Tax on Motor vehicles which include cars, vans, trishaws and motor bicycles have been increased with immediate effect. The Ministry of Finance and Planning announced today that the increase was made to ensure a drop in the vehicles imported to the country in order to reduce the high traffic congestions prevalent. The Ministry also said that this move will help bring down the use of fuel by motorists.

The classifications of the Tax have been made to correspond with the engine capacity of the vehicles. Hybrid vehicle production taxes below 1000CC have been increased by 14 % with tax for all hybrids above 3000CC being increased by 57%.

By Hameed Abdul Karim

According to Western public discourse there are two types of Muslim. One is a ‘fundamentalist’ the other is a ‘moderate’ Muslim. The former is one who wants to be independent from Western hegemony and the latter is one who cozies up to the Western agenda, wittingly or unwittingly. But now there is a new kid on the block. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Rand Corporation Muslim. ‘Who the heck is he’, you might ask and quite rightly so. Well, for starters he or she is a Muslim or, more appropriately, one who wears the ‘Muslim’ name tag and one who is trained and financed by America’s Rand Corporation to dilute Islam to a point where its adherents will no longer be a stumbling block to the empire’s plans for total world hegemony. And Manzoor Ahamed, writing under the title ‘China, Pakistan and the Iranian Bomb’ (Ceylon Today’ Sat.  24 March, 2012) fits the description of a ‘Rand Muslim’ like a glove going by his vilification of Pakistan’s much maligned nuclear scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan  who  gave his country its ‘Islamic bomb’.

The Malaysia International Scholarship (MIS) is an initiative by the Malaysian Government to attract the best brain from around the world to pursue advanced academic studies in Malaysia. This scholarship aims to support Malaysian Government's effort to attract, motivate and retain talented human capital from abroad.

Talented international students with excellent academic records and outstanding co-curricular backgrounds are welcomed to apply for this scholarship and further their studies in any selected and well-established Malaysian public and private universities. This scholarship is divided into two (2) categories of study: Postgraduate and Post-doctoral Studies

For full details, please visit https://payloan.mohe.gov.my/MIS/

The Saudi government paid SR72, 000 (approximately 2.5 million rupees) in compensation to a stranded Sri Lankan housemaid whose Saudi sponsor had not paid her wages for the last 17 years, the Arab News reported.

Kusuma Nandini, 57, who had come to Riyadh in 1994, was kept a virtual slave in the house of her employer.  She was not paid her wages and was not allowed to contact anyone including her relatives back home.