With this dramatic sentence, the Communist Manifesto in 1848 depicted the arrival of an era when capital enters social life. Marx and Engels were not predicting the future: They were merely describing how astonishingly the bourgeoisie change the world. And set it quaking.

The huge education budget20 percent of the total state budgetdemands a significant improvement in the quality of the national education system, something that Indonesians have been yearning for years. Now, it is up to Education and Culture Minister Anies Baswedan to respond to those demands.

RUSTONO will never forget that special moment, some three years back, on a flight from Japan to Indonesia with his mother Paryumi. Up in the air, his mother reminisced about Rustono's life-long dream of flying.

THE little girl looks anxious, pacing back and forth in the house. She is eager to leave so she can show off her new shoes at school. The rain, however, has other ideas.

A merican actors Adrien Brody and Fisher Stevens accompanied Leonardo DiCaprio on his site visit last week. During his two-day trip to the ecosystemthe last place on earth where Sumatran tigers, rhinos, elephants and orangutans still live side-by-side in the wildDiCaprio stopped by an orangutan sanctuary and visited an elephant conservation group in East Aceh. It is in this corner of the ecosystem that lowland forests, the favored climates for many of the ecosystem's critically endangered iconic species, are best preserved.

Peter Popham's book The Lady and The Generals published last March tells the story of Aung San Suu Kyi getting upset in an interview with BBC journalist Mishal Husain two years ago. Their discussion soured after the journalist asked about Suu Kyi's silence about the 2013 persecution of Rohingya Muslims in Rakhine State.

The government will soon roll out a program requiring citizens under 17 years of age to acquire a children's ID card (KIA). The regencies of Bone Bolango and Gorontalo in Gorontalo province will start pilot sites for the new requirement.

Ash and debris were all that remained of the U-shaped prison complex in Bengkulu last week.

PRAMONO Anung's two-hour lunch with President Jokowi at the State Palace was an important one. The former secretary-general of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) said the two discussed a variety of issues.

The heated debate pitting two powerful ministries on whether the LNG (liquified natural gas) plant of the US$15 billion Masela offshore gas project should be built offshore as a floating LNG facility or built onshore several hundred kilometers away on either Aru or Tanimbar island has finally subsided. Recently, President Jokowi finally decided to side with Coordinating Maritime Minister Rizal Ramli, who argued for an onshore LNG plant as it would have a broader 'multiplier' impact on the region's local economy.

Last month's incident, in which two armed Chinese Coast Guard vessels seized back a captured trawler inside Indonesia's 12-nautical mile territorial limit has presented the Joko Widodo government and the Indonesian military with a whole new ball game in the South China Sea they can hardly ignore.

SINCE 2009, Pertamina and private oil companies have had thousands of barrels of crude oil stolen from their pipelines in South Sumatra. State losses from such thefts amounted to hundreds of billions of rupiah as authorities stood by powerlessly.

THE emergence of app-based taxis has aroused the ire of conventional taxi companies. On March 22, hundreds of taxi drivers under the Association of Land Transport Drivers (Organda) held a demonstration in Jakarta. The rally triggered huge traffic jams and turned violent in several locations.

Village Law

This year, Indonesia and India mark 75 years of diplomatic relations. However, the ties between the two nations have existed much longer, predating the establishment of the Republic of Indonesia and the Republic of India. These connections span social, cultural, religious, economic, and trade aspects. But do those close ties of the past have any bearing on the present relationship? Why is there no direct flight between the capitals of the two countries?

Indian Ambassador to Indonesia and Timor-Leste, Sandeep Chakravorty, shares his views on this matter at TEMPO TALKS.