ESTIMATES OF EXPENDITURE FOR THE - FINANCIAL YEAR 1ST APRIL, 1995 TO 31ST MARCH, 1996
Sir, I would like to thank Members who have spoken for their comments, for their compliments and, more importantly, for their criticisms. Many MPs, both in this Budget debate and in previous ones, have spoken from their heart about the changes in our society and about the very vexing question of censorship and what we can do against this assault of foreign values, foreign influences. Our concerns reflect profound changes in our society, in the region, in the whole world. This information revolution is making holes across national borders, making this a very different kind of world. And the basic dilemma we face is, on the one hand, we want to be fully a part of this world, regionalising, globalising our economy, making our port, airport the best in the world, paving the information highway right across our front door steps. So Internet, Singapore CableVision, EDB's good work, a whole range of measures that we are now undertaking from the economic and infrastructural viewpoint to make Singapore a hub so that anyone anywhere in the world who comes to Singapore will feel as much at home in Singapore as he is in Japan, or America, or Europe, or elsewhere. That is one big desire that we have as a nation, as a society. Then there is the other side which is worrying. We should worry, with each opening up, or as the Chinese say, "When we open the windows, the flies will come in." That with this opening up, we are in peril, foreign influences, the behaviour of young people, the relationship of men and women, of seniors and juniors, of teachers and students, of Government and leaders. We are afraid that in this opening up, we lose our sense of self, that we no longer become distinct as a separate people with our own identity. We all know the choice is not one or the other. This is a tension that we have to live with, that we have to live with as Government leaders, as Members of Parliament, as teachers, as grandfathers and fathers, as community leaders. It is inescapable. You know we are now embarked on this great move to regionalise the Singapore economy. At one level, it is an economic challenge. But at a much more profound level, it is a cultural challenge, whether as a result of all this opening up, we are still Singaporeans. You know the problems now with regionalisation. Our menfolk, they go overseas, sometimes they bring their families, the problem of children's education. Sometimes, they do not bring their families, affairs on the side, the family breaks up, problems that Dr Kanwaljit Soin has raised before in this House. Do we therefore say, "No, we don't want CableVision, we don't want Internet, we don't want regionalisation, we don't encourage foreigners in our midst."? We cannot. We want at the same time for the windows to be opened and, at the same time, for the flies to be gotten rid of. I do not think we can get rid of all the flies. But I think if we apply ourselves and if we are assiduous in our efforts, and if we have many fly swatters at hand, I think there are many things we can do to keep the flies off our plates. That we can do. I like to talk about the different mediums in turn. First, films and videos. Mr Peh Chin Hua talked about R(A) movies and their profitability. In fact, the trend is stable. Today, out of 111 cinemas in Singapore, 38, and none in housing estates, are licensed to screen R(A) movies. 15% of films are rated R(A), approved for first viewing. If we include repeat viewings, which is an indication of viewership level, R(A) movies are 13% of viewership. Yes, I know they get a little more than their share on the advertising pages of the newspapers but it is not that much. It is about 20%. And even those advertisements are severely controlled so that they are no different in standards from PG and G movies. As for the movie Nell, which Mr Peh Chin Hua talked about, I have not seen it. So I would have to refer his question to the Films Appeals Panel for their opinion. But we do not have a blanket ban on female nudity, even on PG. It depends on the context and whether it is exploitative. I think many of us here would remember that we had the serial Shaka Zulu on television, a very good serial, about the Zulus in South Africa and many serials contained pictures of topless women. But they were in a context which were not at all lewd and not at all exploitative and therefore television at that time, SBC, decided it was something which could be shown. We need a certain flexibility in our judgement. But I do not want to prejudge on Nell and I will refer the matter to the Films Appeals Board. On videos, we will tighten our laws because it is a recurrent problem in the housing estates. Flyers furtively distributed, quick orders are made, children sometimes are used to distribute them. And then big profits are made and before you know it, pager numbers are changed, they are off to the next housing estate for the next quick haul. But every time you receive such a flyer, and here I would ask MPs to get their grassroots leaders to inform us immediately when they see such flyers, we mount an operation. And we have caught many of them. But our present laws need to be tightened. We are now looking at increasing the penalties, including making jailing mandatory for repeat offenders, and I think they deserve to go to jail for making money out of such despicable trade in obscene videos and tapes. We will also include a presumptive clause so that anyone caught with five or more items is presumed to be a distributor. Because, otherwise, it is a