Only one month after enforcing the law to protect the Thai people’s personal data security and privacy, the government had a change of heart. Instead of imposing the PDPA law on all organisations that handle data, the government has helped some government agencies to bypass the Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) in the name of […]
Amid rising oil prices and the need to slow down global warming from fossil fuels, the government’s vow to give electric vehicles a big policy push is more than welcome. The road ahead will not be easy, however. Last year, the National Electric Vehicle Policy Committee announced that 30% of vehicles made in Thailand will […]
The decriminalisation of cannabis, which took effect on June 9, has triggered wide debate across Thai society. While the bold policy aims at promoting the controversial plant for medical purposes, there are growing concerns over misuse, including driving under the influence of cannabis as well as underage consumption. Cannabis decriminalisation allows people to use all […]
Thanks to the hit biopic Gangubai Kathiawadi on Netflix, the plight of Thai sex workers and their needs for legal protection are back in the spotlight. Their demands are simple — stop treating us as criminals. Sex workers are workers, give us our labour rights like other professions. We are equal human beings. Give us […]
More than half of people with disabilities in Thailand do not receive welfare assistance from the government. This is unacceptable. People with disabilities are among the most vulnerable, particularly the poor in remote areas. Allowing them to fall through the welfare cracks reflects the flawed system and the urgency for change. According to the National […]
For the past two years, Thailand’s tourism industry has been in a coma due to the Covid-19 pandemic.To revive the economy, the government has now relaxed Covid-19 control measures to reopen the country. Big hotels now have a chance to recover but for a majority of small hotels, however, it is already too late – […]
Despite the government’s bravado about the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC) being the country’s economic powerhouse, one important question still gets an elusive answer: Has the EEC fulfilled its promise of protecting the environment? The environmental concern is valid. Take the Eastern Seaboard, for example — the location of heavy industry as well as the Map […]
The scandal involving the former deputy leader of a political party accused of sex crimes against multiple women and the child human trafficking case in Surat Thani province in which a suspect is a local politician’s son share one distinct similarity – both men have faced similar accusations in the past. The implication is, of […]
Whoever wins, the new Bangkok governor must bridge the appalling education disparity between the rich and the poor to give children in need a better fighting chance in life Whoever wins, he or she has no excuse not to. Bangkok has an annual budget of over 80 billion baht. Its administration is independent of the […]
The tragic death of Dr Waraluck Supawatjariyakul, an ophthalmologist with Chulalongkorn University’s Faculty of Medicine, who was hit by a powerful big bike as she was negotiating a zebra crossing in January highlights a sad fact about the danger pedestrians face in their everyday lives. Apart from the recklessness of the motorcyclist who is also […]
In January the Chana Rakthin Group, a grassroots movement from Chana district in Songkhla province, returned to the capital to protest against the Chana Industrial Complex Project, a few weeks after about 30 of its members – mostly women and the elderly – were arrested during protests last December. The demands of the villagers were […]
At the end of 2021, Bangkok had 5.52 million residents – 53% of whom (2.93 million) are women. Having just celebrated International Women’s Day on March 8, and with the Bangkok gubernatorial election due in the next few months, let’s take a look at the lives and wellbeing of women in the Thai capital. According […]
