is the Executive Director of Penang Institute. His recent books include The Eurasian Core and its Edges: Dialogues with Wang Gungwu on the History of the World (ISEAS 2016).
I HAVE TO admit something. Before returning to Penang to work in 2017, I had hardly ever used the word “millennial”. Looking back, I think that was because I wa...
EDUCATION IS REGARDED as a human right today. Therefore, most modern states, barring those who expressly consider public education to be a threat to their conti...
THERE ARE CERTAIN aspects to human cultures which are more universal than others – largely by virtue of the fact that they deal with physical needs more than wi...
On March 12, 2022, Tan Sri Dato’ Seri Dr. Noor Hisham bin Abdullah, Director-General of Health for Malaysia, was awarded the inaugural Dr. Wu Lien-Teh Award for...
URBAN CENTRES, by their very nature of having concentrated populations, tend also to place people from different backgrounds in close proximity to each other. T...
The thing is, the line between urban and rural is no longer as clear as before, and therefore the association between urbanity and cosmopolitanism—a tie that has been shaky from the start in any case—becomes ever more tenuous.
DEAR CITIZEN, who cares for you?Or more succinctly, who should care for you?When we talk about the Care Industry (as we are doing in this month’s magazine), we...
Penang Initiatives at Enabling DecentralisationON 30 MAY 2022 at the newly renovated Penang State Assembly building, Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow released the I...
ONCE UPON A time, information was generated slowly and carefully. The time and distance between thought, expression, dissemination and reception were substantia...
DOES THE PENANG Strait separate Seberang Perai from Penang Island or does it connect one to the other?This question is not as glib as it may sound at first read...
URBANISATION IS AN oft-cited sign of radical socio-economic changes in a country.The process at some point could be one of necessity, where the agricultural sec...
THE RADIO WAS the key vehicle for the spread of popular music during my generation. In Penang, where would all those who were in their teens have listened to go...