difficult task for the public prosecutor to prove that someone is not just owning, that he is actually a distributor. But these are just some flies that we are hoping to swat. Today, you can put whole encyclopedias in little CD-ROMs. You put it in your pocket, you walk through Customs, no one is the wiser. Dr Koh Lip Lin mentioned just now that, today, you can get Penthouse and Playboy on Internet. I am not going to explain how it can be done. But believe you me, it can be done and it is one big headache for us in MITA, for us in the Singapore Broadcasting Authority. But we will think of ways and means to do it. But even if we cannot do it fully, we will continue to censor and to make a point on censorship so that those who are making money cannot thumb their noses in front of us. And if we catch you making money from it, we will send you to jail. It is important to establish the point, to keep surreptitious activities surreptitious, and not allow them to be legitimised. Now, I would like to talk a little about Internet, a point which was raised by Dr Koh Lip Lin and Dr Vasoo. We have something like 26,000 subscribers now. It is growing very rapidly, I think by over 1,000 a month. And I think within a few years, it will become part of our lives, at least part of our lives for those who are below 25 years old. Of course, for those of us who are a little older, it may be a bit more difficult because our fingers are more arthritic. But for the younger generations, for those in university, it is already a part of their lives, working before the screens. And this is a big problem. Internet was designed during the Cold War to be proof against nuclear attack. And the great irony of the genius of the design happened during the Gulf War when after neutralising Saddam Hussein's C3 system, his headquarters turned to Internet. And there, you try to block, it is a cat and mouse game. And I do not know whether it is true or not, but there are reports that their orders got through Internet, courtesy of what was once US Department of Defence ArpaNet. What an irony. But it explains why chasing someone through this great city of Internet is such a horrifying problem. My staff in MITA, NCB and elsewhere, NSTB, other agencies have thought long and hard about this. Do we try to block Internet? Or do we promote it? Let us say we block it, make it difficult. There is nothing to stop Singaporeans from calling up Batam and then you access Internet from Batam. Or calling up Johor Baru, or Hong Kong and accessing Internet from there. So once we accept that we cannot keep out Internet, we might as well turn it around and say, "Look, how can we turn it to our advantage?" In other words, I have got to go to New York, sleaze, crimes, all the other problems, but I am going to make money in New York and I am going to achieve something in New York. So I prepare myself and I move in, in a concerted, careful and responsible manner. And this is the approach that we should take on Internet which is why Mr Philip Yeo is now chairing an inter-agency committee to see how we can hook-up not just our universities and our polytechnics, but also our junior colleges and our schools. And I think, as parents, it is important that we know a little of what Internet is about so that we are not overly surprised by what we sometimes see on the screen on Internet. Our strategy on Internet is we jump in. We jump in as Government, we jump in as PAP, as Young PAP, we jump in as commercial establishments. And then within the city of Internet, we carve out a neighbourhood for ourselves. And if we spot problems, we alert each other, we alert SBA. And some laws apply in Internet. You defame someone on Internet, well, that is defamation and we can catch you in our courts. You broadcast pornography, if Penthouse and Playboy were in Singapore, I think we will catch them. But, unfortunately, they do not operate in Singapore. But anyone who operates in Singapore, who operates a broadcast facility which Singaporeans can fully access, I think our laws will apply to them. I made this speech about regulating Internet a couple of weeks ago and I have been flamed and called obscene names. But it means that our presence and our intention are noticed. And if we persist, we will give heart to other communities who are equally concerned and wanting to act. So recently, Senator James Exon, US, Nebraska, has said any inter-state traffic in pornography, they should move laws to prosecute. And in New Zealand now, there is another Bill on the floor against pornography which can effectively kill Internet. I do not think we want to kill Internet but I think those who thumb their noses at us, who want to make money from this, we find ways and means to fix them. There is not very much that we can do but there are some things that we can do, and I assure Members here that we will try our very best. Mr Peter Sung mentioned about the possibility of technical devices which can be used to sniff out the problems and attack them. We are looking at the possibilities but, as I said, it was designed against nuclear attack and it is not something which can be easily countered against. On television, the situation this year has changed from the last two years because since 1st October, we have privatised SBC and we now have a regulatory agency, which we did not have in the past, called Singapore Broadcasting Authority. So many comments which are made about how these companies ought to operate, like Dr Ahmad Mattar's proposal for the use of certain producers and not use of certain other people, I will ask SBA to pass on these comments