Shukran Jazeelan Professor Shafeeq @shafeeq_valanchery for mentioning me in your seminal work on the Gulf.

As a fellow Gulf Kid and PhD researcher, this is the dignity and the kindness which means the world to me.

Today evening, it was a traffic filled ride from Jalan Ampang to Bangsar Village and my Grab driver was a Malaysian Chinese Woman with a very Singaporean accent ma. She was complaining about the traffic and the way that Waze was taking her. We got chatting as I could sense she is up for a conversation and felt like she had a career earlier, to taking up Grab three years back. She was an operator at Micron in Singapore at Bendemeer Road. She got her PR but surrendered it when she moved back to KL to get her CPF money. She regrets surrendering her PR, as she could then drive Grab there and earn as much in a day as she earns in a week.

The Cheras native, drives for 14 hours a day, and drives long hours as she needs the money although the flexible nature of driving Grab is a key attraction, as well as not having a boss to boss over them. She earns RM 200 per day after fuel and car maintenance. She takes a day off per week in which she invests in a massage that she calls it her hobby. So it is a spend of RM 85 for a two hour massage to restore herself.

A lot of Grab Drivers are women in KL, and this aspect of the platform ecosystem is indeed encouraging, although as per my non random purposive sampling, Grab Plus drivers are educated and use good business models to drive revenue, as entrepreneurs which they are at their scale.

Congratulations Brother Colin and Sister Ivy on your Blessed Christian wedding.

Such a blessing to have attended your wedding service, Amen.

Diaspora sensibilities create a third space, neither homeland as one had left it nor the clean global modernity of the host land. Migration infrastructure at every corner which caters to the person from afar.

Learning under the auspices of the legend since early 2015.

Mohsin Da, is an inspiration. One does not need the h index gymnastics to do real work for three decades, yet I am not seen a person who is such a profound thinker of the life worlds of Bangladeshi migration in SE Asia.

Thank you for everything, grateful.

History this evening in Singapore, as PM Lawrence Wong takes charge in a very clinical Singapore- esque transition of power which has been in works since the past election.

Senior Minister Lee will be in the cabinet with President Tharman around as Head of State. The legends will be around for a few more years for counsel and global diplomacy.

PM Lawrence Wong in his speech calls for a renewed social contract with a globally aware citizenry and an aging population. He reiterated the tough geopolitical climate, and there are reasons for worry, with the US elections up ahead.

As a product of the system, and having read graduate school coursework at both NUS and NTU on NRF and SSHRC scholarships linked to policy research projects, Singapore is my second home, and one of the few regular Indian watchers of affairs in the tiny red dot, I wish the new Prime Minister well.

Majulah 🇸🇬

ESG is an assemblage of risk (an actor network) which many vectors, the primary variables which crystallise into Climate Risk, Human Rights Risk and Biodiversity Risk, and these have ramifications for litigation, which is the real risk no ones wants to bring to the conversation.

The Indian High Commissioner to Malaysia spoke to its citizens who are students in a reception at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose Indian Cultural Centre. He spoke eloquently on Indian student community globally that stands at 1 million plus, and that Indian Student numbers will only increase in Malaysia given the Canada draw down. There are 17 million Indians in the diaspora. Malaysia has 4400 Indian students in the country. Students were raising their concerns and the HC was proactive, a signature of the Jaishankar era of Indian foreign policy and diaspora engagement. There are 24000 Indian Professional expats in Malaysia.

Met fellow Indians in Malaysia and my university, even my department at the reception.

It brought a tear to my eye, when the HC mentioned welcome home, this is your space. Jai Hind.