 in CPE207 Software Engineering. Even for their individual projects, 2 of them had definitely plagiarized their lab work. I will first described the most prominent member in the blacklist, followed by the other 2: Anindita Pal: She is known to be one of the Nanyang Tribune editors, not sure if she is the chief editor or not. She also applied for various main committee positions such as Union Rap and also attempted to apply for the position of vice-president/president for the CEC club. This girl made a bad name for herself during her 2nd year 2nd semester in NTU. She had came out to volunteer to be a leader for a CPE207 Software Engineering project team. And the project team that she volunteered for, would usually be the overall company lead developer in charge of another 6-7 teams.Throughout the 1st 3 weeks, she was still able to give out proper directions on how to proceed with the project. As the project became more technical, she appeared completely lost in the project, without any sense of direction. She would spend most of her time chit chatting with her fellow Indian friends in the lab, whom practically did not put in any effort in the lab as well. Her only effort for her team was to smoke about their team’s progress infront of the course coordinator during the weekly meeting session. Her team consisted of 8 members including herself, with another 2 of her Indian leechers inside and 5 Singaporeans. The 5 Singaporeans had particularly alot to do, considering they had 3 useless members in the team. Luckily for those Singaporeans, another leader from the same company decided to offer direction and guidance for their group. Anindita’s role as the overall lead developer in charge of around 55 people had become only a figure-head. During the last day of project presentation, as all her group members were slogging their lives in the lab doing various project testing, Anindita Pal, Rohit (another indian blacklisted in the list) and Sharma Utkarsh ( most condemned exchange student in SCE) were having their usual chit chat session in the lab while others were rushing to get the integrated project to work. Eventually her company lost out to another better team as the project failed to work during the assessment itself. Various project leaders in her company coordinated to write emails to the course coordinator to criticize the level of commitment and leadership shown by Anindita Pal. Anindital had also been biased in the grading of the peer appraisal (only leaders were allowed to grade), she in fact ranked Meetanshru 4th out of 8 in the group. Meetanshru had almost disappeared from contributing anything to the lab after week 4. CPE207 was not only Anindita’s module of fame and she had attained even greater publicity in her lab group during CPE208, a module with some microprocessor lab. The lab projects were based on individual work. Submission of the lab project 2 weeks earlier than the proposed deadline would give students bonus grades. 2 weeks before the assessment, Anindital requested the lab supervisor to assess her lab project. Upon seeing the pattern which the colored LEDs were flashing on the microprocessor board, the lab supervisor knew that she had copied work from the previous semester. People from her lab group heard the conversation between her and the lab supervisor of course. The pattern of flashing lights changes every year. Luckily for her, the lab supervisor gave her a 2nd chance and told her to redo her project. On her 2nd assessment, the course coordinator for the CPE208 module happened to be her assessor. Anindita originally had her lab assessment on a Monday, but took MC and the assessment was postphoned to another day of the week. The course coordinator heavily reprimanded her at the back of the lab class and definitely understood her tactics of deadline extensions with the MC. Conversations such as “I don’t even see you attending lectures!” were among the contents heard. This tactic of deadline extenstion was also used in her CPE206 lab assessment. Some people had reported that Anindita was seen still doing her labs when everyone else had finished their assessment. She had obviously not completed her project on time, and resorted to the use of the MC. There had also been direct evidence that Anindita, Rohit and possibly Meetanshru took MC on the day of the CPE207 exam as well. Great coincidence that 3 Indian friends fell sick on the same day. For your information, those 3 Indians received an F grade in their participatory coursework for CPE207 (comprises of tutorial attendance, quiz attendance and participation in course wiki discussions) in that semester.   