Singapore

The rise of English usage at home and proliferation of non-Tamil Indian languages have raised questions about Tamil’s relevance in today’s Singapore. Bhargav Sri Ganesh reminds us of the importance of the language, and makes a number of recommendations to strengthen Tamil’s position in Singapore.

Public spaces are under appreciated in their impact on society, Nur Atiqa Asri writes. Based on her evaluations of public spaces in Singapore regularly used by migrant workers, she argues that democratizing our public spaces can help address the emerging fault lines between migrant workers and locals in Singapore’s social fabric.

Extreme weather events made worse by climate change are wreaking havoc on cities worldwide. Al Lim evaluates Singapore’s climate resilience through the lens of the recent MRT flooding incidents, and explores how Singapore can strengthen social resilience as a community.

To secure Singapore’s economic future, look to Southeast Asia. In the past fifty years, Singapore has been the economic success story of the region. The tables are now starting to turn. ASEAN countries are now some of the fastest growing countries in the world, and Brendan Chia argues that Southeast Asia holds the key to Singapore’s own economic growth.

Jia Hui Lin writes that rideshare drivers need better social protection. She presents her findings from 68 interviews with Singaporean Uber and Grab drivers, and argues that drivers need more flexible savings options.

The recent MRT collision has once more raised eyebrows and, as PM Lee acknowledged, “hurt public confidence a lot”. Azfer A. Khan writes that a rise in public distrust is precipitated by poor communication, which has projected an image (whether true or not) of a secretive, misleading, and bureaucratic government structure.

In response to our recent piece by Theophilus Kwek proposing what asylum policies in Singapore could look like, a reader argues that the experiences of migrant workers and long-term immigrants form a cautionary tale to be considered before we naively implement asylum policies for refugees.

Yet again, a refugee crisis in Southeast Asia has concerned the world. In Singapore, however, the Government’s usual rejection of an asylum policy has hardly been questioned- unusual for a nation with thriving and critical online discourse of issues. Theophilus Kwek argues that other options are possible- and questions the assumptions that make us shy away from them.

What, or who, really is the Smart Nation? In the era of the #SmartNation Singapore, discussions of “smartness” abound in the news space, but corresponding discussions of nationhood are few and far in between.

When a domestic helper was charged for accidentally worsening an injury to the disabled child under her care, the judge’s controversial decision to show her mercy revealed deeper divides in Singaporean society and sparked an intense online debate over justice, fairness, and attitudes towards foreigners.

“Knowing where you are going,” declared Minister for Foreign Affairs S. Rajaratnam in the 1970s, “is more important than knowing where you came from” (Tarulevicz 2009, 415). So convinced was he by this maxim that he echoed this exact sentiment a decade later in an article for The Straits Times, where he extolled the merits […]

Asset values may plateau, and we have to begin rethinking the investment value of HDB flats.