With its low price, intense effects and highly addictive nature, yaba is one of the most commonly abused stimulants in Southeast Asia, and its spread shows no sign of slowing.

When power is exercised without public oversight, the risk of abuse and inequality increases.

There are parties who are deploying state-sponsored influencers and cybertroops to spread disinformation and could delegitimize the 17+8 movement.

The National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has found the police are the state institution most frequently accused of human rights violations.

A government that relies too heavily on security forces and foreign symbolism without addressing domestic grievances may find its legitimacy steadily eroding. 

A woman who confronted a group of riot police last week has inadvertently elevated pink to the color of resistance, reminding us of the significant influence Indonesian women wield when they step outside their prescribed identity of mother-wife to embrace the role of activist ibu.

The recent protests have evoked memories of the 1998 Jakarta riots, but it remains to be seen how underlying interests related to the police-military rivalry and the oligarchic elite will play out against the demonstrators' anger over genuine socioeconomic and political concerns.

As envisioned, the digital euro will be useless for corporate transactions, and it will probably not play a significant role in liquidity management or wholesale payments.

There have been effectively three waves of famine in Gaza since spring 2024. First weaponized 18 years ago in the Strip, these hunger games could have been preempted several times. Why weren’t they?

Wasteful perks for officials, riot police suppressing citizens, and education budget cuts are not only failures of policy, they are failures of privilege, of leadership and of moral clarity.

Influencers, students, and community voices collectively shape public opinion and, beyond that, provide effective and innovative policy literacy tools more effectively than the government or any lawmakers.

The latest incident of police brutality, which led to the death of an ojol driver last week, shows that comprehensive reform of the National Police can no longer be postponed amid the persistence of brutality and their increasing authority as an apparatus that shields privilege and power.

Central bankers are the high priests of high finance. That is because they control high-powered money, commonly known as the monetary base, or the sum of currency in circulation plus commercial bank deposits with them. 

The Tianjin summit suggests that Modi and Xi did not seek reconciliation, but stabilization, learning from the US-Soviet detente during the Cold War.

Indonesians have long tolerated hardship with patience. But there is a limit when public trust erodes.

Governments must understand that TikTok, Instagram reels, memes and livestreams are not distractions, they are the pulse of modern civic life. 

Prabowo’s government and its loyalists seek to redefine the protests not as genuine expressions of public frustration, but as politically orchestrated chaos.

If mass protests intensify beyond control, the President can declare a state of emergency, if not martial law.

Washington's recent move to take a 10 percent share in chipmaker Intel signals the Trump administration could be experimenting with recalibrating US capitalism, possibly by incorporating elements of state-directed capitalism.

Amid a collective movement of debtors reusing to repay illegal online lenders is emerging a new model called ecosystem lending that blends digital flexibility with banking discipline, offering a way to get back on track toward realizing the aspirational goal of financial inclusion.

Markets can only function fairly and effectively if strong institutions, impartial regulation and a capable state underpin them

A phenomenon known as "replacement migration" that moves upward across the economic hierarchy is growing in transnational migrant recruitment against the backdrop of Trump's tariff war, leading to the rise of global human supply chains and creating more complex labor issues in terms of hiring practices as well as workers' welfare.

Every mass upheaval is the result of an accumulation of long-held dissatisfaction. 

The tragic death of gig driver Affan Kurniawan on Aug. 28 is more than a procedural failure, but a wake-up call that should be wielded as a lightning rod for reforms that embrace moral integrity in the pursuit of ethical leadership, citizen engagement and public dialogue toward a just democracy.

Rather than cutting vaccine funding, governments should be looking at increasing funds to provide vaccines to the world's most vulnerable children, saving half a million lives and delivering millions in additional social benefits each year.

Instead of standing as an economic fortress for the nation, Danantara increasingly resembles a sovereign weak fund: fragile, unfocused and potentially a fiscal burden in the years ahead.

The global race for critical minerals like rare earth elements has descended into a geopolitical struggle, where these once-obscure resources now loom as existential threats to national survival.