A REAL Spiderman from India

So what do you know?

We have a real life Spiderman from India to challenge that famous French men.

Jyothi Raj seems has this amazing ability to be glued to walls and to hang upside down on a vertical surface without using any safety equipment.






The 22-year-old, who lives in the south of India, discovered his incredible climbing ability four years ago while scaling bamboo scaffolding. It was there he realized he had an uncanny ability to place his hands and feet in exactly the right areas for a speedy climb.

Climbing the local fort in Chitradurga, Jyothi claims he feels no fear as he reaches heights of up to 300ft without using a harness. Look at the pictures of his supernatural feats.

The Great SILENCE on SPEAK ENGLISH DAY!

A dog chasing its own tail. What an apt analogy,this!

While the government has driven the last nail into the coffin for the continued teaching of English for Science and Mathematics at schools-at its own behest; the other important sector-the Civil Service seems to going the other way around.Thta, in a nutshell, is Malaysia Boleh! It is more enduring even than PM Najib's 1Malaysia!

Yes,INTAN started it many years back with its "Tuesday is Speak English Day!". But whatever became of it? It was mere sloganeering, the best thing the Malaysian Civil Service is good for.

So, on July 17, MAMPU,the Malaysian Administrative Modernisation and Management Planning Unit started its own English Day.“Monday is English Day. Just Speak!” screams the colourful posters posted via email to its 400 staff.You find them also pasted on the walls of lifts and notice boards.

It may be a great effort on the part of some overzealous big bosses but the end result will be the same. Almost nothing. There are few winning horses helming government departments. At best, they are second best; promoted all the years on other reasons and not merit. This is due to the prevailing political-ethnic psyche governing the civil service.

Expect another mammoth campaign down the drain.

English can be improved only if there are institutionalized carrots in the system.MAMPU must think of fusing this aspect into the promotional criteria of all civil servants. The examinations for English proficiency must be conducted by a third party. It must be both an oral and a written test. The British Council may not be the best. Soem of our retirees are better. Hire them to work in the Curriculum Division and they will match the British Council any day.

An English Monday or a Tuesday is piecemeal. It is just like asking a smoker not to smoke on these days and they they are at a liberty to smoke on the other 5 days. Such foolhardiness. Language is never acquired in this manner.

Let us get close to the buzz on this English Mondays at MAMPU.

Now, everyone is encouraged – in e-mail messages, prayer recitals, announcements and meetings – to speak English as much as possible that Monday. [I would really love to hear the azan and sermon spoken in English!]

“We want to boost the competency of all staff in speaking English,” a Mampu spokesman told The Straits Times.["If wishes were horses, beggars will ride them"]

The Retirement Fund Incorporated, or KWAP, which handles the pensions of some one million civil servants, is reaching for the same goal by taking a fun approach.

Investment and fund managers play a game of Scrabble or two to improve their vocabulary. Regular public speaking and book review sessions are held.[These are great way, mind you.]

Employees also write investment papers, presentations, the minutes of meetings, and blog entries in English. It is quite a switch from Malay, which is used throughout the rest of the government.[I wonder, whether this is sustainable, long term.]

“For an investment company, it is very important that your English is up to the mark, because all the investment reports and analyses are in English,” KWAP chief executive officer Azian Mohd Noh told The Straits Times. “There are no two ways about it, you have to master your English.”[You are a realist. I only hope you can see it through.]

It even invited the British Council to test the staff and conduct courses in articulation and grammar.[INTAN with retirees from the service can do as good but cheaper.]

Such measures have paid off. According to Datuk Azian, some 70 per cent of KWAP employees speak English well. Another 20 per cent who understand the language shy away from speaking it.(This, I got to hear!"

“We still need to do more. English is important. If you work in the financial sector and deal with international counterparts, it will be a setback (if your English is not up to par),” she said.

Over nearly four decades, Malay has become important for political reasons and is now a very sensitive issue.

English was the medium of instruction in schools until it was replaced with Malay in the 1970s.

The soft push for the use of English at the workplace has been prompted by criticism that the standard of English has declined alarmingly since.

As a result, Malaysia’s global competitiveness has suffered, with many graduates possessing inferior English language skills, critics say.

Along with its decline in schools, English has also been neglected by most civil servants. With Malays making up 80 per cent of civil servants, many, apart from higher-ranking officers, prefer to use Malay daily. Thus there is some resistance to programmes that require them to speak English.

One Mampu worker joked that it would be a “Silent Monday”, referring to the fact that many would prefer not to speak to avoid speaking in English.[What a realist!]

“My English is a little rusty,” she said. “Most people still speak in Malay, but I guess in a more formal setting like a meeting, they converse in English.”

There is no penalty if an employee switches to his mother tongue, so the move is just a gentle nudge to ease civil servants into grappling with the language, broken or otherwise.[There is no such thing as broken English or Manglish,hear?]

An internal e-mail said: “Only a number of personnel are really into this programme. Do not worry so much about speaking grammatically correct. Practice makes perfect.”[Fossilised mistakes will occur if not corrected!]

