No end to KL’s traffic jams

PETALING JAYA: MRT (Mass Rail Transit) or no MRT, traffic jams in the Klang Valley are going to get a lot worse.Poor planning, lack of buses and a surge in car ownership have contributed to the already maddening congestion."Today, you may spend one hour travelling to get to work. Ten years from now, you may spend two hours just to get to work," said Association for the Improvement of Mass Transit chairman, Muhammad Zulkarnain Hamzah.

Bebaskah Panel Pindaan Interlok?

PETALING JAYA: Dalam sidang media selepas mempengerusikan Mesyuarat Panel Bebas Mengkaji Pindaan Novel Interlok Edisi Murid di Putrajaya pada 16 Februari lalu, Pengarah Institut Kajian Etnik, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM), Profesor Datuk Shamsul Amri Baharuddin berkata, panel itu akan bertemu semula dalam masa dua atau tiga minggu.Tidak mustahil mesyuarat susulan diadakan tanpa pengetahuan pihak media dan orang ramai bagi memastikan panel bebas boleh melaksanakan tugas yang diamanahkan tanpa sebarang gangguan.

Apa yang dipinda dalam Interlok?

PETALING JAYA: Panel Bebas Mengkaji Pindaan Novel Interlok sudah memulakan tugas yang diamanahkan dengan mengadakan mesyuarat pertama pada 16 Februari lalu.Bagaimanapun, orang ramai masih tertanya-tanya kenapa kesemua anggota panel itu memilih untuk tidak mengeluarkan sebarang kenyataan kepada media mengenai perkara-perkara yang dibincangkan dalam mesyuarat.

Presiden Kumpulan Sasterawan Kavyan (Kavyan), Uthaya Sankar SB yang juga salah seorang anggota panel bebas itu berkata, proses pindaan sedang dilakukan mengikut terma rujukan yang ditetapkan Kementerian Pelajaran.“Saya tidak boleh mengulas lanjut kerana panel belum membuat sebarang keputusan,” katanya apabila dihubungi pagi tadi.Uthaya dan Kavyan sebenarnya mempunyai banyak maklumat mengenai novel Interlok edisi 1996, 2003, 2005 dan 2010 berikutan kajian mendalam yang dilakukan sejak kontroversi Interlok edisi murid tercetus pada 15 Disember 2010.

Reports lodged against racist HM

NIBONG TEBAL: The controversy over national laureate Abdullah Hussain’s Interlok novel is not over yet. A school headmaster here has sparked a fresh public row over the demeaning word “pariah”.SMK Tunku Abdul Rahman headmaster Ng Tong Koang, 56, has allegedly used the word to tick off parents of the schoolchildren for making a prohibited “U-Turn” at a nearby traffic light.Ng has allegedly used the word during a morning school general assembly yesterday.Two reports have been lodged against Ng over the past two days at the Nibong Tebal police station.One was lodged by state MIC Youth chief J Dhinagaran yesterday morning and the other by Hindraf Makkal Sakti’s Nibong Tebal deputy chief P Murugan.

Communal storm around Taoist-Hindu temple

Attracting both Hindus and Taoists, the Sri Mathurai Veeran Raja Karaimariamman Tuah Peh Kong temple in the Malay-majority Kampung Simpang Kerayong, Jasin, would have well been a 1Malaysia success story. Founded about 40 years ago, the temple sits on private land on the border of the Merlimau and Rim constituencies.A plan to put up a proper building to accommodate the large number of devotees who come to observe religious festivals has, however, been put on hold.

This is due to objections from the local Umno division and the village security and safety committee (JKKK), that claim to represent almost all of the Malay community."We first met with the penghulu (village head) who said it is not his role and that we should meet with the YB (assemblyperson),” said temple official and priest K Ganesan .

Folly to ignore the cry for justice

When Malay-rights group Perkasa keeps making racist remarks, does it translate to all Malays' being racist? If not, then what made the Barisan Nasional (BN) government think that all Indians out on the streets of Kuala Lumpur on Sunday were "criminals", all because Hindraf decided to hold a rally?The police in their bid to halt the rally to protest Umno's racial discrimination, turned up at Human Rights Party (HRP) leader P Uthayakumar's residence, handcuffing and taking him in for questioning.

On what grounds did the police handcuff Uthayakumar? Is he a criminal just because he organised a rally without police permit? If he is, then equally guilty are the people who demonstrated when the non-Malays complain about the loud call for prayer made by mosques.Just as guilty are those Malays who cold-bloodedly severed a cow's head, spit and stomp on it. And the biggest cuplrit would then be Perkasa whose founder Ibrahim Ali keeps threatening non-Malays to shut up and not question Malay rights.

Samy moves to keep stranglehold on MIED

PETALING JAYA: In what is seen as an attempt by former MIC president S Samy Vellu to maintain a stranglehold on the cash-rich educational arm of the party, he has made a proposal to increase the membership of the board of directors to 42.By wanting to place an additional 12 of his men in the 30-member board of Maju Institute of Educational Development (MIED), Samy Vellu is setting up a showdown with current MIC chief G Palanivel.Samy Vellu, the MIED chairman for the past 27 years, is expected to table the proposal for discussion at MIED’s AGM on March 7.