View Point

“[…] Please Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley, do not let this opportunity go to waste. Accept without hesitation the proposal of Mrs [Kamla] Persad-Bissessar at the minimum. “[…] We are at war with the perpetrators of violent crimes. This is no time for partisan bickering. Drastic measures are required to …

During an Easter Sunday break from my column, I was forcibly struck by the disconnect between the official messages about Easter from those clothed with high constitutional authority and the grim reality on the ground. Many persons would have been engaged in pleasurable activities over the Easter weekend. However, the …

“Kill everyone!” was the instruction Dole Chadee gave Joey Ramiah, who then murdered four members of a single family. How could people be so heartless and cold-blooded? It was a long time in coming. Nothing was ever done to dismantle the networks that brought cocaine to our shores since life …

In my mailbox last Wednesday was yet another bill from bmobile, the brand name of the Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago Ltd—the company we know as TSTT and further back as Telco. The sight of the bill aroused the same kind of disgust I felt when I’d read about …

“[…] So, after the Easter Celebrations, if we want to restore and rebuild our nation, we must come to terms with the politics of Easter. “We must be courageous enough to take off the political clothing of our political parties and risk speaking out on issues affecting the citizenry and …

Just over a week ago, the chair of the Housing Development Corporation, Noel Garcia, was reported to have said that now that the figure for tenants’ arrears is approaching $157 million, its management is considering evictions and other severe actions. This followed the disclosure by Housing and Urban Development Minister …

Of course I am delighted that our new and seventh president, Her Excellency Christine Kangaloo, advocated for the panyard development model as a means of dealing with youth at risk in her inaugural address. For more than a decade, I have been advocating for the model’s recognition while describing real …

I support the decisions of the parents of the Nelson Street Girls’ RC Primary School children who agreed with the school administration not to take this year’s SEA examination. You, too, should concur based on the dramatic decline in the national results from 2020 to 2022 (a whopping 26% decline …

Persons in public life frequently exercise power without accountability. As President Paula-Mae Weekes was recently demitting office, we were reminded of the fate of the merit list for the appointment of a commissioner of police that was prepared by the Police Service Commission—but which was, in August 2021, diverted from …

All nations tell stories about themselves. These narratives tell us where we came from, who we are and where we want to go. Consequently, they change as the storytellers provide contesting viewpoints. The thread is twisted by grief, sentimentality, pride, or shame. Bare facts form only part of the saga …

“[…] Looking ahead to the seventh presidency of Trinidad and Tobago, some of the things I hope to see are a demystification of the role of the president; advocacy for the adoption in our communities of year-round, youth delinquency prevention programmes like the panyard model; protocols attending the Office that …

I have a friend who I will call Jarndyce, to protect his identity and save him from victimization. His story is this. Jarndyce is in his sixties and suffered a major failure of his eyesight in January 2020 as a result of glaucoma, which is a clandestine destroyer of sight—because …