if they are helpful to the companies. But it is really not proper, now that we have privatised the companies, for us to intervene and interfere directly in the operations of the companies. But SBA is a creature of Parliament, and we can tell what SBA should do. 5.00 pm SBA will, in turn, have committees to advise it. Prof. Eddie Kuo, who is on the Advisory Committee on Chinese SBC shows, is now an advisory committee member of SBA. Equally, Mr Hsuan Owyang has agreed to chair the Programme Advisory Committee of SBA, and this will supersede the Censorship Review Panel that we had for the last three years. I am glad to announce here that Mr Dhanabalan has volunteered to chair an advisory council on Indian programmes, because many Indian MPs are very frustrated by the lack of progress in Indian programming. It is very difficult because the managers, SBA officers, Ministry officials, many of us do not know Tamil and as a result of which, over the years, it has become a kind of a ghetto, and this is not good. They feel that it is a facility with an influence which we should make use of. And as part of it, later in the year, we will move Tamil broadcasts from Channel 8 to Channel 12, so that they will have more prime time and better air time. At this point in time, I would like to thank the many MPs who have been very helpful to SBA on many of its committees - Madam Yu-Foo Yee Shoon and Mr Lau Ping Sum who are on the Advisory Committee on Chinese SBC shows, and Mr Dhanabalan and Mr Sinnakaruppan who are on the Indian Advisory Committee. I was concerned by Dr Ahmad Mattar's comments on the quality of Malay broadcasts. I ought to respond to him and say that we will form a committee to see how we can improve Malay broadcasts. [Hon. Members proposed Dr Ahmad Mattar.] Of course, if Dr Ahmad Mattar is prepared to help, then we will be very happy to have his help. This is not a matter to be taken lightly. An hon. Member: Let him think about it! BG George Yong Boon Yeo: Yes, let him think about it. We should not rush into such matters. We are not doing it for show. We are doing it as part of a long-term effort to improve the quality of our TV channels. But television is strange, no two persons will have the same opinion of what is seen. You mix with a group of friends, say, all men, they have certain judgments. You go back home, you talk to your wife, and she has a completely different set of views. So it was quite surprising when the Advisory Committee on Chinese SBC shows did its survey which showed that most Singaporeans were blissfully unaware of the debates that we have been having. I take Mr Choo Wee Khiang's point and the point made by many of the MPs here, "Look, we are MPs, we are parents, we are leaders, we cannot be led. We must lead." Because the mission of TCS and TV12 is not just to entertain, it is also to inform and educate. But we cannot avoid also having to entertain because there are options available for the viewer. Already, the Malaysian TV channels are giving us a hard fight. When they put on a Cantonese broadcast, Channel 8 has got an uphill task to win back audiences. Indonesian channels are now clearly received if you put boosters on the East Coast. And come June this year, Singapore CableVision is unrolling two to three dozen channels, starting with Tampines New Town. From 1st June, the cables will pass 50,000 households there and after that, every few months it will unroll all over Singapore. Within three or four years, all of us will have access to dozens of channels. So Channels 5, 8 and 12 face a tremendous task maintaining their position. They are special because they are national broadcasters. Channels 5, 8 and 12 should be like Straits Times, Zaobao and Berita Harian. We can read Time magazine, Newsweek, International Herald Tribune and Asian Wall Street Journal. But the day is not complete until I have read the Straits Times and Zaobao, because that is where the local news is. And we must so contrive it and so push Channels 5, 8 and 12 that even if there are 20-30 channels, Channels 5, 8 and 12 remain home channels. The day is not complete until I find out what is happening on Channels 5, 8 and 12, and which is why the process of localising programming is very important. I know it is not easy. Standards are not always up to expectations. We push them on. Sometimes they make mistakes, they come back. From time to time, they come up with winners like "Under One Roof" and "Masters of the Sea" which some Members have complimented TCS on. But we do not know how long the interest can be sustained. Audiences are fickle. So SBA has a big task, making sure that it has got the pulse of the whole population, not just us, but men and women, different races, different religions, different age groups, different income groups. They have come up with a proposal to work with the People's Association, so that in every constituency, the grassroots organisations will form special committees to give feedback to SBA. Then SBA has got to balance this against the needs of ratings and to come up with an optimum mix between information, education and entertainment. I think this will help us to get, in a very systematic way, a good feel across the board of public response to local broadcasts. The difficulty that we face is whom do we speak to. The people who are unhappy tend to speak louder. The people who are happy tend not to talk about it. I think we have got to get information more systematically. In terms of viewership, there is no problem with the Nielsen meter. In fact, minute by minute, television programmes are being monitored