For decades, women have been taught that the month­ly breast self-ex­am­i­na­tion was one of their strongest weapons against breast can­cer.

Ring­worm is a strange dis­ease. First, the name. It does ap­pear in the shape of a ring, but there is no worm in­volved. It gets its name from its vi­su­al ap­pear­ance: a red­dish-brown raised cir­cle on the skin that vague­ly re­sem­bles a worm curled up un­der the skin.

Al­most fifty years ago, in 1975, at a his­toric sym­po­sium on In­di­ans in the Caribbean, VS Naipaul re­marked, “We for­get; we have no idea of our past; it is part of the trou­ble. We came from a cul­ture that has not been much giv­en to self-ex­am­i­na­tion or to his­tor­i­cal en­quiry.”

In the ear­ly 1980s, vis­i­tors to the Roy­al Botan­ic Gar­dens in Port-of-Spain no­ticed some­thing chang­ing.

The Ju­ly and Au­gust hol­i­day pe­ri­od is one of the most an­tic­i­pat­ed times of the year. It is a sea­son for trav­el, fam­i­ly gath­er­ings, beach trips and much-need­ed rest. Af­ter months of work, dead­lines and re­spon­si­bil­i­ties, many peo­ple wel­come the op­por­tu­ni­ty to slow down.

Dr Sav­it­ri Ram­per­sad’s May 22 launch of Steel­pan Vi­bra­tions: Un­lock­ing the Hu­man Mind in­tro­duced a NA­PA au­di­ence to a nov­el, thought-pro­vok­ing view of the steel­pan’s unique val­ue.

When most peo­ple think of a chair­man, they imag­ine some­one sit­ting at the head of a long board­room ta­ble, call­ing meet­ings to or­der and ap­prov­ing de­ci­sions. While that im­age is not en­tire­ly wrong, it bare­ly scratch­es the sur­face of what the role tru­ly de­mands.

Sev­en­teen years lat­er, rain or shine, the mem­bers of Al­ma Caribena (Caribbean Soul) are keep­ing the sweet parang flame burn­ing every chance they get.

We are now ex­pe­ri­enc­ing the won­der-filled age of Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence (AI)—com­put­er sys­tems de­vel­oped to per­form tasks that typ­i­cal­ly re­quire hu­man in­tel­li­gence, with ap­pli­ca­tions that have rev­o­lu­tionised the way we ac­cess so­lu­tions to dai­ly life chal­lenges. Through AI, sig­nif­i­cant break­throughs are be­ing wit­nessed in al­most every in­dus­try.

That was my first thought as the group stepped off the beat­en path and in­to the rain­for­est, greet­ed by views of an open, over­cast sky, lush green moun­tains, and tow­er­ing vines and trees that dwarfed even my col­league Aidan, who stands over six feet tall.

At 19 years old, Aamir Khan has al­ready fought a bat­tle that many peo­ple will nev­er have to imag­ine.

We’re on­ly halfway through the year, but for those who cel­e­brate Christ­mas in Ju­ly, it’s the most won­der­ful time!