SRINAGAR: Agency for Science, Technology, and Research, Singapore is offering a merit-based fully funded scholarship to outstanding international PhD students.
Candidates with a passion for research, with good English writing and speaking skills can apply. Applicants applying for PhD in Science and Engineering are only eligible for this scholarship.
Students can pursue PhD in Science and Technology under this scholarship at top institutes in Singapore. However, students must apply for a full-time research programme as this scholarship does not support part-time programmes.
The duration of the scholarship is four years.
The required documents include an identification card or passport, academic transcripts of masters, and two recommendation reports.
The scholarship will cover all costs related to studying abroad. A monthly stipend of 2,000 USD ( 1, 63,634 INR) which will increase to 2,200 USD (1,79,997 INR), will be provided to the candidates after passing the Qualification.
Eligible candidates need to apply two weeks before the deadline. The deadline for the scholarship is 1 June 2023.
For further information and to apply, click here https://sms-applicant-app.a-star.edu.sg/
Colombo: Sri Lanka President Ranil Wickremesinghe on Sunday urged IT experts in the island nation to promote Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, taking India and Sri Lanka as models.
He directed formation of a presidential task force comprising AI experts and prepare a concept paper to promote AI usage as done in the two Asian nations.
“When it comes to artificial intelligence, we should consider Singapore and India as role models. It is true that east Asia…. South Korea, Japan, and China are making progress in artificial intelligence, but no country in West Asia has reached that stage yet,” Wickremesinghe said.
The Sri Lankan President said the country is aiming to create a digital economy and to meet the demands of the digital age, aiming to produce 10,000 engineers annually instead of present number 2, 500. He also highlighted the potential of AI in various fields, including agriculture, education, health, fisheries, and industry.
“We have identified the modernisation of agriculture and fisheries, tourism, and improvement of supply centres as urgent areas for development in our economic reforms. Additionally, we have placed a greater focus on the technology industry.”
The President noted that the current annual contribution to Sri Lanka’s gross national income through computer and information technology is around $1.9 billion, with no known amount from AI technology. He instructed officials to develop a system to track AI contributions and stressed the importance of taking prompt action to increase AI’s contribution to the gross domestic product in the coming years.
He invited the private sector to join in the effort and said that the government plans to allocate Rs one billion for AI technology next year.
Riyadh: Saudi national will no longer need to apply for a visa to enter Singapore, starting from Thursday, June 1.
Singaporean embassy in Riyadh said on Twitter, citing a statement from the Singapore Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, “Saudi nationals with passports issued by the KSA will no longer need to apply for an entry visa to enter Singapore from June 1, 2023.”
Except for holders of Saudi diplomatic passports, who are already exempt from Singapore visa requirements, all other Saudis must apply for a visa if they intend to enter Singapore before June 1.
“There is strictly no refund of the visa processing fee for those who have already submitted or received the outcome of their entry visa applications,” the embassy added on Twitter.
اعلنت هيئة الهجرة والجوازات في جمهورية سنغافورة عن إعفاء المواطنين السعوديين من الحصول على تأشيرة دخول مسبقة الى سنغافورة وسيكون الاعفاء ساريًا بدءًا من تاريخ (1 يونيو 2023م).
— Saudi Embassy In Singapore (@KSAembassySOM) April 28, 2023
Singapore: An Indian-origin man in Singapore has been sentenced to six months in prison for arranging a marriage of convenience between a colleague and his niece to gain an immigration advantage, a media report said.
Meeran Gani Nagoor Pitchai, 73, asked Abdul Kader Kasim, an Indian national who wanted to extend his short-term visit pass in 2016, to marry his cash-strapped niece in return for the payment of S$25,000, the TODAY newspaper reported.
Short term visit pass applicants, seeking an extension of 89 days from their date of entry to Singapore, require a local sponsor.
As part of the arrangement, Pitchai arranged for his niece, Noorjan Abdul, to become Kasim’s sponsor.
After Kasim and Noorjan agreed to the marriage and the financial arrangement, it was agreed that Pitchai would get S$1,000 as Noorjan’s former husband owed him money.
The marriage was solemnised in September 2016, and Pitchai was arrested last year by Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers for arranging a sham marriage to obtain immigration benefit.
“Sham marriages are an offence, they are difficult to detect as evidence of sham marriages is difficult to uncover,” Assistant Superintendent (ASP) Ganeshvaran Dhanasekaran from ICA told the court on Wednesday.
He sought a six-month jail term for Pitchai from the court, stating that ICA takes a serious view of sham marriages.
Defence counsel Rajan Supramaniam said his client was “very remorseful” and his intention was only to help his colleague and niece.
Supramaniam did not propose a specific sentence but sought a lesser sentence for Pitchai, the TODAY reported.
District Judge Wong Peck noted that Pitchai did not profit financially from the arrangement, but played a “major role” in arranging the marriage.
“I agree with the prosecution that there is a need for general deterrence as sham marriages are difficult to detect,” Peck said.
Kasim was sentenced to six months’ jail in August last year, while Noorjan was sentenced to seven months jail in February this year.
