The video-record­ed fight that went vi­ral in­volv­ing stu­dents from a San­gre Grande school, on the very first day of the new aca­d­e­m­ic year, has once again thrust the is­sue of school in­dis­ci­pline in­to the na­tion­al spot­light.

I be­lieve the idea of Caribbean uni­ty – in all its var­i­ous ge­o­graph­i­cal/his­tor­i­cal/po­lit­i­cal man­i­fes­ta­tions – is some­thing that en­chants most (not all) peo­ple who live in our re­gion.

I once knew a girl in St Au­gus­tine who claimed to know 50 ways to kiss. We all tried to test out her knowl­edge but failed. At least those boys and girls that I knew said so.

The most im­por­tant in­vest­ment Trinidad and To­ba­go makes each year is not mea­sured in con­crete, steel or bal­ance sheets. It is found in class­rooms across the coun­try, where the na­tion’s fu­ture is be­ing shaped one stu­dent at a time.

The case of Na­dia Pooran, as re­port­ed in yes­ter­day’s Sun­day Guardian, lays bare the com­plex and of­ten trag­ic cy­cle of crime, pun­ish­ment and re­ha­bil­i­ta­tion. Her young life was shaped by ex­ploita­tion and forced pros­ti­tu­tion, fol­lowed by se­ri­ous crim­i­nal be­hav­iour that led to in­car­cer­a­tion. Yet the abuse she suf­fered be­hind prison walls, the State’s fail­ure to pro­tect her, and the chal­lenges she faced af­ter serv­ing her sen­tence of­fer trou­bling in­sight in­to the fac­tors that con­tin­ue to fu­el crim­i­nal­i­ty in so­ci­ety.

If a week is a long time in pol­i­tics, this Sep­tem­ber may feel like an eter­ni­ty. Tra­di­tion­al­ly as­so­ci­at­ed with the start of the school year and the re­turn of chron­ic traf­fic con­ges­tion, this month will al­so bring a se­ries of ma­jor po­lit­i­cal and eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ments. Re­ac­tions to the Prime Min­is­ter’s un­usu­al In­de­pen­dence Day mes­sages are like­ly to fade as at­ten­tion shifts to more press­ing mat­ters.

With an ele­phant head, body of a man, the Hin­du God Ganesh, at first ap­pears un­gain­ly, but among Hin­du Gods his pop­u­lar­i­ty abounds. Mur­tis of Gane­sha can be found in tem­ples, homes, mo­tor ve­hi­cles, and on of­fice desks.

Ear­ly on In­de­pen­dence Day, just af­ter mid­night, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar post­ed a mes­sage to “the UNC fam­i­ly”, thank­ing them for “the ho­n­our of lead­ing our great par­ty and coun­try.”

Along with the paint­ing of the Mag­nif­i­cent Sev­en build­ings and lo­cal­ly made choco­lates, which For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs Min­is­ter Sean Sobers took to Venezue­lan Min­is­ter of Peo­ple’s Pow­er for For­eign Af­fairs and For­eign Trade Félix Plasen­cia at Thurs­day’s work­ing vis­it, Sobers al­so tot­ed a heavy bag of re­spon­si­bil­i­ties.

The Sep­tem­ber 17 ex­pi­ra­tion of the cur­rent State of Emer­gency (SoE) is fast ap­proach­ing, and the Gov­ern­ment must soon de­cide whether Trinidad and To­ba­go should con­tin­ue un­der ex­tra­or­di­nary emer­gency pow­ers or re­turn to nor­mal polic­ing mea­sures.

Yes­ter­day’s vis­it to Cara­cas by a del­e­ga­tion led by Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, Sean Sobers, sig­nals the pos­si­bil­i­ty of a much-an­tic­i­pat­ed im­prove­ment in re­la­tions be­tween this coun­try and its clos­est neigh­bour.

Fi­nan­cial in­cen­tives and fam­i­ly sup­port pro­grammes are among the most com­mon mea­sures adopt­ed by coun­tries fac­ing pop­u­la­tion stag­na­tion or de­cline. In that con­text, the ini­tia­tive by To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine to ad­dress the is­land’s falling birth rate is a com­mend­able one. How­ev­er, re­vers­ing de­mo­graph­ic de­cline will re­quire far more than good in­ten­tions or short-term as­sis­tance for fam­i­lies.