One should heed Jean-Paul Sartre’s observation that a text attacked by both sides is probably on the right track.

While the Jatiwaringin landfill fire has exposed the volatile reality of Indonesia’s mismanaged waste, a much larger environmental time bomb is ticking in Bantar Gebang at the gates of Greater Jakarta.

When institutional rivalries push heavily armed soldiers to negotiate the return of seized evidence, Indonesia faces a critical choice: uphold the civilian rule of law or allow justice to be dictated by the barrel of a gun.

President Prabowo Subianto's free nutritious meal program was conceived as a transformative social policy to improve child nutrition, strengthen human capital and demonstrate the state's ability to deliver tangible benefits to millions of Indonesians. It is also the policy most closely associated with his presidency. More than any other initiative, its success or failure will shape public perceptions of his administration.

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.

Every empire has its strengths and weaknesses. Perhaps the most important asset is understanding those of your adversaries.

Since Pakistan and India remain embroiled in kinetic confrontations below a nuclear overhang, there is an urgent need to come up with ways to defuse tension during crises.

As Indonesia prepares to introduce front-of-package food labels, a new study reveals that the proposed system may dangerously downplay the health risks of nearly half the country's unhealthiest snacks and beverages.

As Indonesia honored its fallen soldiers alongside those of Timor-Leste last week, the occasion served as a reminder of the parallel journeys the two bordering neighbors have trod, not least in their leaders' approaches to maintain national defense and public security within the corridors of democracy.

The main constraint is not the lack of capital available to fund the projects; it is the regulation.

Starting Aug. 1, four of the country's largest marketplaces - Tokopedia, Shopee, Lazada and Blibli - will begin withholding income tax directly from qualifying merchants' sales, replacing the long-standing self-assessment system. By turning digital platforms into tax collectors, the government hopes to improve compliance. The challenge is whether it can formalize the digital economy without discouraging the small businesses that drive its growth.

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

As institutional rivalries and overlapping intelligence mandates intensify, President Prabowo faces a critical test: preventing the fragmentation of the Indonesian state itself.

By branding LGBTQ culture as a national security threat, Indonesia's new defense regulation triggers a dangerous constitutional contradiction that undermines the very human rights the state is sworn to protect.

To truly revitalize rural Indonesia, the government's ambitious 249-trillion-rupiah village cooperative program must move away from top-down bureaucracy and return to its democratic, community-owned roots.

Beyond the headlines of environmental conflict, Papua’s ancient pig feasts offer modern climate policymakers a profound lesson in generational forest stewardship.

If Malaysia continues to focus on domestic platforms and generalized talent cultivation without forging deep, structural links with Taiwan's market leaders, its economic spillovers will remain limited.

Beyond the standard headlines of trade and defense, the genuine warmth between Modi and Prabowo signals a profound shift from transactional diplomacy to a resilient, co-developed future for India and Indonesia.

Indonesia has taken a significant step toward overhauling the governance of its capital market after lawmakers approved revisions to the Financial Sector Development and Strengthening (P2SK) Law, paving the way for the eventual demutualization of the Indonesia Stock Exchange (IDX). The reform seeks to end the longstanding model in which the exchange is owned by its member brokerages, while also allowing institutions such as Bank Indonesia (BI), the Finance Ministry and state asset fund Danantara to become shareholders. However, rather than eliminating governance concerns, the new framework may simply shift them from conflicts among market participants to more complex questions about the state's role in owning the country's capital market infrastructure.

Something ultimately has to give: either crude prices will rise, fuel prices will fall, or both.

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.

As President Prabowo pushes for a massive structural pivot toward state economic sovereignty, Indonesia faces a high-stakes gamble: Can it resurrect the ideals of a Pancasila economy without stumbling into the traps of heavy-handed economic nationalism?

Ratification, implementation and utilization are often less celebrated than negotiations, but they are the stages that translate ambition into meaningful outcomes. 

As global automakers race to engineer rare-earth-free electric vehicles, resource-rich nations like Indonesia risk becoming trapped on the wrong side of a widening technological divide.

Energy transition is no longer only a climate imperative, but also a strategic tool to reduce import dependence and protect the economy from geopolitical shocks.

To capture global markets, Indonesia must pivot from raw smelting to predictable, long-term manufacturing policies that offer Western investors a stable alternative to China.

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.