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  • News & article

    The global leadership India needs

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 21/10/2022

    » India, like China, takes enormous pride in its civilisation's scale and antiquity -- and rightly so. But such pride can also lead to a complacent and sometimes dangerous insularity. Since gaining independence from the British Empire 75 years ago, India has mostly looked inward, focusing on improving the welfare of its population by building a strong democracy and a healthy economy.

  • News & article

    The local politics of Thai soft power

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 29/04/2022

    » It was yet another passing storm in Thailand's overflowing teacup. The overnight sensation of 19-year-old rapper Danupha "Milli" Khanatheerakul at the recent Coachella Music Festival in the United States has shaken Thailand to its core foundations and revealed much that is still right and all that is wrong with this country. At issue are the ramifications from her global showcase of Thailand's sticky rice and ripe mango on the Coachella stage in view of her talent and political standing against the local conservative establishment.

  • News & article

    Japan's post-Covid regional dilemma

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 21/01/2022

    » Among the major powers that are moving forward with an eye on the post-pandemic era, when Covid-19 will eventually become an endemic with flu-like manageability, Japan is second to none. The visit last week by its minister of economy, trade, and industry (METI), Koichi Hagiuda, made front-page news in Bangkok, following similarly notable media coverage in Jakarta and Singapore. But while it has played a critical role in Asean's economic development and regional security, Japan's Indo-Pacific geostrategic environment has become adverse with more downside risks.

  • News & article

    Thailand's murky jab considerations

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 08/01/2021

    » Thailand is off to an unpromising start in 2021. As the global coronavirus pandemic rolls into its second year, much of the country is gripped by a new wave of Covid-19 infections after nearly nine months of minimal cases. As case numbers have more than doubled in recent days, the fresh wave has revealed the gross incompetence and corruption among Thai authorities. More alarmingly, while other countries are seeing light at the end of the Covid-19 tunnel with expanding vaccination, Thai people's vaccine accessibility and affordability appear murky.

  • News & article

    Thai education reform is top priority

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 09/10/2020

    » Of the myriad reforms that have been demanded by the ongoing student-led protests, Thailand's deficient and outdated education system is second to none. Education reform has become a self-contained and separate agenda for change. Thai students across the country, particularly in high schools, have been awakened and angry at the fact that they have been kept in the dark and cloistered in a state-imposed mind bubble for so long. Unless it is answered, this awakening and anger is likely to galvanise more protests and point to broader changes that have been pent up for decades.

  • News & article

    Where to start Thai reform and change?

    Oped, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 02/10/2020

    » In Thailand's new era under a new reign, reform and change can hardly be formulated and implemented fast enough because much of what ails the country has been suppressed and swept under the rug for years. The most consequential question now is not whether Thailand needs to change but where to start. Getting the starting point wrong will end up causing more grief and pain after so much suffering that has already transpired.

  • News & article

    Can technology transform patronage politics?

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 30/03/2018

    » By the time it takes place after evident foot-dragging by relevant authorities, the next election in Thailand will be unlike its precursors. There will be new parties with new policy ideas, new vote-gathering technologies and first-time voters who came of age during Thailand's political tension and polarisation more or less over the past two decades. At issue during the next poll is whether and to what extent Thailand's entrenched and endemic patronage-driven and vote-buying political system has really changed. The evidence is mixed but it is plausible that a new kind of politics will emerge not directly in the next poll but in the 2020s.

  • News & article

    Combatting corruption starts at the top

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 03/02/2017

    » There is something fundamentally similar and entwined about the need to tackle Thailand's endemic corruption and the imperative to reform its education. Education reforms and corruption eradication appear to be the two highest policy and social priorities over the decades but they have made little headway. In view of recent international assessments, Thai education has fallen even farther behind compared to recent years. Similarly, according to Thailand's declining ranking in international indexes such as that of Transparency International, the scourge of corruption in this country has deepened.

  • News & article

    Global realities test Obama’s Asia pivot

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 02/05/2014

    » President Barack Obama can't be blamed for not trying. Having missed the Asean-related summit season from last October because of the US government’s "shutdown", the president allotted an entire week for a make-up trip that recently took him to South Korea, Japan, Malaysia and the Philippines to shore up his strategic foreign policy reorientation towards East Asia, also known as the "Asian pivot" or "rebalance".

  • News & article

    Social media has polarising effect on political debate

    News, Thitinan Pongsudhirak, Published on 06/01/2014

    » From Thailand to Ukraine to Turkey and other places beset with contentious politics between electoral majorities and minorities, the sources of prolonged and visceral polarisation appear to stem increasingly from social media.

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