A chief clerk with a district land office in Selangor said that her command of the English language deteriorated after she stopped using it when she joined the civil service 28 years ago.

“Even today’s graduates can’t converse in English very well,” she said.

The clerk said that the state government had tried implementing English Thursdays and other programmes but that they never got off the ground.( Is it any wonder?]

But some insist that such programmes can succeed.(In a place called EREHWON,read backwards, please]

A former civil servant of five years said: “Even if they speak broken English, it’s good for them to build confidence.”[Psychological crutches?]

She said she often ended up doing a lot of administrative work when traveling on overseas assignments, even when the support staff were meant to handle it, because of communication breakdowns.[Hear,hear!]

“A lot of them can’t speak or write in English. That’s what happens when you keep speaking the same language,” she told The Straits Times.[Wah,sudah bangun,pun!]

But some analysts feel that the entire system needs a major overhaul, including using English in all official documents.

“You need at least one competent speaker in a government department for this sort of programme to work,” said analyst James Chin of Monash University Malaysia Campus. “If all of them are not competent, it will not work.”[Where does he get this premise?]

He pointed out that the English policy that was scrapped from schools last month failed because too many teachers were not fluent in the language.

“If department heads are not fluent, subordinates will follow what they do,” said Chin. “Until they get real English speakers in the civil service and allow the use of English in all official documents, instead of just Malay, it will not work.” – The Straits Times

Are we chasing rainbows here?

What an eye opener, don't you think?

Is the Bursa About to Undergo Correction?

A blogger, Sensesen thinks so.

So he has asked us to watch the following counters if we want to pick some on the way down. He has suggested chiefly the lower liner steel and construction-related stocks particularly Sino Huaan, Kinsteel, Perwaja, MRCB, Ranhill and UEM Land.He expects these as top technical picks to out-perform the broader market.

An overpriced Wall Street is currently expected to undergo deep correction before the second leg up theory of Warren Buffet can take place. As such Bursa and Far-East markets are unexpected to follow suit. Nonetheless, Sensesen expects profit-taking to be shallow given that most investors would have sold on the rally the previous few weeks, and are looking to buy back upon a more significant correction. He anticipates core blue chips to consolidate while buying interest shifts towards lower liners on active rotational plays.

On blue chips, investors should consider buying on dips, defensive gaming stocks Genting Bhd and Genting Malaysia given that the H1N1 virus scare has pressured share prices down to bargain levels. Sensesen also suggest that we look out on Kencana and Wah Seong, as well as to buy DNP, Hovid, Leader and RCE Capital on any profit-taking dips.

As for the KLCI, immediate support upon correction is set at 1,180, with 1,171, then 1,164 and 1,156 acting as stronger support platforms. On the upside, the significant upside hurdle will be at the 1,200 psychological level, which requires a bullish breakout to aid further upside towards 1,220, and then 1,248, which represents the 61.8 per cent FR of the fall from 1,525 all-time high to 801 pivot low, acting as a major resistance.

It makes sense,Sensesen!

Wonderful Way of Teaching English Using Realia.

I have often heard of English teachers bringing their pupils to the actual places to teach them words. While I was a co-teaching TESOL to would be teachers, I was told of a guy called Reuben and how he went to the Mont Kiara condominiums on his motorbike from Cheras to teach expatriate Korean and Japanese kids there. We we told of hi exploits bringing these children a tn Indian restaurant to explain to them what were the foods which has English equivalent.Words like prawnw wwere taught by pointing at the cooked unshelled prawns and the various Indian vegetables using cabbage, lady's fingers and round eggplants.

This afternoon, while at the Tesco Supermarket in Kota Damansara, I chance to see a white man bringing a small group of Korean and Japanese kids around. He points at a type a vegetable and asked the students what that was. The students appeared wide eyed and so he gave the answers. This is celery I heard he peak. As he went around, I heard him say 'leek','spinach''round cabbage' and so forth. So I stopped and asked him whether he was a teacher and those were his students. He said he was. I told him I am also a teacher and that I was taught the same method to teach using realia. I then sought his permission to take a photograph as he continued teaching. He agreed. I will post the picture here soon.

All for the Love of the Love Bug, Herbie!

Yes, I was walking home from town one day. It was sweltering hot and I took a shortcut through back lanes just to shorted my journey. There in one of the back lane I saw this white Volkswagen. It was painted with the number 53 on its front and back bonnet.It was Herbie! So, I took my hand-phone camera and took the photograph. The classic Love Bug starring Dean Jones and Michelle Lee premiered in the late 60s. Therefore the owner of the car must be a senior citizen by now.They must have love Herbie plenty to paint their car to be a such a look-alike.

Should Sime List its Plantation Sector?

After bluntly telling Maxis to return home to re-list in the Bursa, PM Najib has hinted in the clearest terms for Sime Darby to go fully plantation and to dispose its other loss making business.

In true Malaysian fashion of Malaysia Boleh, PM Najib is telling the GLCs such as Sime to shape up or ship out.

