Sometimes the hardest of journeys exists in the mind. Feelings of self-doubt and despair often creep in at the last moment, eroding resolve.
Not for Military Expert (ME) 3-1 Rajendran s/o Ramachandran, who stepped back into the same school 16 years after he left in 1994.
He had dropped out because of family issues and joined the Republic of Singapore Navy as a junior naval engineer. Starting on the Missile Corvette RSS Victory, he climbed to a supervisory role on another corvette. He now works on submarine maintenance in the Force Generation Squadron.
On his first day at Singapore Polytechnic, his classmates thought he was the lecturer. "After that first lesson, I was devastated. I had understood nothing," said ME3-1 Rajendran. Instead of giving up, he hunkered down and set his goals; to do as well as possible in his journey to earn a Diploma in Marine Engineering.
He graduated with a Grade Point Average of 3.9 (the highest possible score is 4). Along the way, he won several academic awards, including one at an institutional level.
For the first time in history, a Singaporean has been accredited by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) Men’s Technical Committee (MTC) to have a skill named after him.
Terry Tay Wei An, 19, performed the move on the rings at the 2013 World Artistic Gymnastics Championships on 30 September, which was thereafter given the name “Tay” by the committee. In the FIG Code of Points, it is categorised as an “E” - or Execution - value skill.
The Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) will be deploying another Task Group to the Gulf of Aden from March to June next year.
Minister for Defence Dr Ng Eng Hen announced this at the Goh Keng Swee Command and Staff College (GKS CSC) Combined 44th Command and Staff Course (CSC), 14th CSC (National Service) and 2nd CSC (Executive) Graduation Ceremony held at the Istana on 24 Oct.
Comprising a frigate and a naval helicopter, the deployment will be the fifth since 2009. The SAF has been actively involved in counter-piracy efforts in the Gulf of Aden, under the ambit of the multi-national Combined Task Force 151.
Singapore has maintained its fifth position in the latest Global Power City Index, a ranking of the world's cities by a Tokyo-based think tank.
The Index evaluates and ranks the major cities of the world according to their ability to attract creative people and businesses from around the world.
This is the sixth time the Global Power City Index is being announced by the Institute for Urban Strategies at The Mori Memorial Foundation.
Overall, London came in first for the second year in a row, followed by New York, Paris and Tokyo.
Maid recruitment agencies in Singapore have started turning to new sources of domestic workers like Myanmar and Cambodia.
This follows the decision of the Manila-based Association of Licensed Recruitment Agencies to Singapore (ALRAS) to stop deploying Filipino domestic workers to Singapore from September 2 this year.
Maid agencies in Singapore said the Philippine authorities expect employers and not the maids to fork out the placement fees.
The placement fees are for the processing of documents needed before the domestic worker can be sent to Singapore.
However, the agencies said not all employers are willing to pay the fees, resulting in a shortage of maids from the Philippines.
More Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats were being built in the last financial year compared to the previous year.
This is according to HDB's annual report released on Wednesday.
A total of 72,737 flats were being constructed in the last financial year (FY2012/ 2013), up from 56,938 units in the year before (FY2011/2012) -- a close to 30 per cent jump.
HDB's net deficit before taking into account the government grant in the last financial year, also increased close to 80 per cent.
If a large-scale natural disaster were to happen, a multinational team, comprising military forces from 18 countries, can now be deployed swiftly and seamlessly to provide medical support.
This has been made possible after three years of preparation and training led by Singapore and Japan, the co-chairs of the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting (ADMM)-Plus Experts' Working Group on Military Medicine (EWG-MM).
Commercial and industrial tenants in Housing and Development Board (HDB) properties will no longer be allowed to assign their premises to another party.
The HDB announced this on Monday, in a move to weed out unhealthy speculation and rising assignment fees.
Assignment fee is the amount agreed upon between the proposed tenant and existing tenant for the transfer of the property.
The HDB has about 8,000 commercial and 10,700 industrial tenants.
Currently, they are allowed to assign their premises to another party, a move meant to facilitate the exit of marginal tenants and minimise disruption of services.
Singapore's economy grew 5.1 per cent on-year in the third quarter of 2013, said the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MTI) in advance estimates released on Monday, faster than the second quarter's revised 4.2% growth.
The market was expecting a 3.8 per cent growth.
OCBC's head of Treasury Research & Strategy, Selena Ling, said: "This was really unexpected, because if you look at August data for industrial production and NODX, actually they were pretty poor...So I suppose either there's expectation that the September data...is going to show a much better pick-up, or that going into fourth quarter, we could see a further acceleration in terms of momentum."
The Meteorological Service Singapore (MSS) has launched a new free real-time lightning service on multiple platforms.
It will be available as a mobile app called Lightning@SG, on the MSS website, and through the weather information hotline number.
With the app, smart phone users will be able to customise up to three locations of interest and receive push alerts when lightning is detected within a pre-defined distance of either six kilometres or eight kilometres from their location of interest.
Users will also be able to choose the type of lightning (cloud-to-cloud and/ or cloud-to-ground) and thundery showers forecast that they wish to receive a push alert on.
Singapore’s Organising Committee for the 28th Southeast Asian (SEA) Games have set their sights on attracting some $50 million in cash and value-in-kind sponsorships, with a look towards building partnerships with corporates beyond the games as a priority.
Speaking at a media event at the Experience Centre of the Singapore Indoor Stadium yesterday, Mr Richard Seow, Chairman of the 28th SEA Games Sponsorship and Marketing Advisory Sub-Committee, said: “We are pleased by the interest we are seeing in preliminary discussions with potential sponsors across industries from MNCs to SMEs.”
Sixty-six athletes across 15 sports, chosen by the High Performance Sports (HPS) Steering Committee, will receive the Sports Excellence Scholarship (SpExScholarship) after displaying immense potential for international sporting achievements in their individual fields.
In addition to these 66 scholarship recipients, the HPS Steering Committee has bookmarked 26 other athletes from nine sports who have shown potential to grow to the level of a SpExScholar, and will also provide them with support.
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has improved its ranking - moving up 10 places to 76th worldwide in the latest 2013-2014 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings.
This is NTU's third straight year of progressing up the rankings. Since 2010, NTU has moved up 98 positions.
The National University of Singapore (NUS) has also improved its ranking - from 29th last year to 26th this year.
