A united middle-power alliance would have considerable leverage, as its members would each wield outsize influence over specific domains.

The current setup asks PLN to be planner, procurer and operator. That was useful in the past decades, but today it blurs incentives, slows competitive procurement and makes it hard for investors to price risk. 

Indonesia’s pursuit of "fast-tracked" priority programs risks breaking the moral contract at the heart of its bureaucracy. When new initiatives jump the queue, the state doesn't just bypass a backlog of honorary workers, it threatens to replace meritocracy with programmatic proximity.

Since Jan. 20, the House of Representatives has been gathering input from academics and civil society groups regarding the proposed revision of the 2017 General Elections Law, formally submitted on Nov. 19, 2024. A central pillar of these discussions is the adoption of a "codification" approach, specifically, the consolidation of disparate election-related regulations into a single, unified political law package.

Rather than mounting rescue operations repeatedly, Indonesia should take the lead in a coordinated regional and international response, including legal harmonization, to clamp down on human trafficking and forced labor linked to transnational crimes.

If artificial intelligence remains concentrated in a small number of advanced economies, firms and platforms, it risks reinforcing global inequality rather than narrowing it.

By serving the broader Southeast Asian Muslim community, the year-round demand base would become sufficiently large for kampung haji to stabilize occupancy and smooth seasonal fluctuations.

With only 5 percent pension inclusion, the demographic bonus is on a collision course with an aging reality. It is time to stop blaming individual financial planning and start fixing a system that leaves 120 million workers behind.

Joining the BoP may seem like a betrayal of our values. But not joining may mean total irrelevance in decisions that will affect Palestine’s future.

The push to "align" Indonesia’s financial regulators with political objectives marks a fundamental paradigm shift from stability to short-termism. While these moves may sustain growth today, they defer systemic costs to a future where institutional safeguards may no longer exist to catch the fall.

Beef retailers have gone on strike in protest over the rising price of live cattle set by feedlot operators. While the increase is partly attributed to supply losses caused by flooding in Australia, Indonesia’s largest source of imported cattle, the Agriculture Ministry suspects foul play among feedlot operators, alleging that they are maintaining elevated prices to secure higher margins. This comes as the government earlier this month slashed the private sector’s beef import quota from 180,000 tonnes last year to just 30,000 tonnes.

The sudden appointment of lawmaker Adies Kadir from the pro-government Golkar Party as a Constitutional Court justice reveals how political interests now command the vetting process for the guardian of the Constitution.

Even if all rich countries were to cut to zero emissions by mid-century, the climate models clearly show that the impact would avert less than 0.1 degree Celsius.

While Indonesia is too big to be kicked out of the emerging market club, a new "governance penalty" could still shake up the market.

Legibility is key to building the credibility of the Indonesian bourse so it can develop beyond a mere "conjecture" toward institutional maturity and certainty.

Entering into the second year of his presidency, the public will be watching his policies and programs closely with regard to his campaign promises, ultimately judging whether his administration delivers tangible economic and welfare outcomes.

The crash of Indonesian stock prices last week is less about market technicalities and more about a profound collapse of political trust.

Without transformation, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) risks becoming irrelevant in a world that has changed drastically, said chairman Yahya Cholil Staquf.

President Prabowo Subianto sprang another foreign policy surprise, or a blunder depending on how one looks at it, by joining the Board of Peace which United States President Donald Trump launched last week as part of his Gaza peace plan.

Prabowo’s administration should avoid complacency and resist politically expedient fixes to complex economic problems.

Five years on, the 5PC has become a procedural shield rather than a protection mechanism, a failure reflected in consultations that multiply without delivering results.

While free meal programs offer a vital safety net, true child welfare is only sustainable when anchored by the dignity and security of a parent's decent work.

By adopting cooperatives as 'value-chain partners', corporate actors can provide the technical mentorship and quality standardizations that professionalize rural operations. 

In 2026, Indonesia is in the position to recalibrate the region’s preparedness and response toward disasters and strengthen the region’s blueprint for a resilient future. 

The government has set a 6 percent growth target for 2026, banking on accelerated public spending and tighter fiscal-monetary coordination to generate momentum, in line with President Prabowo Subianto’s ambition to lift economic expansion to 8 percent by the end of his term in 2029. The challenge, however, lies less in ambition than in execution: whether these policy tools can deliver real growth in an economy where household demand remains fragile and investment responses uneven.

A big question for American exceptionalism is whether Trump is an aberration or a sign of where the US is headed.

A ministry tasked with safeguarding core elements of education receives far less state funding than a presidential pet program, which endures oversight failure from the beginning.