In his 60 years representing Tanjong Pagar, Singapore’s first prime minister Lee Kuan Yew paid close attention to its environment and made it a point not to miss its annual Tree Planting Day.

Yesterday, MPs for Tanjong Pagar GRC, grassroots leaders and 100 residents planted 13 species of shrub in two areas of the constituency, in a nod to the late Mr Lee.

The plants were favourites of Mr Lee and his late wife, Madam Kwa Geok Choo, and Tanjong Pagar GRC MP Indranee Rajah made the selection with the help of the Istana’s plant curator.

Ms Indranee, who is also Senior Minister of State for Finance and Law, described the simple ceremony as a “happy observance” meant “not to remember death and passing, but what his life stood for”.

The GRC will commemorate Mr Lee’s death anniversary every year with similar ceremonies, she added. Mr Lee died on March 23, 2015, at the age of 91.

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2016-03-21 14:43:00

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Lee Kuan Yew was part of their growing up years in the 1990s and beyond

Source: The New Paper, RedBox

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Ms Indranee also announced an annual national competition for young Singaporeans to offer ideas to improve the country. Its purpose is to get them to start thinking about the future of Singapore, which was Mr Lee’s lifelong commitment, she said.

More details will be announced later. The contest will be held between September, Mr Lee’s birth month, and November, when Tree Planting Day is usually held.

Mr Lee began Tree Planting Day in 1963 to create a greener Singapore. Every year, he planted a tree until November 2014, which was also the last time he appeared in public. A species that had pride of place at the revamped Tiong Bahru community club is the Vallaris glabra, also known as the bread flower.

Mr Lee had specifically asked for it to be planted in the Istana garden before he died.

At Duxton Plain Park, next to the Pinnacle@Duxton housing blocks, the Pleiocarpa mutica was planted. A favourite of Mrs Lee, it is widely planted on the Istana grounds. Species that attract butterflies were also planted there so that over time, the area will become a butterfly garden.

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2016-03-23 16:14:26

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Series of events held as tribute to Lee Kuan Yew

Source: The Straits Times, AsiaOne

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Ms Indranee also read out a message from Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office Chan Chun Sing, the anchor minister for the GRC.

Said Mr Chan, who is on an official visit to Vietnam with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong: “Planting a tree is a reminder to all of us of what it takes to build our country, one tree at a time, one step at a time, but always doing it together.”

Pet business owner Shelby Doshi, 32, who lives in Pinnacle@Duxton, attended the ceremony held near her home.

She said: “It is well known that Mr Lee had a passion for nature, so it is fitting to do this in his memory, and it is a good tradition to carry on.”

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2015-04-16 15:12:59

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In pictures: Artists pay tribute to Mr Lee Kuan Yew

Source: The Straits Times, Singapore Tyler Print Institute, Mandala Fine Art Gallery, Tan Swie Hian, Fan Shao Hua, Boo Sze Yang, Ricky Goh, Berita Harian

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Meanwhile, ministers and MPs went online to pay tribute to Mr Lee’s legacy in Facebook posts, while social media users posted photographs of Mr Lee or images with his quotes.

At Gardens by the Bay, some visitors attending an exhibition on the work that had gone into crafting a future memorial to honour Singapore’s founding fathers and their values suggested ways to remember Mr Lee.

Teacher K. Durga, 27, hoped that small commemorative events like film or documentary screenings could be held yearly to remind younger Singaporeans of Mr Lee’s contributions.

Administrative executive Nisha Ramdzan, 27, added that simple ceremonies like the one held in Tanjong Pagar are good because they can serve as a gathering point for those who wish to commemorate Mr Lee’s life.

Similarly, retiree Goh Ngoh Khang, 73, said in Mandarin: “There is no need to organise large-scale events, as those who want to mark the day will find their own way to do so.”

This article was first published on Mar 24, 2017.
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Singapore’s industrial production rose more than expected from a year earlier in February, driven by a surge in electronics manufacturing output, data showed on Friday.

Manufacturing output in February rose 12.6 percent from a year earlier, the Singapore Economic Development Board said.

