Indonesia has commissioned its first aircraft carrier, but turning the aging Italian warship into a drone-bearing force multiplier will demand steep investments in crew, escorts and maintenance to avoid a costly white elephant.

As global headwinds mount and leadership wavers, Indonesia's push to scrap its 3 percent deficit cap risks trading hard-won market credibility for reckless spending.

Indonesia has succeeded in filling its classrooms—now it must protect its budget to ensure its children are actually learning.

As fires rage and geopolitical tests loom, Indonesians are waiting for the President to make good on his word: that real strength begins at home.

As toxic haze blankets Southeast Asia and millions of tonnes of CO2 enter the atmosphere, the country is running out of excuses to rein in corporate polluters and honor its climate promises.

Relying solely on executive orders and administrative decrees is fundamentally insufficient for a technology this consequential.

A regional administration that fixes flawed infrastructure after it goes viral isn't setting the standard for leadership. It's merely doing the bare minimum.

When soldiers target civilians and keep their badges, the military court doesn't just shield its own, it suffocates our democracy.

The sudden shake-up at the Finance Ministry has rattled markets, leaving Indonesia’s new fiscal chief with the precarious task of funding Prabowo’s ambitious growth targets without driving the nation into a deficit ditch.

The food poisoning incident has left parents a lingering question: How could a program intended to nourish children end up putting their health at risk? And, perhaps more frighteningly, could their children be next?

When pedicab drivers are labeled wealthy while a millionaire lawmaker qualifies for state aid, Indonesia’s high-stakes welfare registry proves that confusing data shortcuts with genuine reform costs real lives.

We cannot always stop disasters from occurring, but we can prevent them from becoming disastrous for millions of Indonesians by preparing better.

Jakarta’s plan to bypass "unilateral" regional budget cuts with municipal bonds isn't just an urban infrastructure fix. It is an open challenge to the government's centralist agenda.

When the volcano exploded on Aug. 27, 1883, it destroyed the island on which it stood, killed almost 40,000 people in the surrounding area of Java and Sumatra, sent rafts of pumice to Africa, covered the Red Sea in ash and made barometers as far away as Washington, DC go haywire.

Rushing a flawed asset forfeiture bill to meet a performative political deadline won't stop oligarchs, it will just hand the state a dangerous new weapon against its critics.

Temporary suspensions and advanced technologies won't clear ASEAN's skies from Indonesian wildfires; only prosecuting and bankrupting corporate arsonists will.

As Washington pushes allies to gang up on Beijing, Indonesia must resist the pressure and stay true to its non-aligned roots, or risk becoming the mouse deer crushed between two fighting elephants.

Rather than mirroring the geo-economic fragmentation besetting the world, member states need to come together and negotiate favorable trade terms for the region as a whole.

If Jakarta wants to break free from its crippling gridlocks, choking air and other perennial issues, it must end the era of cheap parking and force drivers to pay the true cost of the road.

When the state embraces street thugs as political muscle, the violence that follows isn't an accident - it is government policy.

As state power and political patronage close in on Nahdlatul Ulama, the world’s largest Muslim organization faces a pivotal internal battle: preserve its independent moral voice, or become a rubber stamp for the ruling elite.

It seems to have become a pattern under the government of President Prabowo Subianto. When problems erupt, the state must “be present”, as the President often puts it, which translates into asserting itself more forcefully.

Shuffling Whoosh’s ballooning debt among state balance sheets won't save the region's first HSR service; only hard renegotiations and structural reform will.

These shows may suspended accounts, but the process needs transparency.

As Indonesia's catastrophic wildfires choke the wider region yet again, the real culprit isn't the unusually prolonged dry weather but the corporate impunity and lax governance fueling the flames.

Indonesia and China should focus on solidarity and cooperation with an approach of strategic maturity, as their ties bear significance far beyond either bilateral or regional dimensions.

The Prabowo administration's sudden, vague overhaul of commodity exports is the latest policy whiplash rattling investor confidence, proving once again that ad hoc governance comes at a steep economic price.