Challenge for Iskandar Malaysia part 1

I have been in Iskandar Malaysia for more than a year and i can see the govt & IRDA are really pushing hard for physical development in Iskandar Malaysia. There is the spanking new Johor Govt administrative complex. The grandaur architecture bore  similarity to  putrajaya and it is also a dead city expect for office hours. There is the legoland and medini business center. At the same time, i could not see any real effort in sociodevelopment within Iskandar Malaysia. Of cource, it has the Iskandar commuter bus service, but it seems to serve the locals more than the singapore commuters / expectiarate. Also, I did not notice any significant expatiarate community in JB, it is kind of strange considerang Singapore has sizeable expat community in the country. The conclusion that I can make is that Iskandar Malaysia has not been able to attract any signifact project that eventually attract expats.  Here I an presenting some of the challenges  for Iskandar Malaysia Development Authority (IRDA)  to look at .  The challenges presented below looks simple, but it may require significant change to government-government relationship and also their existing procedure. At the same time I believe these changes would be beneficial to Iskandar Malaysia in order to promote itself as the alternative ( or better ) thanSsingapore

1- A 30 minute ride commuter service between Singapore and Iskandar Malaysia. Max 40 min during rush hour. If someone wants to stay is Singapore and work in Iskandar Malaysia, I think it is important to have a commuter service with very precise timing. The question is, can the IRDA work with Singapore authority to provide a bus service that guarantees the ride between Singapore and Malaysia within 30 min. ( that is inclusive of passport and immigration clearance by both sides)

2- Police report in English:  The police stations in Iskandar Malaysia to receive police report in English. We all know that is has been a pain-in the neck for foreigner to file a police report in Bahasa Malaysia. Current process where the foreigner will explain the issue to police office in English and let them to write the report in Bahasa is not enhancing the trust between the police force and public. The challenge is, can the police force change the procedure to accept the report in English? I have written in my previous post about using google translator as one of the solution for english native speaker .. ie, a) we write the report in English, b) use google translator to translate it to malay c) print both and file both version as official report


Well, there you have it ... I hope 1 day I'll be able to see some version of these proposal implemented in Iskandar Malaysia

Filing the police report in English in Malaysia

As Malaysian's, we have to file any police report in Bahasa Malaysia. The logic for this might go back to early stage of independence where we wanted to ensure all Malaysian's use our national language for the sake of nation building , unity and etc etc

As the Malaysia progressed into 21th century , with the country becoming more international with entourage of expats and migrants, the simple process reporting any crime can become an uphill tasks to these group of people.

Fret not, with the advancement of technology particularly google translator, I think the problem can be resolved.

Current proposal is
1- let the public to type in the report in English into google translator
2- Google translator will produce the Bahasa Malaysia version of the report. Well, the technology is not perfect, but I think it will convey the message through.
Current process where the public has to explain the events to police officer in English and then let them write the report in Bahasa Malaysia is not perfect too.
3- print both the english and Bahasa Malaysia version ( from google translator) and file both as official report
4- The question right now is whether our Police system will be able to accept this procedure.

Example of google translation

At 7:00am this morning , we went out for a jog at the waterfront near Lido beach. Once we returned home at around 8:30am, we found the front door war ajar. We were sure that we locked the door properly before we left for the jog. We went inside and discovered that our plasma TV and laptop computer were missing

result from by google translator ( translate.google.com

Di 7:00 pagi ini, kami keluar untuk berjoging di tepi pantai berhampiran Lido.Apabila kita pulang pada sekitar 8:30, kita mendapati perang pintu renggang depan.Kami pasti bahawa kita dikunci pintu betul sebelum kami meninggalkan untuk berjoging.Kami masuk ke dalam dan mendapati bahawa TV plasma dan komputer riba telah hilang.


Not bad for machine translation


Btw .. I am thinking to start a Petition to allow police report in English in Malaysia , at least we need to get it for Iskandar Malaysia... anybody agrees with me?