By Raffique Shah
July 04, 2026

I wish I knew more about sports like football much like I did many years ago when I was a fan of the game. Now I just take in the odd match whenever I get the opportunity to. I definitely do not follow club football: I never really had a passion for the game at that level. But last World Cup’s final match reignited my interest in the sport. Looking at the very young Mbappe and the older Lionel Messi on the world’s greatest sporting stage was pure poetry in motion.
Continue reading Welcome changes on football frontline →

By Raffique Shah
June 13, 2026

I had hoped then, as I still hope today, that by the time a new commissioner of police had firmly taken command, criminals would find themselves under sustained pressure from law enforcement, making it increasingly difficult to continue their activities.

Faced with that reality, they would either abandon their criminal lifestyles or persist in making life a misery for law-abiding citizens, risking deadly confrontations with police officers in the process. They appear determined to enrich themselves by any means necessary, regardless of the consequences. For many, it is a reckless pursuit of wealth—either getting rich quickly or dying in the attempt.
Continue reading Criminality in our DNA →

By Raffique Shah
June 06, 2026

Rampant alcoholism is gnawing away at the fabric of this society, carving out and consuming large sections that are fuelling the collapse of productivity. Because of the ease of access and lack of limitations, coupled with indiscipline by most of the public, the mal-effects of alcohol consumption can be detected in our slump in daily activities.

It has become commonplace to travel to any part of this country and see people swaying, staggering and, worst of them all, crumpled by the roadsides in drunken ­stupor or plain unconsciousness. This is how it starts for many people.
Continue reading Alcohol’s intoxicating hold →

By Raffique Shah
May 30, 2026

One of the best experiences one can have is to have made friends with total strangers you encounter along life’s long and winding road. Among the more horrible experiences anyone could possibly have, though, is getting close to another person, ignoring warning signals of him or her being not entirely honest and straightforward.

I went to prison at a very young age. I was 24 years old, which was also the case with most of the other soldiers. I shall not bore readers with stories of having to unmask criminals who are absolutely unscrupulous, who were prepared to taint my character and that of my men.
Continue reading The long and winding road of corruption →

By Raffique Shah
May 23, 2026

The first time I dipped my index finger in electoral ink in my native land was also the first time I voted in any election, and it allowed me to experience one of the more exciting aspects of elections in general—their impact on the politics of a country.

I had been through the voting process for around six elections before I faced the one in 1976. In an uncanny way I found myself, at age four, interacting with a local government candidate whose name was Mandan Dass from Chase Village.
Continue reading The worst will prevail →

By Raffique Shah
May 2, 2026

A few weeks ago, I dived into the past—and into the pace at which the world is moving—to capture as much as I could about information technology: how it has impacted the world, and how it has given us tools to unlock history at a dizzying speed.

That speed seems almost designed to leave slower learners behind, as though some unseen device might simply eject them from the aircraft.
Continue reading AI, eyes and ears on you →

By Raffique Shah
April 25, 2026

A society, once ungoverned, lawless and without a leader, is painted as an anarchical one. What do you call a society governed by an elected government by the people, for the people and of the people that has allowed crime to run away so far that the criminals are now killing police officers in police stations, and stealing their arms and armaments from their armoury?

Last Sunday’s King’s Wharf incident can only be described as anarchy. The fact that someone killed a woman police officer inside the police station and made off with the arms and ammunition is simply mind-boggling. Who is or are the brave or stupid—depending on your point of view—individual or persons who would have perpetrated this heinous crime? And, that, while the country is under a state of emergency which was instituted to help curb crime. Charges have been laid and we await confirmation of the accusations made against the deceased officer herself.
Continue reading One step away from anarchy →

By Raffique Shah
April 18, 2026

As a survivor of several economic recessions, more economic downturns than I could count as a child, I’ve had to tighten my belt so much that my waistline simply doesn’t exist anymore. When I make my not-too-often rides into the countryside, evidence of citizens experiencing tough economic times is there. Construction seems to have slowed down considerably and the presence of working-age young adults on the streets, just idling away the time, is painful to watch.
Continue reading Nonsense passes for governance →

By Raffique Shah
April 05, 2026

It would seem preposterous if any nation that is involved in US President Donald Trump’s fantasy warfare (in which the carnage is impossibly real) were to pronounce victory.

Or even more absurd would be claims of having devastated and dismantled what was left of the camp that Palestinians were forced to call home, because the rubble left behind by Israel’s constant bombardment of Gaza cannot be called anything but camps in the Bedouin tradition. Still, since Trump appeared to be enjoying the puerile digital war, one cannot dismiss his sharing of digital targets for practice on live ranges with equally live targets.
Continue reading Sowing the seeds of war →

By Raffique Shah
March 28, 2026

In Pedagogy of the Oppressed, Paulo Freire, a Marxist educator of yesteryear, wrote that education should be a practice of freedom, empowering the oppressed to achieve critical consciousness and transform society.

With this transformation, I suppose he dared to engender a society so far removed from ignorance that there would be no chance of large swathes of the world wallowing in abject poverty where crime remains a foremost option.
Continue reading Capital nonsense →