today. Mr Goh Choon Kang asked why Channel 8 and Channel 5 should push for longer hours. This is a competitive requirement. What we want is audience loyalty. After a while when there are so many channels available, all of us have got preferred channels. It is like radio today. We may have 10 pre-set buttons on our car radio. But after a while, you will go to one or two stations which you have gotten used to. And this is what will happen on television. So for this reason, there is a requirement because of market competition for the different channels to extend their hours of broadcast. But will this mean that we will all end up being television junkies? SBA has done some research of what is happening in other countries and they found that even when there are more channels, the number of viewing hours per day tend to remain constant. What happens, in fact, is from broadcasting to narrow-casting, and different people with different interests, will tend to see different channels to suit their interests. The consequence of all this will be that instead of the whole family watching one channel, the whole family may be watching different channels. And the latest statistics already show that something like one-third of households in Singapore have two or more television sets. I believe Dr Ahmad Mattar asked why is it we have "Japan Hour". In fact, "Japan Hour" is a very popular programme, not just among the Japanese but among many local Singaporeans who find some coverage of Japanese society very interesting. I attended a dinner at the Japanese Ambassador's house the other night. And the Japanese ladies were telling me how they rush home to catch the "Japan Hour", and they are a big community in Singapore and of great importance to us, some 20,000-30,000 of them, with their own school, shopping centres and so on. In fact, once Singapore CableVision starts operations, we will have a full channel dedicated to Japanese broadcasting, as we will have for German, French, American and so on. So that the international communities who live in Singapore will find us a very convenient place to operate from - schools, television, food, restaurants, golf courses and so on. It is a very good sign that all the international schools in Singapore today are heavily over subscribed and have got waiting lists. It shows that we are succeeding in our national strategy to be a hub city, attracting them to set up operational headquarters here and operating from Singapore to serve the region. But, as I said earlier, the consequence is that the flies come in - foreign influences which we must somehow try to contain and confine. Mr Choo Wee Khiang asked whether some of SBA's licence fees could go to Radio Heart. I presume he was asking in his capacity as Chairman of Radio Heart. Well, not in the immediate future, not for a few more years, because we have got to assess how well our local national broadcasters, the successor companies of SBC, both television and radio, survive in a multi-channel environment. In other words, until the full effects of cable television (SCV) are assessed, I think we should concentrate precious little public resources on those channels and stations, and then assess the situation. If we, at that time, decide that the position is stable and they can survive on their own and that we can spread out public broadcasting funds to other private stations, then we will consider doing so. So in the meantime, I am afraid that the SAFRA station has got to lean on the Mindef budget, and Radio Heart has got to lean on the NTUC budget. On the mass media, comments were made by Dr Ow Chin Hock and Dr Vasoo as to how we should manage this debate about OB markers, about the western media's criticism of our media laws. We should be very clear that we are asserting our own model of the media in Singapore, that we do not intend to follow the American m odel as it obtains today or to be like Ren Min Ri Bao [ ] or Xin Hua [ ] news agency in China. We will assert our own model. If we look at it from the perspective of the last 20-30 years, our newspapers have done a remarkable job. Without them, the tremendous social transformation that affected us could not have taken place with such a minimum of fuss and bother. It is because the newspapers have been accurate and pro-Singapore, very careful to clarify and simplify issues and options for Singaporeans, avoiding sensationalisation, that we have been able to achieve economic growth of 6%, 8% or 10% with a minimum of social dislocation. I think those of us who have read the history of Europe and America would know that over a comparable period of industrialisation and over a much longer period of time, the social turmoil which resulted was tremendous. And hence we had the stories that we found in Charles Dickens or the tremendous reaction in Karl Marx. And indeed, even in East Asia, you compare our situation today with the very difficult transition which South Korean and Taiwanese societies had to go through and are still going through. One reason why we have been able to do all this is because our newspapers had played a very important role in helping us to hold the community together. 