I had the pleasure of hosting Indian Road Transport Minister Kamal Nath to my constituency at Bedok Reservoir. We are old friends. We first met when he was Environment Minister when he generously donated to our zoo two Indian rhinos. Later we worked together when he was Commerce Minister. I attended his son's wedding in Delhi a few years ago, wearing my Nehru suit. At the last Indian GE when Congress achieved great success, he was the campaign manager. As Road Transport Minister, he is well on his way to building 20 km of highways a day!
When he arrived, I showed him Bedok Reservoir. We then adjourned to a nearby coffeeshop for dinner which consisted of chicken rice, Indian rojak, fried carrot cake, fruits and other local dishes. He brought along the Indian High Commissioner and two Indian entrepreneurs, Mr Raju of GMR which owns one of our power stations and Mr Malvinder Singh of Fortis. After dinner, I took them on a visit to two HDB apartments where we were warmly hosted first by a Malay family, then by a Chinese family. We then walked across to my MPS at Blk 713.
Singapore is a small country where an MP can be easily accessible to residents. Minister Nath's constituency in Madhya Pradesh is twenty times the size of Singapore with 1.5 million voters many of whom earn less than US$1 a day.
George Yeo
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