Rohit Ashwini: This guy’s bad reputation seemed to be already very prominent among the students before Anindita’s. On the first session of the CPE206 lab, his assigned partner adamantly requested to solo the project instead of working with him. This guy’s level of commitment in the CPE206 lab is real doubtful. Students usually finish wiring their microcontroller board within the first 3 weeks of the semester. For Rohit, he had in fact not wired his board even after 8 weeks. On the day of assessment, his reasons for not wiring his board was : “I do the software first before I wire the board”. That has to be the least intellectual lie a SCE can produce. Any programmer has to repeatedly test his programs during the stages of software development. Without the hardware, it is hardly possible for anyone to progress properly because there is no way to get experimental results on whether your code is working or not. Its like programming a PS3 game without a PS3. And obviously, for him to finish the software before the hardware can only mean that his code could have been done by someone else other than him. His performance in CPE207 was even more exciting. Several other group leaders had already been enough pissed off at Rohit’s group leader , Sharma Utkarsh, and the 2 of them eventually seem to have no sense of guilt or remorse in seeing another project leader do their work for them. It was as if it was the most natural thing to have another fellow to cover their asses. In addition to that, Rohit’s leader was in fact his very good s***cock buddy and it was the most natural thing to do to give him a good peer appraisal score as well. 2 other Singaporeans in his group who had helped to set up the webserver for the module became the victims of the peer appraisal. His performance for CPE279 was even more epic as well, the same leader whom covered his arse in CPE207 had to work with him once again. And during the 2 weeks lab for CPE279, this fellow had in fact spent most of his time staying in the library instead of helping the team in the lab. It is known that his group leader had already given up on him, not even relishing any hopes of him contributing anything. His only appearance was during the assessment and demo of the module.   Meetanshru: Anindita’s good friend. He came into the CPE207 lab with very good recommendation from Anindita about his photoshop skills. Throughout the whole project, his only contribution was designing a logo for the company. Seriously, the module is about developing a software, not designing logos. After designing the logo, Meetanshru was nowhere to be seen throughout the remaining of the course. It was heard that someone had given him a task of programming a tooltip function in their program. After 3 weeks, no progress and updates were heard from him. It just seem as if he no longer existed in the group. The group most likely had a chance to refresh who Meetanshru actually was, when he came back from his hibernation and appeared during the Demo day. And for someone who only contributed a logo, which was in no way crucial to the stability of the software, was ranked 4th out of 8 for the peer appraisal by a very bias Indian leader. He was also known to have taken MCs for 2 modules in Year 2 Sem 2. It was heard that Meetanshru’s work attitude did not change even during his IA at Barclays Capital. Interns are paid a staggering amount of 5k per month over there. He was constantly late for work, and furthermore seemed to have not contributed anything towards the 2 projects he was assigned over there. Anindita and Sharma were also Barclays Interns. I heard from a close friend that Meetanshru does not seem to understand that Barclays was paying him to work and not NTU because he seemed to prioritize his NTU IA Report instead of the assigned projects at Barclays.   Sharma Utkarsh: Luckily this guy was an exchange student, else alot of Singapore banks are going to lose money hiring him. A full of shit talker and leader during CPE207. During the early stages of the CPE207 project, he had told other group leaders that they were close on finishing their project soon. Towards the end of the project, it appeared that he was just lazing around and chit chatting with other Indian members while other leaders were trying their best in getting his website to work. In the end, someone had to revamp his whole website and he was enjoying a holiday in the lab seeing another group leader do his work. Despite not knowing how shitty he was, he had gone ahead and volunteered to present the group’s software during the Demo day. Other leaders recognized the fact that he had a talent at self-praising/advertising and was particularly useless at contributing to the project, so they did not protest the idea of letting him represent the company. During the day of the demo, he had in fact further embarassed his entire company by posting powerslides that were more critical of the opposition company rather than focusing on the software features of his own company. And next, he made a very stupid generalized statement, saying that the software can be commercialized easily because they are runned using Google Maps. An assessor immediately laughed at his claims, and said “Do you know you can be sued for using Google Maps?” His slogan for the company, “It simply works” , later became a mockery as the software failed to work on the spot. There are still approximately a dozen of Indian Internationals that I want to further add to this list if it was continuing. I hope Temasek Review sets up a page for us to publicly condemn these students. Be it with photos or not, at least it will be a good place for us to shame them. Among the ones I mentioned above, seriously 3 of them Interned at barclays, 1 at Citibank. How much money are our banks going to lose, if we let these kind of leechers enter the workforce? NTU SCE STUDENT  Read More →

