2017: The Year in Review

Q1: iPhone turns 10. Voters elect candidates wisely. Oxfam says income for bottom half hasn't grown for past three decades. Average performance for Mauritius. Countries use PISA to improve education system. Nation surprised to learn than history of Labour Party is larger than two Ramgoolams. Citizens evaluate ministers continuously. Metro Express not needed for now. Parliament goes live and direct. Sumputh resigns after PM finds package shocking.

Q2: Splitting the Sithanen toohrooh. Soornack explains how she made it. Le Pen gets closer to L'Elysee. Who is the fastest footballer? Two really dumb reasons we need party lists. Madhuri at fifty. MK said to fly understaffed planes. The Saint dead at 89. How you know you're not a big cat. Taxpayers handed multi-billion rupee bill. Top tax rates go up by 5%. Fighter jets have own sign language.

Q3: Meet the articulated bus. Referendum legislation can help avoid mayhem. Chester found dead. Singapore knows plenty. How Fowdar can help our democracy. Cleaners earning Rs1,500 per month have reason to smile. World discovers the SJ Theatre. Easy for Mauritius to boost its GDP by half. FPTP system allows general election to have recall component.

Q4: Why Mauritius is not in high-income group. Dead animal should be removed from coats of arms. They should be referred to as 30/3 and 3/5. A woman in the front row. Mauritius finds out she has an MP called Tarolah. Use the two o'clock rule to save lives. Simple tools to understand social contracts. Berenger makes new prediction. Podcast to find out things launched. December 2014 was worse than a 60-0. Look who's worried about inequality. 8 questions for voters. Voodoo economist is back. A plan for Mauritius. 4 out 5 voters don't vote for Boolell. 

How the Two O'Clock Rule Saves Lives

When attempting the roof of the world do so by 14h00. If you haven't forget about it and return to the safety of your tent. Otherwise your chances of surviving and being present at your own funeral fall by a lot. Because you'd be spending way too much time in the Death Zone where oxygen is really scarce. And be exposed to horrific climatic conditions in complete darkness. Failure to observe this rule in May 1996 led to eight deaths on the slopes of the 29,000-footer.

10 people lost their lives in a small perimeter in Port-Louis on 30/3. That was during the day. With most people in office buildings. What do you think would have happened if it was at night and there was a compact crowd of tens of thousands of people of all ages in the streets?

30/3 and 3/5 Are Our 9/11s

11 people died on 30 March 2013 after 15 centimetres of rain fell on Port-Louis. That's 83% of the 2,996 people who died in the US on September 11, 2001 after adjusting for population. And 34 days later another 11 of our fellow Mauritians perished in a bus accident.

11 people dying in Mauritius is roughly equivalent to the 10,600 lives that were lost in India during the 2004 tsunami. So basically in 2013 we were hit by two deadly tsunamis within about a month.

We cannot forget what happened. Which is why we should refer to them as 30/3 and 3/5 so they stay in national conversations for as long as possible. Just like there is 26/11 for Mumbai and 7/7 for London.