SIU has run a weekly news commentator program called “The Commentator” on Voice TV every Saturday at 12:00 (during 12am news program). The program is 10-minute news issue analysis by SIU staffs.

The episode archives are available online from Voice TV website. The sample episode is embedded below.

Voice TV is a cable/satellite news channel. You can find it on True Visions Ch.64 or 75, DTV Ch.7, GMMZ Ch.109, Sun Box Ch. 23 or 25 and PSI Ch. 41.

After our first “Change Agents” book in 2011, now we have the second compilation “Change Agents 2″ published. The methodology is the same but with all new faces, interviews of 51 future young leaders who can change their industry. All of the interviews are available on Transform Thailand project site.

The summary of our press conference for Change Agents 2 is available here (in Thai). The PDF file of Change Agents 2 is embedded below:

Venue: Novotel Bangkok Siam Square, Bangkok, Thailand

Date: March 29, 2013 at 08.30 a.m. – 17:00 p.m.

As the world’s economic locomotives continue to move to the Asia-Pacific region, the US has decided to “pivot” its foreign policy toward the Indo-Pacific Ocean. With the rising power of China and an emerging stress along flashpoints in East China and South China Seas, the whole world is waiting for the unveiling of the historic moment in the 21^st century. What’s about other major powers in Asia such as Japan and India? What’s the development and position of ASEAN?

Program

The goal of the project is to encourage a better way for public policy of Bangkok Metropolitan Area. We intentionally prepare this work in schedule with the 2013 Bangkok Governor election and propose our works to many (if not all) candidates as possible.

Agenda Bangkok

Methodology

We collected and gathered feedback from experienced Bangkok policy stakeholders and three workshops during the year. All the information were processed using foresight technique and summarized into “10 future issues” that Bangkokians should care.

Five experts who used to/still work on Bangkok policy issues:

• Prateep Ungsongtham Hata (page 3), an NGO who won Magsaysay Award on development policy.
• Apirak Kosayodhin (page 4), ex-Bangkok governor, now a MP from Democrat Party.
• Narongsak Poomsrisa-ard (page 5), an executive from CP-ALL Company, the owner of 7-11 convenient store chain.
• Kochawan Kemaprasit (page 6), an adviser of Private Bangkok Bus Service Association.
• Prapas Jongsanguan (page 7), the first governor of MRT, he was a Bangkok governor candidate as well.

All the idea from workshops are scored and broken into five sections.

• Social
• Technology
• Economy
• Environment
• Politics

Outcome

We got 10 future trends of Bangkok City, which you can read them from page 8:

• Sex In The City
• Next Generation Labor
• Bangkok Identity
• Art For All
• Emerging Crime
• Inclusive Space
• Low Carbon Society
• AEC Megacities
• Emerging Rights
• 360 Degree Leadership

It can be categorized into 4 groups (page 9)

• ASEANization = urbanization of Bangkok + labour migration + AEC community + ageing society
• The Big Mango = (similarly to NYC’s Big Apple) Bangkok is Big Mango, center of everything: culture, life, jobs, race, crime from around the world
• Emerald City = Climate Change will force Bangkok to be Low Carbon Society, utilizing the “space” (physical/mental/cyber) to serve its residents, led by 360 degree leaderships
• Our Road = the challenge of Bangkok to become “City of Art” depends on new liberal generation but they are in conflict with the conservative power that has ruled Bangkok for ages.

More info is available (in Thai) at Siam Intelligence site.

The Work

Response from Candidates

We also request for interview to all Bangkok governor candidates. So far we got chance to interview and talk with them about 10 future trends in Agenda Bangkok project. All interviews are in Thai.

• Kosit Suvinijjit
• Suharit Siamwalla
• Sopon Pornchokchai
• Metta Themehamnan

Media Attentions

The project has got a lot of attention from Thailand’s media, including newspapers, magazines and TV programs:

Voice TV

Thai PBS, 10 February 2013

Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) publish a series of reports on Asia Online Politics. Isriya Paireepairit, SIU Research Director, wrote the Thailand report and his work is now published as Free Space of Expression: New Media and Thailand’s Politics.

Reports for other countries are available from FES web site.

