SOME years ago, while studying in the United Kingdom, one of The Nut Graph‘s team members had a discussion with a classmate from India about a fellow Indian Malaysian student. TNG journalist: Ya, she celebrates Diwali, too. She’s a Hindu Indian. Indian classmate: Huh? She’s not Indian, she’s Malaysian! Journalist: Yes, she’s Malaysian, but she’s [...]

COME 3 April 2010, Malaysians would have spent exactly one calendar year with Datuk Seri Najib Razak as prime minister. The year can hardly be described as a honeymoon — after all, there was unprecedented opposition from civil society and politicians from both sides of the divide to Najib’s ascendance. The new premier, in turn, [...]

PR leaders celebrating their victory during the Permatang Pauh by-election in Aug 2008 SO what is the deal with the Pakatan Rakyat (PR)? Is it merely experiencing the normal teething problems of a newly formed political coalition? Are all its problems engineered by the BN, or could some actually have been internally generated? After the [...]

LET’S talk about sex … and how ignorant our youth are about it. Anyone remember the Malaysian science syllabus in secondary school? The chapter with diagrams of male and female genitalia, and little explanation about what to do with them? Perhaps you had a teacher who, with a deadpan face, stuck strictly to the scientific [...]

THE 1 Aug 2009 anti-Internal Security Act (ISA) street rally attracted big crowds scattered around the heart of Kuala Lumpur. The throng of people easily numbered 20,000 but could have been more. Demonstrators sported headbands, T-shirts and banners that decried the draconian law. They called for the Act, which allows for indefinite state detention without [...]

THE Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) has come under considerable flak this past week, most severely with the death of Selangor state government aide Teoh Beng Hock. On 16 July 2009, Teoh was discovered dead on the fifth floor of Plaza Masalam, Shah Alam, after a gruelling interrogation lasting more than 10 hours until 3.45am at [...]