INDONESIAN TELKOM 3S SATELLITE TO HELP OVERCOME DIGITAL DIVIDE

By Andi Abdussalam

Jakarta, Feb 10 (Antara) - Indonesia expects to overcome the country's digital divide by providing internet access to all its villages, and consequently promoting tourism, through its new generation satellite, Telkom 3S.         Scheduled to be launched at the Guiana Space Center, Kourou, French Guiana, on February 14 local time or February 15 in Indonesia, the Telkom 3S satellite, when in orbit, will smoothen  telecommunication and facilitate internet connections in villages and remote regions across the country.         As of now, about 30 percent of the country's 74 thousand villages have no access to internet. By the end of this year, all the villages are expected to have internet service.         According to M Ridwan Effendi, secretary of the Policy Research and Telecommunications Center of the Bandung-based Institute of Technology (ITB), the Telkom 3S of PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia will help resolve the issue of the digital divide in the country.         Indonesians have been eagerly awaiting the launch of the Telkom 3S satellite because it can facilitate telecommunication services to even isolated areas of the country.         Thus, the Telkom 3S satellite will help connect all the regions in the Unitary State of Indonesia (NKRI) that has thousands of islands.

MOMENTUM TO REBUILD PUBLIC TRUST ON CONSTITUTIONAL COURT

By Andi Abdussalam

Jakarta, Feb 9 (Antara) - The Constitutional Court (MK) is a holder of the country's judicial power along with the Supreme Court, which aims at supervising the law so that it will be enforced based on the Constitution.         As an institution handling the judicial review of a law which is under a dispute, the MK must be manned with clean, trusted and professional judges. They must not be shaken by any promises that aim to influence the MK verdict.         Its image was seriously tarnished when one of its chairmen, Akil Mochtar, was arrested by the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) in 2013 for a bribery case and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014.          After about two years, the MK has been struggling to improve its image and to regain public trust. While it has been gradually regaining the public trust, another case, involving one of its justices Patrialis Akbar who was once again arrested by the KPK for an alleged bribery case, has tarnished it.         "I am advised (by President Joko Widodo or (Jokowi) that the MK should be careful, as the public trust on it has been high, but this case has tarnished it all. We have built a good image, but again, there is (another) case," MK Chairman Arief Hidayat said after delivering a recommendation letter to the president for the temporary dismissal of Akbar as a MK justice.

GOVERNMENT CONVINCED INVESTMENT CAN CONTRIBUTE TO ECONOMIC GROWTH

by Andi Abdussalam

Jakarta, Feb 8 (Antara) - The government believes that investment will gradually contribute to economic growth in the country in line with its efforts to improve the investment climate.          According to Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Darmin Nasution, it is always difficult to increase investment, but the government has something that it could offer.          In terms of regulations, Indonesia is now in a better position to open up opportunities for investors to invest in Indonesia.          The government has issued economic policy packages and optimized its services through the One-Stop Integrated Service.          "We continue to make improvements, so that our efficiency increases and helps to attract investors. This is a serious struggle (to increase investment), and we are still moving slowly (towards that target). We cannot make a successful jump all of a sudden. You cannot expect that investment would increase by six to seven percent; it is impossible," Nasution stated.          Earlier, the Central Bureau of Statistics had recorded that household consumption, standing at 5.02 percent in 2016, still constituted the biggest contributor to the economic growth.

