President Prabowo Subianto stands atop the dais on Aug. 14, 2026, prior to delivering his State of the Nation Address and the 2027 state budget proposal during the plenary meeting of the People's Consultative Assembly (MPR) at the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta.

Meeting Indonesia’s growth, and deficit, targets

In parallel with growth, the government must have a dedicated focus on the revenue side of reducing the deficit, particularly in drawing businesses out of the shadow economy and into the real economy.

1 week ago

Academia premium

New BI leadership brings experience and stability

As Destry Damayanti makes history as the central bank's first female governor, a battle-tested leadership team is stepping up to anchor monetary stability and drive equitable growth through turbulent global markets. ...

1 week ago

Academia premium

How state budget fuels more land and ecological conflicts

As toxic haze blankets the region, Indonesia's 2027 draft budget reveals a dangerous paradox: chasing state revenue by doubling down on the very extractive projects fueling the fires and displacing its people. ...

1 week ago

The Latest

Locked out: Hundreds of people crowd the gate of the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta on Aug. 27, 2026, during a mass demonstration that demanded passage of the long-delayed asset forfeiture bill and tougher punishment for corruptors.

Academia premium

The Aug. 27 demonstrations: From the streets to the MPR?

While the crowds take to the streets, the real political battle is being waged behind closed doors - where public anger may simply be the opening move in an elite power reshuffle.

1 week ago

Opening stage: A participant takes a photo in front of a banner for the 35th Nahdlatul Ulama National Congress (Muktamar NU) on Aug. 27, 2026, after the five-day conference opened at Untung Suropati Field in the sprawling complex of Pondok Pesantren Bahrul Ulum Tambakberas, an Islamic boarding school in Jombang regency, East Java

Academia premium

Watching the 35th NU congress from the diaspora

As Nahdlatul Ulama gathers for its 35th Muktamar, a former diaspora leader argues that safeguarding the organization’s future demands uncompromising independence from power, global literacy at the helm and a real voice for cadres abroad.

1 week ago

Around 1,800 participants attend the in-person opening of the 2nd Batch of the National Graduate Internship Program on Nov. 26, 2025, at the Manpower Ministry office in Jakarta.

Academia premium

We cannot intern our way to productive employment

Subsidizing six-month internships won't fix graduate unemployment if Indonesia's shrinking industrial base lacks the factories, machinery and capacity to hire them afterward.

1 week ago

A doctor provides care to a patient with Ebola virus on July 13 at the Rwampara Ebola Treatment Center in Bunia, Ituri, in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Health workers at the epicenter of the Ebola outbreak in DR Congo are threatening to strike, telling AFP on July 13 they had not been paid since the virus was detected in mid-May. The highly infectious disease has killed more than 700 people among the nearly 2,000 confirmed infected in the Democratic Republic of Congo since the outbreak was declared on May 15, according to the latest official toll published on July 14.

Academia

The deadliest Ebola outbreak can be stopped

Stopping the world’s fastest-moving Ebola outbreak demands more than international aid—it requires empowering the local communities and frontline workers holding the front line.

1 week ago

French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Noel Barrot (center) pose with German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul (left) and Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs Radoslaw Sikorski on Jan. 7 upon their arrival for a Weimar Triangle and India meeting at the French Foreign ministry in Paris.

Academia premium

35 years of the Weimar Triangle: France, Germany and Poland shaping Europe’s future

The Weimar Triangle was founded on a conviction that remains as relevant today as it was 35 years ago — together, we are stronger.

1 week ago

Members of the United Pati Community Alliance (AMPB) from Pati, Central Java, gather in front of the Senayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta on Aug. 26, 2026, the day before a rally to urge firmer anticorruption efforts and to demand the House of Representatives expedite passage of the asset forfeiture bill.

Academia premium

Bank account freezes can help fight crime, not silence critics

When the state freezes an activist’s bank accounts mid-protest, it isn't routine law enforcement. It is an urgent test of whether the rule of law controls the police or punishes dissent.

1 week ago

People visit the Dolly Parton exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame in Nashville, Tennessee, the United States, on Aug. 26, 2026.

