Malaysia to launch affirmative plan for minority communities

Kuala Lumpur, Sep 21 (PTI) There is no level playing field for the minority communities in Malaysia especially in securing jobs, admissions in educational institutes, but this scenario will rapidly change soon as Prime Minister Najib Razak is keen to address these issues, a top ethnic Indian leader has said here. Affirmative programmes are good but if they bypass a particular community, it leads to deprivation and deprivation leads to violence, G Palanivel, President of the Malaysian Indian Congress (MIC), the largest Indian based political party, said noting that these issues were being looked into. We are addressing the issues, talking with the prime minister, and these will be corrected. The present government is coming forward to give level playing field to all, he told a group of Indian journalists visiting Malaysia. Palanivel, who described MIC as the single largest mother party of India, said the present and future will be different than the past now. Now action is inclusive of the minority community over the years we have progressed. He felt that over 70 per cent of the ethnic Indians were doing well and 30 per cent had been deprived adding that even majority Malays and minority ethnic Chinese too fell into this category. The present government will correct all forms of deprivation not only for ethnic Indians but for everyone else even the Malays, he added. Malaysia has an affirmative plan for the majority Malays.