Anti-vaccine movements gaining ground on the back of rising religious conservatism and the thriving internet are threatening to foil Indonesia’s painstaking effort to achieve its goal of 100 percent immunization. This worrying trend has seen the comeback of preventable diseases like diphtheria.

The alarming examples of intolerance, which go along with growing religious conservatism and get a free ride in the burgeoning democracy by weak governments in the wake of the 1998 wave of political reform, have been sounding a death knell for the diversity of Indonesia.

In search of more empathetic police

"I’m wearing batik because I’m comfortable in it. Batik can be worn for casual or formal events, so I’m wearing it because of that," Mela Siagian said.

The ever increasing number of drug addicts has prompted the government to take stringent measures, such as lifting the capital punishment moratorium. However, the government’s plan to treat 200,000 addicts this year might have been too ambitious given poor interdepartmental coordination and poorly equipped and understaffed rehabilitation centers.

In a busy assembly hangar of PT Dirgantara Indonesia (DI) stands a new light transport airplane. Dozens of men in blue overalls walk back and forth under the arched roof, carrying out different tasks to restore Indonesia’s aerospace industry to its former glory.

Many Indonesians' perception of rape is limited to the traditional definition of a stranger grabbing the victim, physically restraining her, raping her and running away. Given this narrow definition, there is no justice for those women who fall victim to other types of sexual violence, and the perpetrators enjoy impunity.

Santoso, aka Abu Wardah, and his men are hiding out on the mountains of Central Sulawesi, where thousands of police and military personnel have been deployed to hunt them down. But why has this IS-linked terrorist group not fallen yet?