In Singapore, sham marriages conducted to obtain immigration advantage can lead to a jail term for up to 10 years or a fine of up to S$10,000, or both.
The Madras High Court has cleared the way for Advantage Strategic Consulting, a private firm, to proceed with a defamation suit against former Union Law Minister Subramanian Swamy in the High Court of Singapore. The court has set aside an injunction granted against the firm in 2014, citing lack of jurisdiction as the reason behind the current order.
The division bench of Justices SS Sundar and PB Balaji has stated, “In view of our above findings on all the issues, we are of the view that there is no prima facie case in favour of the 1st respondent/plaintiff (Swamy) to grant any interim order as this Court has no jurisdiction to grant anti suit injunction restraining a foreign company from prosecuting the defamation suit in a foreign country. We find balance of convenience in favour of the appellant/2nd defendant (Advantage Strategic)”.
The judges said that the earlier single judge’s verdict was based on the fact that the appellant company is a subsidiary of Advantage Strategic Consulting Private Limited based in Chennai.
Citing the Supreme Court’s order, the Madras HC said that despite being fully owned by a parent or holding company, a subsidiary would not lose its identity as a separate legal entity.
“Therefore, we are convinced that the appellant, a foreign company, even though fully owned by the 1st defendant is not amenable to the jurisdiction of this court…The judgment of the learned single judge cannot be approved for the simple reason that he has simply presumed that the appellant is amenable to the jurisdiction of this court as it is a subsidiary of the 1st defendant, an Indian company,” the judgment added.
In the court, Dr. Subramanian Swamy appeared along with Advocate R Ravi. On behalf of Advantage Strategic, senior Advocate Satish Parasaran and Advocate Rahul Balaji have appeared.
Singapore has hanged a prisoner for conspiracy to smuggle one kilogram of cannabis, authorities said, ignoring international protests and concerns that he lacked full access to a lawyer or interpreter.
The United Nations Human Rights Office had called for Singapore to “urgently reconsider” the hanging and British tycoon Richard Branson had urged the city state halt it.
Tangaraju Suppiah, 46, was sentenced to death in 2018 after a judge found he was the owner of a phone number used to coordinate an attempt to traffic the cannabis.
He was executed at Changi prison complex on Wednesday, Singapore Prisons Service told Agence France-Presse.
Campaigners had cited various concerns over the handling of his case, including claims he was questioned by police without legal counsel, and claims made in court that Suppiah, a Tamil speaker, was questioned by police in English without an interpreter.
In November last year, when Tangaraju filed an application for his case to be reviewed after an unsuccessful appeal, he represented himself in court. Activists say he is one of a growing number of death row prisoners doing so, because of difficulties in accessing lawyers.
On Tuesday night, Tangaraju’s family filmed a video appeal, asking the public to continue calling on Singapore’s president, Halimah Yacob, to stop his execution. They would not give up hope, said his niece. “They will kill him at 6am, we’ll keep the hope until 5.55am,” she said. “My uncle is a very good man, he didn’t have education or money but he worked very hard to look after us.”
Phil Robertson from Human Rights Watch called the execution outrageous. “Singapore’s continued use of the death penalty for drug possession is a human rights outrage that makes much of the world recoil, and wonder whether the image of modern, civilised Singapore is just a mirage,” he said.
The Singaporean government maintains that the death penalty is an effective deterrent against drug-related crime and that it is widely supported by the public.
Last year Singapore executed 11 people for drug-related cases, including Nagaenthran K Dharmalingam, a Malaysian man with learning difficulties whose case caused a global outcry as well as a rare protest in Singapore.
Maya Foa, director of non-profit organisation Reprieve, said Tangaraju’s execution “will only lead to increased opposition to the death penalty in Singapore”.
“Singapore claims it affords people on death row ‘due process’, but in reality fair-trial violations in capital punishment cases are the norm: defendants are being left without legal representation when faced with imminent execution, as lawyers who take such cases are intimidated and harassed,” she said.
Ming Yu Hah at Amnesty International also condemned the execution, saying there were “many flaws in the case”.
Branson, a member of the Geneva-based Global Commission on Drug Policy, wrote Monday on his blog that Tangaraju was “not anywhere near” the drugs at the time of his arrest and that Singapore may be about to put an innocent man to death.
Singapore’s Home Affairs Ministry responded on Tuesday, stating that Tangaraju’s guilt had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The ministry said two mobile phone numbers that prosecutors said belonged to him had been used to coordinate the delivery of the drugs.
It accused Branson of disrespecting Singapore’s courts, which it said had “thoroughly and comprehensively” examined the case over more than three years.
In many parts of the world – including neighbouring Thailand – cannabis has been decriminalised, with authorities abandoning prison sentences.
Rights groups have been heaping pressure on Singapore to abolish capital punishment. The Asian financial hub has some of the world’s toughest anti-narcotics laws and insists the death penalty remains an effective deterrent against trafficking.
The United Nations says the death penalty has not proven to be an effective deterrent globally and is incompatible with international human rights law, which only permits capital punishment for the most serious crimes
The UN’s Office of the high commissioner for Human Rights said on Tuesday: “The death penalty is still being used in a small number of countries, largely because of the myth that it deters crime.”
