From shrinking birth rates to stagnant teaching quality, the country’s public elementary schools are facing a quiet crisis of empty classrooms - leaving educators and policymakers wondering where all the students went.

Rushing the newly planned financial center through an opaque, three-week legislative blitz risks creating an unstable tax haven and sidelines the deep, system-wide economic reforms the country actually needs.

As the protracted Mideast conflict continues to send economic shock waves across the globe, ASEAN must leverage its diplomatic weight to restore international law vis-à-vis the Hormuz strait before power politics dictates the world's most vital waterway.

As Indonesia leaps blindly into a world-first B50 biodiesel mandate, the Prabowo administration’s high-stakes gamble for energy independence risks triggering domestic supply crunches, market instability and environmental fallout.

Defined by controversial refereeing, political tensions and record-breaking scoring, the just-concluded 2026 World Cup proved to be as compelling off the pitch as it was on it.

This is not a time to let things slide, also because the stable outlook from S&P Global comes with the “expectation that the government continues to view its 3 percent annual deficit ceiling as an important policy anchor.”

The state must bridge the gap between its progressive anti-harassment law and the dangerous reality on the streets, so women are not forced to choose between physical fitness and personal safety.

As regional powers gather in Manila, the upcoming ASEAN summit presents a high-stakes test for President Prabowo to silence his critics, reclaim Jakarta's traditional leadership mantle, and break the deadlock over the bloody crisis in Myanmar.

By classifying "the spread of LGBTQ culture" as a threat to national security, Perpres No. 111/2025 has codified informal hostility into state-sanctioned persecution, declaring a minority group as a public enemy.

The country's recurring landfill disasters demand that we stop fighting fire with fire downstream and finally extinguish the waste crisis at its household source.

The Prabowo administration’s aggressive corporate crackdowns risk looking less like impartial justice and more like selective enforcement: a dangerous signal that could spook the very investors the country needs to sustain growth.

President Prabowo Subianto's response to call for "introspection" from the military, police and prosecutors is not enough.

When FIFA tosses out its own rule book after a phone call from the US president Trump, it proves that the pitch is never truly free from politics.

A pattern of last-minute reversals raises a troubling question about Indonesia’s foreign policy: whether it is guided by a steady, strategic vision or merely reacting to public pressure.

For much of Indonesia's modern history, right from the moment when STOVIA, the country’s first medical school set up by the Dutch colonial government became the training ground for Indonesia’s nationalist leaders, up through the current day as students voice their opposition against government policies from campus halls, higher education institutions have always been an integral part of Indonesian politics.

From the introduction of barracks slang in corporate offices to lethal boot camps for civilian managers, Indonesia is quietly sliding back into a dangerous era of creeping militarization.

The relationship between India and Indonesia has suffered from strategic caution, a tendency to drift into parallel diplomatic orbits rather than actively combining forces to shape global policy.

Coming so soon after Indonesia drew a disapproving global eye toward its financial market and economic policymaking, perhaps the legal protections afforded to buyers of Patriot and Merah Putih bonds in the amended law demands a rethink, if not an overhaul.

As Jakarta aims for global city status, a string of fatal infrastructure failures reveals the deadly cost of government neglect and unmanaged urban growth.

The conviction of a prominent tech reformer exposes a deeper, more systemic crisis: it casts a doubt over whether Indonesia can truly court global investors and elite talent.

The government should focus on helping journalists and media organizations rebuild sustainable business models that enable Indonesian journalism to remain financially viable while continuing to serve democracy and the public interest.

Behind the National Police’s glowing 82 percent public approval rating lies a much darker reality of corruption, violence and a desperate need for real reform.

In the Dutch context, colonial events are known, documented, even taught, but their moral weight remains strangely muted. 

In trying to manage the optics of the recent student protests instead of responding to the legitimate public grievances they convey, the government is certainly not putting itself in any democratic light.

Jakarta’s crowded new parks aren't just a sign of success, they are a stark warning that access to green space must be treated as a basic urban right, not a luxury.

Indonesia’s temporary reprieve from an MSCI downgrade bought the market some time, but empty promises won't stop a devastating sell-off unless regulators finally stop talking and start executing real transparency reforms before the November deadline.

When populist price caps collide with soaring global markets, resource nationalism doesn't protect the public—it just leaves them in the dark.