This exceeds the median forecast of 12 economists in a Reuters survey, which predicted a 10.8 percent expansion.

On a month-on-month and seasonally adjusted basis, however, industrial production fell 3.7 percent in February. The median forecast was for a rise of 0.4 percent.

Aviation giant Airbus said it will reveal more details “in the coming months” about an unmanned parcel-delivery drone trial in Singapore, one that could be extended to transporting passengers too.

Its comments come a day after the city-state’s Ministry of Transport told The Business Times that it is talking to some firms about trying out human-carrying drones as a mode of transport. No additional details were shared then.

When approached by BT and asked whether it was exploring such a possibility in Singapore, Airbus said: “Airbus is heavily involved in studying the future of urban mobility with several projects underway, including the Skyways initiative in Singapore.

“This project is ongoing and we will provide an update on the trial phase in the coming months.”

The project came into being after an agreement signed in February 2016 between Airbus and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS). Under the contract, the Europe-based plane-maker is to test a drone parcel delivery service on the campus of the National University of Singapore in mid-2017.

But that’s not all: Airbus says on its website that after that pilot, it is hopeful that commercial projects can be launched in Singapore, and that testing can be extended to “passenger transport”.

Air traffic-management researcher Mohamed Faisal bin Mohamed Salleh noted that Airbus is already developing concepts that will enable commuters to fly over traffic jams at the push of a button.

“We know that developers in France and Germany are working on an electrically-operated platform concept for multiple passengers,” the deputy director at the Air Traffic Management Research Institute (ATMRI) of the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) told BT. ATMRI is a joint research centre by NTU and CAAS.

This Airbus platform, which goes by the working name CityAirbus, would have multiple propellers and resemble a small drone in its basic design, said Prof Faisal.

On Wednesday, Pang Kin Keong, the top official at Singapore’s Transport Ministry, told BT that it is working with some companies to put human-carrying drones through tests.

In his speech at the Business Times Leaders’ Forum that day, he had presented some examples of prototyped human-carrying drones – the Hoversurf Scorpion, the Volocopter VC200 and the Ehang 184 autonomous aerial vehicle.

Read also: Singapore Airlines collects its sixth Airbus A350-900

By the year 2030, he said, it would be conceivable to ride in a driverless pod to work, cycle to the gym after work, and then take an aerial taxi home.

“In 2030, you bet your money that aerial transport will also be a means of urban mobility.”

Alex Atamanov, the chief executive officer-cum-founder of the Russian startup Hoversurf, which prototyped the Hoversurf Scorpion, told BT that though his company has not been in talks with the Singapore government, it was “very interested in this dialogue”.

Urban mobility researchers are divided on the issue, with some excited about the prospects of flying taxis, and others, hesitant about their being made available to the masses.

ATMRI’s Prof Faisal said: “Singapore has the motivation to enable aerial taxis in its urban environment. Our future and advanced urban infrastructure could very well support the new era of urban transportation.”

But Alexander Erath, project leader of the engaging mobility group at the Singapore-ETH Future Cities Laboratory, was reticent.

He noted that heavy investments must be made to have the necessary infrastructure such as take-off and landing points for flying taxis to operate.

Regulations about airspace management and noise pollution will also have to be looked into.

And even after these issues are resolved, he said, there may still be a “last-mile” issue to overcome – that of passengers needing to figure out how to get to and from the take-off and landing points.

“As a niche product, flying taxis have their purpose,” he told BT.

“But it’s a new technology, a new concept that may become cheaper to build.”

This article was first published on March 24, 2017.
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A Chinese man died after he was hit by a train at Fajar station on the Bukit Panjang LRT today morning (Mar 24).

SMRT, which operates the LRT, said that his body was found on the tracks after the last train in service left the platform at about 1am.

“The police and SCDF were immediately alerted and arrived on site shortly after. We are extending our full co-operation to the police in carrying out their investigations,” said Ms Margaret Teo, SMRT’s head of corporate marketing and communications.

According to The Straits Times, he did not have any identification on him.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF), who dispatched one fire engine and one ambulance after receiving a call for assistance, said that paramedics pronounced the man dead at scene.

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