Anoop Shankar – Would NUS World Rankings be affected

The revelation of a ‘genius’ professor (Singapore has this fetish craving for geniuses) who was an academic staff of NUS but got caught with his pants down, with fake credentials in the US is sending a little tremor around our reputable institutions of higher learnings. We have carefully honed our skills by gaming the ranking systems, oops, I mean by making sure that we followed the norms set by international agencies, not intentionally of course, to raise our rankings to be among the top universities in the world. We are definitely not gaming, otherwise if the criteria demand having a monkey as a professor, they would have appointed a monkey to the staff too. Now doing that would be gaming. We are quite near to the class of Harvard and Cambridge, beating many top Ivy League universities in the US and UK. And we achieved this by sheer quality of the institutions and the staff.

Now we have this dubious honour of sharing in the hiring of a fake as an academic staff and publishing many papers to help in our rankings. How would this affect our university’s rankings? Is this another one of those, ‘it happens once in 50 years’ cases? If it is so, then we should thank God that it would not cause too much damage to our reputation. If it is not the case, and many more are fakes, then we will have a very embarrassing problem at hand.

How would we know that there are other fakes in the academia? The only way to find out is to comb through with a fine brush, the academic qualifications of the staff, especially the foreigners. The question is, do we want to do this and risk our rankings and reputations tumbling to the abyss? My suggestion is not to do anything. Let it be. Then we can keep our rankings and the integrity of the institutions? Did I say integrity? Oops, wrong choice of word definitely. Change that to reputation.

How many people really think that there is a need for a thorough investigation in the academia for fraudsters? This disease of having fakes and fraudsters in the whole island has been spreading and the writing has been on the wall for too long. And it is not only in the academia! It is something that must be done and in a hurry. But no one bothers. Or is this problem already known in the closed circles and the solution is to announce that no degrees also can if one can perform, and can be promoted to high positions too. Definitely not! These are two separate issues.

Do we have a problem? Yes, no? Do we want to acknowledge that we have a problem? Do we then want to address this problem? If all the answers are no, then we have no problems and Rip Van Winkle can go back to sleep for another 50 years. We can continue to plan for the big 50 year celebrations and party.

Some say the best solution to a nasty problem is to look the other way. Don’t talk about it, don’t do anything is the best.

Kopi Level - Green

This is my country

You want to come to my country, you behave properly. If your behavior is unacceptable, we will not let you in, even for a holiday. ‘The Immigration Officer  has the right to take stern action if Singaporeans behave in an inappropriate manner, he said. “Expulsion is allowed under the law.”’ An Indonesian spokesman confirmed this on air.’

When people visit another country, it is only expected that they behave well and stop making themselves a nuisance to the country. 50 Singaporeans have recently been barred from entering Batam for talking loudly. Why not, this is their country and you don’t treat it like it is your fish market. The visitors need to respect the rules and norms of a country as a guest.

But in some countries, or non countries, visitors can go there and do anything they want, like littering, shitting in public places, scolding the citizens, insulting the citizens and beating the citizens. And there is no law to put these disgraceful visitors away. Maybe the people of these non countries forgot the meaning of ‘This is my country’. They do not think they have any country anymore. Their countries belong to everyone. And they are the guests, the visitors and the visitors, the foreigners are the owners.
Got this type of country meh? Oops, got this type of non country meh? When a people become daft and silly, this will happen. Then they start to emigrate voluntarily from their ‘used to be country’ to other countries thinking they will get a better deal. They simply gave up their ‘used to be country’, gave their country  away, eased out of their country by the foreigners they invited to their country.

Just look at the Indonesians and the Malaysians or any other countries, they hold on to their countries closely to their hearts. For some countries, even if they seized some other people’s countries, like Australia, they would not allow other foreigners to come in freely. But some non countries like the USA, seized from the natives, the Red Indians, it is ‘free’ to other immigrants, provided they want you. But they make it very sure they are the owners and the visitors are called aliens.

Only silly non countries will turn themselves into aliens and let foreigners take over their jobs, their countries, with open arms. And then got kicked around by the foreigners and ended being evicted from their own countries without knowing why, without fighting or trying to defend their rights to their non countries.

And everytime a foreigner threatens to go somewhere or take their business somewhere, we wet in our pants. We even have to send our ministers to affirm ties with other countries when we sense that they are not happy with us. Is this true?

Kopi Level - Green

Tibet’s Going Back to the Future?

A Democratic Theocracy is an Oxymoron

Few knew the Tibet under the Dalai Lamas. Belied by the enchanting charismatic smile and wonderfully pleasant personality of the 14^th Dalai Lama, and under his and his predecessors’ direct political, social and religious leadership, was the darkest corner of China and possibly the world.  

