• OPINION

  Mahathir starts off with a bang

  News, Umesh Pandey, Published on 13/05/2018

  » Mahathir bin Mohamad, the 92-year old and seventh Prime Minister of Malaysia has gotten down to work on the very first day of assuming office with orders to ban overseas travel of the former protege turned nemesis Najib Razak, setting up an investigation team to look into the corruption allegations against the Najib government and was also looking for an early pardon to the jailed protege turned nemesis turned protege -- Anwar Ibrahim.

• OPINION

  Chicanery can only go on so long

  News, Umesh Pandey, Published on 25/03/2018

  » The week ahead is going to be intense as political parties prepare to attend a meeting on Wednesday with those who seized power to negotiate the possibility of a total lifting of the ban on political activities.

• OPINION

  All signs point to an election

  News, Umesh Pandey, Published on 17/12/2017

  » The messages coming from the men in uniform and those who helped them seize power are all positive. It makes democracy lovers such as myself feel a little more secure that after failing to deliver its promises for the past few years, the military government could hold an election in November 2018.

• OPINION

  Stacking the deck doomed to failure

  News, Umesh Pandey, Published on 24/12/2017

  » After months of waiting, Thailand's political sector saw light at the end of the tunnel but that ray of hope came in the form of the use of Section 44 with an announcement by Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha on Friday.

• OPINION

  It's time for regime to relax grip

  News, Umesh Pandey, Published on 03/12/2017

  » Once again the military government seems to be finding every excuse to try to curtail political parties and their ability to start mustering support ahead of the planned elections in less than a year from now.

• OPINION

  Security is paramount at airports

  News, Umesh Pandey, Published on 13/08/2017

  » The past week has been an eventful one filled with so many issues one can pick to write about -- the one-month ban for red shirt-linked Peace TV, our highly effective Royal Thai Police finally managing to translate the charges against Red Bull scion Vorayuth "Boss" Yoovidhya, and the long waits for tourists at both Suvarnabhumi and Don Mueang airports.

• OPINION

  Rethink due on laws of surrogacy

  News, Umesh Pandey, Published on 23/04/2017

  » The recent arrest of a 25-year-old man trying to smuggle a yet to be determined substance into Vientiane, Laos, is a case that highlights the need for laws to be more comprehensive when they are passed.

• OPINION

  Hazing laws call for strong enforcement

  News, Umesh Pandey, Published on 15/09/2016

  » Over the past week there have been a couple of stories that have attracted a lot of public attention. The first was the alleged hazing incident at one of the top universities in the country. The second was an incident which led to a 17-year-old student suffering from facial nerve damage after a teacher allegedly threw a ceramic mug at her.

• OPINION

  Deporting Wong hurts Thai image

  News, Umesh Pandey, Published on 06/10/2016

  » Time and again, Thailand makes global headlines for all the wrong reasons, the latest being a shameful show of force by authorities to detain and then deport a Hong Kong-based democracy activist.

• OPINION

  Our voices are drowned out as vote nears

  News, Umesh Pandey, Published on 08/07/2016

  » The military government's decision to set up monitoring centres in all provinces across Thailand in order to more closely monitor all political activities in the lead-up to the crucial Aug 7 referendum has turned up the political temperature.

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