A video podcast with the Ministry of Funny

Are you considering politics? (Min 50:05)
What led to your political awakening? (14:20)
Why do you write and why The Economist Group? (10:40)

These are some of the many questions I fielded during this fun two-hour conversation with Haresh and Terence from the Ministry Of Funny. You can now watch it on YouTube.

I’m sure you don’t want to spend two hours looking at my oversized jaw, but we’ve just finished doing up the show notes for this episode (see below) for easy time stamps to the different sections.

Any feedback on this format much appreciated. Am hoping to do more stuff with MOF.

It’s also available as an audio podcast, search Ministry of Funny wherever you get yours.

Sudhir Thomas VadakethMay 19, 2021June 21, 2021Leave a comment

PAP, Singapore

Should the opposition be speaking out more against racism in Singapore?

This is what K Shanmugam, Singapore’s home affairs and law minister, called for this week in response to some quite awful anti-Indian incidents around town.

Yes, I agree with him. The opposition should. We all should. It is a daily battle.

However, we should also recognise the efforts made by the opposition over the years to distance themselves from racist and xenophobic strands. Here are two examples.

Sudhir Thomas VadakethMay 14, 2021June 21, 20217 Comments

Media, PAP, Singapore

The elites have run The Straits Times into the ground. What’s next?

Today we heard the news that Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) is spinning off its media unit, including The Straits Times and many other publications, into a non-profit entity. This follows years of consistently poor performance amid digital disruption and other changes to the media industry.

Wiser minds will engage in more thorough post-mortems—has anybody seen Ho Ching’s feed today?—but I wanted to spark a small conversation on the culture of elite governance in Singapore.

“If not for the Jobs Support Scheme (JSS), the loss would have been a deeper S$39.5 million,” Lee Boon Yang, SPH’s chairman, said in reference to the media business’s first-ever lost of S$11.4m, for the financial year which ended Aug 31 2020.

(Which includes management salaries. In case you missed it, since the JSS began in February 2020, the Singaporean taxpayer has helped pay even more for the upkeep of numerous millionaire elites.)

All this got me thinking. Why exactly is Lee Boon Yang the chairman of SPH?

Sudhir Thomas VadakethMay 6, 2021May 7, 202135 Comments

Media, My Talks, Personal

My appearance on the Brave Dynamics podcast

“…in today’s world it’s getting easier with the gig economy and freelance or contract worker or independent worker isn’t such a bad word anymore for some people but it was certainly difficult… but I was also so energized. So I think it wasn’t just nerves, I think this is the interesting thing about any journey, at the same time there’s this sense of excitement about … Continue reading My appearance on the Brave Dynamics podcast

Sudhir Thomas VadakethApril 27, 2021Leave a comment

PAP, Singapore

Why is there a paucity of political leadership in SG?

Over the past few days many in Singapore and overseas have expressed surprise at the seeming paucity of political leadership talent in the ruling People’s Action Party.

I actually think this has been a long time coming, and in many ways is just reflective of our city-state’s economic and democratic maturation, about which there is plenty to cheer.

I explain why in a commentary, “Concerns about ‘seeming paucity’ of PAP leadership talent”, published in The Home Ground Asia, a new Singapore-based media outfit.

Sudhir Thomas VadakethApril 15, 2021April 15, 20214 Comments

Personal, Singapore

a live video interview this Sunday afternoon

Join me on Sunday March 28th, 1.25pm Singapore time. Click here to view. Dear friends, please join Kenny Leck and me for a Facebook live video conversation this Sunday, as part of the #SGLitFTW event organised by BooksActually, an independent book store in Singapore run by Kenny. It’s been about a year since the pandemic changed our lives here, and the main topic of convo … Continue reading a live video interview this Sunday afternoon

Sudhir Thomas VadakethMarch 23, 2021Leave a comment

Singapore, Travel

Pasir Ris Passion

Every day I see Pulau Ubin.

I don’t mean from within, but from without, two-and-a-half kilometres away, from the public balcony of our condo in Pasir Ris, which offers a grand view of Ubin in all its greeny, islandy, stuck-in-the-nineteen-fifties glory.

Between the Pasir Ris beach on the mainland and Pulau Ubin is a narrow bit of the Johor Strait, which separates Singapore from Malaysia. If I look to the right, eastwards, I can see it opening into the South China Sea. If I look to the left, I see it leading to Pasir Gudang, Johor, an industrialised port and petrochemicals hub, from where palm oil and other biofuels are shipped around the world, and whose containers and cranes and chimneys with nighttime flares offer a stark, Mordor-like contrast to the serenity around.

From the Pasir Ris beach, in other words, with a little turn of the head one is presented with two visions of planet earth. Pulau Ubin is the pre-industrial, bucolic paradise that our hearts pine for; Pasir Gudang the post-industrial ugliness that our lifestyles demand. The world that we miss, and the world that is.

Sudhir Thomas VadakethMarch 5, 2021May 27, 202119 Comments

India, Travel

Losing Hindustan

Book review. The Loss of Hindustan: The Invention of India, Manan Ahmed Asif.

The first time somebody called me a Hindustani was in 2004, in a small village in Pahang on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia, not far from the tropical Malayan rainforest, not far from the warm waters of the South China Sea.

Sudhir Thomas VadakethJanuary 21, 2021July 29, 20228 Comments

Media, Personal

Ups and Downs of writing in the pandemic year

Note: Amid this flight from the Facebook/WhatsApp empire, a quick note that I also have a Telegram channel: SudhirTV.

It has been a fun, fulfilling, rewarding year being a writer and commentator in Singapore. Thanks so much for following my work. I’m feeling more enthusiastic about Singapore’s social, political and literary climate than I ever have. It’s a terribly exciting time to be living and working here.

Nevertheless, I thought it might be good to spend some time going over some of the hurdles independent writers here face, something that I’m regularly asked about.

So, treat this for what it is, a reflective, end-of-year piece for the benefit of readers and young writers in Singapore interested not only in the product but the process.

Sudhir Thomas VadakethJanuary 10, 2021January 12, 20213 Comments

PAP, Singapore

Singapore’s leadership crisis: Lawrence and Pritam

This is the last of five in a series on Singapore’s prospective next prime minister. If you have enjoyed this series, please consider making a donation here to support my future work.

The pandemic has been tragic. Yet the assorted losses and disruptions to ordinary life have also prodded many Singaporeans to think about better ways of doing things, of living the good life.

Some are enjoying more time with old friends and family; others have opened their hearts (and wallets) to migrant workers they hitherto ignored.

Sudhir Thomas VadakethJanuary 6, 2021April 13, 20218 Comments