KUALA LUMPUR, April 26 (Bernama) — Datuk
Seri Najib Tun Razak said Thursday he hoped to see a vast improvement
in the status and welfare of the Indian community in the country over
the next five years.
The prime minister said he also wanted
to see the Indian community fully integrated into the mainstream of
national economic development.
“I hope that within (the next) five
years, we will see the improvement of the Indian community,” he said
during an hour-long interview with deejays Aanantha and Uthaya on the
“Kalakkal Kaalai” breakfast show over THR Raaga radio.
“As you know, our target is to double
our income level by 2020, basically to about US$15,000 per capita,”
Najib told the listeners.
“We target better and better, and we will deliver what we promise,” he said.
Responding to a question from a
listener, Najib said the government had achieved much for the Indian
community over the last two years and there was greater recognition and
awareness of problems faced by Indians.
He said new approaches were taken in
recognising and tackling these problems, even from the time when he was
the deputy prime minister and chaired the Cabinet Committee on Indian
Affairs.
“Some of the things done include the
allocation for Tamil schools, where it is the largest ever in our
history. The latest decision, for example, is (providing) 1,000
additional places in our matriculation colleges, starting from this
year. Previously, it was just 500,” he said.
Najib said this was very significant
because the percentage of Indians entering universities was rather low,
and he hoped that it would go up to a more acceptable level.
“I also announced that 100 top Indian
students will be given scholarships to continue their studies at Masters
and PhD levels,” he said.
Asked by a deejay of the popular Tamil
radio station what Tamil words he knew, Najib said he had very basic
knowledge like everybody else in that language but he progressed on his
own when he introduced 1Malaysia.
“I had to know what 1Malaysia is in
Tamil. So, I learned “Ore Malaysia” (means 1Malaysia). When I started
engaging more with the Tamil community, and the engagement became very
frequent, I picked up other words such as “Nambikai”, which means trust.
“You know, you must have the trust of
the community, so that we can move forward together. When I went to the
Sri Murugan Centre (SMC), I heard a part of their slogan “Acchamillai”
which means, no fear, we must overcome any obstacle to success.
“When I launched the Barisan Nasional
convention, I used the Tamil expression, which is a proverb that means
to give them a sense that this is a winning team. If this team can’t
win, other teams cannot win. And I love to learn more,” he said.
Answering a question from a caller on
the main challenges that he faced daily as the prime minister, he said
there were many challenges but time management was critical since there
were many demands that needed to be fulfilled.
“You just have to be able to prioritise
and be able to cope with the multitude of demands on your time, in terms
of appearances, in terms of being in the office, in terms of people
wanting to see you, and try to get in a day the maximum amount of work
that can be done and results that can be achieved,” he said.
Najib said he wanted to ensure that
everything could be translated in terms of productive work, although in
politics it did not quite work out that way.
He said that prayers, exercising
regularly and doing things that he would really enjoy — like watching
his favourite football team play and reading a good book — was his way
of combating daily stress.
He also said that the most important
thing was to try to block out whatever that was troubling when at home,
especially when about to go to sleep.
“Don’t bring problems in the office to
the home, and find things that really will relax you and put you in a
very relaxed state of mind,” he said.
Asked to comment on the English Premier
League (EPL) match between Manchester United and Manchester City on
April 30, Najib, who is a great fan of the Red Devils, said it would be a
very tough game because the Citizens were also a good team.
Asked about the European Champions
League final clash between Chelsea and Bayern Munich, he said it would
be a tough match as well.
During the show, the prime minister also
took part in the “Battle of the Sexes”, a competition in the programme
that requires participants, both male and female, to answer questions
and compete with the deejays in a quiz on football.
No comments:
Post a Comment