https://www.scmp.com/rss/316082/feed P N Balji is a veteran journalist in Singapore. He is also the author of the book, Reluctant Editor: The Singapore Media as Seen Through the Eyes of a Veteran Newspaper Journalist en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com After a splendid start, Singapore is getting into a policy tangle as it struggles to pull its Covid-19 act together and enforce its stay-at-home rules. Some Singaporeans, especially the older ones, are behaving as though they are living in La La Land as they go about their daily life feeling that the killer virus will not touch them. At the heart of this malaise is a government that is coming out with one rule after another on a daily basis. Policymaking has become reactive. The decisiveness... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3079977/do-singapores-4g-leaders-know-their-people-well-enough?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3079977/do-singapores-4g-leaders-know-their-people-well-enough?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 15 Apr 2020 04:00:18 +0000 In a perverse sort of way, Covid-19 is a godsend for the Singapore government. Its slow-motion and calibrated approach to cushioning the unimaginable health and economic crisis has earned it respect and praise the world over. Politically, it has raised the stock of the prime minister, who appeared at strategic points to talk to Singaporeans, and the leaders who will run the country after the coming elections. An analysis of its rule book since the first person tested positive for the virus on... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3078235/singapore-heads-towards-coronavirus-tipping-point-what-would-lee?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3078235/singapore-heads-towards-coronavirus-tipping-point-what-would-lee?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 03 Apr 2020 04:00:10 +0000 When I was made editor of The New Paper in Singapore in 1990, I had only one question: what must I keep in mind as I go about my job? I sought my editor-in-chief’s advice. A man known to cut to the chase, he said: “We are paying you to make sure we avoid a major crisis. If we do fall into one, then your job is to get us out of it quickly.” Those sage-like words have stuck with me all this while. As I watch global leaders fumbling in their handling of the stealth killer called Covid-19, his words... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3075915/singapore-hong-kong-taiwan-real-coronavirus-world-leaders?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3075915/singapore-hong-kong-taiwan-real-coronavirus-world-leaders?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 19 Mar 2020 07:20:17 +0000 Singapore and Hong Kong face a demographic nightmare so similar that it makes you wonder who has a better chance to dictate a destiny with fewer upheavals. The problem is a familiar one: citizens living longer and having fewer babies. Hong Kong is ageing faster, based on today's death and birth rates. It will have a median age of 56.3 years by 2040 if it does nothing to tackle its grey problem. Singapore's figure is 50.3. What muddies the demographic road map is the economic realities of the two... https://www.scmp.com/comment/article/1604515/it-still-possible-grow-old-gracefully-hong-kong-or-singapore?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/comment/article/1604515/it-still-possible-grow-old-gracefully-hong-kong-or-singapore?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 30 Sep 2014 07:00:45 +0000