Articles by M G G Pillai

M G G Pillai The Indian community in Malaysia is facing a crisis of confidence today because of the corruption charges levelled against the long- time president of the Malaysian Indian Congress MALAYSIA'S Indian community, descended mostly from indentured menial labour the British administration brought in from India for the rubber estates, the railways, hospitals, and public services, from about 10 per cent of its 18 million people and are consigned to the bottom of the social and economic scale: They came from what is now Tamil Nadu, in India, have had few prospects for improvement, continue to live trapped in a vicious circle of frustration, hopelessness, impoverishment. These people constitute about 85 per cent of the Indians in Malaysia, their conditions little better than that of their fathers and grandfathers, who came here as indentured labour. The rest are sons of middle-class educated migrants, of those who escaped from the poverty and impoverishment of the gutter. It is they who provide the leadership in politics, the professions, and of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), a partner in the ruling National Front coalition led by Mahathir Mohamed, the prime minister, and his New United Malays National Organisation (UMNO Baru or New UMNO).

Boutros-Ghali forces these countries to end subsidies.
Equally, the monopoly on top posts enjoyed by Security Council and western nationals bolsters developing country criticism that they have no say at the UN. The practice has been the focus of growing resentment from developing countries, reflected in a spate of General Assembly resolutions asking the secretary-general to ensure that senior posts do not remain the "exclusive preserve of any member stated The signatories to the resolutions have not changed their ways.

Philosophy, Brussels, 1847. I have not been able to trace the original quotation in Hansard. For the wider ideological backdrop that led to the triumph of economic liberalism, c f, F F Clairmonte, Economic Liberalism and Underdevelopment: Studies in the Dinintegration of an Idea, Bombay and London, I960.

M G G Pillai The federal National Front coalition retained power in the assembly elections in Sarawak. But the practices followed by the coalition to ensure the victory can hardly be called democratic.

a recession and unemployment has assumed sudor proportions. The US is clearly worried and it was known that it wished to see lower interest rates. There is also some concern at the failure to conclude the Uruguay round of trade negotiations. The G-7, however, seems to have made only modest progress in reaching understanding on these matters. It noted that there are increasing signs of economic recovery, and left it at that. On the Uruguay round, there seems to be greater determination to reach agreement; and the 0-7 leaders committed themselves to talking to each other should difficulties arise. But by implicitly linking argiculture, the thorniest of issues, to other areas (services, MALAYSIA intellectual property rights) they have managed to deflect attention from it somewhat It is anybody's guess whether there would now be a breakthrough in the negotiations on agriculture.