Free Space of Expression: New Media and Thailand’s Politics

Kan Yuenyong, SIU Director, talked about the international standard of media regulator ethics. He was joined the panel by Dr. Somchai Preechasilpakul (Chiang Mai University), Dr. Mana Treerayapiwat (UTCC) and Rungmanee Mekhasobhon (Senior Journalist).

The coverage of the seminar is available at Siam Intelligence site.

Nidhi Eoseewong

SIU’s Redefine Thailand project publishes a second in series interview of Prof. Dr. Nidhi Eoseewong, a famous social science scholar in Thailand. In this interview, Nidhi talks about the dynamics of Thai identity and its relation with Thai politics. He also talks about the influence of Buddhism in Thai society and Thai social hierarchy.

• Full interview (in Thai)
• YouTube video link (in Thai)
• Redefine Thailand Project

Thailand’s budget 2013: Where will the money go?

Original English article from AsianCorrespondent.com

A hot political issue was the deliberation of the proposed Budget Bill for the year 2013 in the second and third session in Parliament on August 15-17, before the bill was sent to the Senate for deliberation and the 2013 Budget Bill is effective beginning October 1, 2012. The 2013 Budget Bill was passed on August 18 in parliament, voted 279 to 8 with 127 abstentions. In all the 3 House sessions on the bill, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra was present for only 10 minutes.

Parliament has to consider the budget requests of the ministries, departments and other government organizations for the annual Budget Bills – without the big interest of the general public in this issue, even though it is their tax money that is being used for the Budget. The reasons might be because the draft for the budget has many contradictions, uses hard-to-understand language and has a lot of technical accounting. Even though the data is freely available and can be found on the website of the Bureau of the Budget, but there probably won’t be many Thais interested in that matter.

As an introduction for the deliberation of the proposed 2013 Budget Bill, to which the opposition made clear that will completely destroy the government, Siam Intelligence Unit has complied [the data] into a graphic chart in order to show the readers especially for what their taxes are being used and for how much:

Data taken from: The 2013 Thai Budget Draft in Brief, Bureau of the Budget. (Graphic by Siam Intelligence Unit for Siam Voices)

The total budget for 2013 is 2,4 trillion Baht (2,400,000,000,000) [$77 billion] and has been earmarked for the following:

1. General Administration: 499,394,000,000.2 Baht (20.8 per cent of total budget) for lawmakers (MP and senators), financial management, mid-level personnel, preparation of statistics, foreign affairs, economic aid to foreign countries, research and development of general administration of the state and repayments of local loan funds.

2. Defense: 178,441,000,000 Baht (7.5 per cent) for the defense of the country, the preservation of the territory by civil guards, volunteer groups and civil staff.

3. Interior and National Security: 144,820,000,000.6 Baht (6 per cent) for judiciary, attorney, police force, fire departments, correction facilities, research and development to maintain domestic security.

4. Economy: 471,491,000,000.8 Baht (19.6 per cent) for land management, land management for farmers, stabilizing production costs, support for agriculture sector, livestock, pest control, forestry, fishing, exploration, development and supply of  fuel resources, electricity from various energy sources, industry promotion, industrial development, civil aviation control, the commercial promotion of hotels and restaurants, tourism promotion, labor, multifunctional projects, management and construction of transport infrastructure by land, air and sea, communications (which does not include television and radio broadcasts. This is covered in “Religion, Culture and Recreation”) and research and development.

5. Environment: 2,171,000,000.3 Baht (0.1 per cent) for sewage treatment system, wastewater treatment system, management and construction of drainage system, air and climate protection, protection of ground and surface water, reduction of noise pollution, radiation protection, construction of noise reducing walls and fences, measures to reduce water pollution, maintenance of ecosystems and landscapes and research and development.

6. Housing and Community: 33,021,000,000.4 Baht (5.6 per cent) for operating and providing housing and housing standards, community development, drinking water supply and research and development.

7. Public Health: 254,947,000,000.3 Baht (10.6 per cent) for planning, managing hospitals and clinics, health education and services and research and development of public health.

8. Religion, Culture and Recreation: 20,055,000,000.1 Baht (0.8 per cent) for sport promotion – excluding education policies - expenses for culture and religion, operating costs for radio and television broadcasts, management of publications, construction of public parks and recreational facilities, libraries, museums, botanical garden and the research and development of religion, culture and other activities.

