Noses don’t grow back
3 min read
It is very sad that the state of Penang is being ignored in the 11th Malaysia Plan (2016-2020). None of the infrastructure projects the Penang government pres...
Penang Monthly goes free in June
3 min read
Spread the good news!Penang Monthly will be a free magazine from June 2015 onwards. Next month, you will be able to pick up a copy at selected locations thr...
Let’s be cosmopolitan and leave multi-ethnicity behind
2 min read
It is fascinating how seemingly innocuous words actually are not. Especially those that sound neutral, even ethically positive. That is why the sage never think...
Towards substantive democracy
2 min read
Democracy is a big word, and like all big words it is given to controversy and misuse.Since the magazine’s cover story this month and in April will be...
To excel is to stay curious
3 min read
This is not strange given how our brain, no matter how complex it may be, is one highly interconnected organ that never stops working. It seeks to integrate,...
Education is not only for building a common identity
2 min read
Education is a key issue in nation building; in no other country has it been more evident than in Malaysia where so much contestation since the 1950s has been...
Proficient Multilingualism is the future
2 min read
Let’s get serious about global communication.In the Age of Nationalism, which is what we continue to live in, we tend to forget that communication bet...
Let’s globalise wisely
2 min read
There is much to worry about in the world today, 25 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, which should give us reason to pause and consider what the long-t...
Growing Old and Staying Young in a Brave New World
3 min read
The ICT revolution has been taking place all my adult life: I bought my first home computer in 1990 when I was 35, my first mobile phone a decade later, and t...
The interplay between Form and Flair
2 min read
Watching the recent World Cup matches brought to my mind the snug relationship between Form and Flair. Football seen on the TV screen shows clearly how differ...
A Final Quarrel Between a Repentant Grandfather and Old-fashioned Self-absorbed Parents
2 min read
As the 14th general election draws near, the sense that Malaysia – and the whole Asia-Pacific region, for that matter – must now leap into a new era...
Xenophobia signals crisis
3 min read
A clear connection seems to exist between an economy’s health, on the one hand, and that society’s handling of religious and ethnic minorities, on...