5.15 pm On the western media, we should avoid a blanket criticism of them. And even in America today, there is a great reaction against what the media there has become. It was not always like this. In the 50s, whether it was Britain or America, there was a keen sense of looking after the side. We remember FDR, Franklin Roosevelt, polio victim, wheel-chair bound, but never a photograph of him so shown. It was not a secret, people knew about it. But collectively they decided that they had to preserve the image of the White House and the Presidency and everything was done so that that image, that respect for authority, was maintained. Equally kept quiet, John F. Kennedy's philanderings in the White House. It is only in recent years, with George Bush and Bill Clinton, that it all gets poured out. I was quite taken aback by the interview given by George Stephanopoulos, President Clinton's Special Adviser, which was reported in Business Times this morning. I would like to read certain passages. This is the man who is helping President Clinton run his public relations. This is what he says, apropos changes in the US media : `The deeper social problem, I agree, is that the adversarial media culture is the enemy of community. You can't build a consensus or coherence in the society around anything if the automatic stance of the media towards any person or movement is that "they are morally corrupt, don't believe anything they say".' And he continued: 'Obviously, that kind of stance is very important if you are facing fascism or totalitarianism. But, taken too far, it is only corrosive in a free society because it devalues everything.' Look at the way the British press, the Murdoch press, has devalued the monarchy in Britain and compare it to the way the Japanese have upheld their monarchy, or the Thais. In Thailand, if you insult the monarchy, you are imprisoned. Even Carl Bernstein, who was one of those who reported on Watergate, is very disillusioned. He says: `The monster that ate the media - a ravenous sensation-and-scandal machine - is consuming decent journalism and relegating real reporting and respect for context to an adjunct of the new porn-journalism.' So even in America, there is a revulsion against the excesses of the media. So when they criticise us, I do not think we should get too upset. In fact, the balance that we strike between the American free model and the totalitarian model, which used to be the old Pravda and the Xinhua News agency today, the kind of balance that we strike may well turn up to be a superior model. In the long term, the Western liberal journalist will come to the conclusion that of all the cities in Asia, we are the closest to them in our cultures, instincts and sympathies, because of our geography, our history and the fact that we use the English language. Mr Peh Chin Hua suggested that we keep a tighter control on cartoons and caricatures of political leaders. Here, we should not take a blanket approach and say all cartoons are bad. We should require cartoons and caricatures of national leaders to be done in good taste and allow a certain flexibility and a certain sense of humour. It makes for more effective communication anyway. What we want are cartoonists who are like Lat. Lat is a genius and his ability to capture the essence of a situation in a humorous way is remarkable. Once I was with Mohammed Rahmat, my counterpart in Malaysia, and the wife came in to show him the latest cartoon Lat did of him. He looked at it, he smiled and I think he was flattered, even though Lat in a nice way was poking fun at him. That really is the kind of cartooning and caricaturing which we want, not just mindless lampooning intended to drag down the dignity of people and institutions. On the Speak Mandarin Campaign, comments made by Mr Goh Choon Kang, it is part of our preservation of self, it is part of culture. It is not just learning Mandarin to be able to make money in China. It was a refusal to accept that we would be deculturalised and that Chinese Singaporeans would lose their sense of being Chineseness. In a sense, it was a continuation of the old Nantah spirit when a group of people decided, "Look, whatever it is, whatever the colonial Government may want, I will be myself." This is the kind of spirit that we should have as we regionalise our economy, as we trade all over the world and as foreigners come into our midst. The thing which would sustain us as Singaporeans and preserve our sense of self is our culture, our language, our spirit, and these are very important. The campaign went through dark days when there was much scepticism. I think we should record our thanks to Dr Ow Chin Hock and Ho Kah Leong for chairing the Committee during those dark days. It is really heart warming that from last year we were able to get the ying xiao sheng, ( ) the English-educated themselves, to lead the charge. It represented a major change in our society that now the English-educated themselves have decided that they would hold up the banner. In a related way, it is like the present leadership of NTU deciding that they should associate themselves with the old Nantah. These are English-educated Singaporeans who have now decided that the determination to maintain the sense of self in the past is something which they should continue to retain. Mr Ho Kwon Ping was telling me when I asked him to take the chairmanship, he consulted his mother, Madam Li Lienfung, and the mother laughed and told him, "All my life I have asked you to learn your Mandarin and now you are the one who has to push it." I think we are out of the woods. It is easier now. But it does not mean, as Mr Goh Choon Kang has proposed, that we should now completely relax on dialects. I do not think we should completely relax on dialects on television yet. Certainly, not on Channel 8 TCS. Channel 8 TCS has made an application in order to be better able to compete against Malaysian Cantonese programming, but we decided to hold back for a few more years. In the meantime, when Singapore Cable Vision