PEOPLE ASKED TO SECURE REGIONAL HEAD ELECTIONS

By Andi Abdussalam

Jakarta, Feb 6 (Antara) - The National Police (Polri) has asked candidates, supporters and people of all walks of life to help secure the simultaneous regional head elections in 101 regions to be held across the country next week.         Polri hopes that all the supporters of candidate pairs and the people, in general, will maintain favorable conditions where voters can conveniently cast their votes without intimidation and pressures, so that the festival of democracy would run well and smoothly with good democratic values.         "We ask all contestants of the regional head elections, supporters and people to help create secure and peaceful conditions so that the people's democratic festivities would run well," Polri's Public Relations Division Head Inspector General Boy Rafli Amar said in Jakarta on Friday (Feb 3).           The national police also called on the people to not do anything that could trigger conflicts among the people, particularly among supporters of the contesting pairs, both before and after the polling day.           Favorable conditions are badly required before and after the voters cast their ballot papers, so that the ballot counting from the polling stations to the upper levels would be smooth without disruptions.        "We hope the regional head elections will proceed normally without any disturbance or conflict," Amar stated.

GOVERNMENT PLANNING TO CERTIFY ISLAMIC RELIGIOUS PREACHERS

By Andi Abdussalam

Jakarta, Feb 4 (Antara) - The government, through the Religious Affairs Ministry, is contemplating certifying religious clerics and preachers of Friday prayers in a bid to offer standardization guidelines and to reinforce religious propagation in the country.          Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin stated that certification is necessary to maintain unity among Muslims and to foster plurality among Indonesians. However, the minister claimed that the discourse on the certification of religious preachers did not come from him but from the people.          "The government, through the Ministry of Religious Affairs, will only facilitate the people's aspirations. The idea to certify religious clerics and preachers of Friday prayers came from Islamic organizations," Minister Saifuddin noted in Jakarta on Jan 30.          The government, as the facilitator, will give authority to Ulmas (Islamic scholars) or Islamic organizations to decide the standardization guidelines. The government will not act alone in deciding the certification of preachers, as the request came from the people who are represented by the Islamic organizations.

INDONESIA NEEDS TO REJUVENATE PALM OIL PLANTATIONS

By Andi Abdussalam

Jakarta, Feb 4 (Antara) - With some 11.6 million hectares of plantations, Indonesia needs to rejuvenate its palm oil trees to maintain its position as the world's largest crude palm oil (CPO) producer.         The country needs to rejuvenate its palm oil plantations to increase its CPO production, as in the midterm, the Industry Ministry has accorded priority to increasing investment in the palm oil processing industry that needs raw material.         Hence, anticipatory efforts must be undertaken to meet the need for raw material for the production of about 40 million tons of CPO by 2020.         However, as the plantations are old, there has been a downward trend in CPO production. Bayu Krisnamurthi, president director of the Palm Oil Plantation Fund Managing Board (BPDP), had stated last month that CPO exports fell two percent by volume in 2015, while production dropped by about seven percent.         "At the end of 2015, palm oil fruit production fell due to the El Nino-induced drought in 2015. Exports fell two percent by volume, as production dropped by seven percent," Krisnamurthi, who has recently stepped down from the post of BPDP president director, noted.         In 2015, Indonesia's CPO production had reached 32.5 million tons, with exports reaching 26.4 million tons. The export value went down from US$21.1 billion in 2014 to $18.6 billion in 2015.

GOVERNMENT SEEKS TO IMPOSE PROGRESSIVE TAX ON IDLE LANDS

by Andi Abdussalam

Jakarta, Feb 2 (Antara) - A lot of people practice speculative buying of lands to resell them for a big margin years later, but this practice has led to many plots of land staying idle.          Intensive infrastructure development such as roads, turnpikes and ports by the government encourages speculators to purchase lands near these projects with hopes that the land prices would certainly skyrocket in future.      Hence, the government is considering imposing a progressive tax on idle lands, in an effort to discourage speculative buying and to boost the utilization of lands for economic activities and other productive purposes.          Minister for Agrarian Affairs and Spatial Planning Sofyan Djalil believes that the imposition of progressive tax on idle lands will be useful to reduce speculative buying of lands.           "The idea behind imposing progressive tax is to eradicate speculative buying of idle lands, Djalil said on Monday (Jan 30). He added that the rising land prices lure speculators to purchase them. He added that the lands were in fact idle because they were neglected by their owners and thus become unproductive.