Suryaa Now International Desk: Students protest against government policies in Indonesia. Increasing forest fires in the country, rising cost of living... Students protest against government policies in Indonesia. There have been large-scale protests across Indonesia over the failure of the Provo Subinto government to tackle the country's worsening forest fires, rising cost of living and economic inequality.
Two years after Probowo took office as president, hundreds of students in the capital Jakarta as well as major cities such as Yogyakarta and Bandung took to the streets to protest the government's behavior. The agitators complained that the toxic smoke (haze) emitted due to the burning of peatland and spreading forest fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan regions is seriously affecting public health. They demanded that this environmental crisis be declared a national calamity and strict action should be taken against the responsible corporate bodies. Apart from environmental issues, the students presented a petition to the government with five major demands on rising prices of essentials, burden of fees in the education sector and curtailment of civil liberties.
The student unions have made it clear that the government should stop spending huge funds on some populist schemes and solve the financial problems of the common people. However, official sources of the government said that the government has welcomed the concerns of the students positively and will consider the feedback from the public. The recent protests have become a hot topic in the country's politics at a time when Probowo's government's popularity has been steadily declining in recent years.