A good time for a company to shape up nowadays is when the PM chastised you.That seems to be the trend.

Sime Darby obviously needs a big overhaul. It should consider listing its prized plantations business and selling its underperforming motor unit to boost valuations and compete better with fast-growing rivals.

Competitors to Sime such as Singapore-listed Wilmar and Indonesian Astra Agro Lestari have emerged as key beneficiaries of recovering palm oil prices driven by better growth potential and a greater focus on commodity businesses.

Shackled by an unwieldy gamut of businesses from property in China to selling BMW cars in Malaysia, Sime risks losing its No. 1 slot unless it overhauls its sprawling empire to focus on boosting palm oil yields, the key determinant of profitability.

Plantations accounted for about 74 per cent of Sime Darby's 2008 profit with the rest coming from property, motor, heavy equipment and energy, according to company data.

Majority-owned by the state asset manager and the Employees Provident Fund, Sime Darby's business model bundles the cash-generating plantations operations with other less profitable divisions such as the motor unit.

Investors are already taking note. Wilmar's shares have surged 120 per cent and Indonesia's top planter, Astro Agro is up 86 per cent versus a 60 per cent rise in Sime Darby's stock. Wilmar is valued at US$27 billion (RM95 billion) while Sime has a valuation of US$14 billion.

While Wilmar's EPS is set to shrink 35 per cent in Jan-Dec 2009 and Astra Agro's EPS is e expected to drop 25 per cent, earnings per share at Sime Darby, whose financial year ends in June, is expected to fall 44 per cent in fiscal 2009.

Sime Darby, created through a merger between three plantation groups in 2007, holds 844,000 hectares of plantation land that spreads over Asia and Africa, making it the world's largest land bank.

Indonesian plantation firms, equipped with vast land resources, are growing fast and could overtake Sime.

Sime Darby is trading on a 2009 forecast price to earnings multiple of 25, the same as rival IOI Corp and lower than Wilmar's 28. It's return on equity at 9.2 per cent is lower than 14 for IOI and 13.6 for Wilmar and 33 for Astra Agro.

So, making an plantation IPO makes sense!

Many investors want Sime to list its crowned jewel division to enhance its appeal as a pure play plantations firm.

Sime should consider an IPO next year because valuations could be more attractive when equity and crude palm oil markets get on to a better footing.

Many suspect that this was what Wilmar is aiming for.

Apparently, Sime Darby is not ready to do this anytime soon, that was their official reply.

Some analysts say Sime Darby could follow in the footsteps of Indonesia'a finance-to-automobiles conglomerate PT Astra International Tbk, which separately listed its plantations business Astra Agro more than a decade ago.

Astra Agro stands as a pure oil palm estate owner, offering investors a direct exposure to its lucrative plantation cash-flows and into the global palm oil industry worth US$45 billion annually or even more.

"Something like Astra... would be positive for Sime in terms of a purer plantation play. Of course, investor interest would be more on the plantation one rather than its holding company," said an analyst of a foreign brokerage in Kuala Lumpur.

Despite its size, Sime benefits the least from a positive crude palm oil price trend according to Morgan Stanley.

A 10 per cent rise in CPO prices adds only 5 per cent in Sime earnings while such a swing would raise Astra Agro's earnings by 13 per cent, the investment bank said in a note.

But a spin-off of the plantations business, may not go down well with Sime Darby, which has said it wants the company to remain a conglomerate.

It has recently added to its diverse portfolio with new acquisitions in energy and health-care.

That may be so, but will they defy the PM and earn his wrath? Not those people at the helm of Sime who are so enamoured to the PM for the extension of their Chairmanship as well as Board membership They will only do so at their own behest!If they should screw up, there will be many such as the likes of Azman Mokhtar who will be waiting in the wing to take over this global giant of a company!

More Unemployment by Year end 2009

So, not all is well. As many expect some growth in the last quarter of 2009,today's projection of higher unemployment is definitely a dampener to high hopes. Mulling on the figure of 4.5% as the expected rate of unemployment by year-end, International Trade and Industry Deputy Minister Mukhriz Mahathir told reporters that this is higher than last year's rate of 3.7%.

"To us, the figure is high and we have never reached this high a figure before. At the same time, we are trying to reduce the jobless rate," he retorted after launching the Third National Internship Challenge here.

He said most factories that had laid off workers had begun to take back their former employees after demand had picked up.

As of July 7, Mukhriz said, statistics compiled by the Human Resources Ministry showed a cumulative figure of 38,732 workers retrenched due to the economic crisis.

Of the total, 29,712 were permanently terminated while 9,020 accepted voluntary separation offers. In addition, 40,662 workers had their pay reduced while 4,112 were temporarily laid off.

In his speech earlier, Mukhriz said that although downsizing in the current downturn was not as severe as during the 1997/98 Asian financial crisis when 84,000 Malaysians had lost their jobs, it was still a cause for concern.

"We need to do something by coming up with creative action to minimise the impact of this current crisis.

So, is his prediction going to come true?