Education for What and for Whom?
2 min read
The federal government announced its master plan for education in September 2012. As was expected, the general goals sound fine at first glance while the larg...
Fleeting Squatters in Public Spaces
4 min read
As the Batu Kawan township comes into being, new hope is raised that the quality of life in the state of Penang will be affected positively, and that the bar...
Sustainable Development There is No Other Choice
2 min read
I just returned from Japan, and like every other visitor, I was struck by how clean the place is.To be sure, there are lots of spotless countries and cities...
Climate Change: Are You Not the Problem?
3 min read
It is understandable that the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are vague in formulation and loose in categorisation. Be that as it may, it is h...
Mothers, Thy Name is Worry
3 min read
Women may not all have been born multitaskers, but mothers, whether working mums or not, definitely are.In fact, it may not be possible to define motherhood...
Income Gap, Outcome Bad
2 min read
It is certainly true that never before in human history have so many been lifted out of poverty as has been the case in East Asia over the last few decades. T...
Things Gain Value as They Disappear
3 min read
What did heritage conservation look like or sound like in the pre-modern age when things changed slowly, and conservatism was not an ideology but a...
Give Me a Town Square, or Give Me a Death
2 min read
One thing that strikes me when I travel from city to city nowadays is that the ones I enjoy most and have the fondest memories of are simply those that boast...
The Seas ‘r’ Us
2 min read
Ooi Kee Beng.Penang lies at the southern end of the Andaman Sea, the eastern end of the Bay of Bengal and the northern end of the Straits of Melaka. It al...
Knowing me through my multiple names and faiths
2 min read
The history of naming is an extremely interesting one that varies greatly from culture to culture. In some, surnames are important, in others, they are not ev...
Dignity is the basic human right
2 min read
The so-called Arab spring that began with the public suicide on December 17, 2010 of a miserable Tunisian vegetable seller whose cart was towed away by the po...
The Longest Journey Starts with the First Step
2 min read
The conference organised by Penang Institute and held on June 25, 2012 at the famed Eastern & Oriental Hotel is interesting for many reasons outside of al...