SINGAPORE -The People's Action Party (PAP) has retained Tampines GRC, scoring 66.41 per cent of the votes against the National Solidarity Party (NSP).

This is lower than its score in 2015, when it won 72.1 per cent.

In 2011, it took 57.22 per cent of the vote.

This round, the NSP won 33.59 per cent of the votes.

This election, the PAP team did battle without its former anchor minister, Deputy Prime Minister Heng Swee Keat, at the helm. Mr Heng, who is also the Finance Minister, left to strengthen the slate at the adjacent East Coast GRC, facing the Workers' Party.

The five-member PAP team is led by Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli, 57. The others on it areSenior Parliamentary Secretary for Transport and Culture, Community and Youth Baey Yam Keng, 49; Mr Desmond Choo, 42; Ms Cheng Li Hui, 44;and Senior Minister of State for National Development and Trade and Industry Koh Poh Koon, 48, who was previously in Ang Mo Kio GRC .

The NSP slate for Tampines includesparty president Reno Fong Chin Leong, 51, Mr Eugene Yeo Ren Yuan, 43, and Mr Choong Hon Heng, 44. This is the second Tampines GRC outing for Mr Fong and Mr Choong , while Mr Eugene had competed in Sembawang GRC previously.

They were joined by two new faces: senior manager Mohamad Ridzwan, 58, and broker and recruiter Vincent Ng, 48.

The GRC expanded slightly this GEby taking in parts of Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC, and now boasts some 151,708 registered voters - up from 143,518.

The PAP team there had largely campaigned on national issues, focusing on jobs amid the Covid-19 storm. For instance, Mr Masagos pledged that Dr Koh, who is deputy secretary general of the labour movement, will work with unions to preserve workers' job security.

NSP had put forward 14 proposals, including constituency-specific issues such the building of more amenities for the disabled and the elderly.

On the national front, it called for the abolition of the Singapore-India Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (Ceca) if it is found to disadvantage local PMETs; and lower HDB flat prices.

Speaking to the media, Mr Fong addressed the higher vote share that his party had received in this election, commenting that the ruling PAP party "has not done as well as it should have over the last five years".

He added: "Of course, we are not happy about the result but we respect the will of the voters, and we, of course, thank those who have voted for us."

The use of new media to conduct the election did not help, he said, adding that the NSP still prefers the traditional rallies which are "closer to ground".

Speaking to the media after the results were out, Mr Masagos said that the team is "not done building Tampines yet".

In response to a question on the decease in its vote share this year and whether DPM Heng's move to East Coast was a factor, Mr Masagos said: "We will analyse the impact that this general election has been to Tampines particularly, but more importantly 2015 was an extraordinary year."

Read more:

GE2020 official results: PAP slate helmed by Masagos retains Tampines GRC with 66.41% of votes - The Straits Times

The knock at the door came Monday morning for Xu Zhangrun. The Beijing-based legal scholar had long anticipated such a day would come, writing more than once that an essay might be his last and keeping a fresh change of clothes by the door of his home. A score of police officers surrounded and seized him, reportedly with an accusation that he had solicited prostitutesa charge so commonly trumped-up against dissidents that Xu himself previously warned it would be used against him. Until recently, he was a well-connected scholar at one of the countrys preeminent universities, Tsinghua. Now he is in the opaque world of the party-state legal system, meaning months of detention without formal charge followed by a brief show trial.

It is perhaps easiest to define Xus place in the tradition of dissent to Chinese authoritarianism by first stating what he is not. Xu Zhangrun is not an ethnic or religious minority. He is not a human rights lawyer. He is not a feminist activist. He is not an artist. He is not known to have been a participant in the 1989 Tiananmen Square movement. All these groups, and many others, have been targeted in Chinese President Xi Jinpings many strikes at opposition, real and imagined, to absolutist rule since his ascension to power in 2012.

Xus role in the vanishingly thin network of resistance to the Chinese Communist Partys spreading social control is different than leaders in each of those laudable groups. Xu is a scholar and critic seeking reform, not revolution. He clearly sees himself in the tradition of reformist personages going back to the imperial era. Figures such as Zhang Zhidong (1837-1909) remained loyal to China but sought to reform the Qing empire and reconcile Chinese sociopolitical traditions with the impositions of foreign thought. This tradition is perhaps vaguely similar to the notion of the loyal opposition in Europe. Xus writings are critical of Chinese political power structures but always evince a care for the well-being of the Chinese nation. It was this visible affection for his native land that allowed him to initially thrive as a scholar.

