About Us

Inter-Research And Studies or better known as IRAS in its acronym, is a Penang based think tank group and forum dedicated in providing thoughts and views based on research and studies in various issues related to socio-political, public policy and international affairs, with an overarching mission to bring politics closer to people.

 IRAS is funded through public donation, contribution, consultancy, individual donations from well-wishers and grants.

 Besides, IRAS is also a social-oriented pressure group which aims to promote radical and progressive politics for the betterment of our people and the nation.

This is the IRAS official flag with its five-colour outline which symbolized multiracial and non-racial approach of our institution.

This is the IRAS official emblem which is currently used in our printouts, facebooks, twitters, google+, linkedin and other grouping descriptions.

Popular posts from this blog

What has MCA done to the Chinese community in Malaysia?

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We guess, many of you would be wondering why are we asking such question, “What has MCA done to the Chinese community in Malaysia?” Obviously, none of us would ever realize the real and terrible impact that MCA has made onto the Malaysian Chinese and if they were to see this, the definite question too would be, “done what?”, “don’t know”, “not aware”, “none of our business”, or even, “we don't want to know at all”. The inception of MCA in 1949 can be traced back from the origins of the Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) and its chapter in the then Malaya, which was famously known as Kuomintang Malaya (KMT Malaya). In aftermath of the Second World War and the defeat of the KMT forces in China in 1949, the KMT Malaya has began to move towards transforming its Malayan chapter into a local Chinese based organization in order to preserve its existence and long term political opportunity in this county. And this is how MCA was born in February 1949, where the party later teamed up
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Perlukah sesebuah gabungan parti politik kekal secara wajib?

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Daripada keadaan politik dalam negara ini, kita telahpun dan sedang memerhati beberapa buah gabungan parti-parti politik yang terkini, iaitu Barisan Nasional (BN) yang kekal begitu lama dengan parti komponen utama Umno memonopoli semua aspek keputusan di dalam gabungan dan kerajaan yang diterajui oleh mereka. Di pihak Pakatan Rakyat (PR) pula ianya merupakan sebuah gabungan parti-parti pembangkang utama, PKR, DAP dan PAS yang bekerjasama secara longgar dan masing-masing mempunyai kedudukan yang setaraf di antara satu sama lain. Di tengah-tengah kancah cabar mencabar di antara BN dan PR, terdapat satu lagi alternatif yang kini sedang menonjol, Gabungan Kiri Malaysia (GKM) yang merangkumi gabungan parti politik bercampur dengan pertubuhan-pertubuhan bukan kerajaan (NGO) yang kini dianggotai oleh Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM), sebagai peneraju utama GKM, diikuti dengan Solidariti Anak Muda Malaysia (SAMM), Pusat Sejarah Rakyat dan Collective Intelligence serta beberapa individu yang te
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Seek for quick success and instant benefits

By Soong Phui Jee The people's first reaction to the SMK Sacred Heart's practice of rewarding a brand new Perodua Myvi car to the Best Teacher and Best Student of the school was, would it cause the deterioration of education? After awarding cars today, would they give diamond rings or sport cars tomorrow? Awarding such expensive gifts for students might distort the purpose of education. If children study only to receive gifts and rewards, would they understand the true meaning of studying? Would they study for themselves, or to receive material rewards? In fact, not only the above mentioned school, but many other schools nationwide have gradually tended to seek for quick success and instant benefits. For example, some of the so-called "elite schools" stress much on examination results and refuse to let students with poor results take government examinations to prevent them from pulling down the school's average grade. Shouldn't schools teach all childr
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