General

With 31 federal parliamentary seats at stake, will Sarawakians play kingmaker in this upcoming general election? And will a consolidation of control by GPS help the party achieve this end? We speak to Prof Datuk Dr Jayum Jawan, Professor in Political Science, Universiti Putra Malaysia, and Fellow of Academy of Sciences Malaysia, to help us understand what’s happening in the Land of the Hornbills. 

Image source: Team GPS N41, Facebook

With the proliferation of parties and coalitions attempting to appeal to the Malay-Muslim vote (UMNO, PN, Pejuang), there’s a plethora of choices - but also worries that there will be a fragmentation of votes within the community. We look at this with Dr Azmil Tayeb, and discuss what the different parties’ positions are, and how likely they are to succeed.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Amidst an extremely competitive playing field, we hear from Dr Bridget Welsh about what grassroots voters of various communities might be looking for, and whether the Malay leadership is doing enough to address uncertainties among voters.

Image credit: Shutterstock

With 5.8 million new voters added to the electoral roll on the back of Undi18 and the AVR bill, GE15 is set to be the biggest election in Malaysian history. We get an overview on how nominations will shape elections with political analyst Ibrahim Suffian.

Image credit: Shutterstock

This week, we go Track By Track into Midnights, Taylor Swift's tenth studio album & one that broke multiple records upon release - an album that currently has the record for the most single-day streams, the fastest-selling album in the United States, the first artist in history that took the top 10 spots on Billboard’s Hot 100 charts as well as logging the largest vinyl sales week of the 21st century.

Forget Fergie Time. It's Conte Time now as Spurs left it late again, this time in the Champions League. Kam Raslan and the pundits look back at the midweek matches that saw Spurs showing gritty resilience to get out of their tight group, while other continental giants, including Barcelona and Juventus crashed out of the tournament. Can Spurs show the same vigour against Liverpool this weekend? We look ahead to that match, another London derby in the form of Chelsea vs Arsenal and more, on another exciting episode of Just For Kicks.

Closing off our week of Existential Questions (and one day ahead of Nomination Day), we're looking at whether it's better to have more or fewer candidates - is having a smorgasbord of choice a good thing, or is it a liability? We explore.

Image source: 24K-Production, Shutterstock

A Form 1 student from Penang claims that she was told to kneel on a tar road with her hands raised, as punishment for not wearing proper school shoes. On top of that, the lecturer allegedly cut her holy string and told her to remove her pottu (black dot) and holy ash. We discuss where the boundaries are when it comes to punishments in school, especially when they’re in public, and involve different cultures.

Image source: Nature_Me, Shutterstock

The process of recovery and rehabilitation following an injury can be a long journey - one that is sometimes made lengthier and more complicated by delays in the approval of medical claims. Following the first part, where we discussed the whys and hows of claiming for compensation from PERKESO and insurance providers, Dr Vickneswaran Mathaneswaran, Professor of Neurosurgery, University of Malaya; Prof Nathan Vytialingam, Consultant Occupational Therapist and; JS Naicker, Managing Partner of Naicker & Associates, joins us again to explore the limitations and challenges in the process of filing for claims, and how this system needs to be improved.

Image Credit: Shutterstock

Cikgu Siti Rahayu believes that education is a fundamental human right. The last time  we spoke to her on this very show, we talked about her journey as an education activist, why she decided to set up Buku Jalanan Chow Kit and her philosophy of education. 

Fast forward a few months later and Cikgu Siti, who’s also a part of Parti MUDA, will be contesting for the Tanjong Karang Parliamentary seat in Selangor.

Image Credit: Twitter/Siti Rahayu Baharin, LinkedIn/Siti Rahayu Baharin & Facebook/Buku Jalanan Chow Kit