Academia premium

Why Dolly Parton was one of America’s greatest

What made her something more was what she did when she left the stage.

1 week ago

Children defy the heat as they play on the rail tracks on July 15, 2022, in a low-income area in Pejompongan, Central Jakarta.

Academia premium

Can Indonesia build trust in its welfare data?

Indonesia needs not only better welfare data, but also greater public understanding and trust in how that data is produced.

1 week ago

Fire rages through Singha Durbar in Kathmandu during a Gen Z protest on Sept. 9, 2025, a day after a police crackdown on demonstrations over a ban on 26 social media platforms and alleged government corruption.

Academia

Gen Z‑led uprisings across Asia: Strengths and limitations of youth protest

Youth-led protest movements across Asia have exposed underlying anger at corruption and blocked opportunity. But so far, only Nepal has managed to convert that anger into a transfer of governing power.

1 week ago

A fireman extinguishes a peatland fire on Aug. 24, 2026, in Kampar regency, Riau. The Riau provincial administration and other agencies reduced the area affected by forest and land fires from about 16,000 to 900 hectares between January and August 2026.

Academia premium

Breaking the vicious cycle of forest fires and haze

Satellite dots and convenient scapegoats won't stop the haze, breaking the country’s fire crisis demands trading assumptions for real accountability on the ground.

1 week ago

A group of ‘ojol’ (online motorcycle transportation drivers) distributes boxes of supplies donated by the public at a drop-off point outside the Senalayan Legislative Complex in Central Jakarta on Aug. 25, 2026, ahead of a planned protest on Aug. 27.

Academia premium

When the state rolls back reform promises, from Sabang to Merauke

From raging wildfires to simmering revolts in the regions, a hyper-centralized Jakarta is driving the country toward a dangerous breaking point that harks back to past policy failures.

1 week ago

A man holds a banner claiming local elections held in June were fraudulent, during a protest demanding new elections on July 23 in Seoul.

Academia premium

Look East for lessons in democratic resistance

For all the horror of the Tiananmen crackdown, this period also brought extraordinary democratic breakthroughs elsewhere in Asia, as entrenched autocratic systems finally began to yield to democratic rule.

1 week ago

The Ampera Bridge sits shrouded in haze from wildfires on Aug. 23 in Palembang, South Sumatra.

Academia premium

Indonesia can fight fires. It must govern climate risk, too

The 2026 forest and land fires reveal a paradox: Indonesia can mobilize after ignition, but climate justice depends on institutions that govern risk before smoke appears.

1 week ago

United States Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent takes questions from reporters as he speaks during a press conference on Aug. 24 in Washington, DC.

Academia

The US fiscal hole has an AI problem at its core

Washington has a multitrillion-dollar fiscal problem. United States Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent's answer, so far, is to look for loose change down the back of the sofa.

1 week ago

United States President Donald Trump flashes a thumbs up while stepping off Air Force One on July 31 upon arrival at Morristown Municipal Airport in Morristown, New Jersey, the US.

Academia

Trump’s pivot, Seoul’s long game

For South Korea, the best approach to dealing with Trump is what it has always been: Wait him out.

1 week ago

Bated breath: Groups of santri (Islamic boarding school students) hold aloft the flag of Muslim organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) as they wait along a road for the presidential motorcade to arrive on June 23 ahead of the closing ceremony of the NU National Conference of Islamic Scholars and Grand Conference at the Syachona Mohammad Cholil Islamic Institute in Bangkalan, East Java.

Academia premium

Beyond the congress: NU and the moral future of Indonesia

The 35th Muktamar (congress) should be more than a leadership contest. It should mark a new commitment to integrity, independence and service in the life of Indonesia’s largest Muslim organization.

1 week ago

A demonstrator carries Indonesia’s national flag alongside a pirate flag from the Japanese anime One Piece, an internet symbol of protest against government policies, on Aug. 29, 2025, during a rally outside the residence of the Governor of East Java, in Surabaya.

