There should be lit­tle dis­agree­ment with the ob­jec­tive be­hind the Gov­ern­ment’s pro­posed leg­is­la­tion: pro­tect­ing young peo­ple from sub­stance abuse, gam­bling and the con­se­quences of ear­ly ex­po­sure to ad­dic­tive be­hav­iours.

The Gen­er­al De­bate (GD) of the 81st ses­sion of the Unit­ed Na­tions Gen­er­al As­sem­bly (UN­GA 81) end­ed on Mon­day and did not al­ways dis­ap­point when it came to the ef­fi­cient de­liv­ery of pho­to-ops, head­lines, sound­bites, and high dra­ma.

By now, most peo­ple will have heard that sev­er­al coun­tries, led by Swe­den and in­clud­ing the Nether­lands, Spain, Fin­land, France, Italy and Den­mark, are scal­ing back dig­i­tal-first ed­u­ca­tion, re­duc­ing com­put­ers, tablets and phones in class­rooms and re­turn­ing to a fo­cus on books and hand­writ­ing. These coun­tries have ob­served de­clines in lit­er­a­cy, mem­o­ry and con­cen­tra­tion since the in­tro­duc­tion of dig­i­tal ed­u­ca­tion.

A na­tion’s grat­i­tude is mea­sured not on­ly in ap­plause, but in how it ho­n­ours those who helped shape its iden­ti­ty. With the pass­ing of Slinger Fran­cis­co, The Mighty Spar­row, Trinidad and To­ba­go has lost a cul­tur­al gi­ant, and the Caribbean one of its most gift­ed sto­ry­tellers. The coun­try must now give him a farewell wor­thy of his ex­tra­or­di­nary life and lega­cy.

Pitri Paksh, al­so known as Shradh, is a sa­cred pe­ri­od in the life of Hin­dus ded­i­cat­ed to ho­n­our­ing and ap­peas­ing an­ces­tors. Fam­i­lies and in­di­vid­u­als per­form rit­u­als to ex­press grat­i­tude and ful­fil their du­ties to­ward de­part­ed an­ces­tors.

The de­bate over Sen­ate Pres­i­dent Wade Mark’s de­ci­sion to cast the de­cid­ing vote that en­abled the pas­sage of the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill has gen­er­at­ed an im­por­tant and large­ly con­struc­tive dis­cus­sion about con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ven­tion, par­lia­men­tary pro­ce­dure and the lim­its of prece­dent.

Par­lia­ment has passed the Spe­cial Op­er­a­tions Bill af­ter vig­or­ous con­tri­bu­tions for and against, cul­mi­nat­ing in Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s nasty slurs and un­war­rant­ed at­tacks on the In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tors for vot­ing against it. Ear­li­er, De­fence Min­is­ter Wayne Sturge asked those warn­ing about a po­lice state whether they would pre­fer a “ban­dit state.” He should know that in a con­sti­tu­tion­al democ­ra­cy, we are not re­quired to choose be­tween the two.

At mo­ments of in­tense po­lit­i­cal con­flict, it be­comes nec­es­sary to rise above per­son­al­i­ties, par­ty loy­al­ties and par­ti­san pas­sions and re­turn to first prin­ci­ples.

I re­cent­ly heard my son, Dr Vinash Deyals­ingh, ad­vis­ing his pa­tients to con­sume wa­ter-rich fruits such as the wa­ter­mel­on dur­ing this pe­ri­od of in­tense heat.

Wednes­day’s meet­ing in New York be­tween the lead­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go and Venezuela is a wel­come de­vel­op­ment in a re­la­tion­ship that has too of­ten been con­strained by geopo­lit­i­cal ten­sions. Com­ing on the heels of the Sep­tem­ber 3 vis­it to Cara­cas by T&T’s Min­is­ter of For­eign and Cari­com Af­fairs, it sig­nals a po­ten­tial­ly sig­nif­i­cant re­set in re­la­tions be­tween the two neigh­bours.

As Trinidad and To­ba­go to­day marks the 50th an­niver­sary of be­com­ing a Re­pub­lic, there is much for the na­tion to cel­e­brate. De­spite the chal­lenges that con­front small and vul­ner­a­ble states in an in­creas­ing­ly com­plex world, this coun­try has reached an im­por­tant mile­stone with achieve­ments wor­thy of pride and re­flec­tion.

When Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar took the oath of of­fice on May 1, 2025, she pro­ject­ed both grace and states­man­ship. More im­por­tant than the sym­bol­ism of the oc­ca­sion were the words she de­liv­ered to the na­tion.