Penang Institute Newsletters – Penang Institute

December 2021 – Trust Is What We Need, More Than Hope

Hope is what we reserve for things that are beyond our control. It is therefore the passive sentiment most popularly promoted when we are overwhelmed by events, as…

November 2021 – Exposure Keeps Us Culturally Healthy

What the Covid threat and the lockdowns throughout the world have done is to encourage cultural claustrophobia and social defensiveness. In a country like Malaysia…

October 2021 – The Post-Covid Reality is a Political Process

There is no doubt that Malaysia and the world will exit into a normality informed by the Covid-19 pandemic which brought common suffering to all of mankind. What that normality will be like…

September 2021 – Correct Data and Its Strong Sense of Community Should Get Penang Through

As the world begins to see the end of the pandemic, the real work of rethinking and rebuilding and restoring awaits. This requires reliable information and data about how the pandemic…

August 2021 – Tough Days Ahead for Everyone

As the pandemic enters its 18th month, the vaccination rate has reached a respectable and hopeful level. However, the infection rates are also at their highest throughout the country…

July 2021 – Can Today’s Young Still Rely on the Old to Lead Them?

As disruptions come thick and fast, and as the health and political crises in Malaysia drag on and on, we have to wonder if dazed political leaders and dumbfounded corporate leaders on one hand and…

June 2021 – We Have No Choice But To Stay Optimistic

With the vaccination roll-out looking more encouraging, Malaysians now look optimistically to the future. What they see, apart from the political instability, is the need..

May 2021 – Being Creative Together

Penang’s economy depends greatly on the strength of its cultural heritage, which provides it with the power to attract tourists, to educate its young and to orientate itself in the…

April 2021 – Regional Matters Matter a Lot to Penang

There is always a danger for a small place such as Penang, and which always punches above its weight, to slip into parochialism and introversion. We saw that happening…

March 2021 – The Ending Of The Covid-19 Pandemic Begins

Since International Women’s Day falls on March 8, that month is strongly associated nowadays with women’s rights and welfare. Penang Institute highlighted that…

February 2021 – The Wave of Helplessness and Pessimism Ebbs

The vaccination of the Malaysian population has begun, and by all accounts, this is the beginning of the end of the Covid-19 pandemic that has changed the lives of everyone…

January 2021 – Hopefully Hobbling into the New Decade

The sighs of relief we all wanted to heave by January 1, 2021, was not to be. Instead, Malaysia entered a new wave in the spread of the Covid-19 virus as 2021 began. Although…

December 2020 – Beyond (Vision) 2020, More Individual Agency And Greater Sense Of Realism Needed

The year 2020 comes to an end, but Covid-19 will continue to haunt us all for some time yet even if the vaccines arrive. In many ways, looking back, 2020 haunted Malaysia…

November 2020 – Going Green in Penang

Covid-19 slowed down almost all economic and social activities, and as a happy consequence, more people may now be able to see that the environment is not alien to society…

October 2020 – The Future Belongs To Those Literate In Social Media And In Digital Technology

Covid-19 continues changing the world. As it looks, things will get worse before it gets better. And the political weakness of the ruling coalition/s can be expected to limit the…

Stay Updated