Like many Singaporeans, I would also prefer to have a smaller population of foreigners in our Singapore but ……

We are facing the crisis of our lifetime. Our citizen population will halve every two generations. This is a serious ‘long’ term problem and the only cure is more babies. But the real emergency is not babies, but ageing. That is why the population will increase in the short term before the inevitable decrease in the long term.

Hindi Centres 2012 Concert

Excerpts of a speech delivered on 22 July 2012 to commemorate the Hindi Centres Day.

Mr Vijay Kumar Rai, President of the Hindi Society Singapore; Members of the Management Committee of the Hindi Society and Hindi Centres,

We are here today to celebrate 23 years of really heartfelt volunteerism. I see many of you in this room that I recognise, and was also introduced to Mrs Sharma, whom I understand has been a teacher in the Hindi Centre since it started in August 1990.

This is an excerpt of a speech I gave in Parliament in 2009. This issue remains ‘live’. We must acknowledge the valid concerns of Singaporeans about the pace of immigration and whether our infrastructure development has kept pace. We must reaffirm that Singaporean will always come first. We need an open constructive discussion about this and other sensitive issues. But we can do so in a civil and constructive tone.