Floods in Singapore: Who should bear the responbility?

This question was asked by scores of Singaporeans as they battled one of the worst flash floods which wrought havoc in many areas after a heavy early morning downpour.
The PUB is investigating the cause of the flood, especially in the worst-hit Orchard Road/Scotts Road intersection, where the flood waters reached 300 mm high, flooding basement car parks and shops, destroying goods and disrupting businesses.

Hence, who should bear the responsibility? Government? Singaporean?

In my opinion, I think both. Personally, I think that the Government should look into this seriously and to implement action plan to find out root cause. Flood prone areas have long been identified, but nothing has been done. In fact, aggravated by the construction boom. SG government needs to take responsibility and stop telling the people to live with it.

But I think that Singaporean should not just start complaining and expect government to solve every single issue for them, instead those able people should just stand out to contribute suggestion and possible solutions, Singapore do only belong to PAP but all Singaporean. I am not a PRO Government, but I don't agree that people should try to score political points on this kind of issue just because election will be approaching.

Actually it is not the time to find out who is to be blamed now. Singaporean and every single unit should cooperate with Singapore Government to solve out this problem as soon as possible to ensure floods will not happen again in the future.

~Pei Ling~

Hotels, restaurants that offer views of NDP fireworks fully booked.

Singaporeans are getting ready for the nation's 45th birthday! Many people are willing to spend their money on hotels room just to see the fireworks on a bird's eye view, on the day of celebration. Those hotel rooms have special views of the parade and fireworks. A special one night stay in hotels are not cheap, but people are willing to pay to witness the National's Day Parade Celebration.

For example, a 55th floor hotel room in Swissotel The Stamford costs about $640. In exchanhge, the people will be able to have a spectacular view of the Padang and the fireworks that will light up the skies on the day of celebration.

*This picture shows the view from the 55th floor hotel room in Siwssotel.


All rooms with similar views are all fully booked since April. Singaporeans are really willing to slurge on hotel rooms and even made early booking for it. All they want is to have the best view of the celebration that happens every August of the year.

Swissotel The Stamford's restaurants locate at the 69th level are also fully booked, by customers who will pay for the good view. Window seat of the restaurant even cost additional $20 per table.

As singaporeans are all getting ready for the nation's big day, let not forget the meaning behind every national day, which is to celebrate and commemorate the nation's independance.

Written By: Chan Jia Yi

Floods in Singapore: Who should bear the responbility?

Recently, Singapore has encountered several floods across the island, particularly central Singapore. This is a rare phenomenon in this country as the last flood that occurred here would date back to some 50 years ago. The worst-hit area was Orchard Road, where traffic was halted, productivity was crippled and goods damaged. When this news struck me, I was marvelled by the mere fact that a flood could occur in Singapore. To me, Singapore was flood-proof, but the flash floods themselves proved my view wrong.

People say that the government is to be blamed for not developing the proper infrastructure to prevent such an overwhelming event to occur. However, I put myself against the grain here. The flash floods around central Singapore were nothing more than unpredictable, and as the word states, the government could not anticipate it. Moreover, why would the government want this destructive event to occur? It affects our society and economy.


Due to the flash floods, PUB is already investigating the cause of the floods and how to mitigate the impact of heavy rain. Therefore, I feel that we Singaporeans should take this as a lesson learnt, to be prepared for the unexpected, as well as to give the government time to carry out measures and strategies that benefit both you and I.

Written by: Chan Jia Yi

Do we have racial harmony in Spore? If yes, is it based on understanding or tolerance?

Singapore is a multi-racial and multi-religious society. There are three main races in Singapore, which is Chinese, Malay and Indian. There is an event to celebrate Singapore's success as a racially harmonious nation and society built on a rich diversity of culture and heritage. The first Racial Harmony Day was celebrated on 21 July 1997. As part of the National Education Programme, it is celebrated yearly on the anniversary of the communal riots of 21 July 1964. Students are encouraged to be dressed in their traditional costumes such as the Cheongsam and the Baju Kurung.