Before 1959, Tibet was a feudal serfdom created by the integration of religion, politics and the dictatorship of monks and aristocrats, and one even darker and more backward than medieval Europe. The 14th Dalai Lama, like other Dalai Lamas before him, ruled over a Tibetan society which had integrated religion with politics as a feudal serfdom under a theocracy ruled by a combined dictatorship of monks and aristocrats.

The Dalai Lama’s Tibetan system tolerated no democracy, freedom or human rights in any form. In fact, the Tibetan serf slavery system was the darkest human slavery system in the history of mankind, and which spanned many centuries longer than the 400+ years of black slavery in the USA.  The Tibetan conditions were also more debasing and dehumanizing than medieval Europe in the latter’s darkest periods....

by Michael Heng PBM of MIKOspace

Read on:

http://miko-wisdom.blogspot.sg/2014/09/tibets-going-back-to-future.html

 

Kopi Level - Yellow

Ex NUS prof resume fraud

In the ST today, former asst professor of NUS ‘who landed a prestigious position at a United States university is now at the centre of a sensational fraud investigation’. Anoop Shankar’s resume includes ‘a doctorate in epidemiology, graduated from India’s top medical school when he was 21, was a member of the prestigious Royal College of Physicians and had been awarded a “genius” visa to America’.
 
I must say that was impressive. And more impressive, he was at the Duke NUS Graduate Medical School and his 3 papers with Associate Professor Koh Woon Puay must be so good that she had no reason to doubt his talent and is standing by the joint papers.
 
Now that this professor Anoop Shankar has lost all his positions in the US, maybe he can come back to this talentless island to resume his position here. When a person is good he is good. Just like when a person is good, without a degree doesn’t matter. Singapore has made a quantum leap forward by looking at real talent and performance and not about a piece of paper.
 
The Americans were not impressed and have regarded this as ‘among the most serious of its kind, has now also sparked scrutiny into the larger issue of fraud that goes unchecked at some institutes of higher education’.
 
Singapore has no such worry and has no need to go on a witch hunt. All the talents landed in Singapore are genuine talents with real certificates and degrees. Even got no degree never mind, can be promoted also if they are found to be good. And best if they can impress their fellow professors that they are really good.
Shall Singapore extend another welcome to this “genius? Give him a pink IC and we will have a good catch, another talented new citizen.

Kopi Level - Yellow

Our stock market is in the pink of health

I learnt something yesterday. Had this discussion with some very well versed businessmen on how to clinch a deal and was told that in many cases there were vested interests at stake. It is not a matter of how good is your service or product. They just would not give you the deal as that would mean losing their own stake. The best way is to go around it. One way is to include their share. Another is not to ruffle their feathers. A third way is to tell them their service or product is good but they can use your product or service and be more rewarding.
 
I have been singing the song that the stock market is dying. That is obviously wrong. It is better to sing songs of praise, that the stock market is in the pink of health, the best. That way everyone will be happy. Now that they are feeling elated, maybe I would like to suggest to them that the market can even be better if they restructure, revitalize, remodel the market to make it better. One way is to remove computers from being linked to the SGX computer system. This way would make the funds to trade more without the aid of computers. The volume will increase definitely as everyone will then be trading on a level playing field.
In addition, raise the bid value, minimum lot size go back to 1,000 shares. This way the computer traders would have to pay more and the exchange and brokers will stand to make more fees and commissions. London is more expensive than us, and we should aim to be like London at least in terms of trading fees or commissions.
 
And because everyone will be trading furiously, they need to have a break. Computers no need to take breaks, human beans need to. It will be healthy, kind and humane to reintroduce the lunch break. The traders can take a break, the punters can take a break, and the restaurants and foodcourts would be doing roaring business. Everyone will be happier and healthier and be very grateful to the SGX for such a great move.
And when everyone is happy, they will trade more and a positive cycle will result. And the stock market will become more active and trading volume will increase. The management of the stock market will be rewarded with bigger bonuses too.
 
See the contrasting approaches? Now everything is sounding so good and looking so positive. I am sure these suggestions will sound more palatable and can be implemented. One caveat, if things have not rotted to a state of beyond redemption.
 
Other suggestions to make the stock market more active: Follow the casinos, let each punter have $200 free to trade. Set up trading halls with a lot of TV screens like before for the punters to gather and chat, and better still, free kopi for them. This will replace the lack of stock price info removed from the TV. There are many more incentives to bring the crowd in.

Kopi Level - Yellow