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Holistic solution needed as seen in The Star

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19/01/2012 | Tags: , | Category: Letter to Newspaper, Transportation
Language >>>

How many foreign visitors are Tamil spoken?

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The decision to have announcements in more languages in KLIA and international airports has to be made based on statistics and data. Too many announcements will be a nuisance to airport users who do not understand the languages. There should be a limit on how many languages used in the public announcement.

Can Malaysia Airports Berhad make a pareto analysis on tourist arrivals and share it with the public on top three airport users according to their language spoken. I suspect Indian visitors mostly are English and Hindi speakers, Tamil speakers are in a minority since only 5% Indian population are Tamil descendants.

Go ahead to add Tamil language announcement if Tamil spoken visitors are in the top three airport users, otherwise let scrap the idea for lesser noise pollution in our airports.

Limit languages for airport announcements

I REFER to the news report in The Star, that the Transport Ministry plans to have Tamil announcements at KLIA, LCCT.

Such a decision has to be made based on statistics and data.

Too many announcements will be a nuisance to airport users who do not understand the languages. There should be a limit on languages used for public announcements.

Can Malaysia Airports Holdings Berhad do an analysis on tourist arrivals, and share it with the public, pertaining to the top three airport users according to language spoken.

I suspect visitors from India are mostly Hindi speakers. Tamil-speaking visitors may be in a minority, since only 5% of the Indian population are Tamils.

Go ahead and add announcements in Tamil if it is shown that Tamil-speaking visitors are among the top three airport users, otherwise scrap the idea.

N.K. KHOO,
Kuala Lumpur.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/12/22/focus/10144847&sec=focus

Transport Ministry wants Tamil announcements at KLIA, LCCT

PUTRAJAYA: The Transport Ministry wants announcements to be made in the Tamil language at Malaysifa’s international airports.

In a statement Wednesday, Minister Datuk Seri Kong Cho Ha has recommended that announcements in Tamil be made available in the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) and the Low Cost Carrier Terminal (LCCT) starting next year.

“The Government is aware of the needs of all levels of society in the country, and this is in line with the 1Malaysia concept that is currently in practice,” said Kong.

He added that the recommendation was made after taking into consideration public demands, the needs of the Indian community in the country, and the volume of passengers arriving from Indian cities like Chennai.

According to Kong, 434,050 passengers were received by KLIA and LCCT this year from Chennai, with 207,697 departures and 226,353 arrivals.

“The Government realised that almost 90% of the passengers who take the Chennai route understand Tamil rather than English due to differences in accents,” said Kong.

“To make sure that these passengers understand the information and announcements made (in the airports), the Government has agreed to the proposal of having announcements in the Tamil language, especially when there are flights to Chennai, India,” he added.

Kong said he agreed with Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak that there would not be a problem with finding announcers fluent in Tamil as there are many who have good command of the language in the country.

21/12/2011 | Tags: | Category: Language, Letter to Newspaper
Letter to Newspaper >>>

As seen in the Star :: Address the root cause of the problem

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http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/10/13/focus/9675849&sec=focus

13/10/2011 | Category: Letter to Newspaper
Human Resources >>>

Low salary for graduates is the fault of company and government policies

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As seen in the Star, http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/8/1/focus/9212096&sec=focus

There are several letters debating on basic salary for graduates in The Star. Seem the local employers are habitually put the blame on the poor attitude and lack of English proficiency of our graduates.

This scenario is not entirely true.

Malaysia economy had been stuck in the middle-income trap due to local company’s short-sighted human resources policy. The import of several millions cheap and low-skilled foreign workers was the beginning of low pay era. Local companies are competing on low labor cost for low valued added products and services since 80s after the very lenient and unplanned foreign worker import policy was introduced.

For instance, RM2,500 is deemed high because local companies only surviving factor is low cost. They are comparing Malaysia salary with Indonesia, Vietnam, etc. after being trapped in the same playing ground with them, and wrongly perceived RM2,500 is a high salary in Malaysia.

Unfortunately, Malaysia’s living cost is a few times higher than our neighbors and our workers are feeling the pinch of stagnant salaries and decreasing purchasing power over the years.

Moving to higher operational efficiency and up value chain should be initiated by the employers. No employee can turn the tide if local company’s management still expects low cost or low salary is the only weapon to compete globally.

The dire need to retrain fresh graduates is attributed to mismatched in the manpower supply and demand planning, poor academic standard in our universities and lack of participation from local industries in formulating university syllabi. Outdated syllabi, poor knowledge and skill set issues should be tackled by our government, universities and industrial players. Our local graduates are the real victims, and being punished with a low salary and bad employee perception is unfair and unjust to them.

Our talented graduates will look to the outside world for the greener pasture due to low salary offered by local companies. Less talented graduates from locals and foreign countries will fill up the gap leftover by them. The vicious cycle of poor quality graduates and low salaries in the local companies will be continued until the cows come home.

The root causes of low salary is local company over dependent on cheap foreign workers, poor manpower training and planning at the national level and also poor participation from the industries in shaping university syllabi.

Our workers and graduates are merely scapegoats for the country’s failure to break away from the middle income trap.

31/07/2011 | Tags: | Category: Human Resources, Letter to Newspaper
Internet Freedom >>>

Both illegal download and file sharing sites block are wrong

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http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2011/6/28/focus/8983059&sec=focus

In responding to a few letters from your readers (The Star) on the recent action by MCMC to block 10 file sharing sites.

Any rational and conscious-minded person surely understands illegal downloading copyrighted digital materials is wrong legally and morally.

IF music and movie owners and our government believe blocking file sharing sites is a right approach to counter such WRONG action, I wish to say they are as wrong as those file sharers who upload and download copyrighted materials not owned by them to file sharing sites.

Whether Malaysia’s Cyber and Copyrights Laws allow MCMC to block file sharing sites without a court order is still another debatable legal subject. But MCMC’s decision to block file sharing site is morally and legally wrong based on these factual arguments.

Firstly, our government has broken MSC Bills of Guarantee which affecting its international credibility.

Secondly, these file sharing sites clearly state no illegal materials are allowed, the onus to inform them of and remove copyrighted materials from free sharing is on the shoulders of copyright owners.

Thirdly, there are many legitimate users who use these file sharing sites for their own digital materials. All legitimate users are also blocked out because of a few black sheep whose alleged crime is not yet proven in the court. The MCMC is committed another legal procedural mistake to punish legitimate users.

This blanket blocking action is tantamount to banning all villagers of a kampung from visiting KL simply of a few villagers are suspected of committing thievery in the KL city.

This kind of blocking is morally and legally wrong!

Addressing a wrong action with another wrong action does not make it a right action, but it merely reflects a failed and lawless nation is in the making.

Note: This sentence is omitted by The Star. LOL

See The Star edited version on 28 June 2011.

27/06/2011 | Tags: , | Category: Internet Freedom, Letter to Newspaper
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