Xus first monograph, which began as his doctoral dissertation, provides a clue to his character. He discusses the thought of Liang Shuming, a notable scholar and official in the 20th century whose criticism of Mao Zedong in the early 1950s drew a sharp rebuke from Mao himself. Xu openly admires Liang, writing that he was m by rooting it within Chinas cultural heritage. Liang did not call for the end of the Communist Party or flee the country. As Xu explains, Liang criticized Mao and others not only for the mistakes of the early years after the revolution but for seeking social transformations by locating modernity only within external traditions of thought, whether of the Euro-American variety or later Soviet.

Xu and Liang both view communism as foreign to Chinese culture, despite all efforts by the party to weld itself to Chinese nationalism and social traditions. Can groups of humans who were bounded with home-grown traditions survive by totally shifting to those of others, after they have destroyed their own traditions? Xu asks, noting the risk of social dysphoria caused by the broad application of any system not rooted within Chinas own culture, whether liberal or socialist in nature. Without deep roots in the solid meaningful soil of Chinese culture, he argues, the legitimacy of any legal system is questionable.

While Xu praised the reforms of the early 1980s, his suggestion in his work on Liang Shuming that the legal systems legitimacy requires a deeper foundation in Chinese culture is different than the partys oft-touted Chinese characteristics. Xu finds in Liangs work and in the Confucian tradition a basis for equality before the law, and the law standing above any person or movement. Further, he argues that a central tenet of Chinese tradition is that a contemporary political authority may not so dominate as to impede the processes of human reason. This is quite different from the partys notion of Chinese characteristics consisting of an overwhelming central authority, a mixed economy with market and socialist aspects, and Han favoritism.

Just as Liang did not reject the Communist Partys rule outright, even in his harshest criticisms, Xu does not call for an end to the party-state nor even directly call for democracy. Instead, in the 2018 essay that brought him much greater prominence, Imminent Fears, Immediate HopesA Beijing Jeremiad, he offers a series of reforms that he says would improve the social harmony and well-being of the Chinese nation. Perhaps Xus most penetrating insight in this essay was to dissect just how toxic Xis abolition of presidential term limits was. Xu argues that a limit of 10 years on a leaders term meant greater tranquility for the Chinese peopleone less thing to worry about as the chances of yet another period of political instability were reduced. Despite all the vacuous hoopla about other kinds of political reform initiatives, Xu contends, the establishment of term limits in the 1980s had been the only tangible example of real political reform and progress in China in three decades that was actually meaningful to ordinary Chinese people. By further concentrating power, China risked returning back to the Dark Ages of personality cults ruining the lives of ordinary Chinese.

As his own freedoms were relentlessly curtailed, this year Xu allowed himself to admit his own emotions were closest to righteous indignation (a term he carefully delineated as Western) when he considered the political system that had allowed the coronavirus to flourish while stripping him of his occupation for merely writing an essay. Though he despaired that scholars such as himself were useless, he still called on fellow Chinese to rage against this injustice. In his last missive, he even dared to call openly for independent political parties to be formed.

What happened to Xu on Monday is part of the larger constriction of political, social, and cultural thought occurring in China under Xi. Mirroring the aggressive maneuvers Xi has pursued at Chinas periphery while the world is distracted with the coronavirus, it reaches nearly every corner of society. It is becoming more formalized with each passing day.

Late last year, the party removed the phrase freedom of thought from the charters of several major universities, replacing it with language insisting upon allegiance to the party. It remains to be seen how successful the party will be at erasing every smudge of dissent. So far, no force of sufficient power has resisted it. The link that once led to Xus biographical page on the website of Tsinghua University now leads only to an error message stating that the page cannot be found.

See original here:

Arrested Professor Xu Zhangrun Was a Voice for Chinese Culture and a Threat to Xi Jinping - Foreign Policy

In 1932, Ambalal Chokshi was contemplating if he should join his fathers jewellery business or start one of his own. The Vadodara-based man, realising he had a penchant for Indian jewellery, decided to put his knowledge to maximum use and launch a business.

With just Rs 51 in his pocket, Ambalal started a wholesale jewellery business under his name. In 1940, he transitioned to a retail model to sell directly to customers.

Ketan Chokshi, coowner, Narayan Jewellers

Today, the family business is a success, adorning the likes of Olivia Wilde, Sonam Kapoor, Taapsee Pannu, Shilpa Shetty, etc., with its jewellery on red carpet occasions. It has also collaborated with Forevermark to design jewellery for celebrity attendees at the Academy Awards (the Oscars) for seven years.

