It takes a village to raise a child. Not just because extra hands can relieve some burden off parents’ shoulders, but because social engagement has a significant influence in the making of an adult. Urban children more specifically have limited avenues for interaction, often confining themselves to...

Just 3 days ago, I was at the park, and a 6-year-old boy repeatedly punched a 4-year-old boy in his butt, his fists clenched tight. This is not something new for us. This boy has been this way for a long time. Over the years, many kids had been roughly shoved, toys snatched away and rammed into. Str...

Wawasan 2020 – Ceritaku, Ceritamu

Wawasan 2020 – masa tu tahun 1991, aku baru Form 3. Berita, surat khabar, teks ulangkaji, petikan-petikan majalah penuh dengan idea Wawasan 2020. Wawasan 2020 ni merupakan brainchild Tun Mahathir. Tapi masa tu kita tak panggil Tun, kita panggil Dr. Mahathir. Meman...

So why get married? For love? For love, two persons can just spend lots of time together, so why bother throwing an expensive wedding, sharing a 20 year home mortgage and putting oneself through the complications of bearing and raising a family?

Because while love is good, division of wealth and...

I have seen many a downfall of families. We know of many reasons for this but here's a less discussed one - the vindictive son-in-law.

Marrying into any family means that one is marrying into a belief system, a way of life, a conviction. It also means marrying into a distinct culture, religious af...

Preface: Pineapples are native to Malaysia. Malaysian manufacturers make juices, canned desserts, jams and cookies with them, mostly for the export market. Malaysian mums and wives on the other hand make pineapple jam tarts with them, mostly for festive seasons (we have like 6 or 7 festives in here)...

Believe: an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof.

Conviction: the quality of showing that one is firmly convinced of what one believes or says.

I was 19 when I stumbled upon an article about the confession of an elderly white man about old age and about dying...

We have come to a point where human knowhow and skills have expanded in depth and breadth - and for us to participate in an economy dictated by these, we have to pursue a high degree of specialization.

So what does this mean to parents? Amidst all the talk and attention given to exams and grades,...

Seemantham is often known as the traditional baby shower. In truth though, Seemantham and baby shower are two very different events – not because one is traditional and the other is Western, but because the focus of each celebration is very different. For Seemantham, the focus is on the mum-to-be wh...

For those soon-to-be mums and their mummies and all the busybody girls/ladies like me, here’s a special post about the traditional baby shower event (Indians know this as ‘Seemantham’/‘Valaikappu’).

A few weeks back we had the opportunity to be part of a really nice traditional baby shower thanks...

At a random car sale event, there are two cars for sale and the salesman tells you that both cars boast the same technology, material, design, features, look and feel. One has the BMW mark, the other with its brand missing. Which one would you buy? If the BMW cost RM350K, how much would you pay for...

When I was younger, I used to pray fervently to the Gods of Important Things. Gods of Important Things, in my view, are the big guys who take care of things like birth and death, family, health, exam grades and careers. I remember very well my moments of deep prayer - standing in front of the altar...

What’s the best age gap for marriage? Actually, there is no best age gap. Everyone has their own way of thinking, and maturity levels and different make in terms of the soul, so what fits will fit and what doesn’t will not. But having had a fair share of experience (my own and that of my close ones)...

For Indians in Malaysia, as minorities and as a community with a significant share in the economically-challenged portion of the society, the choice facing our households and individuals is often between working hard for what we want OR fighting hard for what we want.

My personal experience point...

What are your expectations of the person that you want to get married to?

Over these decades, I am seeing a certain trend among our young people. In the 40s through 70s, young people had little expectations of the people they were going to marry. As long as it is a person of the opposite gender a...

Large parts of my childhood and early teenage years were influenced by the ideals depicted in one of the most significant Hindu epics of all time, the Ramayana, which forms the foundation of many a guiding principles across various aspects of Hindu culture and practices. Ramayana holds to the idea o...

I had an opportunity recently to learn more about the first year commemoration prayers for the passing of our elders, having conducted the prayers recently at home. I thought that penning this down will help the likes of myself who have always relegated ourselves to the status of apprentices or pass...

17 or 18 years of age is a crucial time in life for young people today. Think of it, until that point, almost everyone is DEBT FREE because frankly speaking, we spend very little for our education up to Form 5 or Form 6. Even those who are graduating from private and international schools have no de...

A month ago, I was invited to speak about Digital Entrepreneurship at the International Telugu Women's Day event organized by the Telugu Association of Malaysia (TAM) in conjunction with the celebration of the International Women's day. TAM is a non-profit and non-governmental organisation for peopl...

An end note for 2018.

Hypocrisy and racism are but the different sides of the same coin. No no, I am so not going to talk about being Indian or Hindu, as it comes with the ready privilege of sharing your genetics, beliefs and resources with another 1.7 billion people on this planet. I am going to...

Men by definition are those who can defend their family, their community, their faith and their country. Women by definition are those who stay faithful to their men in their men's quest to defend the above.

So technically, if an Earthling girl marries a Martian boy, she will be pledging her allia...

So let's discuss blame. More specifically the blame on the education system. Because that's the way public sentiment is headed these days. Unemployment. Blame the education system. Exports still commodity-based. Blame the education system. Obesity. Blame the education system. Poverty. Blame the educ...

Hi guys - have your ever found yourself at a funeral of a relative and you not having visited the person even once in the last umpteen years?

Well, I had the privilege of finding myself in this situation a couple of days back. Second time this year. It did feel awkward and weird so I did some thin...

Live and let live.