Errant buyers of HDB resale flats who do not declare about properties they own overseas may face jail term, warns HDB. Making a false declaration could bring fines of up to $5,000 or up to six months in jail. Under the new regulations unveiled by HDB lately, buyers of resale flats will have to sell of any private properties they own here in Singapore or overseas. "To ensure parity in the treatment of all HDB flat buyers, we subject buyers of non-subsidised flats to the same rule with effect from Aug 30 this year. This helps to reinforce the long-term owner-occupation objective of HDB flats. All flat owners are allowed to buy a private property after their MOP," a HDB spokesperson was quoted as saying in Straits Times. The new rules came about following a massive outcry among Singaporeans at YPAP leader and new citizen from India Sinha Shekhar who boasted on Facebook that he owns both a condominium and HDB flat which he is subletting for an income. However, there are some concerns among Singaporeans that they will be penalized at the expense of the PRs and new citizens who own properties back in their homelands since it is almost impossible for the authorities to find out, especially when they are likely to have extended families. Firstly, they may own properties in some obscure parts of vast countries like China and India which is unheard of even to HDB officials and secondly, they can simply transfer the ownership of their properties to their parents or siblings, thereby enabling them to continue to enjoy the "best of both worlds" in Singapore. Instead of causing inconveniences to genuine Singapore buyers and to itself, HDB should impose the new regulations only on PRs and new citizens which make it easier for it to enforce them as well.   Debunking official myths of HDB flats series: 1 Myth 1: Singaporeans are “owners” of their HDB flats 2. Myth 2: HDB flats are “affordable” to most Singaporeans 3. Myth 3: Rising prices of HDB flats “generate” wealth for Singaporeans   Related articles: >> New property rules a ploy to get foreigners to settle in Singapore >> Mah Bow Tan: Property boom in 2007 was "unexpected" >> Singaporeans complain about new housing rules to curb speculation >> HDB releases 3,000 flats in a single day >> Mah admits there is a property “bubble” evolving >> New rules to prevent private property owners from speculating in resale flats >> Mah blames Singaporeans for strong demand in public housing >> Mah: 16,000 BTO flats next year >> Median COVs hit a record high >> $300,000 for four-room BTO flats in Punggol >> Mah Bow Tan: HDB flats are still affordable to first time flat buyers >> Why Mah Bow Tan’s policy of high HDB flats is wrong >> Letter to Mah Bow Tan on HDB policies >> Singaporean want govt to allay anxiety over HDB leasehold >> Mah Bow Tan embarrassed by Reform Party’s Hazel Poa >> Mah Bow Tan: “Unrealistic” expectations to blame for unhappiness about flats >> Taiwanese PR paid record $ 650,000 for 4-room resale flat >> Grace Fu: PRs are helpful to HDB flat owners selling their flats >> HDB launches “traveling exhibition” to trumpet its achievements in the heartlands >> PAP to upgrade 12,000 HDB households ahead of next election >> Mah Bow Tan: We do not want flat prices to go down >> Prices of resale flats to rise further as PR quota reached >> Taiwanese PR offers $50k COV for resale flat >> Mah Bow Tan: PRs have minimal impact on resale flat prices >> No empirical evidence to suggest that public housing is affordable in Singapore >> When will Singapore’s property bubble burst? >> Why HDB is unable to reveal break down costs of new flats now >> HDB to consider introducing rules to curb property speculation >> HDB blames Singaporeans for not selecting flats when given the chance >> Singaporeans worried about retirement after depleting CPF to pay for over-priced HDB flats >> Mah Bow Tan acknowledged that rising HDB flat prices has sparked “fresh concerns” >> PM Lee: Govt does not have control over prices of resale flats” >> COVs of resale flats shooting through the roof >> HDB resale price index hit record high in 2009 >> Singaporean wants PRs to live in rented flats instead of buying resale flats >> Singaporeans wants PRs to be banned from selling HDB flats at a profit >> Shanmugam: Singaporeans likely culprits for driving up HDB flat prices >> Mah Bow Tan: HDB flats remain affordable >> Means testing for PRs to buy resale flats >> Immigration and public housing: should the govt or people plan ahead? >> Grace Fu: hard to predict demand for housing >> Indonesian PR bought 4-room flat at $653,000 >> Mah Bow Tan asks home buyers to be realistic >> PAP MP blames young couples who cannot get a flat for not planning ahead >> Home affordability: HDB versus the public >> Demand vs supply: so many applicants, so few flats >> Number of applicants exceed number of flats >> HDB to increase supply of flats >> Mah: don’t compare with prices in the past >> ERA: 40 per cent of HDB flat buyers are PRs     Please join our Facebook discussion on this article here and invite your friends to do so as well to raise awareness among fellow Singaporeans.  Read More →