Since 2002, the annual ALJGSB ‘Distinguished Leadership and Innovation Conference’, with cutting-edge lessons taught by global thought leaders, has been chock full of our local business leaders. Yet the recent Ramsaran imbroglio unmasked glaring shortcomings by some of these same business leaders. These missteps have real-life consequences for us as …

Trinidad and Tobago is a nation of immigrants. We may have come on different boats, but we are in the same boat now. Between the drop in oil and gas prices and their depressed demand, the consequent lack of foreign exchange and the Covid-19 economic shock, we could be set back …

This week had two apparently disconnected stories whose link we may not have discerned, but which profoundly affects our future. The first was the Express’ report on the alleged TT$549M EMBD bid rigging case which noted: ‘…some of the same contractors donated financially toward the current government…’ The second is …

The decision as to which party or person to vote for in our General Elections is seldom a single-issue decision. It is folly when our pollsters try to imagine that we vote based on ‘what is the biggest issue confronting us now?’—since many such issues are themselves complex. In the …

Lewis Carroll’s classic ‘Alice in Wonderland’ encapsulates our nation’s present predicament and many of our leaders. He could have been describing Trinidad: “There is a place, like no place on earth. A land full of wonder, mystery and danger! Some say to survive it, you need to be as mad …

“A single spark can start a prairie fire,” Mao Zedong, 1930. This observation came back to my mind in the witnessing of the events of the last seven days. Mao had meant then that the revolution would start small but was possible in China—not too different from all the recent …

Last Saturday, three men were shot dead in their neighbourhood at about 2.30pm. Six hours after, the newspapers went to press not knowing the identity of two of the men while the other one was more likely to be named as ‘Warlord’. They were nobodies. On social media, some rejoiced …

As adopters of social media and smart phones, we reveal a lot about ourselves each day. We tell the world about our likes and dislikes, habits and families via Facebook and Twitter. We even disclose our travel plans to persons we do not know via Waze and Google. We expose …

The letter ‘When would real equality come?’ by Anand Beharrylal, QC—carried in the Express Monday 15  June edition—reminds me of an Aaron Levenstein quote: “Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.” His comments were suggestive but do not provide a full picture …

Kristalina Georgieva, the IMF head, in a conversation with the Washington Post last week described the economic situation brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic as a ‘crisis like no other’. For her, the impending crisis was a  ‘great reversal’ that was wrought with much uncertainty. She foresaw significant job losses …

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” James Baldwin. We can ignore what we faced on 8 June in the Queen’s Park Savannah or face it and propose to change it. Late that evening, a video surfaced of a police …

“Every politician who has tasted power, and many who counted for little, has gone to war with the media. If they didn’t, that would signal that journalists were not doing their jobs, that they were too busy prostrating to power to do their duty to country.” Raffique Shah, 30 March …