Tag Archives: Stephen Kangal

Get it Right Before You Write on TT’s Maritime Boundaries

By Stephen Kangal
May 01, 2012

Stephen KangalLet me categorically state that the printed media especially since 2004 when the TT/Barbados boundary dispute first erupted and counting, has never gotten it right in reporting about our very specialized maritime boundaries matter. They have done a great disservice to T&T. I cannot identify any single journalist past or present who has taken the time to research and/or to consult responsibly on this matter that the freedom of the press demands of media houses.
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Nature and Nurturing of a Prime Minister

By Stephen Kangal
April 24, 2012

Stephen KangalDuring the recent visit made to her ancestral homeland, Bihari village of Bhelupur PM Persad-Bissessar issued a most profound, conclusive, unnoticed and defining statement on her nature and nurturing en route to becoming Prime Minister. She confessed quite categorically to the Bhelupuris gathered that “…whatever I am today is because Bihar is in my DNA and whatever my ancestors taught me…”.
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CAL Gatwick Route to London Viable

By Stephen Kangal
April 06, 2012

Stephen KangalAs a frequent flyer to London for the past 30 years I am totally confident that CAL’s long-awaited re-entry, using the originally familiar BW 902 flight designations to London beginning June 14 via London Gatwick will be viable and cumulatively successful. We must recall that when BWIA terminated its London route using Heathrow its Tri-star and Airbus flights were always full and were the most lucrative in the BWIA network.
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Rowley Went To India Looking for Jhandis?

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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Exploring Linkages Between Indian Places and Cultural Spaces in T&T

By Stephen Kangal
March 19, 2012

Stephen KangalIt was culturally fulfilling, timely and enlightening to attend the public presentation of a ground-breaking PH.D dissertation produced by renowned cultural activist, Kathak dance exponent par excellence and former distinguished Permanent Secretary, Dr. Sat Balkaransingh held at NAPA on Wednesday last. The work is entitled, “Trinidad Space Speaking through Indo-Trinidadian Rituals and Festivals” will contribute immensely to cross-cultural understanding beyond the confines of the Indian community of the culturally persistent linkages that exist between ancestral India and its culturally-rich, diasporic community in T&T.
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Mathur Dealing in Psycho-Cultural Falsities

By Stephen Kangal
March 07, 2012

Stephen KangalWriting in her Sunday Guardian column of January 22, Ira Mathur a naturalized citizen of T&T but Indian, was born of military middle class parentage completely detached from the reach of the systems of Caribbean indenture-ship and slavery. She has unwittingly and falsely included herself as a victim of that system.
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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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OWTU Wanted To Spoil We Carnival

By Stephen Kangal
February 22, 2012

Oilfields WorkersOnce again the people of T&T were under siege and being held to ransom and exploited by unscrupulous unions such as OWTU and SWWTU – formerly Branch No.1 of the PNM. The former attempted to endanger the socio-economic success of the Carnival by giving notice of calling a strike to deprive us of petrol/diesel to begin on Carnival Saturday. The SWWTU did the same during the busy Xmas season by closing the port.
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Hindi Is not an Ancestral Language of T&T

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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Malay Steps out of His Crease

By Stephen Kangal
February 06, 2012

PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar in IndiaIn the aftermath of the current euphoria and unbridled optimism generated from the highly successful recent State visit conducted by Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissesar to India in connection with the annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas it is very disconcerting to hear HE The High Commissioner of India to T&T, Malay Mishra using an occasion to promote his mission’s Hindi language program in T&T, to unleash unwarranted and undiplomatic criticisms of her alleged inability to connect with the people of her ancestral village of Bhelupur because she spoke in English- the official language of T&T.
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