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).
At a time when journalism – as a social activity more than a salaried profession – is booming beyond measure in Malaysia, a fact proven by heighte...
THROUGHOUT THE HISTORY of life, all life forms have had to adapt to environmental conditions beyond their control as best they can. Where environmental changes...
THE CRUCIAL POSITION that animals have in human civilisation is an intriguing one.Taming animals for labour and transport or for food and company is a criterion...
FOR ONCE IN my life, let me quote from The Bible to make a weighty point of contrast. In Genesis 7:9, it is stated: "There went in two and two unto Noah into th...
I DON'T LOVE them; I don’t hate them. But I think they are indispensable. They are very much a necessary by-product of the film industry, the way any form of ar...
ZEROES AND ONES fill our world today. The binary code that powers our computers could of course have been signified by other, even arbitrary, symbols, but they...
WISDOM COMES MOST easily to the recluse; that’s a process long been recognised and advocated throughout human history, and in most societies and civilisations....
FOR THE FIRST elected government since independence that is not based around the United Malays National Organisation (UMNO) to fall within 20 months, one has to...
IN THE FEEDBACK which has come to my attention to Penang Chief Minister Chow Kon Yeow's Penang2030, which he launched on August 29, 2018, just three months afte...
FORMER INTERNATIONAL Trade and Industry minister Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz entertained Malaysia with her comment that the idea that Malaysians like working in silos was not really accurate since silos are places huge enough for significant things to happen.
WE SAY THAT birds fly and fish swim. We think of reptiles as crawlers and monkeys as climbers. But what about us? What about man? What is our default physical a...
LIKE SO MANY generations before me have done I associate learning with schools with buildings to which little uniformed boys and girls trudge before the day get...