Malaysiaku, Negaraku

Despite the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim himself having emphasised the importance of head of government agencies and departments go down to the ground to know what their people are doing, this has not reached the ears of many in the local councils.           I was told that the Datuk Bandar of Petaling Jaya, (soon to be Datuk Seri, now Tuan)  Zahri Samington visited the PJKita Wet market quietly on his own.           Firstly, the state government (both the Menteri Besar and the state exco in charge of local government) should be made accountable for the failure of the local councils to solve the problems on the ground.           It is directly linked to the people that we are appointed to the job either as Council President or the Department Heads.           Take for example, I was discussing with the YDP of Selayang, Tuan Shahman Jalaludin. I told him about three humps in my area that need to be fixed.           He sent his men to check out the humps and revert to him. Bel

If you ask me, there should not be any stateless person in the world.         In fact, Malaysia's issue of stateless people was the result of the change of the Federal Constitution from jus soli to jus sanguinis on 31 January 1962.  Jus sanguinis is a principle of nationality law that grants citizenship by the nationality of one or both parents.           However, many people are born stateless because of a number of other reasons. For example, how would you expect a Lun Bawang family, for example, to walk a few hours from their home in the deep forest of Sarawak in those days to register the children's birth?           Being stateless means you are  nulla persona,  a Latin term used in the legal system which literally means "no person." It refers to people who have no legal status in the country where they may be born or reside all their lives.  A Perennial Problem          For many years, we have had many cases of people whose application for citizenship had been