He is the second child of Sabapathy Pillai Sinnathamby
and was born in Vattukottai, Jaffna, Sri Lanka.
His father had wanted him to be born there for auspicious
reasons after premature death of his older brother.
He was then brought back to Malaya and raised in Seramban and Selangor
He studied in
Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus,
St Paul's boys' school, 
Victoria Institution in Kuala Lumpur, and later in
Raffles Institution in Singapore.In 1937, he went to
King's College London to pursue a law degree.He turned to journalism to earn a living and to be able to continue with his studies.
He met his wife Piroska Feher, a Hungarian teacher while in London
He joined the Malayan Tribune in 1948
In 1954, he joined The Straits Times as a journalist.
He was bold in writing about the way Singapore was governed by the British.
This incurred the displeasure of the colonial government.
His column, "I write as I please", attracted so much attention that he was called for questioning by the government.
Rajaratnam died on 22 February 2006 of heart failure.
As a mark of respect, mediacorp channel 5 and 8 observed the one-minute of silence of procedure that night. The state flag on all government buildings was flown at half-mast from 23 february to 25 february 2006.
In recognition of his contributions as one of Singapore's founding fathers,
Rajaratnam was accorded a state funeral at the Esplanade - Theatres on the Bay
on 25 February 2006. The coffin was carried from Parliament House to the
Esplanade at 1:30pm on a ceremonial gun carriage,
past the historic Civic District. The service was attended by
President S.R. Nathan, Cabinet ministers, members of parliament and invited people from all walks of life.
The Singapore National Pledge was recited by the mourners in honour of Rajaratnam,
who penned down the National Pledge against the backdrop of racial riots in the 1950s and 1960s to inculcate in all Singaporeans his vision of building one united Singapore regardless of race, language or religion.
POLITICS
He became popular among his supporters for being able to effectively follow the
‘mood of the people’
He thought of a multiracial Singapore and envisioned her to be a ‘global city’
He wrote the Singapore National Pledge in 1966.
During his years in parliament, he served as
Minister for Culture (1959),
Minister for Foreign Affairs (1965-1980),
Minister for Labour (1968-1971),
and Second Deputy Prime Minister (1980-1985)
and was later appointed as Senior Minister until his retirement in 1988.
During his term as Minister of Labour, he implemented tough labour laws to
attempt to restore stability in the Singaporean economy and attracted
multinational corporations to invest in Singapore.
This important appointment emphasised the trust that the government had in him in
overcoming the challenges Singapore faced.
Throughout his political career, he played a key role in the successive
pragmatic and technocratic People's Action Party governments that
radically improved Singapore's economic situation,
alongside huge
of healthcare programmes, pensions, state housing and extremely low unemployment.
This is well underlined by his following statement:
We believe in a democratic society by governments freely and periodically
elected by the people...
We believe, in the virtue of hard work and that those who work harder in
society should be given greater rewards...
We believe that the world does not owe us a living and that we have to earn our keep.
Rajaratnam retired from political office in 1988 as part of the leadership transition.
He then served at the Institute of South East Asian Studies as a
Distinguished Senior Fellow from November 1, 1988 to October 31, 1997.
Dr Goh Keng Swee
He was born in Malacca in the Strats Settlements on 6 October 1918 into a middle-income Peranakan family and was also the fifth of six children. His father, Goh Leng Inn, was a manager of a rubber plantation, while his mother, Tan Swee Eng , was from the family that produced the Malaysian politicians.
He was given the Christian name Robert, which he disliked and refused to respond to.
His family moved from Malacca to Singapore where his maternal grandparents owned several properties. They then relocated to the Pasir Panjang rubber estate when his father found worked there and became a manager in 1933. They spoke both English and Malay at home.
After studying at the Anglo-Chinese Primary School and the Anglo-Chinese Secondary School between 1927 and 1936 where he was second in his class in the Senior Cambridge Examinations, he went on to graduate from Raffles College in 1939 with a Class II Diploma in Arts with a special distinction in economics.
He then joined the colonial Civil Service as a tax collector with the War Tax Department but, according to his superiors, was not very good at his job and was almost fired. Shortly after the start of WWII, he joined the Singapore Volunteer Corps, a local militia, but returned to his previous work after the fall of Singapore. He then married Alice Woon, a secretary who was a colleague in 1942 and they had their only child, Goh Kian Chee, two years later.
They moved to Malacca in 1945 but returned to Singapore the following year after the Japanese Occupation ended. That year, he joined the Department of Social Welfare, and was active in post-war administration. He then became supervisor of the Department’s Research Section six months later.
He won a scholarship which enabled him to further his studies at the London School of Economics and Political Science. He graduated with first class honours in economics in 1951 and won the William Farr Prize for achieving the highest marks in statistics. Upon his return to the Department of Social Wefare, he was appointed as the assistant secretary of its Research Section.
