This country aims to attain 'developed ' status come 2020. But the goings on in the Registration Department (JPN) makes it appear as though we are going retro.

The saying,' First World status and Third World mentality' quickly comes to mind.

I am running a private maternity home and this year shall be my seventeenth year. I have seen a lot of director generals come and go in the JPN.

Each time a new DG comes there will be new changes on the way things are done.

The JPN is where birth certificates and identity cards are issued and thus affect the lives of every citizen.

The naming of individuals being son of (s/o, bin) or daughter of (d/o, binti) is peculiar to Malaysia. It causes a lot of inconvenience when one goes overseas.

Once I booked an airline ticket online for a flight from Gold Coast to Sydney on an Australian Domestic Airline under the surname ' Mohamad Noor' which was our father's name.

She was not allowed to board the plane because as far as the Australians were concerned she was Ms Binti Mohamad Noor as stated in her passport. I cannot imagine the absurdity of being called Ms D/O Subramaniam or Mr S/O Lingam.

In the 90's there was a broad minded DG who even suggested Malaysians adopt surnames. But after he retired all was forgotten.

I have often wondered whether the usage of Bin and Binti is a religious thing or a Malaysian thing. It cannot be religious thing because there are more Muslims in the China than there are in Malaysia. They do not use Bin or Binti to their names.

Similarly, there are over two hundred millions of Muslims in Indonesia and yet they only use single names. A name like Wijaya Bin Sukarno is unheard of .

So it has to be a Malaysian thing. The Arabs also use Bin and Binti. But this is a tradition that predates Islam.

This naming of babies with the Bin or Binti was enforced from 2009 according to Puan Jainisah Mohd Noor, PRO for JPN in her letter to the editor. (NST , April 22, p 18.). For example, Abu Bakar Bin Abdul Salam. With this ruling comes a problem.

Strict Muslims would say ' Bin Abdul Salam ' can only be used if the mother is married to Abdul Salam. Hence the need to scrutinise the marriage certificate.

To further complicate things, there is a ruling which says only marriage certificates issued by Jabatan Ugama Islam Malaysia is acceptable.

Not those from Thailand or Indonesia. Stricter Muslims would say marriage certificates alone are not enough. The babies must be conceived after marriage. That explains the arithmetic and finger counting.

JPN counter clerks are not the most tactful of all people.

Many young Malay fathers have been reduced to tears when they found out their names are not in their babies birth certificates.

Instead their children are given ' Bin Abdullah' or 'Binti Abdullah' to their names.

In fact a father from Shah Alam, Mr Muhammad Abdullah was told that his son would be considered illegitimate if the word 'bin' is not entered in his identity card.

However, of late other names of God are allowed to be used instead of Abdullah.

Why does the word ' illegitimate' comes out so freely from the mouths of JPN staff ?

Mr D'Olivero from Ipoh is so right when he said there are no illegitimate children, only illegitimate parents (The Sun, April 26,p.15).

The DG of JPN , Datuk Alwi Ibrahim reported that 234,674 babies were born out of wedlock between 2006 and last year.

These figures were given : 2006- 38,258 ; 2007- 44,234 ; 2008-46822 ; 2009-52,378 ; 2010-52,982 ( NST,Mar 21, p.14).

He further said the trend is increasing , most prevalent among the Malays. This is where the Malay saying,' Menconteng arang di muka sendiri ' is most appropriate.

Everywhere in the world the trend is increasing due to changing lifestyles.

But those countries do not categorise them as 'out of wedlock'. Why is the JPN doing it then ?

Why do innocent babies need to be branded ? Does that mean when the figure reaches 100,000 we give ourselves a gold medal?

Why can't the birth certificates be treated just like any other civil document . For example, the Motor Vehicle Registration Certificate. It states the make of the car, model, chassis number and colour.

Similarly, there is a baby, it's mother and a man who owns up to be the father. In the birth registration application form, Form JPN .LM 01, there is a section 13, where the man signs in front of the Registrar claiming the child is his.

This section has since been denied to Malays. Why must the process be complicated by the need to scrutinise the origin of the marriage certificates and the need to count the gestational age of babies at time of birth.

One can understand if the staff of JPN finds it hard to go against their personal religious beliefs. I would like to suggest to the Chief Secretary to the Government to send Non-Muslims to staff the JPN.

They must know their job is to register births and not to play moral guardians.

In the grand scheme of things it would appear that this ruling of Bin /Binti /Legitimate / Illegitimate is incongruous to the 1Malaysia dream of the prime minister.

There are a lot of unhappy people out there. Two hundred and thirty four thousand people to be exact. Those in charge of the ministries of Women and Children Development and Home Affairs should not have allowed this to happen.