Category Archives: Hindu

Preparing the Way for Kamla – Pt 2

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 11, 2018

PART 2

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeOn January 29, 2011 after the People’s Partnership government was elected, I participated in a conference on multiculturalism that was sponsored by the Global Organization of People of Indian Origin (GOPIO) Trinidad and Tobago. Kamla and Sat were thick as thieves then and Kamla’s government decided that multiculturalism would be T&T’s cultural policy.
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Preparing the Way for Kamla

By Dr Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 04, 2018

PART 1

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeIt was Indian Arrival Day. I just had to go down to Paravati Girls Hindu College, Debe, to hear what Sat Maharaj, leader of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) had to say about the importance of Indian Arrival Day to his community and his response to the negative media coverage that attended his demand that Nafisah Nakhid not wear her hijab at his Maha Sabha School, which he said violated the school’s dress code.
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GOPIO: T&T Indians second class citizens

By Kim Boodram
Jun 1, 2016 – trinidadexpress.com

lettersNEARLY two hundred years after they became part of the building of Trinidad and Tobago, people of East Indian descent are still considered second class citizens, the president of the local chapter of the Global Organisation of Indian People (GOPIO), Karran Nancoo, has said.
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Go to hell Mr Archbishop, says Sat

By Laurel V Williams
Tuesday, May 31 2016 – newsday.co.tt

Go to hell Mr Archbishop, says Sat“Go to hell!”.

That was the “message” Secretary General of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) Satnarayan ‘Sat’ Maharaj sent publicly for Roman Catholic Archbishop Joseph Harris in light of the controversial debate on child marriage and the law.

“Mr Archbishop and all you other people, look at the mote in your own eye before you point out the mote in the eye of the Hindu.
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Hindus observe Kartik Snaan

By Seeta Persad
November 26, 2015 – newsday.co.tt

Kartik SnaanHINDUS across the country yesterday observed the religious event of Kartik with many going to the beach or river to hold pujas (prayers) and pray.

All Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha (SDMS) run schools were closed to allow for entire families to pray together. Kartik Snaan is the name given for the months of October/November in the Hindu calendar. During this holy time Nav Ratri, Divali and Ramleela are observed and celebrated.
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Balancing the Scales of Reparatory Justice

By Stephen Kangal
August 21, 2014

Stephen KangalI regard myself as an objective and detached observer of the legitimate current claim being prosecuted across the Caribbean for European nations that participated in the infamous Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade to pay reparations to the descendants of those who suffered this inhumanity in the hands of the slave-masters/traders and tribal chiefs in Africa who mobilized them and sold them to the slave-traders.
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Sat’s public servants comment upsets Dumas

PM must say if she agrees

By Richard Lord
June 02, 2014 – guardian.co.tt

Secretary General of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, Satnarayan MaharajFormer head of the public service, Reginald Dumas, is taking issue with a claim by the secretary general of the Sanatan Dharma Maha Sabha, Satnarayan Maharaj, that generations of People’s National Movement (PNM) supporters were planted in the public service to prevent any non-PNM government from getting a second term. Maharaj made the claim during an Indian Arrival Day function hosted by the Maha Sabha in Debe on Friday.
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Happy Indian Arrival Day: Documenting Indian/Trinibagonian History

By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
June 01, 2014

Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe“A child is as much wronged by being left uneducated as it is by being left unfed.” Antoine Fortune, Public Opinion, October 30, 1888.

I endorse Sat Maharaj’s offer of grants of “about $100,000 to local historians who wish to document ‘authentic’ East Indian history in the communities” (Express, May 25). Although I don’t know what Sat means by “authentic” history or what constitutes misrepresented histories “by the children of converts,” I still think his thrust is correct. We need to pay greater attention to our past so that we can better understand our present.
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Whither India?

By Raffique Shah
May 25, 2014

Raffique ShahWith Narendra Modi taking office as Prime Minister of India following a convincing victory in the month-long general elections, the world’s largest parliamentary democracy, India, stands at critical crossroads.

The close to 200 million voters who propelled the controversial Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to power comprise in the main Hindu nationalists who see the country as Hindu first, anything else afterwards. But they were not the decisive elements that drove the Indian National Congress and the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty out of power in a humiliating rout.
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Police probing Chandresh for assault of ex-girlfriend

Tourism Minister Chandresh Sharma

By Shaliza Hassanali
March 30, 2014 – guardian.co.tt

Tourism Minister Chandresh Sharma is under investigation by the police for the assault of his former girlfriend. Sacha Singh, the managing director of AMS Biotech Security Concept and AmSure T&T Ltd, who is in her late 20s, met with officers of the St Joseph Police Station on Friday at her Piarco business and gave a statement of Sharma’s alleged physical abuse during an altercation on March 12 at Grand Bazaar. Though a police investigation into such a matter can take as long as six months, the Sunday Guardian learnt that because of the high-profile nature of the matter it is being fast-tracked. ASP Joanne Archie, public information officer of the T&T Police Service, yesterday confirmed that an investigation was being conducted by the police against Sharma: “Statements were recorded and the investigation is in progress.”
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