Guyana in the past few years has been noted for producing the top student at the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC), and cannot be more proud in securing the accolade again this year. Anuradha Dev of Queen’s College has made her parents, school, teachers and most importantly her country proud by not only topping the Caribbean, but also emerging as the best science student in the region. Dev, who throughout her school years has been a name synonymous with excellence, had also topped the country at this year’s CSEC. She…
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Poverty
International Day for the Eradication of Poverty was observed on Monday, October 17. This commemoration began in 1993, and was sanctioned by the United Nations (UN). The observance can actually be traced back to October 17, 1987. On that day, more than a hundred thousand people gathered at the Trocadéro in Paris, where the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was signed in 1948 to honour the victims of extreme poverty, violence, and hunger. Since then, people of all backgrounds, beliefs and social origins have gathered every year, to renew their…
Read MoreFor peaceful elections
In the past few days, there have been disturbing signs that the elections fever may be heating up to a pitch that may cause our fragile democratic peace to be challenged. We refer specifically to the defacement of posters of the PPP/C, in which its presidential candidate, Donald Ramotar, was literally “defaced”. We refer also to the disruption of a meeting of the PPP/C on the East Coast Demerara by members of an opposition party who were egged on by an executive member of that party. We have no wish…
Read MoreFree and fair elections
With the launching of their first “Grand Rally” on Sunday, October 02, at Albion, the PPP/C’s 2011 elections campaigns have definitively begun. When the elections are over, we would have completed the fifth “free and fair” elections since October 5, 1992. We are sure that the choice of October 2 for the launch of the PPP’s campaign was not coincidental: it was timed to remind all Guyanese of the fundamental break which October 5 represents in our political history. And this is as it should be. Free and fair elections…
Read MoreThe politics of envy
A very disturbing development that has been steadily metastasising in our society exposed itself recently over the staging of the Appreciation Day for President Bharrat Jagdeo. One saw the symptoms in the vicious efforts of some to portray the day as an imitation of the Mass Games wherein attendance and homage to the dictator was compulsory. Ignoring it was totally voluntary in this instance. It was visible in the churlish denial of the premise of the day that improvement had been achieved in so many areas of national life during…
Read MoreMagnanimity and grace
They poured in from all corners of Guyana – from the Pakaraimas to the lush sands of the Corentyne – into the National Stadium at Providence, East Bank Demerara to give tribute to this particular man from Unity, East Coast Demerara who had become their longest- serving executive president. The symbolism was not lost on the thousands that filled every seat at the stadium, which itself had become a reality only because of the Herculean efforts of Bharrat Jagdeo. He would soon be taking his leave after 12 years at…
Read MoreAchieving the MDGs
The 2011 report on how Guyana fared in achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) was recently released, and even though its findings did not come as a surprise, they provide a clearer picture for governments, policy makers and activists to take the kind of action that is necessary to achieve the targets set by world leaders. The aim of the MDGs is to encourage development by improving social and economic conditions in the world’s poorest countries. The goals derived from earlier international development targets, and were officially established following the…
Read MoreThe Thought Police
In George Orwell’s book “1984”, we hear of the “Thought Police”: those who would control not only the words and deeds of citizens, but their very thoughts. It appears that, in Guyana, we have in our midst some who are bent on pushing us in this direction. Ironically, this Thought Police brigade sits in the very institution that is supposed to combat ideological straitjacketing and thought regimentation – the media and the media association. At a second level of irony, in the book “1984”, it was the government – “Big…
Read MoreBureaucracy and progress
President Bharrat Jagdeo has by now become well known for his open criticisms of certain international organisations, recently going as far as labelling them “bureaucracies dedicated to creating jobs for people from northern countries.” While some may view such comments as inappropriate and uncalled for, it is obvious that the head of state is getting impatient and anxious to see become a reality the level of development that was promised to the citizens of the country. Citizens want to see results, and they hold accountable those that govern them when…
Read MoreFulfilling IYPAD
President Bharrat Jagdeo’s approval of a grant of Gy$10 million to the African Cultural and Development Association (ACDA) to support that organisation’s activities to mark the occasion of the International Year for People of African Descent (IYPAD) offers an opportunity to reflect on the commemorated event in our country. Back in 2009, the UN had designated this year as IYPAD in acknowledgement of the historical injustices that had been inflicted on African peoples, and on the need for the world to attempt rectification in the present. At the launching of…
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