This racial harmony in Singapore is based on tolerance and understanding between the races. From colonial times up to the independence of the island state, racial and religious harmonies have been the top priority of the governing institutions.Tolerance and understanding was a key principle underpinning peace and social cohesion. Understanding and tolerance must be present between the races to maintain the harmony in Singapore. They should respect each other’s religion and traditional custom. They should celebrate the occasion together. All the races should work together to create a better future of Singapore. Parents should always teach their children about the importance to tolerate and understand the other race from they was young. Hence, I feel that both tolerance and understanding are important to maintain the racial harmony in Singapore.

~Lim Pei Ling~

Is there any more room for privacy given the hyper-connected world of online social networking?

Young people share the most intimate details of personal life on social-networking Web sites, such as MySpace and Facebook, portending a realignment of the public and the private. In my opinion, I feel that sometimes yes, sometimes no. If it is not as the social-networking sites allow seemingly trivial gossip to be distributed to a worldwide audience, sometimes making people the butt of rumours shared by millions of users across the Internet.
Facebook is another example to show that is there a privacy given to the online social networking because it seems to attract most of the people, while at the same time offering the most comprehensive set of controls on any site I have seen. On Facebook, there is a dialog boxes to control access to most objects. An object’s owner can restrict access to the following choice:

Only Me—which provides complete privacy
Some Friends—which permits an explicit list of people to access the Object
Only Friends—which permits all friends to access the Object—of course, implying friends within the Facebook network
Friends of Friends—which broadens access to all of a user’s friends, plus friends of their friends
Everyone on Facebook—which makes the Object completely public

The Facebook options imply a hierarchy of privacy, including the ability to explicitly deny access to a list of selected people. Hence, we have to emphasize on personal privacy and information security carefully.

~Pei Ling~

Do we have racial harmony in Spore? If yes, is it based on understanding or tolerance?

Racial Harmony, I remember the primary school used to celebrate. Every year, we will be taught the importance of having racial harmony in Singapore, which is a multi ethnic country. Also, we will dress up with clothes and costumes of different races on the celebration day. Items will be brought up by students of different races as well. There will be a strong demonstration of racial harmony, working together despite the differnet races through exhibits and activities for the students to attend. Since young, we have been taught and we have learnt to accept the different races in Singapore.

Ministry Of Education commerate Racial Harmony Day on 21 July every year to mark the anniversary of the 1964 racial riots. This is a day for students to reflect on and celebrate Singapore's success as a harmonious nation built on a rich diversity of cultures. It can promote inter-racial understanding among students as the celebrations are a reminder that promotes social cohesion and racial harmony among the different races.

The theme for this year's RHD is “Embracing Diversity, Building Community”. It reminds us of the different races, cultures and languages in Singapore. Hence I feel that racial harmony in Singapore is based on understanding, not tolerance.

As singaporeans, we should respect each other’s race and religion and celebrate Racial Harmony Day together. All the races should work together, in harmony, to create a better Singapore.

Written By :Chan Jia Yi

Is there any more room for privacy given the hyper-connected world of online social networking?

Everyone is now using social networking websites such as friendster,myspace, twitter, facebook. They are channels with allows people to connect to their friends, post information about themselves, post photos and viedos as well.

Privacy seem to be not an issue in this case. People are happily posting all about their lives, openbly to the public through these networking websites. I know of some people who can hardly leave these websites. They will check for updates every now and then and even have the applications in their smartphones so that they can use it everywhere they go. People are willingly showing their lives to the world, because they do not feel that it should be kept private. They feel that it is alright to share it with the world. Information of people have made their friends and followers intersted and they started to connect with them through these networking websites.

Some information may be comfortable with people, but nowadays, people are more and more daring as photos of couples being intimate, scandily clad photos, nude photos are spreading on the internet. I feel that there is no more privacy on these social websites as anyone and everyone can have access to a person's information as long as suffcient information are given, for example and name or email. However, I think people should not expose too much of themselves or give too much information about themselves online as it is very dangerous to do so. It is not safe to have your personal information all over the internet. Some networking websites allow private viewing for friends only, however, if people were to have bad intention towards someone, information can be easily found out and it is dangerous to do so.

Written By : Chan Jia Yi

South Africa 2010 World Cup !

