Author: Dr Navin C Naidu

The PADU paradox: Secrecy, confidentiality and privacy

The PADU database, according to a government source, covering approximately 30 million Malaysian households, claims to offer access to everyone – government and the governed – about almost everything about everything that’s going on. Somebody sent me a cartoon of a fox, after devouring a few chickens, promising he will

The age of disorder

Race and religion do not separate people, ignorance does. — Matshona Dhilwayo, Canadian author THE age of disorder is a persistent monkey on our shoulders. Man-made disorder is competing with Nature’s assaults. In the grand scheme of things, man alone is bent on self-destruction. It’s the very nature of the

War On Democracy

 Democracy never lasts long; there never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.  – John Adams, second US President “The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern,” lamented Lord Acton. He shared John Adams’s view. There is nobody

Enemy of the state

ACCORDING to political scientists, ‘enemy of the state’ encapsulates a designation for the political opponents and for the social-class opponents of the power group within a larger social unit, who, thus identified, can be subjected to political repression. Enemy of the state is synonymous with the oppressor and suppressor of

Images, impressions and illusions

Truth, portrayed as reality through images, impressions and illusions, requires in-depth verification. — R. C. Sproul, American theologian Verifiable facts and potent logic remain powerful weapons to debunk images, impressions and illusions. Discerning citizens, as the beating heart of this nation, know when the 24-carat genuine article is substituted for

The common folk

Real politics starts with the common people. — Shesh Nath Vernwal, Indian publisher The adage “sometimes the common folk see correctly” (interdum vulgus rectam videt — Latin) sends cold shivers to those in power. The English, American and French Revolutions consecrated a fertile soil for the seeds of restlessness, rebellion,

Fictions frighten a fearless fraction

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavours to live at the expense of everybody else. – Frederic Bastiat, French parliamentarian Amidst the cacophony of fictions, factions and frictions, a powerful fraction finds utterance in the Dewan Rakyat as a two-thirds majority advantage that is yet to be used

Self-selection bias

Somewhere inside all of us is the power to change the world.  – Roald Dahl, British author Malaysians are reportedly outraged at the recent Pardons Board decision to reduce the prison sentence and the fines imposed upon a former prime minister. In the first place, voters chose their government in

ON TRIAL: Constitutional supremacy and religious freedom

THE Federal Court recently, in an 8-1 decision, struck down 16 Syariah enactments by the Kelantan state government as unconstitutional, and therefore void. The two lawyers who brought suit argued that only the Dewan Rakyat has the power to enact criminal laws and that state assemblies can only enact laws

Misanthrope mania

We are a virus with shoes. — Bill Hicks, American satirist ‘Betrayed and wronged in everything,I’ll flee this bitter world where vice is king,And seek some spot unpeopled and apart,Where I’ll be free to have an honest heart.’(The Misanthrope) Moliere’s lament offers insight into understanding what makes misanthropes tick, prick,