Understanding the risks of DPI is crucial to ensuring that its potential benefits materialize.

While the government's decision to backtrack on the planned VAT rate hike offers short-term relief, it also erodes public trust and investor confidence amid a shrinking middle class, which points to a need for comprehensive reforms that include labor formalization, downstreaming expansion, human capital development and supply chain integration.

Prabowo's big-tent leadership approach hearkens the pre-Reform top-down governance model and signals a regression toward centralized authority, leaving a question as to whether he can rise to the challenge of strengthening Indonesia's pluralistic, inclusive democracy toward sustainable governance.

The country’s two smallest mobile operator companies PT XL Axiata Tbk and PT Smartfren Telecom officially merged into PT XLSmart Telecom Sejahtera Tbk, consolidating the country’s mobile operator industry to three players. The Rp 104 trillion (US$6.5 billion) merger was seen as inevitable as the telecom industry is saturated. As the industry becomes more concentrated, the risk of oligopoly also emerges.

Trump’s reelection and its impact on US monetary policy add a layer of complexity to Indonesia’s fiscal and monetary landscape.

The cancellation of the exhibition of the work of Yogyakarta-based artist Yos Suprapto marked another setback for freedom of expression in the country.

In his Magsaysay Award acceptance speech in Manila on Aug. 31, 2000, Atma stated that despite press bans carried out by presidents Sukarno and Soeharto, “the spirit of press freedom and freedom of expression never dies.”

Diverse, mixed democratic trajectories for a diversity of democracies in Asia characterized 2024.

As the world enters 2025, the chasm between the rulers and the ruled remains great, if not getting greater, regardless of the mechanism of governance or regime type. 

Indonesia has faced challenges arising from provisions that limit its ability to regulate investor activities and protect its own sovereignty.  

Indonesia's energy transition faces many challenges but has great potential.

Services now account for more than two-thirds of global GDP and half of global trade.

The Prabowo Subianto administration has announced an ambitious economic stimulus package for 2025, aimed at softening the blow of a planned increase in the value-added tax (VAT) rate. The measures target low- and middle-income Indonesians, as well as micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) and labor-intensive industries, in what analysts view as a populist move to mitigate potential backlash against the tax hike.

Airlines must adopt a proactive approach centered on transparency, accountability and continuous improvement. 

From Gaza to Sudan, Yemen to Ukraine, and Haiti and beyond, peace is, and will always be, the best medicine for the health and well-being of all people, everywhere.

PNG's Western partners might not want to share the bed with China but this is the current reality, and they should also be prepared to welcome others under the country's “friends to all, enemy to none” foreign policy stance.

It is unclear what measures Indonesia plans to take in ensuring online safety for minors, which face multiple challenges including balancing freedoms and protection, considering mental and physical health risks and addressing the power asymmetry between the government and global tech giants.

It is about time that Indonesia moves beyond the narrative of the so-called middle-income trap, by embracing bold visions paired with pragmatic strategies to write its unique, development success story.

Encouraging the active participation of residents is essential to preserving disaster memory, maintaining memorials and passing on the lessons learned to successive generations.

The green energy transition will be the single biggest transition in the following decades.

Relocating Indonesia’s capital from Jakarta to Nusantara in East Kalimantan remains a highly ambitious but increasingly uncertain project. Although President Prabowo Subianto expressed his commitment to continuing the project initiated by his predecessor Joko “Jokowi” Widodo, it may be put on the back burner in favor of more pressing projects, such as his flagship free nutritious meals and food estate programs.

Talk of possible vote-rigging, election meddling and electioneering in the lead-up to the February presidential and legislative elections raised the stakes and sparked real fears that things could go sideways after the votes were tallied.

Dhaka expects New Delhi to play a constructive role in rebuilding its economy and democratic institutions.

Emerging economies need a new climate finance approach to bridge the chasm between international pledges and returns, and between mitigation and adaptation measure.

Two developments have contributed to the growing popularity of the Malaysian ex-premier, whose grassroots standing is stronger than a year ago, but his main obstacle could be the country's history of jailed leaders returning to power.

China's perennial underconsumption could very well stem from the country's political system that focuses on stability and control, which is essentially at odds with the free and individualistic behavior that underpins a consumer society – at least, as we know it in the West.

The government must close the gap in food safety infrastructure and oversight throughout the supply chain by implementing stringent regulations and authorities across the national, regional and community levels to mitigate potential health risks and ensure the success of Prabowo’s free meals program.