Latest news with #LeeKuanYew
&w=3840&q=100)
Business Standard
3 days ago
- Business
- Business Standard
Development over politics: Singapore's model and Naidu's vision for growth
Singapore today wields significant clout in the world order as a model for urban development and social harmony, and as one of the leading sovereign investors Amaravati Listen to This Article As I was growing up, Lee Kuan Yew's 'Singapore story' was my favourite bedtime read. I remember being fascinated by how LKY combined steely resolve and a firm commitment to reform for transforming a sleepy harbour into one of the world's most advanced city states. He believed that only the quality and vision of its leaders would make a country great. His life and journey have shaped my own ideas of leadership and reform. Singapore today wields significant clout in the world order as a model for urban development and social harmony, and as one of the leading sovereign investors.
Straits Times
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Theatre review: Xinyao musical Moonlit City too generic retelling of Lee couple's romance
Find out what's new on ST website and app. Lee Kuan Yew (Timothy Wan) and Kwa Geok Choo (Sunny Yang) are stopped by the Kempeitai during the Japanese Occupation. Toy Factory Productions Gateway Theatre July 26, 7.30pm This seven-decade-spanning, schmaltzy interpretation of the romance between Singapore's first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew and his wife Kwa Geok Choo treads the familiar ground of a well-known story.
Straits Times
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Straits Times
Book review: The First Fools makes Singapore's 10 ‘founding fathers' flesh and blood again
Find out what's new on ST website and app. The First Fools: B-Sides Of Lee Kuan Yew's A-Team explores the colourful lives of Singapore's "founding fathers" such as Mr Lee Kuan Yew (second from right), Mr S. Rajaratnam (second from left), Dr Toh Chin Chye (centre, in black spectacles) and Mr Jek Yeun Thong (in black pants). In primary school, this reviewer came into possession of a yellowed sheet of laminated paper, on which the headshots of Singapore's 10 'founding fathers' were arranged haphazardly. They stared, their expression somewhere between stoic and emotionless; meeting their eyes, one was wont to feel nothing too.
&w=3840&q=100)
First Post
6 days ago
- Business
- First Post
Air India crash: How to spin-doctor and peddle narratives, the Western way
Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore used to terrorise villainous Western media by suing them in his courts. They learned to toe the line read more There has been a virtual masterclass lately in the creation and dissemination of biased narratives. Not only in the case of the ill-fated Air India 171 (Boeing 787, June 12, 2025) that crashed, but also in some other, unrelated instances. The age-old practices of 'truth by repeated assertion' and 'dubious circular references' as well as 'strategic silence' have all been deployed in full force. The bottom line with the Air India flight: there is reasonable doubt about whether there was mechanical/software failure and/or sabotage or possible pilot error. Any or all of these caused both engines to turn off in flight. But the way the spin-doctors have spun it, it is now 'official' that the commanding pilot was suicidal and turned off the fuel switch. Boeing, the plane maker, and General Electric, the engine maker, are blameless. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD This is, alas, not surprising. It is in the interests of Western MNCs to limit reputational damage and monetary loss related to their products. They do massive marketing by unleashing their PR agencies. We also saw how they protect themselves in other instances. A leaked Pfizer contract for their Covid vaccine insisted that if anything happened, it was the user's problem, not Pfizer's: there was no indemnity. Incidentally, a report on July 19 said that the Pfizer Covid vaccine can lead to severe vision problems. Oh, sorry, no indemnity. What is deplorable in the Air India case is that the AAIB, the Indian entity investigating the disaster, chose to release a half-baked preliminary report with enough ambiguity that a case could be (and definitely was) built up against the poor dead pilots. Any marketing person could have read the report and told them that it would be used to blame the pilots and absolve the manufacturers. Besides, the AAIB report was released late night on a Friday, India time, which meant that the Western media had all of one working day to do the spin-doctoring, which they did with remarkable gusto. Meanwhile, the Indian media slept. Whose decision was this? Clearly, Indian babus need a remedial course in public relations if this was mere incompetence. Of course, if it was intentional, that would be even worse. There is a pattern. In earlier air accidents, such as the Jeju Air crash involving a Boeing 737-800 in South Korea in December, the pilots were blamed. In accidents involving Lion Air (Boeing 737 Max 8, 2018), China Airlines (737-200, 1989), Flydubai (737-800, 2016), ditto. I am beginning to believe that a lot of Asian pilots are poorly trained and/or suicidal. Ditto with the F-35 that fell into the ocean off Japan. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Truth by repeated assertion is a powerful force for gaslighting the gullible. I wonder what excuses we'll hear about the Delta Airlines Boeing 767 whose engine caught fire in the air after take-off from LAX on July 20. The pilots didn't die, so they will speak up. Besides, they were Westerners. I am eagerly awaiting the spin on this. I also noticed with grim amusement how the BBC, WSJ, Bloomberg, and Reuters, and so on were busy quoting each other to validate their assertions. This is a standard tactic that India's 'distorians' (see Utpal Kumar's powerful book Eminent Distorians) have perfected: B will quote third-hand hearsay from A, then C will quote B, D will quote C, and before you know it, the hearsay has become the truth. But if you wind it back from D to C to B to A it becomes, 'I hear someone told someone that xyz happened.' Out of thin air, then. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD There is also the lovely tactic of strategic silence. It has been used to un-person people who ask inconvenient questions. It has also been used to defenestrate inconvenient news. Just days ago, under the Deep State-installed new regime in Syria, hundreds of minority Druze were brutally massacred. There was video on X of armed men in uniform forcing Druze men to jump off tall buildings, and desecrating their shrines. Similarly, there is a brutal reign of terror, rape, murder, and thuggery against Hindus, Buddhists, and others under the Deep State-blessed regime of Mohammed Yunus in Bangladesh: a clear genocide. Neither Syria nor Bangladesh gets any headlines. There are no loud human-rights protests as in the case of Gaza. This is not news. It is un-news. 'Manufacturing Consent' all the way. India is particularly vulnerable to this gaslighting because Indians consume a lot of English-language 'news.' Scholars have long noted how the US public has been maintained in a state of ignorance so they could be easily manipulated. The same is true of the Indian middle class. So, there is yet another reason to do less in English. Fooling, say, the Chinese or Japanese public is a lot more difficult. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD The fact is that even though Indians may be literate in English, they do not understand the context and the subtext of what is fed to them by the likes of The Economist, NPR, The Financial Times, The New York Times, etc. The best way I can explain this is the 100+5 analogy in the Mahabharata: they may fight with each other on domestic matters, but Anglosphere and Deep State are in cahoots when it comes to international matters. Things are both getting better and getting worse. On the one hand, social media and its imprint on generative AI mean that it is ever easier to propagate fake news (in addition to deepfake audio and video, of course). On the other hand, despite the problem of charlatans and paid agents provocateurs getting lots of eyeballs, the large number of Indians on social media may push back against the worst kinds of blood libel against India and Indians, of which there's plenty these days, often created by bots from 'friendly' countries. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD This is a serious matter indeed. One solution is to do a version of the Great Chinese Firewall and ban wholesale the worst offenders. Indeed, a few of the vilest handles have been ejected from X. However, the pusillanimity with which notorious Pakistani handles were unbanned, then re-banned after outrage, shows there's something rotten in the Information Ministry. Almost exactly the same as the unbanning of Pakistani cricketers, then rebanning after outrage. Is there anybody in charge? Information warfare is insidious. Going back to the Air India case, I think the families of the maligned pilots should sue for gigantic sums for libel and defamation. The sad state of the Indian judiciary may mean that, unfortunately, this will not go far. However, there is precedent: Lee Kuan Yew in Singapore used to terrorise villainous Western media by suing them in his courts. They learned to toe the line. If this tactic does not work, India should eject the hostile media. The Indian market is increasingly important to Western media (not vice versa) because soon there will be more English-reading consumers in India than in the Five Eyes Anglosphere. I should say that in quotes because as I said above, most Indians are blissfully unaware of the hidden agendas, and naively believe them. But 'Judeo-Christian' culture is very different from dharmic. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD I keep getting emails from The New York Times with tempting offers to subscribe to them for something really cheap like Rs. 25 a month. They need Indian readers. I have been shouting from the rooftops for years that one of these charlatan media houses needs to be kicked out, harshly, with 24 hours' notice to wind up and leave. As in the Asian proverb, 'Kill the chicken to scare the monkeys.' The monkeys will notice, and behave. Otherwise, the information warfare is just going to get worse. The writer has been a conservative columnist for over 25 years. His academic interest is innovation. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost's views.