Anyone active on social media would have had a few encounters with haters. Haters I feel is a term so aptly coined in this era to identify people who provide no positive experience for people in their circle/friend list but are able to spurt out random hostilities and project th...

Phone makers are driving Mobile Operators' new services, and that is certainly the case for VoLTE and WiFi Calling. The increasing number of smartphones featuring VoLTE and WiFi Calling capabilities, according to Strategy Analytics Wireless Operator Strategies service report, has become a major forc...

English is not the reason why young graduates cannot find jobs. It's not like the rest of the working population are writing and communicating in impeccable English. 99% of Malaysians who mock others for not 'knowing' English write like this:

• "He only tell me he applied for the job"
• "If Englis...

Smartphones have become omnipresent. Mobile Internet has become pervasive through cities, towns and villages. People catch up on their favorite TV shows while travelling, while waiting at the post office and while taking a stroll in the park. Mobile data has become the world’s most transacted commod...

The way women dress and sexual crimes against women. Can women dress however they want? My take.

The zebra crossing has the pedestrian green light on, indicating it's safe to cross yet EVERY one of us will still look right and left, sometimes repeatedly, before crossing because we know as much as...

If you are the mathematically inclined type and thrive on learning processes that are intellectually challenging, I would say go for CFA. The rigour is second to none, and it's one of the most reputable post-degree qualifications there is.

You have heard of accountancy, and you have heard of finan...

In any part of the world, public service is defined by its highly standardised and rigid service structures, processes and hierarchies. People see the public services as highly bureaucratic while its employees, the public servants, see them as a set of strict process chains that they have to adhere...

The British rule that started descending on Andhra’s many regions from 1765 become more pronounced in the early 19th century. With the new rule came new policies that saw the regulation of a number of economic sectors, namely agriculture and manufacturing. As agriculture and post-harvest processing...

The focus on service innovation is intensifying among Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), and interestingly, for the first time, the push to find the next big thing to sell is being driven largely by competition from players outside the industry. Cable operators peddling data services, airlines providi...

Communities in Andhra Pradesh, just like in any other state in India, were organized along the lines of job specialization. Specialization helps more evolved economies to improve productivity, create surpluses and promote trade. Yes, specialization is not a new phenomenon. Many traditional economies...

There are almost 500,000 Telugus in Malaysia. Another 1 million in the United States, around 300,000 in Myanmar, 500,000 in the Gulf countries, 150,000 in Canada, 130,440 in Europe, 120,000 in Fiji, 100,000 in Singapore, 100,000 in Australia, 80,000 in South Africa and 50,000 in Mauritius. These mak...

Unless your learning rates (at 40 and beyond) are phenomenal, chances are you will feel like a fossil piece when you emerge out of your secure zone.

When it comes to MARKETING their CVs, people would rather sell big on those 4 assignments done in the last 2 years than the 30 assignments delivered...

Conventional hiring does not always work….why?

Do people with good grades make good workers? Do people who score high in IQ contribute more to your business? Who is more suited to your environment – the disciplined Gee or the loud opinionated Bob or the IT geek Hans? How does internal culture dete...

''Today, we don’t sell ‘things and services’ anymore. We sell experience and people are paying for experience.''

People spend 70 dollars for a dinner for two – pan fried dory with potato chips and lobster cream sauce – in an upscale restaurant on the high street. Why do people spend that much when...

Economic growth creates ample opportunities for entrepreneurs. With increased demand across key sectors and its domino effect into every small subsector, anyone with good ideas and the ability to organize a ‘production’ that yields surplus (after paying off the supply factors) can become an entrepre...

Flexible working. Alternative working arrangement. Mobile working. Telework. Whatever term we use, it means the same. It means you no longer sit in 9"x 6” cubicle 9am to 5am every single working day, every day of your working life. It means you can choose to work elsewhere. You can choose the way yo...

The repository of expertise that resides in the public service forms the backbone of its capability and capacity to govern. The traditional experts were the officers who learn the policies, strategies, rules and regulations and who apply them to their day-to-day administrative areas – be it for proc...

If you are contemplating on the activities that you can do for your kids this coming school holidays and unsure if they would work out well, the best way is to get your kids to design their own holiday plans. You can then minus an idea and plus another and you have a winning formula that makes your...

Is talent more crucial in the public sector than the private sector? Lets look at some of the following arguements:

Complexities in the economic and social sectors are increasing exponentially – with every emerging technology, thousands of new areas are created, requiring more policies, more strat...

The public sector, though not driven by revenues and profits, has more need for performance measurement than any private entity. Starting from the performance of individual employees, it has to measure the performance of units, departments, entire organisations, ministries and the total government....

With emerging technologies, fast-paced lifestyles, rapid changes in the way society is organised and the rapid growth in the economy, the public sector is left with little choice but to continuously reinvent its operation and delivery mechanisms. To date, innovations in the public sector has been ta...

In 2012, we conducted a nationwide survey to understand the career and workplace preferences of today’s female workforce. Survey participants were asked for their opinions on the attributes of a perfect workplace, the push and pull factors at today's places of employment and the employee’s choice in...

Why are big giants like Microsoft buying off small guys even before the market learns their names? Why are these big players scouting for ideas and products and all things new when they can build their own multi-million state-of-the-art labs and buy all the best expertise in the world? Innovation is...

NOT UNDERSTANDING THE MICRO LEVEL COMPLEXITIES

Why good understanding of the nature of work is crucial…

Our performance measures are highly customized for ONE reason – every environment, every person, every task and every target – are all unique. A sales executive in one organisation may be meas...