Academia premium

Indonesia's shrinking digital freedom: From rubber articles to four-hour censorship

Despite years of constitutional reform and judicial intervention, the state's reflexive tendency to criminalize criticism of those in power remains alive and well.

2 weeks ago

Flames rise from a wildfire on Aug. 13 in Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan.

Academia

Why El Niño isn’t the sole culprit of forest fires

Kalimantan’s land fires aren’t just down to El Niño; they are caused by the soil losing its ability to hold water. Prevention must start by restoring the soil’s natural balance.

2 weeks ago

A person walks on Wall Street near the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) on Feb. 13, 2026 in New York City, the United States.

Academia premium

Why the world still needs Wall Street

Other financial systems have only so much capacity to receive a large and rapid reallocation without destabilizing themselves.

2 weeks ago

A farmer applies urea fertilizer on June 10, 2026, at a parched rice field in Handapherang village, Ciamis regency, West Java.

Academia premium

When villages quietly carry the national economy

Factories were supposed to build Indonesia’s modern workforce. But as industrial job growth stalls, village spending, not factory floors, is keeping the economy afloat.

2 weeks ago

A participant takes the 2025 Computer-Based Written Exam for the National Selection Based on Test (UTBK-SNBT) at Diponegoro University (UNDIP), Tembalang, Semarang, Central Java, on April 30, 2025

Academia premium

South-South bonding: India-Indonesia youth power to boost innovation

India and its biggest neighbor in Southeast Asia, Indonesia, have launched a unique initiative to expand collaboration in start-ups, deep-tech innovation, artificial intelligence and talent development that could lead to joint projects and creative initiatives by youth in the two large democracies of the Global South.

2 weeks ago

An instructor (right) teaches a tourist how to make a canang sari offering during a workshop at a resort in Jimbaran, Bali.

Academia premium

‘Canang sari’, kindness, compassion and love

Beyond the resorts and glossy brochures, the PKP Community Center offers vulnerable Balinese women a lifeline of empowerment, community and hope.

2 weeks ago

Antinuclear activist rally outside the United States Mission in front of the United Nations to mark the second anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in New York, the US, on Jan. 20, 2023.

Academia premium

Less testing was a choice, so is the future

A thirty-year silence from nuclear testing was not an accident of history—it was a fragile choice that the world must urgently choose to keep.

2 weeks ago

A teller counts rupiah banknotes at the BNI Pasar Baru branch in Jakarta on Oct. 27, 2025.

Academia premium

Anarchy and the geoeconomy: How China's adjustment impacts Indonesia

Great-power conflict won’t hit Southeast Asia with battleships first—it will arrive through hollowed-out commodity prices, flooded domestic markets and a battered rupiah.

2 weeks ago

A bank employee counts Chinese renminbi notes next to United States dollar bills on Jan. 25, 2023, at a Kasikornbank branch in Bangkok.

Academia premium

The dollar's outer defenses have been breached

The puzzle of why the Trump administration is so concerned with a falling yen has historical parallels not to the 1930s or the 1980s, but to the 1960s, when US officials feared that a crisis elsewhere could spread to America. With US bond yields spiking, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent is getting desperate.

2 weeks ago

United States military personnel fire a Javelin anti-tank weapon system during the Super Garuda Shield 2024 joint military exercise including Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Australia, Britain and the US in Situbondo, East Java on Sept. 6, 2024.

Academia premium

The five pillars to transmute Indonesia-US defense partnership

To turn a historic paper pact into real Indo-Pacific deterrence, Washington and Jakarta must move beyond symbolic drills to build a high-tech, gray-zone defense partnership that respects Indonesia’s strategic nonalignment.

2 weeks ago

A protest banner, which reads “The residents of the Red River area in Hong Ha Ward earnestly appeal to city leaders to consider the people's inner thoughts and aspirations, maintaining the existing residential area for the sake of the well-being of thousands of households”, hangs over a street at a neighborhood in Hanoi, on June 19, 2026.

Academia

How Vietnam’s Gen Z is holding power to account

What started with the death of young woman in a traffic accident has escalated into a general protest about a lack of accountability for the powerful.

2 weeks ago

Page: 2