Blowin' In The Wind

How 'paranoid' small countries succeed

TechCrunch columnist Sarah Lacy, who attended the World Economic Forum's three-day "Summer Davos" meeting in Tianjin, China, has written a great piece on How small countries outperform others. She mentions Israel and Singapore and says:

NTU 69th, NUS 84th in Economist MBA rankings

I was shocked to read in the Straits Times today that Singapore's Nanyang Technological University was found below average in teaching in the Times Higher Education world university rankings. NTU dropped a hundred places to 174th spot this year while the National University of Singapore fell only four places to 34th.  You can see the rankings here.

The Economist magazine, however, rates the Nanyang Business School higher than the NUS Business School.

The Nanyang Business School is 69th and the NUS Business School 84th in this year's Economist rankings of MBA programmes. The Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, is 85th. INSEAD, which has campuses in both France and Singapore, is 23rd.

The University of Chicago's Booth School of Business is first and Dartmouth College's Tuck School of Business is second. The University of California Berkeley's Haas School of Business is third and Harvard Business School fourth. "America rules the roost," says the Economist. See the full rankings here.  Click on the links there to see short profiles of the business schools, showing their fees, student-faculty ratio, their strengths and weaknesses, the starting salaries and career prospects of their graduates.

NUS 34th, NTU 174th in Times university rankings

The National University of Singapore is 34th and Nanyang Technological University 174th in the 2010 Times Higher Education World University Rankings powered by Thomson Reuters, released today.

American universities swept the board. Here's the list of the world's top 100 universities.

Global rankings and how they are done

A country's ranking in the World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report depends largely on an executive opinion survey. If the business executives in one country rate its infrastructure, government institutions or education system highly, its score goes up in those categories. These are used to decide overall rankings.

Singapore is the world's third most competitive economy, according to this year's report, for the second year in a row. Switzerland remains No 1 while Sweden has moved up to second place. America, which slipped to second spot last year, is down to fourth place.

What these rankings reflect is business confidence in a country.

In Singapore, the business executives who took part in the survey were chosen with the help of the Economic Development Board. In some countries, they were chosen with the help of non-government bodies. The London School of Economics helped in Britain, the Confederation of Indian Industries in India.

Singapore excelled in those categories where the rankings were based on the executive opinion survey. The executives, chosen with the help of the Economic Development Board, gave it near-perfect scores for quality of education, public trust in politicians and several other categories.

From World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2010

(These charts from the Global Competitiveness Report are based not on the executive opinion survey but on other sources.)

How the Global Competitiveness Report is prepared

There were more respondents from Singapore than from many bigger economies to the World Economic Forum's executive opinion survey this year.

The survey is used to prepare the annual Global Competitiveness Report.

Singapore was ranked the world's third most competitive economy this year, same as last year.

This year there were 122 respondents from Singapore compared with 437 in the United States and only 102 in the United Kingdom and 103 in India. There were only 132 respondents from Japan but 362 from China.

Singapore also enjoys greater cohesion than, say, America, Britain or India. Politics is far more polarized in those countries. Have you ever heard a Republican praise a Democrat?

Such polarization can affect a country's ranking in the Global Competitiveness Report because of the way it is compiled.

Singapore 3rd most competitive economy

Singapore remains the world's third most competitive economy, overtaken by Sweden, which moves up to the second spot from fourth place last year.

Switzerland remains No 1 in the Global Competitiveness Report 2010-2011, released today by the World Economic Forum.

The big loser is America, dropping to fourth position after already ceding the top place to Switzerland last year.  The report says, "There has been a weakening of the United States’ public and private institutions" and notes "lingering concerns about the state of its financial markets".

The report says Singapore ranks

• First for lack of corruption and for government efficiency
• First for the efficiency of its goods and labour markets
• Second for its financial market sophistication
• Fifth for infrastructure.

Singapore's competitiveness is "buttressed by a strong focus on education, providing individuals with the skills needed for a rapidly changing global economy," says the report.

However, Singapore could "encourage even stronger adoption of the latest technologies as well as policies that enhance the sophistication of its companies", it adds.

Singapore scores lower for innovation, market sophistication, and technological readiness than for health and education, infrastructure, institutions, and efficiency in goods and labour markets. You can see the full report on the World Economic Forum website.

Singapore world's 4th biggest forex market

Singapore is once against the world's fourth biggest foreign exchange market with an average daily turnover of $266 billion. That is 5.3 per cent of the global daily turnover, according to the Bank for International Settlements.

Worldwide foreign exchange transactions average $4 trillion a day, up from $3.3 trillion in 2007, with nearly 85 per cent of the buying and selling involving US dollars. Transactions involving Singapore dollars exceed those in Chinese renminbi.

Switzerland, the fourth biggest forex market in 2007, has dropped back to fifth spot with an average daily turnover of $266.2 billion, or 5.2 per cent of the market.

Britain remains the biggest market with an average daily turnover of $1.85 trillion or 37 per cent of the market. America is second with $904.4 billion or 18 per cent, and Japan third with $312.3 billion or 6.2 per cent.

Iraq war flashbacks as last US combat brigade exits

Remember Rageh Omaar, who reported from Baghdad for the BBC when the Iraq war began in 2003? This is how he reported the arrival of US forces in Baghdad and the toppling of Saddam's statue in April 2003. Here you can see President George W Bush claiming "Mission accomplished" aboard the US aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln in early May 2003.

This is how the BBC showed Saddam Hussein's medical examination following his capture. And this is the CNN report on his execution. (I couldn't watch it).

All because of 9/11. This video shows the second plane hitting the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. You can hear the newscasters gasp. What a terrible tragedy. I remember watching it on CNN and couldn't believe my eyes. It was like the end of the world.

As the last US combat brigade pulls out of Iraq, leaving behind more than 50,000 US soldiers in the country, here's a moment of remembrance:

MPs' pay in Singapore and other countries

Singapore's members of parliament are paid more than the members of the House of Commons and the European Parliament and their counterparts in Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and New Zealand.

Singapore	S$225,000	($166,000)
USA	$174,000	($174,000)
Japan	¥1,300,000 a month	($15,200 a month,i.e  $182,000 a year).
UK	£65,738	($103,000)
European Parliament	€7,665 a month	($9,880 a month, i.e, over $118,500 a year)
Canada	C$155,400	($151,000)
Australia	A$131,040	($118,000)
New Zealand	NZ$144,500	($103,000)

(Table shows annual salaries unless mentioned otherwise.)

I discovered this after reading that the Indian parliament plans to treble its members' salaries. The Financial Times report says: "Parliamentarians in the world’s largest democracy currently receive Rs16,000 ($343, €266, £220) a month."

That's less than a day's pay for a Singapore MP.

India: 63 years of independence

Jai Hind! India is celebrating 63 years of independence today. So what are the people saying and how is the day unfolding across the length and breadth of the country? Here are real-time results for India on Twitter and a Google map of India. .

Real-time results for India independence day on Twitter

Real-time results for India on Twitter

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