Talkback

Tell us about your personal experience with Malaysia's rural areas – what do you think the rural areas need most urgently? Caroline Oh and Ezra Zaid speak with PEMANDU's Eugene Teh about the condition of rural areas in Malaysia. 

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If there's any pain that most, if not all of us share collectively as Malaysians, it is the rapid rise in cost of living in the past few years.
Even if you don't track the prices of groceries that you buy, just ask the person in your household who buys the chicken and the fish.
If you pay your own bills, you would have noticed the increase in your electricity bill.
If you have been looking to buy a house, the price of a new house of a reasonable size now are almost prohibitive to most of us.
While some may argue that this increase in cost of living is the natural progression of a growing economy, it is putting a lot of pressure on regular Malaysians who are working hard to make money, but can't seem to overcome the rise in the prices of things that we need on a daily basis.

So what is the government doing about it? John Low,  Addressing Cost of Living NKRA Director (PEMANDU's GTP) hears out BFM callers.

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What a storm for the Malaysian media scene this week! On Saturday, Astro censored footage of BBC and Al Jazeera's coverage of Bersih 3.0. And today, on World Press Freedom Day, a certain mainstream media newspaper took generous liberties with the information given it, substituting the word "scientology" with "Islam" - to disastrous effect. This brings us to an important question for a maturing democracy: should the media be regulated? Ezra Zaid, Caroline Oh and Patrick Teoh seek the answers from BFM callers.

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After much debate in the press, the public rally at Dataran Merdeka is very likely to go ahead this weekend. But in recent months and years we have seen a good number of public rallies on all sorts of issues. In fact, the OccupyDataran crowd, small as it is, has been going on since October last year, imitating the OccupyWallStreet movement in the US.The students wanting free education have also jumped on the band wagon to try their luck to get their debts erased for no reason. Himpunan Hijau group who oppose the Lynas Rare Earth Plant is also planning a rally this Saturday, and have stated in the press that if the government promises to reject Lynas, they will cancel their rally. And of course there is Bersih 3.0 organised by Bersih 2.0 who is demanding for clean and fair elections. 

All these public rallies are of course a test on the new Peaceful Assembly Act but more to the point, are public rallies really an effective means of engaging in a discourse about the issues of the day? Sonia Zubeir and Umapagan Ampikaipakan hear out BFM listeners on this. 

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What are the best and worst features of our education system? How can we improve student outcomes? Tengku Azian Shariman and Joyce Tagal from PEMANDU GTP's Education NKRA engage with BFM listeners on Talkback Tuesday: You are the Government (Part 4 of 9).

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Should PTPTN loans be abolished? Do you believe that it's an unfair burden on our graduate students? Or do you believe that a loan is a loan? Is free higher education a right, or a luxury? Caroline Oh, Ezra Zaid and Patrick Teoh engage with listeners on all these questions and more on this week's Talkback Thursday.

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Do you believe Malaysia is more or less corrupt today than it was 10 years ago? This week's GTP Talkback program features the corruption NKRA. Ravindran Devagunam, director of this NKRA discusses with Caroline, Umapagan and BFM listeners.

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On the editon of Talkback Thursday; we deliberate the incredibly contensious moral, socio, political and theological issue of LGBT's their right to coexist among us as contemporaries without any from of persecution. We see what the Malaysian public's stance on this is.

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Do media broadcasting companies have a responsibility to "maintain good standards of English" in Malaysia? Caroline, Patrick, Ezra and Umpagan discuss with listeners.

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