Tag Archives: Kamla Persad-Bissessar

General T&T, Hindu, India, Opposition Party, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics, Race and Identity, Religion

Rowley Went To India Looking for Jhandis?

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By Stephen Kangal
March 29, 2012

Stephen KangalYears ago T&T’s former HC to India, Mr. Reginald Dumas went visiting the rural villages of the Indian state of Bihar assiduously looking for “jhandis” and found them. Last week another Afro-Tobagonian, Opposition Leader the Hon. Keith Rowley used the occasion of the CPA meeting being held in India to search for the elusive “jhandis” and according to him found none. And this after the PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar just returned from her Indian safari when the question of the rurally remote, sometimes inaccessible villages (pur) of the States of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar from which the “girmitiyas” came to T&T bearing their ‘Jahajee bundles” was well-documented.
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General T&T, India, Media, People's Partnership, Politics, Race and Identity, UNC

Jack Crossing: from Corridor to Caroni

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By Tony Fraser
March 28, 2012 – guardian.co.tt

Jack WarnerAustin “Jack” Warner has made the crossing over the political, ethnic, racial and geographic Rubicon—from the east-west corridor to Caroni—and has done so in spectacular fashion. Without the endorsement of the hierarchy of the United National Congress, indeed, against its wishes, Warner sauntered into the heartland of the UNC to capture the chairmanship of the party and by an extraordinarily wide margin—12,695 to 656 votes.
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corruption, Finance, Gender, General T&T, Law, People's Partnership, Politics

Focus on substance, not fluff

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By Raffique Shah
March 17, 2012

Raffique ShahOVER the past two weeks or so, public attention has focused on two issues, with the concomitant raging debates in the media and online. The first surfaced when it was disclosed in Parliament that the State had met expenses for Prime Minsiter Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s sister to accompany her on official visits to Australia, India and elsewhere. The second pertained to Tobago Affairs Minister Vernella Alleyne-Toppin incurring private expenses on a Government-issued credit card that is intended for use by officials when they travel abroad.
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Gender, General T&T, Media, People's Partnership, Politics

Watch the playing of gender card, PM

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Guardian Editorial
March 16, 2012 – guardian.co.tt

PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar in IndiaLike other women prime ministers elsewhere in the world, Kamla Persad-Bissessar has had to compete in the political arena on equal terms with her male opponents. The was portrayed during the 2010 general election campaign, and has been portrayed since, as being fearless, capable and intellectually superior. On this basis Ms Persad-Bissessar did battle—and won, emphatically. First she defeated the founding father of the UNC, Basdeo Panday, for the party leadership, and then she unseated the incumbent prime minister, Patrick Manning. No special allowances were made for her in any way — if anything, her gender was an advantage.
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General T&T, Media, Opposition Party, Parliament, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics

A sideshow? Nothing more?

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By Winford James
March 07, 2012

ParliamentIn the end, as in the beginning, Keith Rowley’s motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister was a sideshow. It failed as it was bound to. It unified the executive and brought out their full armoury. It unified the Opposition and brought out some kind of offence. It won Dr Rowley a small political advantage and probably much more embarrassment. It gave the executive a golden opportunity to keep in the public consciousness the PNM’s “corruption, waste and inefficiency”. It unleashed, one more time, the executive’s politics of excess.
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corruption, Crime in T&T, General T&T, People's Partnership, Politics

Crime pay$ big buck$

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By Raffique Shah
March 04, 2012

Raffique ShahCRIME pays. Big time. And big bucks. We always knew that. Mostly, when we think of profiteering off criminal activities, we think of criminals and attorneys, one breed often indistinguishable from the other. The ties that bind them are the blood, sweat and tears of the victims of crime, mainly innocent people who work hard to provide the basics for their families, only to be relieved of their material possessions, at times their lives, by ruthless criminals.
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General T&T, Parliament, People's Partnership, PNM, Politics

A Chink in the Armor

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
March 01, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeWhatever else Keith Rowley may not be doing, he has certainly put the fear of God, or is it Lord Rama, into the hearts of the members of the UNC-led Government. Surujrattan Rambachan, the Foreign Minister, says that Rowley’s motion is “vexatious, frivolous and irrelevant.” Yet the UNC has undertaken to conduct three public meetings to mobilize its base and every one of its twenty-nine members of parliarment are slated to speak on the motion. That does not seem to be the kind of response that one mounts against a vexatious, frivolous and irrelevant motion, but then there is always a disparity between what the UNC says and what it does.
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COP, General T&T, Law, Politics, Protest, UNC

Alleyne Must Curb Fixation For Property Taxation

By Stephen Kangal
February 27, 2012

Author with Dr. Navi Muradali in Harris Promenade
Author with Dr. Navi Muradali in Harris Promenade
Newsday’s prime space columnist, George Alleyne continues to base his mistake-prone obsession on misleading argumentation for the re- imposition of property taxation (Newsday 1 Feb) when it is patently obvious that during the current economic down-turn, Government can and should stimulate consumer confidence and spending power by leaving as much resources in consumer hands and not in the coffers of Government.
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General T&T, India, Media, People's Partnership, Politics

Time for Change

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By Dr. Selwyn R. Cudjoe
February 15, 2012

Dr. Selwyn R. CudjoeI can still hear Kamla Persad Bissessar’s voice as it caressed the late afternoon air at the UNC’s Final Rally at Aranguez Savannah on May 22, 2010 as she offered the following paean: “Thank you to those who are here-thank you to those watching at home. Two days… We have been counting down together… And now it’s just two days until we together begin to forge a new Trinidad and Tobago…I can sense we are all ready for a change…Are you ready to change our country…?”
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General T&T, Hindu, India, People's Partnership, Politics, Race and Identity

Hindi Is not an Ancestral Language of T&T

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By Stephen Kangal
February 14, 2012

Stephen KangalI am not opposed to the teaching of Hindi. But for the Indian High Commissioner, HE Shri Malay Mishra both to justify its teaching in T&T by criticising the speech delivered by our Prime Minister in English to the Bhelupuris on the false and misleading notion that the girmitiyas brought Hindi to Trinidad in their jahajee bundles “… as part of their ancestral culture” is false, deliberately misleading and must be deprecated as a linguistic Ponzi scheme being foisted on unsuspecting Indo-Trinbagonians.
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