In 1954, Goh was able to return to LSE for doctoral studies with the help of a University of London scholarship. He completed his Ph.D. in Economics in 1956 and returned to the Department of Social Welfare, where he served as Assistant Director and then Director. In 1958 he was made Director of the Social and Economic Research Division in the Chief Minister's Office. He resigned from the civil service in August that year to work full-time for the People's Action Party
After retirement from politics,
Goh continued to be active in public life, serving as
Deputy Chairman of the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (1981–1994),
Economic Adviser to the State Council of the People's Republic of China on coastal development and Adviser on tourism (1985),
Deputy Chairman of the MAS (1985 – 31 May 1992),
Chairman of the Singapore Totalisator Board (1988–1994),
a Director of Gateway Technologies Services Pte. Ltd. (from 1991),
adviser to the United Overseas Bank group (from 1 January 1993),
Chairman of N.M. Rothschild & Sons (Singapore) Ltd. (from 1994),
and Vice-Chairman of Hong Leong Asia Ltd. (from 1995).
Between 1983 and 1992,
he was Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Institute of East Asian Philosophies,
which was originally founded to study Confucianism.
The Institute later turned its focus on China's political and economic development,
renaming itself the Institute of East Asian Political Economy
and Goh continued as its Executive Chairman and the Chairman of its Board of Governors until 1995.
In April 1997, the Institute was reconstituted as the East Asian Institute,
an autonomous research organization under the auspices of the National University of Singapore.
In 1986, Goh separated from his first wife Alice.
He married his former Ministry of Education colleague Dr. Phua Swee Liang in 1991.
He suffered his first stroke in 1999 and another one in 2000 which affected the vision in his right eye.
According to Goh's daughter-in-law, Tan Siok Sun, this caused him to withdraw and become extremely quiet.
In July 2007 Tan published a biography entitled Goh Keng Swee: A Portrait.
Goh's second wife issued a statement claiming that Goh had not been consulted
on the book and had indicated to her that he did not want any book to be written about him.
"Therefore, the publication of this book is contrary to his wishes, and is a show of disregard and utmost disrespect to him." In an interview with The Straits Times,
Tan said she did not start the dispute between Mrs. Goh and
herself, nor did she wish to prolong it.
Goh died in the early morning of 14 May 2010 at the age of 91,
leaving behind his wife, his son, two grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.
POLITICS
There was a clash of fundamental principles, both political and economic,
notably on the issue of Malay dominance. Communitarian violence in 1964
was inflamed in Singapore by Malay and Chinese activists.
According to Lee Kuan Yew, Goh fought to protect Singapore's interests against the
Federal Minister of Finance, his cousin Tan Siew Tin, "who was out to spite Singapore".
Goh played a crucial role in orchestrating the subsequent secession of
Singapore from the Federation on 9 August 1965.
After two difficult years, Lee asked him to negotiate with the Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak and Minister for External Affairs Tun Dr. Ismail Abdul Rahman in July 1965
for Singapore to have a looser arrangement with Malaysia within the Federation.
However, following the discussions, Goh decided on his own that it
would be better for Malaysia and Singapore to have a clean break.
He would later claim this was the "best thing that ever happened to Singapore".
Goh was also responsible for projects that sought to improve Singaporeans' cultural and leisure life,
such as the Jurong Bird Park, the Singapore Zoo and the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.
He backed the construction of the Kreta Ayer People's Theatre in his constituency as a
venue for Chinese opera performances. He was also instrumental in introducing rugby in the
Singapore Armed Forces and later in schools.
In recognition of his role in promoting the sport, the Schools "C" Division Cup is named after him.
Impressed by an oceanarium in the Bahamas, he contacted the Sentosa Development Corporation
and convinced them to have one.
On 1 March 1973, Goh was appointed Deputy Prime Minister of Singapore
concurrently with his other Cabinet portfolio. On 12 February 1979,
Goh moved on from the Defence Ministry to the Ministry of Education,
where his Report was greatly influenced the development of Singapore's education system.
He set up the Curriculum Development Institute, and introduced key policies such as
religious education and, in 1980, the channelling of students into
different programmes of study according to their learning abilities, known as "streaming".
Goh served two terms as Education Minister, his first ending on 31 May 1980,
and his second following the 1980 general election from 1 June 1981 till his retirement.
From 1 June 1980 he was redesignated First Deputy Prime Minister upon S. Rajaratnam
being made Second Deputy Prime Minister, and served as
Chairman of the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) until he stepped
down from Parliament on 3 December 1984 at the age of 66 years.
In a tribute to mark the occasion, Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew wrote:
"A whole generation of Singaporeans takes their present standard of living for granted because you had laid the foundations of the economy of modern Singapore"