It used to be the `interior and regional autonomy ministry'. Well, at least for a few months after the short-lived `regional autonomy ministry' was merged into it last year. Now the regional autonomy bit has gone altogether and it is not quite clear to where. For the newly empowered regents, it is an ominous sign of bad things to come under President Megawati Sukarnoputri's administration.

Not so long ago regional autonomy was hailed as the ans