Get ls to always show the modified time in hours/minutes

Might depend on your distro, but this argument for ls is available in Debian:

--time-style=STYLE
          with -l, show times using style STYLE: full-iso, long-iso,  iso,
          locale,  +FORMAT.   FORMAT is interpreted like `date'; if FORMAT
          is FORMAT1<newline>FORMAT2, FORMAT1 applies to non-recent  files
          and FORMAT2 to recent files; if STYLE is prefixed with `posix-',
          STYLE takes effect only outside the POSIX locale

try

man ls 

from your command line

As well as CaseyIT's solution, you can also use the --full-time option.