Facts about National Day Rally 2014

August 20, 2014

The National Day Rally, 2014 at Singapore was smoothly carried out with its set of some remarkable features. The PM makes it pleasurable enough for all to watch and ensures to add some new twitch to the speech every year. Known for his technology love and prowess, he is quite a geek and is well-known to include group selfies and other high-fidelity systems to broadcast. The speech is expected by the public to be loaded with goodies which may also be accompanied by emotional intervals. The interest level is usually very high with the public who look forward to it every year and wait for the surprise element.

Significance

The National Day Rally, is an annual event at Singapore where the Prime Minister addresses the nation on the second Sunday after August 9. It is regarded as the most important political speech of the year. The PM mostly touches topics of national importance specially the key challenges and issues the country is facing the direction of governmental policies to tackle them effectively. It also usually comes loaded with lot of future policy talk. Parallels are drawn by experts between NDR and the State of the Union Address given by the US President. It is a much awaited event by the people of the nation and has huge significance for everybody.

Venue and Broadcast

The venue of the rally which was constant till 1982 being the National Theatre was shifted after the latter was demolished. Thus, the rally was housed at Kallang Theatre from 1983-2000, following which it started to be held at the University Cultural Centre at National University of Singapore. Being a national event, the rally is often broadcast live from 6:45pm till 10 pm SST with a break between 7:30pm and 8pm across all MediaCorp channels.

Lively Facts about 2014 Rally

As against popular tradition which the PM had himself defined he did not wear pink or any shade of red. Instead the PM appeared in a blue colored shirt.
PM announced a host of incentives for the people amongst which the most appreciated was the extension of Lease Buyback scheme for four-room flats
PM Lee turned interviewer as he made a special gesture to get down asking a few questions from 3 employees of Keppel Offshore and Marine the snippets of which he screened in his speech. His skills as an interviewer were widely acclaimed even by prominent journalists.
He unveiled amazing plans for Jurong Lake and Gateway area. A lot of infrastructural plans were unfolded for further beautification and development of the area.
Lastly, he took courage to sing a line from the Chinese xinyao song, on dreams.