SINGAPORE: Shopee Singapore announced on Friday (Apr 28) that it will commit to an average resolution time of two-and-a-half working days for refunds and return requests, as part of a broader initiative to improve consumer protection. The e-commerce company signed a memorandum of understanding with the Consumers Association of SingaporeContinue Reading
Getty ImagesAs the Indian Supreme Court continues to hear petitions seeking to legalise same-sex marriage, it’s becoming evident just how complex the issue is.
Earlier, lawyers for the petitioners had argued in court that marriage was a union of two people, not just a man and woman, that concepts of marriage had changed over time, and that denying them the right to marry violated the constitution.
Day six of the discussion, that’s being “livestreamed in public interest”, saw Solicitor General Tushar Mehta on Thursday speaking on behalf of the government, which has strongly opposed marriage equality for the LGBTQ+ community.
The government’s main contention from the start has been that only the parliament can discuss the socio-legal issue of marriage and the court has no right at all to hear the matter.
Disregarding the government’s objections, the judges had said they would not wade into religious personal laws but look at whether the Special Marriage Act of 1954 – which allows marriages between people of different castes and religions and weddings held abroad – could be tweaked to include LGBTQ+ people.
But as the hearings have continued, the five-judge bench has been conceding that tweaking one law may not really work, since it’s a complex web of 35 laws that govern issues of divorce, adoption, succession, maintenance and other related issues – and that many of them do spill over into religious personal laws.
And during Thursday’s hearing, the top court appeared to agree with the government that granting legal sanction to same-sex marriage was parliament’s domain.
“We take your point that if we enter this arena, this will be an arena of the legislature. You have made a very powerful argument that this is for the parliament,” Chief Justice DY Chandrachud said.
The bench, however, went to say that the court could “act as a facilitator” to push the government to find solutions to real problems faced by cohabiting same-sex couples.
They asked Mr Mehta what the government intended to do to give same-sex couples a sense of security and ensure they had basic social rights like opening joint bank accounts or nominating a partner in insurance policies or school admission for their children. And how was the government going to ensure that they were not ostracised?
Mr Mehta said he would hold consultations with the government and report back to the court on 3 May. The government may consider tackling some of the issues that same-sex couples are facing without granting them legal recognition, he added.
In the court, the solicitor general has argued that the right to love and cohabit was a fundamental right, but marriage itself was “not an absolute right” – not even among heterosexual couples.
Mr Mehta pointed out that there was a list of prohibited relationships, such as those involving incest, and asked the court “to visualise a situation in which five years down the line” and a person comes seeking the right to marry a sibling.
“Incest is not uncommon in the world and it is prohibited everywhere,” he said, adding that arguments of right to choice and sexual autonomy raised by the same-sex petitioners may be used to defend incest at a later date.
“But this will be far-fetched. Sexual orientation and autonomy cannot be exercised in all aspects of marriage,” the judges replied.
The debate is being keenly watched in a country which is home to tens of millions of LGBTQ+ people. In 2012, the Indian government put their population at 2.5 million, but calculations using global estimates believe it to be at least 10% of the entire population – or more than 135 million.
Over the years, acceptance of homosexuality has also grown in India, especially since the September 2018 ground-breaking ruling that legalised consenting gay sex.
But attitudes to sex and sexuality remain largely conservative and activists say most LGBTQ+ people are afraid to come out, even to their friends and family, and attacks on same sex couples routinely make headlines.
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SINGAPORE: Professor Kenneth Mak, who played a key role in Singapore’s fight against COVID-19, will be redesignated as Director-General of Health on May 1.
His current title is Director of Medical Services.
The title change more accurately reflects the role as the main overseer of both clinical and public health of Singaporeans, said the Ministry of Health (MOH) on Friday (Apr 28).
These include the prevention and control of communicable and non-communicable diseases, upholding healthcare professional standards, as well as enhancing the performance of the country’s healthcare system and services.
The plan to redesignate Prof Mak was first announced in March during a parliamentary debate on the COVID-19 White Paper.
Health Minister Ong Ye Kung gave details then on changes that will be made to Singapore’s healthcare system post-pandemic, including a new Communicable Diseases Agency to oversee disease preparedness and control, surveillance, risk assessment and outbreak response.
Prof Mak, a familiar face on the COVID-19 multi-ministry task force, was awarded a top national award for his contributions to Singapore’s fight against the pandemic.
The Prime Minister’s Office lauded his role in advising the task force and other government agencies in crafting the overall strategy to manage the outbreak.
MOH said his redesignation is among several changes to restructure the Health Ministry to place emphasis on both clinical services and public health, building on lessons learnt from the pandemic.
