1983

1 January: Radio stations banned from using dialect.
29 January: The Singapore Cable Car disaster. A Pamnamian-registered oil rig strikes the cables between Sentosa and Jardine Steps, causing two cable cars two plunge into the sea, killing seven people. 13 people are left stranded for 3 1/2 hours as a joint SCDF/SAF operation, led by Col Lee Hsien Loong, rushes to save them.
The discriminatory policies encouraging childbirth in graduate women and discouraging childbirth in non-graduate women are introduced. These will be dropped following the 1984 elections.
Centrepoint Shopping Centre opens.
Dr Albert Winsemius retires. The Dutch industrialist and former leader of the UN technical assistance team to Singapore was instrumental in setting up JTC and SDB (Singapore Development Bank), offering incentives to attract potential investors.
“Niche”, an early gay bar catering to a younger crowd, opens.
The URA completes an urban design plan for the Central Area, resulting in an orderly transformation of the city skyline and the creation of an impressive environment interwoven with the historical, architectural and cultural heritage of the older parts of the city.
Shootout at 4 Andrew Road: two robbers, the Singaporean Sek Kim Wah and the Malaysian Nyu Kok Meng, capture, rob and murder the businessman Robert Tay, his wife and his Filipina maid. Among their weapons is a rifle Sek has stolen from SAFTI, where he is posted as an NSF. Against his accomplice's orders, Nyu releases the family's daughter and Chinese tutor and voluntarily turns himself in. Sek is executed on December 9, 1988.
Fandi Ahmad moves to the Netherlands, where he plays for FC Groningen from 1983 to 1985 in the Dutch football league (Eredivisie). (He had qualified for Ajax Amsterdam in 1982, but decided to play for Niac Mitra in Indonesia, citing language and cultural differences.) Prior to his arrival, Groningen has qualified for European football for the first time, and Fandi helps them in a dramatic European debut season by scoring in a shock 2-0 second round, first-leg win over Italian giants Inter Milan. During the 1983-84 season, Fandi scores 10 times in 29 games. While in his second season at the club, Fandi makes 15 appearances, scoring 2 goals. Although he is offered a place again at Ajax Amsterdam, he chooses to return to Asia in 1986. (He has since said that he regretted not further plying his trade in Europe. Nottingham Forest made an informal enquiry about his availability in the late-1990s, but decided he was too old.)
Asia’s first successful in-vitro fertilisation baby, Samuel Lee, is born in Kedang Kerbau Hospital, five years after the world’s first test-tube baby was delivered in Manchester, England.