9. Education: 493,892,000,000 Baht (20.6 per cent) for operating and administration costs, pre-school to higher education, adult education, scholarships and research to improve education. Budget includes subsidies for local administration in education.

10. Social: 201,765,000,000.3 Baht (8.4 per cent) for management of occupational disability insurance, public benefits, pension for state employees, operating costs of social housing and other aids, such as disaster relief and research and development.

Translation by Saksith Saiyasombut

The seminar is one part of our “Transform Thailand” project, funded by Thai Health Promotion Foundation.

The full program (in Thai)

กำหนดการงานสัมมนาประจำปี ครั้งที่ 1 ตอน “คนรุ่นใหม่กับการมีส่วนร่วมในการเปลี่ยนแปลงประเทศ“

วันที่ 18 กันยายน 2555 ณ. ห้อง Dipak C. Jain ศศนิเวศน์ ในพื้นที่ศศินทร์ จุฬาลงกรณ์มหาวิทยาลัย

จัดโดย โครงการพัฒนาเครือข่ายผู้นำรุ่นใหม่อย่างมีส่วนร่วม สนับสนุนโดย สำนักงานกองทุนสนับสนุนการสร้างเสริมสุขภาพ

• 08.30 น. ลงทะเบียน
• 09.00 – 09.15 น. กล่าวต้อนรับและแสดงวิสัยทัศน์เรื่อง “คนรุ่นใหม่กับการมีส่วนร่วมพัฒนาสังคม”
  โดย รศ.ดร.วิลาสินี อดุลยานนท์ ผู้อำนวยการสำนักรณรงค์และสื่อสารสาธารณะสังคม
• 09.15 – 9.30 น. กล่าวชี้แจงวัตถุประสงค์โครงการพัฒนาเครือข่ายผู้นำรุ่นใหม่อย่างมีส่วนร่วม
  โดย คุณ กานต์ ยืนยง ผู้อำนวยการ Siam Intelligence Unit
• 09.30 – 10.00 น. ปาฐกถา หัวข้อ “บทบาทคนรุ่นใหม่กับภารกิจพลิกโฉมประเทศไทย”
  โดย ดร.สุวิทย์ เมษินทรีย์ ผู้อำนวยการ SIGA
• 10.00 – 10.15 น. นำเสนอผลการสำรวจความคิดเห็นเกี่ยวกับคนรุ่นใหม่ต่อปัญหาการคอร์รัปชั่นและการมีส่วนร่วมในการทำงานอาสาสมัคร
  โดย คุณ ชัยพร เซียนพานิช นักวิจัยประจำ Siam Intelligence Unit
• 10.15 – 12.00 น. เสวนาในหัวข้อ “คนรุ่นใหม่จะพลิกโฉมประเทศไทยอย่างมีส่วนร่วมได้อย่างไร?” โดย
  คุณ แบ๊งค์ งามอรุณโชติ นักวิจัยด้านเศรษฐศาสตร์ และ Change Agents รุ่นที่ 1
  คุณ วีรพัฒน์ ปริยวงศ์ นักกฏหมายอิสระ และ Change Agents รุ่นที่ 1
  คุณ ปราบ เลาหะโรจนพันธ์ ตัวแทนกลุ่มธรรมศาสตร์เพื่อประชาธิปไตย และ Change Agents รุ่นที่ 2
  คุณ อาทิตย์ โกวิทวรางกูร นักจัดรายการวิทยุ คลื่นความคิด 96.5 MHZ และ Change Agent รุ่นที่ 1

  ดำเนินการเสวนาโดยคุณอิสริยะ ไพรีพ่ายฤทธิ์ กรรมการ Siam Intelligence Unit

More information at Siam Intelligence web site.

Isriya Paireepairit, SIU Research Director, joined two public forums organized by The National Broadcasting and Telecommunications Commission.

He was a panel for NBTC Public Forum #6 “The End of 2G Concessions: What About Consumer?” on 31 August 2012. The second event is NBTC Public Forum #7 “Satellite TV Set-top Box” on 5 September 2012.

Event summaries are available (in Thai) at NBTC web site:

• NBTC Public Forum #6
• NBTC Public Forum #7