“Other efforts include the eventual formation of the Communicable Diseases Agency, the maintenance of a permanent Crisis Strategy and Operations Group and the setting up of a Healthcare Reserve Force,” said MOH.
“When in place, these changes will enable clinical services and public health to be institutionalised and built up within the ministry.”
SINGAPORE: The former top soldier in the Singapore Armed Forces will take on a new civilian role in the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF), said the Public Service Division on Friday (Apr 28). Lieutenant-General (LG) Melvyn Ong Su Kiat, 48, will be appointed Permanent Secretary (Defence Development) from Jun 1. He willContinue Reading
While domestic travel in China has caught up with pre-pandemic numbers, outbound travel is experiencing a sluggish recovery.
Nonetheless, industry players are optimistic about a rebound in the next few months.
“China’s outbound travel has recovered by only about 20 to 30 per cent. By May, it’s expected to improve further to 50 per cent. When summer comes, I expect outbound travel to hit 80 to 90 per cent,” said mainland Chinese tour operator Li Cheng.
He added that with an anticipated increase in flight frequencies, more Chinese travellers are likely to visit Malaysia as well as the wider Southeast Asia region.
While Malaysia is gearing up for a surge in mainland Chinese tourist arrivals, some are worried that the tourism industry would not be able to cope, given a lot of players were forced to close during the pandemic.
Those that remain open are struggling with staffing and rising costs.
“Compared to pre-pandemic, we are paying our staff more. Also electricity and utilities are more expensive, the rent as well, basically everything,” said Mr Ng Sin Leong, founder of Mingle guesthouse.
“It is not an issue of lack of workers – there are workers in the market. The problem is lack of management and skilled workers.”
Industry players said they hope the government can do more to help ease the cost of doing business, which has gone up by an average of 30 per cent.
Last year, Malaysia recorded 10.07 million international tourist arrivals who spent RM28.2 billion (US$6.3 billion).
It hopes to more than double that amount next year with a forecast of 23.5 million visitors with some US$17 billion in tourism receipts.
But meanwhile, Malaysia needs to speed up the recovery of its airline, hotels and transportation sectors if it wants to meet its target of generating US$11 billion in tourism revenue this year.
“Many of the companies now guiding on the south side of Everest are taking climbers who have not yet developed the experience necessary to safely navigate the difficulties,” said Adrian Ballinger of US-based Alpenglow Expeditions, who has moved his activities to the Chinese side. This year, Chinese nationals have received theContinue Reading
In the 1980s, the American futurist Lawrence Taub developed a macro-history based on Hindu cosmology that shows a path to the end of the notorious caste system. His book The Spiritual Imperative Sex, Age, and the Last Caste maps actual linear history to the Varna cycle that forms the basis of Vedic cosmology, the root of the caste system.
The Indian (Hindu) worldview is personified by Brahma, the creator of the universe. Ancient Vedic sages predicted that humanity would go through four distinct socio-economic stages before attaining proverbial peace on Earth. This prophecy has parallels with the prediction of the second coming in Abrahamic religions.
According to the Vedas, the life of Brahma lasts 311.04 trillion years. One day in the life of Brahma is one kalpa, or 4.32 billion years. The smallest unit in Brahma’s life is the yuga, which lasts a little over a million years.
Humanity partakes in Brahma’s life in this universe only for a brief period. The astronomical numbers used in the Vedas suggest that the sages viewed the current universe as one in a series of endless Big Bangs.
The cycle of the four yugas started with the Satya Yuga, an age “ruled” by the Brahmans. The Hindu epic Mahabharata depicts the Satya Yuga as a time of bliss on Earth.
“There were no poor and no rich; there was no need to labor because all that men required was obtained by the power of will; the chief virtue was the abandonment of all worldly desires.
“The Satya Yuga was without disease; there was no lessening with the years; there was no hatred or vanity, or evil thought; no sorrow, no fear. All mankind could attain supreme blessedness.”
The Satya Yuga was followed by three other ages: the Treta Yuga ruled by the Kshatriya (Warriors), the Dvapar Yuga ruled by the Vaishya (Merchants), and the Kali Yuga, ruled by the Sudra (Workers).
The Brahmans, Warriors, Merchants, and Workers, are known as Varna. The four types probably were conceived after the age of the hunter-gatherer and the development of agriculture and human settlements.
The formation of the first towns led to a division of labor, and the sages identified four basic traits or generic types. They concluded that people have a certain worldview, inclination, and aptitude that fit into four categories they called Varna.
The Varna are generic types rather than strict categories. A person can have the worldview and inclination of a Merchant, but can also have a Warrior impulse. A Warrior can also have a Merchant or Brahman inclination.
But one of the four Varna types typically predominates in every individual. It is the “cosmic imprint” – or dharma – that permeates everything that exists.
