S Ramakrishnan

The 1Malaysia slogan was supposed to be the game changer for PM Najib Abdul Razak when he took office in 2009. Najib came out with 1Malaysia slogan to win back the non-Malays who had deserted Umno/BN after the 2008 general election when for the first time BN lost their two-thirds majority and five states fell to Pakatan.

Second Education Minister Idris Jusoh claims that Malaysia’s higher education system is now on par with developed nations like the United Kingdom, Germany and Australia in view of the fact that the 135,000 foreign students here make up 10 percent of all students in local institutions of higher learning. Many had expressed their reservation and disagreement over his claims. Below are some more facts as to how far away the minister’s claims are from on the ground reality.

The Federal Court’s guilty verdict for Anwar Ibrahim raises many doubts and questions. There is more than meets the eye. The plaintiff, Saiful Bukhari Azlan, received the benefit of every doubt while the defendant, Anwar, was denied reasonable justice. The BN government has shown little restraint, even after sacking him from Umno in 1998.

In 1970 when the government introduced the New Economic Policy (NEP) to enable Malays to increase their economic stakes, both the Malay and Indian community had about 1 percent economic ownership. Now after 45 years the Malay economic ownership has increased to about 26 percent and the government owns many entities for the Malay community.

The minimum wage was introduced by the Human Resources Ministry after it found out that about 34 percent of private sector employees earn less than RM700 per month, which is below the poverty line of RM800. A similar study in 2010 revealed that 48 percent of Malaysian employees earn less than RM1,000 per month.

Prime Minister Najib Abdul Razak was jubilant that the government initiatives to combat graft, the efforts of the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC), Integrity and Standard Compliance Department (ISCD) in the police force and Performance Management Delivery Unit (Pemandu) has enabled Malaysia to moved up to 50th spot among 175 countries in the CPI 2014 ranking up from 53 last year.

COMMENT Umno has to grow wiser and move away from race and religion.

According to a press release issued on April 16, 2014 by market research agency Nielsen, Malaysia has the third-highest rate of car ownership in the world, with 93 percent of households owning a car. That is to say, only 7 percent of Malaysian households do not own cars.

Malaysia is known as a moderate and model multi-racial country internationally, but within the country its citizens are labelled under race and religious categories for every government-policy decision.

The prime minister in his latest UN speech last week made an international appeal for the global movement of moderates (wasatiyah) to denounce the ISIS force.

A number of Tamil school teachers had been arrested from Sept 12 onwards over the leakage of UPSR Science and English papers. Four hundred and seventy thousand pupils are required to re-sit the UPSR Science and English papers on Sept 30.

We are now praying for more and more miracles. And the prayers are getting more intense as each day passes because the reasons for such intensity to seek the Almighty’s intervention get more desperate. The safe return of MH370, more rainfall in the Klang Valley, recurring haze and hoping more tourists will visit Malaysia, to name a few.

Malaysia is said to be caught in the middle income trap. With gross national Income (GNI) per capita of US$9,820 in 2012, Malaysia is in the upper middle income range of US$4,086 and US$12,615 category of the World Bank.

COMMENT Talk about telling the masses to eat cake, the orime minister adds insult to injury by saying these increase are not a burden.

COMMENT If Mahathir has any respect for the rule of law, he must retract his statement and apologise to Ambiga and the nation.

COMMENT All his promises to Indian Malaysians can only be delivered after the next general election - provides he remains in office.

COMMENT 'Why did the premier not express his displeasure at those who approved the project and call for action against the guilty parties?'