Mothership Memo is Mothership’s daily brief on the important headlines of the day. We will also contribute our views on the issues at hand.

Government reduces land supply for residential units

In its latest half-yearly Government Land Sales Programme (GLS), the Ministry of National Development has released land enough for 3,900 private homes - the lowest in five years. The GLS is seeking to balance the market which is facing large supply from projects in the pipeline and falling demand for homes.

With MND signalling that demand for houses are falling and an even larger supply of homes being built in the near future, it will become a situation of more supply than demand. Interest rates are set to increase as the United States Federal Reserve seeks to pull back on its monetary policy. Hence, the cost of borrowing for a mortgage will likely go up as well. With these two factors, combined with property cooling measures by the Government, sellers on the market will have to price their properties more attractively to entice house hunters.

Thinktank IPS to launch 50 books to celebrate Singapore's 50th birthday

The Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) will launch a series of 50 books, written by subject experts, for Singapore's golden jubilee next year.

The Singapore Chronicles comprise of 50 volumes written by experts in their field. It will cover topics in the fields of politics and governance, the environment, arts and culture and the economy. The books will be released in batches throughout 2015.

IPS director Janadas Devan described the books as extended Wikipedia entries. Hopefully, there will be e-book versions for the younger generation too.

Check out the 50 topics that the experts would write about. We noticed that none of the books were written by politicians or ex-politicians. Here are some of the 50 topics and their authors: 

Politics - Chan Heng Chee, Ambassador-at-Large and former Singapore Ambassador to the United States

Opposition - Zuraidah Ibrahim, Deputy Editor, The Straits Times

Governance - Peter Ho, former head of Civil Service

Separation - Janadas Devan, Director of IPS and Government's Chief of Communications

Confrontation - Bilahari Kausikan, Ambassador-at-Large and former Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 

Media - Nanyang Technological University professor Ang Peng Hwa

Civil Society - Gillian Koh, Senior Research Fellow at IPS

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