With Agence France-Presse
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#Singapore #executes #man #plot #smuggle #1kg #cannabis
( With inputs from : www.theguardian.com )
Chennai: Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin will be visiting Japan, Singapore, and the UK on a week-long tour after May 20, to attract investments as a prelude to the Global Investors Summit planned the state on January 10-11 next year.
Stalin had earlier visited the middle eastern countries for attracting investments.
According to information, the Chief Minister will be meeting entrepreneurs and government officials in his one-week tour of the three countries.
The Tamil Nadu government will be making an official announcement after the next cabinet meeting scheduled for May 2.
Sriharikota: ISRO’s PSLV C55 rocket carrying two Singapore satellites lifted off the spaceport on Saturday.
In its dedicated commercial mission through NSIL, ISRO’s workhorse launch vehicle carried with it TeLEOS-2 as the primary satellite and Lumelite-4 as a co-passenger satellite that would be deployed into low earth orbit.
#WATCH | Andhra Pradesh: Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launches its PSLV-C55 with two Singaporean satellites for Earth observation, from Sriharikota.
The 44.4-metre tall rocket blasted off from the first launch pad at the end of a 22.5-hour countdown at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, located about 135 km from Chennai.
TeLEOS-2 is a synthetic aperture radar satellite developed under a partnership between the Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA), representing the Government of Singapore and ST Engineering.
After deployment of the satellite into the about 586 km orbit, it would be used to support the satellite imagery requirements of various agencies within the Government of Singapore. TeLEOS-2 carries a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) payload. It would be used to provide all-weather day and night coverage and is capable of imaging at 1-metre full polarimetric resolution for Singapore.
Lumelite-4 satellite is co-developed by the Institute for Infocomm Research and Satellite Technology and Research Centre of the National University of Singapore.
It is an advanced 12U satellite developed for the technology demonstration of the High-Performance Space-borne VHF Data Exchange System (VDES). The satellite’s objective is to augment Singapore’s e-navigation maritime safety and benefit the global shipping community, ISRO said.
Singapore: A supermarket chain in Singapore has apologised after an Indian Muslim couple was turned away from one of its booths offering free refreshments to those breaking fast during Ramzan.
Farah Nadya and her husband Jahabar Shalih had gone to the FairPrice outlet at Our Tampines Hub on April 9 at around 7 p.m. for grocery shopping when an employee allegedly told them that the freebies were “not for India (sic)”, The Straits Times reported.
Nadya, 35, is a Malaysian Indian and runs her own healthcare company, while her 36-year-old husband is an Indian who works in the technology sector.
Shalih told The Straits Times that he was standing at the booth reading about free refreshments when a FairPrice employee approached him and said: “Not for India, not for India. Further, the employee told the couple not to take anything from the stand, and ‘go away’.”
Sharing her ordeal in a Facebook post, Nadya said that they did not intend to take the free items, and had stopped by the stand “to applaud such an inclusive initiative”.
The couple said they shared the experience on social media to “be accountable” to their children, who are of mixed race.
“I have encountered such things before, but this time I had to explain to my son what had happened,” Shalih told The Straits Times.
“I don’t think it’s the fault of the staff. I just feel that such things (can) happen, this is purely a lack of awareness.”
Apologising for the incident, a FairPrice spokesman said “we take this matter seriously”, adding that the employee in question has been “counselled”.
The initiative by FairPrice Group, launched at the end of March and running till April 21, sees 60 FairPrice outlets giving away free drinks, snacks and dates to those breaking fast during Ramzan.
LONDON — Britain will be welcomed into an Indo-Pacific trade bloc late Thursday as ministers from the soon-to-be 12-nation trade pact meet in a virtual ceremony across multiple time zones.
Chief negotiators and senior officials from member countries agreed Wednesday that Britain has met the high bar to join the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), four people familiar with the talks told POLITICO.
Negotiations are “done” and Britain’s accession is “all agreed [and] confirmed,” said a diplomat from one member nation. They were granted anonymity as they were unauthorized to discuss deliberations.
The U.K. will be the first new nation to join the pact since it was set up in 2018. Its existing members are Australia, Brunei, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and Canada.
Britain’s accession means it has met the high standards of the deal’s market access requirements and that it will align with the bloc’s sanitary and phytosanitary standards as well as provisions like investor-state dispute settlement. The resolution of a spat between the U.K. and Canada over agricultural market access earlier this month smoothed the way to joining up.
Member states have been “wary” of the “precedent-setting nature” of Britain’s accession, a government official from a member nation said, as China’s application to join is next in the queue. That makes it in the U.K.’s interests to ensure acceding parties provide ambitious market access offers, they added.
Trade ministers from the bloc will meet late Thursday in Britain, or early Friday for some member nations in Asia, “to put the seal on it all,” said the diplomat quoted at the top. The deal will be signed at a later time as the text needs to be legally verified and translated into various languages — including French in Canada. “That takes time,” they said.
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#Britain #secures #agreement #join #IndoPacific #trade #bloc
( With inputs from : www.politico.eu )