comes on, it will contain one or two international Mandarin channels which will carry some hours of dialect broadcasting in Cantonese for the Hong Kong market and in Hokkien for the Taiwanese market. I think we allow them a little leeway there and we assess the situation in a few years' time. Comments were made about the Chinese Heritage Centre by Mr Chin Harn Tong and the 50th anniversary by Mr Goh Choon Kang. We got to keep doing it and hope that the younger generation will not lose their sense of self, that they will always remember where they came from, because that collective memory of where they came from, will hold them together in times of crisis. In fact, the 50th Anniversary Commemoration started on 15th February this year, and I was delighted when I attended it, that the organisers for the first time got school students to also lay a wreath. It used to be that the people who attended got older and older and now it is so heart warming to see that the younger people have also decided that they too will not forget, and that the lessons, so painfully learnt in the past, will not be forgotten and will be burned into our collective memory. This Chinese Heritage Centre in NTU, in the old Nantah xingzheng lou ( ), is symbolically very important. Their first project is to compile an encyclopedia of the Chinese outside China, Chinese anywhere in the world, their wanderings, their fortunes, their tragedies over the years across time and space. Literatures are already available about the Chinese in Peru, the Chinese in the Maldives, the Chinese in South Africa, and the Chinese in Southeast Asia. But this will be the first time that anyone is pulling the various strands together and it would be a project which would gather strength as it goes along, as more research work is done, as other communities also join in. I was very pleased that Prof. Wang Gungwu, when he retires from Hong Kong University, will be coming over to spend some months in Singapore every year to be an Adviser to this project. They have also got Lynn Pan, the woman who wrote the book Sons of the Yellow Emperor, to be the Executive Director of the Centre. So it is on, and it will be opened in May this year, as part of which they are going to reconstruct the archway of the original Nantah in Yunnan yuan ( ), and the old four characters which have been stored away would be put on to this reconstructed archway in the Yunnan yuan ( ). For the other communities, the Heritage Centres are also making progress. For the Malays, in Kampong Glam, we have been having many discussions with URA and with Mr Ridzwan Dzafir's Committee to see how best to arrange the development of the site in order that the centre can be self-sustaining and draw in the crowds. For the Indians, we are looking at two shophouses in Little India. The Eurasians, small though they may be, have done a lot of good work in the last few years and they have really gotten themselves organised. They are renovating an old bungalow and building on it in Mountbatten and they are setting up their own heritage centre. Even our old colleague, Mr Joe Conceicao, who used to tell me that the best thing that the Eurasians could do for themselves is to melt into the bigger community, finally told me the other day that he better go and see how he can participate. I think that is nice. I have been associated with them because there is no Eurasian Minister in Cabinet. So they say, "Ah, you grew up in Katong. So you represent us." I thought it is such a great honour, I agreed readily. For the 50th Anniversary, we will be unveiling plaques at 11 sites in the four official languages, including the Battle at Kent Ridge, including the Kempeitai Centre at Stamford Road and it will be there in the form of a solid open book in four languages on a plinth. It will be there in a very permanent way for all to see and learn. We should keep pushing on heritage because, at the end of the day, to internationalise successfully, we must preserve our sense of self. I was quite pleased, recently, when I attended a musical at NTU entitled For love of country. I thought it was going to be a ra-ra, patriotic musical. Being the Minister in charge, I had to attend. But it was nothing about modern Singapore. For love of country was for love of China and it was about how the Singaporean Chinese community reacted during the Second World War. I was quite surprised by the story. It was a kind of a re-do of the life of Lim Bo Seng. I asked the house master. I said, "Who gave them the script?" He said, "No, I have nothing to do with it. The students wrote the script themselves. They wrote the words, compose the music, did the production, entirely their own efforts." I thought to myself, "All is not lost." We might have thought that the old bonsai had died and then one morning you wake up to find new leaves, and it was such a wonderful feeling that I had that night that young undergraduates, I do not know where they learnt it from, maybe it was from their parents and grandparents, had not forgotten. The series of commemorative events for the 50th Anniversary will continue until 12th September, which is the anniversary of the Japanese surrender to Lord Louis Mountbatten. We are also working with the Education Ministry to impart knowledge of our heritage to students in secondary schools. This is an effort which is the work of generations but if all of us persist, if all of us do our part, as parents, as MPs, as community leaders, then I think the effort will bear fruit. Sir, we are one minute before moment of interruption. I prefer not to move on to my next topic.