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Showing posts from December, 2021

Teacher Soldier Diplomat. Story of Navalite.

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(to read article click: thenavalbase.blogspot.com) Born in 1949, Mejar Singh Gill alias Major Singh Gill arrived in Singapore as a 6 year- old in 1955, from a very humble family background.  His father, without any formal educational, came to Singapore in 1950 where he joined the British Naval Police Force as a Police Constable. Mejar grew up with his large family of 7 siblings in the Naval Base, among the large community of over 400 Sikh families then constituting the Naval Police Force.  He was the third eldest in his family, with two sisters older than him. His father, being rather conservative and having plans then of eventually returning to Punjab, chose not to send his elder two daughters to school, being quite content with them mastering Gurmukhi (Punjabi script) and being proficient in the Guru Granth Sahib (Sikh Scripture) but quite happy to send Mejar to an English School, followed by the other siblings later. This was the period of significant changes in the region, and

The Past is Present

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The Past is Present (Written by Alfred Dass and Cynthia Anne Pragasam) Fifty years after leaving HM Naval Base, many of us are now living in an age where technology and artificial intelligence add a touch of convenience in our daily activities. We are also in the midst of grappling issues we never imagined we would face, such as food wastage, environmental degradation, identity crisis, spread of falsehoods and fake news, climate change, and of course, the ever uncertain Covid-19 pandemic. Children Pulling Punches Environment degradation is such an intractable mess that youth and children have involved themselves in the cause - perhaps they feel it is regarded as child's play. Their enthusiastic activism is a stark contrast to our 'tidak apa'  carefree  attitude during our  childhood in Naval Base. However, Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg believes ‘no one is too small to create an impact and change the world’ . She is hopeful that ‘climate chaos’ can be rever