1990 enquiry: exercise in futility - July 25, 2010
I do not know how Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and her Cabinet arrived at a decision to appoint a Commission of Enquiry into the attempted coup of 1990. I suspect the hype that always surrounds the anniversary date of the Muslimeen assault on the National Alliance for Reconstruction (NAR) government may have prompted the PM and her colleagues to attempt to "put this matter to rest for once and for all". 
Poverty Facts and Fiction - July 18, 2010
Every time I hear someone parrot poverty numbers in my Trinidad and Tobago, I wince. Politicians, and many ordinary citizens, often accept as the "gospel truth" the amount of people in this country said to be living "below the absolute poverty line", defined as US$1 a day.
Injustice Sows Seeds of Terrorism - July 11, 2010
Those among us who keep abreast of international developments will have noted huge protest demonstrations in Israel most of last week. This kind of action is unusual. Small numbers of Israelis who oppose their government's policies towards the Palestinians and atrocities committed by their military, hardly come out in the open for fear of their lives and liberty.
Ministers Must Show Decorum - July 04, 2010
Break, as a boxing referee would say. Last week I sought to re-open some old wounds that have returned to haunt us-to wit, the tragedy and gross injustice of the Bhopal disaster of 1984. Oftentimes we become so absorbed with our immediate problems, we ignore the plight of people less fortunate than we.
Myth of all men created equal - June 27, 2010
Two weeks ago in India, seven local managers who worked with Union Carbide at its Bhopal plant in 1984 were sentenced to two years imprisonment and each fined US$2,100. There was outrage outside the Delhi court, and understandably so.
'Desi' Allum: patriarch and patriot - June 20, 2010
My mother takes a seat in the limited space available in court. It is early June, 1970, and the preliminary inquiry into the charge of treason gets underway. She looks at her 24-year-old son sitting in the dock alongside 60-odd soldiers.
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