Dharma means natural propensity, function, or property. The dharma of fire is to burn, that of water is to flow, and that of air is to be invisible. The Warrior’s dharma is to fight and protect his people. Dharma is the twin of karma.
Dharma is the “duty” an individual is called to fulfill by the cosmic imprint, and karma is the extent to which people abide by their dharma.
The Varna prophecy was originally a cycle of four social types that were believed to be indispensable for society to develop. In later years, political leaders corrupted the Varna idea and turned it into a class system that would have horrified the ancient Vedic sages.
In the mid-1970s, Lawrence Taub traveled to northeastern India to study at the ashram of Ānanda Mārga, a spiritual and social service organization founded by the Indian spiritual teacher Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar. It offers socio-spiritual teachings and practices for individual emancipation, collective welfare, and the fulfillment of physical, mental, and spiritual needs.
While at the ashram, Taub attended a lecture on Sarkar’s Progressive Utilization Theory (PROUT), a blueprint for a cooperative and decentralized economic theory based on socio-ideological concepts from the West and the ancient Vedic worldview, including the Varna cycle.
Initially, Taub dismissed the Varna prophesy as mere myth-making that permeated the Vedic classics. However, after his stay in India, he continued his travels and arrived in Japan, where he had an epiphany. He saw evidence in history that the Varna cycle plays out in actual history.
Taub redefined the four Varna types in contemporary terms. He identified Merchants as entrepreneurs, bankers, industrialists and financiers, while Workers were defined as those working for a wage, whether they were factory workers, bureaucrats or managers.
Taub next mapped the Varna cycle to actual history, both in time and space – specific years and specific regions. The West dominated the Merchant Age because its worldview was most closely aligned with the Merchant Varna type, and East Asia will dominate the current Worker Age for the same reason; its worldview is closely aligned with the Worker Varna type.
Taub identified several Varna transitions. Spain was the last great power of the Warrior Age. Holland, home of the world’s first stock market, was the first power of the Merchant Age. It was superseded by England, which in turn was overtaken by the United States, the last great power of the Merchant Age.
In Taub’s Caste Model, each Varna stage brings about positive and negative changes. The Warrior Age perfected the art of war, but Warrior Age kings like Constantine and Ashoka also spread spiritual consciousness through religions such as Christianity and Buddhism.
Similarly, the Merchant Age saw colonial exploitation but also launched the scientific revolution and shifted humanity’s focus from the next life to this world. The Worker Age was hyper-materialistic but also developed solidarity, the first age to demand basic human needs for all people, including food, housing, education, and medical care.
Taub’s model describes the rise of a new Varna in three steps: the Pioneering Stage, the Revolutionary-Evolutionary Stage, and the Peak Stage.
In his model, the world is now nearing the Peak Stage of the Worker Age. But remnants of the previous Merchant Age still linger: excessive wealth concentration, environmental destruction, and a tendency to prioritize profit over people.
The Worker Age has yet to reach its peak, but the next Varna has already made its presence felt. It started in the second half of the 20th century, when a growing number of people started to reject the hyper-materialism that characterizes the Worker Age.
It led to the emergence of the hippie movement, New Age, and a growing interest in Eastern spiritual practices like yoga and meditation.
Taub’s Caste Model explains a seemingly contradictory trend: the simultaneous emergence of consciousness-raising movements such as the hippie movement and New Age, and the rise of fundamentalism in Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism. In Taub’s model, these trends are all part of the early stage of the next Varna Age, the Satya Yuga.
Taub published his book after a series of lectures in Tokyo during the 1980s. The book did not attract much attention in the West, but a Japanese translation reached the No 1 spot on that country’s best-seller list. It was followed by a Korean and a Spanish translation.
Takuya Murata, a Japanese scholar who reviewed Taub’s book for Futures magazine in 2007, recognized that Taub’s model shed light on the contradictory developments in the world today – secularity and religious fundamentalism. Murata wrote:
“As today is the Worker Age, in Taub’s view, the Spiritual-Religious Age [II] should follow next. By this logic, events relating to religion and spirituality should be currently emerging issues. This does seem to be happening globally in different ways. The Islamic Revolution [in Iran] of 1979 occurred against the secularizing trend of both capitalism and communism.”
Murata continued:
“In the 1990s, the collapse of the secular Soviet Union was followed by the return of Muslim practices to Central Asia. We are indeed seeing the emergence of religious-political groups, for instance the Christian right in Europe and the US and the BJP [Bharatiya Janata Party] in India.
“Taub’s prediction fits at the intersection of the global re-emergence of religion and the social search for meaning in this increasingly consumerist world.”