Straits Times
14-07-2025
- Straits Times
‘The key thing is you do your homework'
Mr George Gascon, now retired, had landed the assignment of taking pictures of founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew. He eventually became the preferred photographer for Mr Lee, capturing many unguarded moments. George Gascon, 73 Portrait Mr George Gascon joined The Straits Times in 1992 after a stint as official photographer to former Philippine president Ferdinand Marcos. Just three years in, he was assigned to shoot Singapore's founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew during a two-hour interview for the book Lee Kuan Yew: The Man And His Ideas. While Mr Lee was known to be a challenging subject, Mr Gascon's persistence paid off – he eventually became Mr Lee's preferred photographer, following him for seven years. He captured many intimate moments, including one where Mrs Lee gently combed Mr Lee's hair before a shoot. Mr Gascon, 73, who has two grandchildren, is now retired and living on a farm in the Cavite province in the Philippines. He finds inspiration everywhere. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he embarked on a series of selfies of 'face masks' using the fruits and vegetables from the farm. 'I was thinking that since everyone was not allowed to go out of the house without a face mask, then maybe a substitute mask would do,' he laughs. Recollections 'Photographing Mr Lee Kuan Yew was the highlight of my career. One evening, my boss just asked me: 'Can you do the shoot?' How can I refuse? I said, well yeah, I'll try my best. Top stories Swipe. Select. Stay informed. Singapore HSA intensifies crackdown on vapes; young suspected Kpod peddlers nabbed in Bishan, Yishun Singapore Man charged over distributing nearly 3 tonnes of vapes in one day in Bishan, Ubi Avenue 3 Singapore Public healthcare institutions to record all Kpod cases, confiscate vapes: MOH, HSA Singapore Man allegedly attacks woman with knife at Kallang Wave Mall, to be charged with attempted murder Singapore Singapore boosts support for Timor-Leste as it prepares to join Asean Singapore UN aviation and maritime agencies pledge to collaborate to boost safety, tackle challenges Singapore High Court dismisses appeal of drink driver who killed one after treating Tampines road like racetrack Singapore 18 years' jail for woman who hacked adoptive father to death after tussle over Sengkang flat Then he asked me about lighting Mr Lee's office for the shoot. 'Will you bring and set up the lights?' I was thinking, let me just do it the way I know how to do it. I didn't say anything, but for such shoots we should be very careful because it's his office. If you set things up, he may not like it. It could ruin his mood. So I told my boss later, I'll just use the available light. But he said the room will be so dark. Well, photographers here in the Philippines practise even in almost total darkness. I'm used to that. The issue was the time. Usually they give you like five, 10, 15 minutes. But I wanted to see if I could stay longer, and his people agreed. The book was titled Lee Kuan Yew: The Man And His Ideas and two of the authors, Han Fook Kwang and Sumiko Tan, were there. It was my first time being up close with Mr Lee . But there was something between him and me, so I knew I had to break that. I was thinking how to melt the ice. And then he just relaxed. I heard later that he liked that I was not intrusive. He was not disturbed by my presence. Yeah, because I pretended to be like invisible, or something like that. I started very slowly, one click, then another click. It's so very slow, very slow because I'm also getting my bearings. I was walking around the table to get his back view, left side, right side, the front view and things like that. And then his people said: 'Okay, time out.' It was a toilet break. Fook Kwang asked me: 'Hey George, can you do something about your camera? It's so noisy.' Now you can do something about it, but before, our cameras were not so nice. I said he's not minding at all. So when he came back, we shoot again. Shoot, shoot, shoot. The key thing is you do your homework. That's basic, yeah, and it's the way you carry yourself in front of him, because he will be also observing. As a photographer, that is important. I think he liked the way I photographed him because I wasn't disturbing him. I wasn't distracting. Another memorable moment was when I had to go to the Istana one evening. He was having high tea with his ministers. I was ushered in, and he introduced me to the guys. Mr Lee said: 'He takes pictures,' pointing to me, 'but he's going back to the Philippines already. What a waste.' That's what he told the ministers, yeah.'