Narayan Jewellers has a 5,200 square foot flagship store in Vadodara, Gujarat, showcasing gold, polki, diamond, and jadau jewellery. It also has 35 employees on its payroll.

In an exclusive interview with SMBStory, Ketan describes how Narayan Jewellers became a success and explains its business model.

Edited excerpts from the interview:

SMBStory [SMBS]: How did Ambalals business grow into a large, family-run jewellery company?

Ketan Chokshi [KC]: Being young and new in the business, my grandfather had limited resources and no help or assistance. Right from sourcing raw material at the best price to identifying the right logistics for transport, he had to do it all by himself. His sincerity, hard work, and honesty paved the path towards becoming a trustworthy name in the business.

Between 1997 and 1999, my brother Jatin and I joined the business and brought in our design intellect and management expertise. We grew it into a leading designer jewellery brand, won numerous awards, and launched our flagship store.

SMBS: Where does manufacturing happen? Do you own the manufacturing units?

KC: We deal with a variety of products and jewellery designs, and so, sourcing from one unit does not happen. Further, the jewellery industry in India is skills and talent-based. We need a Marwari kaarigar (worker) for jadau jewellery, and a Bengali kaarigar for diamonds and gold jewellery. The industry is skill-driven rather than volume-driven. Every skill has a particular style and strength of workmanship, hence the idea of having everything in-house does not work.

Our designs are our strength, and we get the jewellery articles manufactured from the best craftsmen of Bikaner and Jaipur in Central India, Chandigarh and Delhi in North India, Kolkata in East India, and Mumbai, Rajkot, Surat, and Vadodara in Western India.

About 30 to 33 percent of these facilities are controlled by us, and the rest is outsourced. The model depends on the manufacturers capacity this is the standard business arrangement in the jewellery industry so far in India.

Bridal Earrings by Narayan Jewellers

SMBS: What is your business model?

KC: A systematic and engineered approach to design, as well as the USP of not creating a second piece of the same design, has made us a preferred brand. A brand with a lineage of 80 years, we have been conducting continuous research and working on innovative designs to meet global standards and trends.

Besides our flagship store, we are working towards being present globally, and are going omnichannel with the launch of our online store this year.

Narayan targets a varied audience, as we cater to everyone, right from the niche and high-end customers to the masses. We have jewellery that starts from a few thousand rupees and goes up to crores.

SMBS: How is the company raising brand awareness and handling its marketing?

Narayan Jewellers has been a part of celebrity weddings such as of Harbhajan Singh and Geeta Basra. Weve also styled Bollywood and Hollywood celebrities. Our collection has been showcased at the New York Fashion Week for five seasons, including February 2020, in association with Forevermark and Bibhu Mohapatra.

We are active on social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, Pinterest, and WhatsApp, where we interact with our customers and understand their needs regularly. We will also be launching our ecommerce website soon.

SMBS: What are the toughest moments the company has faced?

KC: Before the abolition of the Gold (Control) Act in 1990, no one was allowed to keep 24 carats of gold in their home, and it was not easy to do business during the time. We faced it with a strong attitude until it was abolished.

We became the first family jewellery brand to get the BIS Hallmarking License in Vadodara when it was introduced in India in 2000. Other tough periods included the global recession in 2008, demonetisation, implementation of GST, and now, the COVID-19 pandemic. We have stuck with a positive attitude through the tough times, and come out as a winner.

Two-finger diamond ring by Narayan Jewellers

SMBS: How has COVID-19 affected the business, and what is being done to address it?

KC: COVID-19 has put the entire world on pause. People are still scared to go out of their house. Footfalls are limited. The jewellery that has been ordered is not getting picked up right now. Everyone is taking their own time to settle with this new scenario that has been created around us.

Usually, April to mid-July is the lowest quarter of the year, and COVID hit us exactly then. It resulted in business going down by 30 to 40 percent. By Diwali, we should be in a better situation.

Our store resumed operations just 20 days ago, and I believe people will slowly come back to the jewellery sector. I am sure that the future holds good things for us. The wedding season has also been postponed by three to six months, so there are challenges in that aspect.

But being in a high-end, niche designer jewellery segment, we will definitely sail through this. Lifestyle customers for whom jewellery is a part of their lives are our biggest strength.

Want to make your startup journey smooth? YS Education brings a comprehensive Funding Course, where you also get a chance to pitch your business plan to top investors. Click here to know more.

See the original post here:

Started with Rs 51, this Indian jewellery brand now designs for Oscars, is worn by Olivia Wilde, Sonam Kapoor, - YourStory