In Taub’s model, the Merchant Age lasted about 300 years, from the 16th to the early 20th century. The current Worker Caste Age will last less than a century, from the early 20th century to about 2050. The Worker Age will provide most of humanity with basic material needs, but it will lead to the end of (most) work. The only work that will remain is work that requires human care and empathy.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution now being shaped in China will see the deployment of artificial intelligence (AI), robotics, the Internet of Things (IoT), and other forms of hyper-automation. The next Varna stage, the Satya Yuga, will be marked by a shift in values and worldviews.
“By 2050, or somewhat later,” Taub writes, “machines and the energy to run them (mostly light and solar) will be so sophisticated that human and machine will be integrated. With basic needs met, economic activity will cease to be the center of human life.
“Due to the general trend of the new age toward religion and spirituality, economic activity – and related worker-caste activities such as science, technology, and materialism – will lose its centrality in any case.”
Taub predicts the “spiritualization” of economic life by several movements: voluntary simplicity, appropriate technology, the end of poverty, and the end of (most) work. These movements require a complete reorganization of the current system, which Taub believes is beyond the capabilities of the current Worker Age.
“Our current Worker Age,” Taub writes, “is an age of both great spiritual and material development. But it is also the Kali Yuga, the most socially alienated, materialistic, spiritually dark and dismal, complicated, disorienting, and dangerous of all caste ages. It is, in short, the best and worst of all possible worlds so far.”
As we move out of the Kali Yuga and into the Satya Yuga, people have to adjust mentally to life without work. In the Worker Age, our identities and social status are closely linked to our job, profession, or skill, be it engineer, doctor, or accountant.
AI will diminish the value of professional knowledge, but it will give people more time for social, spiritual, and leisure pursuits.
In the “Post-Fourth Industrial Revolution,” it will no longer be important what you know but what you are. According to Taub, the currency of the new Satya Yuga will be self-knowledge rather than knowledge.
There will be no more workers, merchants, and warriors. There will only be teachers and students, and the Caste System will become history.
BEIJING: China is bracing for a record-high travel rush over the Labour Day holiday, with popular sightseeing spots selling out of tickets and some cities warning would-be visitors away as domestic tourism rebounds after Beijing ended COVID-19 curbs. Authorities are expecting 19 million trips to be made across China’s vastContinue Reading
KUALA LUMPUR: Barisan Nasional’s (BN) supreme council has unanimously agreed to support the unity government led by Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, said its secretary general Zambry Abd Kadir. “Barisan Nasional is committed to jointly develop the people’s policy agenda and continue to implement it,” he said in a statementContinue Reading
The first shipment of 78 Thai residents from army – torn Sudan arrived at Bangkok’s Don Muang Royal Thai Air Force Base on Thursday evening.
The evacuees- 40 women and 38 men- were welcomed by caregiver Prime Minister and Defence Minister Prayut Chan – o – cha, Defence Forces chief Gen Chalermpol Srisawat, Air Force commander ACM Alongkorn Wannarot, Foreign Affairs Minister Don Pramudwinai, Prime Minister’s secretary – public Pirapan Salirathavibhaga, and other big – ranking officials. & nbsp,
Gen Prayut thanked executives from all authorities involved in the elimination activities. The next batch of residents is expected to arrive in Thailand on Saturday.
An Airbus A340 – 500 aircraft transporting the 78 residents departed from King Abdulaziz aircraft in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and arrived at Wing 6 around 10pm. The riders included 73 academics and five leaders from the Foreign Affairs Ministry. Most of the students were studying remedy, Muslim law, and faith in the African land.
There are 132 more Thais awaiting travelling up to Thailand. Of them, the second class of 66, who boarded the Air Force C – 130 from Sudan, had already arrived in Jeddah and met with Thai Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Darm Boontham, and mind of the Air Force’s removal company in Jeddah, Capt Anurak Rommarak. & nbsp,
The second class of 66 residents had come from the Port of Sudan to Jeddah by fleet, with more people actually joining them. The Air Force has carefully coordinated with the Foreign Affairs Ministry to ensure the safe elimination of all Thais.
The Airbus A340 – 500 is expected to return to transport them & nbsp, from Saudi Arabia, and there are two Air Force C – 130s available there.
Caretaker Prime Minister Prayut Chan – o – cha leads senior officers and officials to welcome the Thai evacuees from Sudan at Wing 6 at Bangkok’s Don Muang Muang Royal Thai Air Force Base & nbsp, on Thursday night. ( Photo supplied / Wassana Nanuam )
On Thursday, & nbsp, Syrian fighter jets pounded military posts in Khartoum while terrible fighting and looting flared in Darfur, despite the army and a foe force agreeing to enhance a peace deal.