No Better Day To Ban Plastic Bottles

We know drinking from them is no good for our health. Or for mother earth. A cheaper and healthier alternative is to use old glass bottles at home to store boiled water. It tastes better too. You can even label it with your name. That's a much better decision as a citizen of a country of 1.3 million people and about nine amputations every week than to have a personalised can of soda. You can also buy a container and carry water with you when you go play.

Little things like this will make us more respectful of the environment and make spaceship Earth last a lot longer. Unless you are in a hurry to go live indoors on Mars forever. Like an idiot.

Why Mauritius Is Not Ready To Go Easy On Pot

Because we've been regressing so much over the past decade or so. Which means that we have a lot of basic problems to solve before we even start thinking about what to do with marijuana. For example take the dark smoke that comes out of way too many buses. Inhaling that stuff will eventually make you stupid. Combine this with rote learning and nine amputations a week. And road fatalities that should reach a 50-year high this year and up about 25% to 30% from 2017. Should we talk about the horrendous inequality brought about by the flat tax and financed partly with the beautiful idea of three casinos per town and village?

Just imagine what would happen if stupid drivers were now stoned. Glory to thee...

Mauritius in 2017

Thousands will again be denied a place in a secondary school because of a badly designed learning experience. Our roads will kill another 140. Eight or nine amputations will be performed every week or about 400 for the full year. Mauritius will shutdown around Saint Valentine as soon as we get some heavy rainfall. The CWA will announce harsher cuts right after. We will send a team to the IMO for the first time and get ready to participate in PISA 2018.

Roughly 1,000 people will be thrown into poverty. Every three months. Thanks to the trickle-down economics which has been going on for a decade now. The flat tax trap will cause the GDP shortfall to reach a trillion rupees about half of which would have happened on Lepep's watch. This will make government increasingly unpopular. Voters will keep on getting smarter. And that will be bad news for our political class. The water supply will improve as Bagatelle dam comes into operation in the second half of the year. Potential tragedy of a horrific number of fatalities during Porlwi by Light.

Quite a few of the bad events don't need to happen or can be mitigated. Like how does Mahebourg by Light sound? We could also avoid several road deaths if Lepep recognises that it might have acted in haste and brings an improved point system back.

Mauritius at 50: Getting Ready

Here are some of the things we should do:

1. Bring basic -- very basic -- management back. Like building another reservoir so we can catch more of all the water that falls on our head every year. And of course put more money into fixing leaking pipes. Instead of squandering billions into building new offices because one Minister wants more legroom.

2. Have an A380 fly over Champ de Mars at noon sharp. The peculiar thing about this plane is that it would not have any name. Only a few digits. 12.3.68.

3. New national logo and tagline. Which recognise that we can have the world's best air quality. This will help improve our management. Ask Southwest Airlines.

4. Significantly reduce the 450 amputations that are done every year. We could start by immediately taxing soft drinks more and increasing the number of weekly PE classes in our schools to three. Redesigning the curriculum with the 9-amputations-a-week statistic in mind and by going for noncumulative semesters will also produce a better learning experience. And say goodbye to obese parrots.

5. Reinstate progressive taxation so we grow faster again. And allow us to be more mindful.

6. Tweak our electoral system in a thoughtful way. Without introducing a dose of PR and the dangerous party lists that come with it. A few hysterical Marxists who want to do "autogestion" with our iPhone of constitution won't like it. But that won't prevent us from sleeping tight.

7. Allow kreol as an option in which debates in Parliament can happen. That's the language more than 8 out 10 Mauritians speak at home. Lalit can provide an initial list of unparliamentary words or add an entry on Wikipedia.

8. Schedule Zurnal Televize (ZT) on the first channel at 19h30. Have one reporter posted in each of these three cities: San Francisco, London and Tokyo to help cure navel-gazing.

9. Merge the CWA and CEB into a superutility. To protect us from severe Ministerial delusions. And to go back to our interesting 1996 carbon footprint.

Saving the rest for Mauritius at 500.

Just in Case You Forgot: November is Diabetes Month

Every 10 seconds a person dies of diabetes in the world. 25% of Mauritian suffer or are at high risk of developing that condition which is one of the most common chronic medical problems and a major cause of ill-health. The tragedy is that half of those affected will not even know that they have the disease. With early diagnosis, access to care and awareness the development of diabetes can be prevented specially in children.

We need to create Awareness BIG Time! And it’s the responsibility of each and every one of us. Why not use our students as media and for campaigning during the holiday seasons? This will not only help them find out about a life-long health risk but will also help to cure our affected community.

Our medical system could definitely be computerized instead of the mess of the Bristol card and dossier: a diabetes patient who is also an orthopedic patient at the same hospital has currently 2 dossiers. Having the patient full case history on a computer screen will help speed up the system for the benefit of one and all.

But WHEN are we getting started? Thoughts, action plan and decisions should meet reality within weeks! Our community is Dying!