First things first.

My deep appreciation for the tremendous feedback I have received in the last seven days since the launch of Newzzit on Singapore's 48th National Day!

Hopefully, this issue will cement your belief in Newzzit and its philosophy of 'taking journalism back to where it belongs – to the readers'. With every successive issue, we will publish stories which will help our readers in understanding this great Asian city a bit better.

We start this issue with the recently tabled Auditor-General's (AG) report and compare it with the findings of AG's previous years' reports. We then rewind the clock ten years back and look at some of the most important recommendations of Remaking Singapore committee set-up in 2002. As you will notice, many of these are relevant even today when all of us wait for the Prime Minister's August 18 speech.

In the Kaleidoscope section, we discuss the HOTA scheme of presumed consent for organ transplantation in Singapore. Our second story relates to how mosques here are on a modernity drive to attract younger Muslims.

Stories on the identity crisis of Singaporean Arabs, the economic boom of north-east Thailand and its impact on sex tourism in that country, and the growing Islamophobia in Switzerland, wind up our coverage for this fortnight.

With this issue, we have improved our layout a bit and intend to keep doing that in future as well.

Please remember, Newzzit is your newspaper and will always remain so. Any suggestion or criticism will be most welcome.

Finally, a lot of people have asked me about the business model of Newzzit. Is it free? Why is the content not locked? etc.

No, it is not free. But the content is not locked either. Confused? Let me explain with an analogy.

Assume that we put 100 hard copies of Newzzit on a table in a busy market-place on a bright sunny morning, with a piggy bank besides it. There is also a placard kept on the same table which says “pick one copy, drop one dollar”. But there is no one manning the table. What do you think will happen?

Of course, there is an underlining assumption here that Newzzit is a quality product with very affordable pricing, which people generally like.

All of us can agree on one thing. When we return in the evening, all 100 copies would have been taken away. But what about the piggy bank? Will it have 100 dollars or zero? Or something in between? The answer to this is precarious and probably depends on how each one of us perceive the world.

See you on September 1st!

Gaurav