Ganesh Sahathevan

The pathways between the East and West coast of the peninsular ,from the Bujang Valley are clearer in this enhancement. A path from Penang to Sungai Patani  ,and then to Yala, navigating a narrow strip of higher ground, seems evident.

Dear Friends I was alerted to the possible existence of an ancient trade route that may have connected the Merbok and Patani rivers. While routes of type may no longer be visible to the naked eye, and on site, an enhanced terrain image can highlight pathways that have long been hidden by sediment and vegetation. The image below is an attempt to make these pathways more visible, and as one can see , there are in fact formations in the central ranges  connecting a number of rivers that flow east and west.

T This image is another enhancement of the satellite image of the Bujang Valley and surrounding areas in Northern Malaysia. This image has been enhanced such that viewers can more clearly identify the valleys, rivers and streams that come down into the valley from the central ranges. Could it have been possible for the early   inhabitants of the  Valley to yo have traveled overland to the East Coast, thus creating a state or sovereignty that extended across the peninsula,from the west to east coasts? Or could they have, from the Valley, traded with Chinese, Indo-Chinese,and other East Asians who could have landed their goods at various points on the East Coast? I look forward to your comments.

Dear Readers The  Bujang Valley archelogical site   has been in the news recently and by all accounts it seems to be a site of some significance which has yet to be properly surveyed.This is an attempt to  publicly survey  that site using satellite imagery of the terrain at and around the site. The first picture below is a Google map view of Northern Malaysia onto which a terrain image captured by a Shuttle mission has been superimposed. The second image is a magnification of the latter. The elevation (height) has been exaggerated to enhance features that may otherwise remain hidden.  Its colour scheme is arranged such that higher elevations are more brightly coloured, and the plains mostly blue. The Valley is located to the south the peak at  the top left corner of the "blue box"  in the Google Map image, and in the terrain image below that. The images may be magnified by clicking  on them. Penang island is located at the bottom left corner of t...

The decision to appoint Quah Poh Keat as CEO should not be approved of by Bank Negara which has responsibility to depositors whose funds are the obvious, predominant source of  Public Bank's financing. To begin with Quah has had no experience running a bank. His only qualification seems to be the fact that he is Chinese, and was the managing partner at Public Bank's auditor KPMG. This alone should count against him, but the fact of his prior duties at KPMG raises questions about potential conflicts of interest. Indeed the conflict arose in 2008 when Quah was appointed a non-executive director and KPMG remained auditor. Then , come questions concerning past audits. While Public Bank has been awarded a number of awards for best annual report and so on in Malaysia by the Malaysian audit and accounting fraternity, the fact is the Big 4 in Malaysia have been known and proven to be rather slack in their work.For example,as  one study found : Audit quality can be defined as relating ...

Quah Poh Keat might have made a good accountant, given his experience in "audition" but CEO of a bank? Then again, Public Bank is no ordinary bank .  A 83 year old who saw it fit to be chairman of  Berjaya Toto and the bank, and who oversaw massive loans from that bank to Berjaya(more about that later) , remains to this day its chairman, while the CEO of the same age continues to run the bank out of his hospital bed. That said, when out of bed he continues to display the usual conservative style  that has marked his leadership, accentuated as always by his dancing girls. This is how the bank, using public funds, celebrated the his birthday in 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=INm7japeUDU&feature=youtu.be That same sense understated style  is seen again at an awards night for  salesmen and women from its mutual fund business:  Yang Berbahagia, Tan Sri Datuk Teh Hong Piow , the Chairman of Public Bank, Public Mutual, 3rd richest man in Malay...