I bet you have been hearing people talking about some world cup matches in school or even everywhere you have been to. World Cup is the greatest soccer event where a soccer fans could be looking out for.
World Cup does not only attract soccer fans to stay up all night to catch a match, it attracted students or even the whole family to catch it as a get together thing. World Cup is organized every four year and the venue of the event will be selected randomly. This year World Cup, it was held at South Africa. Due to the time difference between Singapore and South Africa, World Cup matches are shown from 10pm for the first match to 2.30 am for the last match of the day.

Catching all these World Cup matches may cause lack of sleep to students and working adults. This will cause them to have lack of energy and concentration for their studies and work. This is very irresponsible and also very bad for personal health.

Worst of all things that World Cup will bring into the society are gambling. Due to World Cup, the numbers of cases of addictive gambling have increase. Underage gambling is responsible in part of the increase. These underage gamblers may become became addicted to gambling and harm to both the society and their loves one.

World Cup may have brought positive effect/influence to the economy, sports industry and many other aspects. But certainly it did bring as many negative effect/influence to our life. Hence we have to really decide for ourselves on what things are right and what things aren’t. And be responsible on what we should do.

-Tang Ming Wei

World Cup 2010~~

World Cup is a hot topic in 2010. Every football fans are crazy about it. Everyone can sacrifice their sleeping time to watch the competition show and they will watch it on 2.30am. It will seriously affect their daily routine of next day. Football fans completely cover all the age of people, including students, office worker and others. They will have not enough energy to work or study the next morning because they have not enough sleeping time. It will affect office and school productivity. They will totally forget their responsibility and what should they do. They should arrange their time allocation properly.World Cup encourages people about sports but it also brings up some disadvantages. Some people will use this ‘good opportunity’ to earn money. It will promote more social ills, such as gambling, especially under age gambling. The young will use their pocket money to gamble although they know it is illegal.There is the news shown as below related to gambling in Malaysia:Police in Malaysia have arrested 129 people including students for illegal football betting worth 94 million dollars since the World Cup began this month, a police official said Monday.Mohamad Bakri Zinin, chief of the criminal investigation department, said that since the tournament kicked off in South Africa on June 11 until Sunday police had carried out 156 raids against illegal betting.Among those arrested were individuals, including a family of four and criminal syndicate members, he told reporters."One hundred men and 20 women and nine foreigners were arrested," he said, adding that the youngest bookmaker was 15 years old. Hence, everyone should restrain themselves from the bad manners during the period of World Cup and they should also arrange time properly to fulfill their own duty and responsibility.
~Ivy Lim Pei Ling~

World Cup 2010

World Cup season is here! It is driving all the football fans crazy. Everyone is watching World Cup, even if it is on the morning of a working day. World Cup 2010 was held at South Africa. Due to the time difference between Singapore and South Africa, World Cup matches are shown as late as 230am for a match.



Who watches World Cup? Not only working adults, but students as well.
Late matches deprived them of sleep and caused them to lose focus in work and school. People stay up till the morning of a working day, just to catch the match. This definately affects productivity of school and at work. When people sacrifice their sleep to watch the match, deep in the night which drags till the morning, they will not be able to concentrate in the day. World Cup fans may be too hooked up with the game that in school and at work, all the think of is to go home and watch the next World Cup matches.

Conversations in school and workplaces, will definately include World Cup. This affects productivity as well. This is because people lose focus on their work as they chat more and more on the topic "World Cup". I believe that this is an exciting topic which people will be discussing on. World Cup fans or anti-World Cup people will all be talking about it because it is the EVENT of the year. No one will miss World Cup, everyone will know about it. Hence, the conversations about World Cup cannot be avoided.


Also, World Cup may have given people an opportunity to start gambling and trying out their luck at the matches. Even after the World Cup ended, those people who gamble may not be able to cut the habit and continue to bet on other things such as TOTO and 4D. This is such a bad and harmful activity that World Cup can actually cause to people.

In conclusion, I feel that people should not get too crazy over the World Cup, but balance their fun time with serious school or work in the day. People should not indulge in harmful activity such as gambling even when World Cup have ended.

Written By : Jiayi