KJ

My family hails from Sungai Petani, Kedah, although we are originally of the traditional and cultural faith of the Malayalee Mar Thomites of India. My father, now 87, was a founder and veteran member of the Kedah MIC. This was in the days when current leaders S Samy Vellu, G Palanivel and V Saravanan were […]

Former premier Dr Mahathir Mohamad has always been outspoken, whether as a student at the University of Malaya in Singapore or during his early years of work during the Japanese Occupation. My father, a Mahathir supporter and someone who knew him quite well in his younger days, said Mahathir used to \”put up anti-Japanese posters […]

I was born Malaysian and know no other nation as my own. Malaysia is my home. My parents are migrants from Kerala, India, but because I was born in Malaya before Merdeka, I am a Malaysian under Article 30 of the Federal Constitution. I have a document to prove it. Therefore, I am a Constitutional […]

I refer to the Ikim article in The Star recently on whether religious choice is a matter of the dictate of fashion or taste. The writers then asks the loaded question: \’Is the belief that \”religion is a matter of taste\” true?\’ As a Christian, I agree with their answer. There are indeed universal axioms. Objective truth […]

My uncle had a classmate, a medical doctor who went to Saudi Arabia to serve for the first time and he brought along his personal bible. The authorities confiscated and destroyed it. He could not understand why his personal property could be so violated. My uncle still does not understand the incident as he related […]

Last week the prime minister gave three statements of operational policy advice to the nation. The contents, as interpreted and reported by the New Straits Times (NST), the Umno-controlled newspaper, were more misinformation than information on one core issue: The Article 11 coalition and their related issues. I totally disagree with the first two statements as reported […]

The Sun shone in Selangor this past week for good governance advocates! A fait accompli project to give an absolute monopoly to a private company was correctly revoked by MTEN, Selangor\’s equivalent of the National Economic Action Council at federal level. Credit for the decision, I hear, goes both to the Sultan of Selangor and The Sun\’s brilliant and timely revelation. […]

The government\’s privatisation policy, when launched by the Economic Planning Unit, promised to deliver efficiency, improved costs and greater effectiveness in the delivery of what was hitherto considered as public goods. That was more than 20 years ago. Today, it appears that the spirit of privatisation has become the basis for a new kind of […]

Patricia Martinez recently proposed a core thesis in the editorial page of the New Straits Times ( NST ) on Aug 10, based on the results of a Merdeka Centre Study of 1,000 randomly selected Malay Muslims and their views about a variety of issues and concerns. The startling findings of the study, to me at least, were that […]

Real and serious public academic discourse in Malaysia is almost zero, with some exceptions like in the malaysiakini. As a result, those in academe sometimes start believing that such a discourse can only be conducted within \’the hallowed halls of their purview\’ and that non- academics should stay out of the fray of their \’knowledge-power corridors\’. That […]