What Are We to Do With You Millennials?
3 min read
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...
The Educational Origins of Penang’s Skills Mismatch and Brain Drain
4 min read
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...
Physical Needs Set the Standard and Pace for Intercultural Relations
3 min read
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...
Penang: Once Cosmopolitan, Always Cosmopolitan
3 min read
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...
Of Urban Parochialism And Rural Cosmopolitanism
2 min read
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.
A Good State is an Inclusive and Caring State
3 min read
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...
Trusting Remains a Process that Takes Time in the Information Age
3 min read
ONCE UPON A time, information was generated slowly and carefully. The time and distance between thought, expression, dissemination and reception were substantia...
![What Do Straits Do—Separate or Connect? [Part One]](https://host.forward.edu.my/pm_storage/public/17013/editorial.jpg)
What Do Straits Do—Separate or Connect? [Part One]
3 min read
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...
On Urbanity and Wealth, and the Future of the Countryside
3 min 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 Podcast – Relief for the Distracted
2 min read
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...
Respect All Persons, and Gender and Other Equalities Will Follow
3 min read
IT IS UNFORTUNATE that in most minds, the term “Feminism” more often than not, merely raises issues regarding the relatively-disadvantaged status of women as me...
Journalism's past and Penang's future
3 min read
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...