debut: 2/16/17
35,084 runs
Breathtaking, daunting India is callinghttps://newsday.co.tt/2024/03/09/breathtaking-daunting-india-is-calling/
India is calling.
Her government wants the world, including Latin America and the Caribbean, to know what her politics and policies are, her advancements and struggles, how she deals with everyday issues and her philosophies on big-ticket global issues such as climate change and the need to go green. India wants the world to get to know her. Hence the reason for its Government hosting journalists from the Caribbean and Latin America on a seven-day media sensitisation tour in February. Media practitioners from Caribbean countries including Barbados, Belize, Grenada, TT, St Vincent, Suriname and Guyana, as well as Latin American countries Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, El Salvador and Honduras all participated.
Sitting in the lobby of the swank Le Meridien Hotel in Delhi, my first order of business was to damage Caricom integration and relations when, after hearing my media colleague Nadia Slater speak and listening to her accent, I made the wrong assumption and asked where in Jamaica she was from. An indignant Slater declared, “Me not from Jamaica, me is Vincey!” My error threatened to push TT’s diplomatic relations with St Vincent and the Grenadines back 30 years. The glare she gave me was enough to kill that conversation dead in the waters of the Caribbean Sea.
India is a living, breathing lesson in contrasts. But that’s the beauty of why she is hardly ever not in the world news. There is never a dull day there.Two hundred and 21 km from Delhi, or a little over four hours of travelling in a bus, lies the city of Agra in the state of Uttar Pradesh. In this place, 392 years ago, a Mughal emperor named Shah Jahan was overcome with grief over losing his favourite wife, Mumtaaz. He turned his grief, despair and love into a 17-year project, building a mausoleum of ivory-white marble where, to this day, while he and Mumtaaz lie in eternal sleep below, over 100,000 people daily visit the Shah’s enduring and endearing love legacy – the Taj Mahal.Thousands streamed through the Taj Mahal in the three hours I spent there with my media colleagues. The human flow took place whilst nearby, water flowed quickly along the mighty Yamuna River which borders the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal deserves its billing as a Wonder of the World and no visit to India, let alone a planned tour, should ever be undertaken without a trip to this magnificent testament to love.
India is calling.
Her government wants the world, including Latin America and the Caribbean, to know what her politics and policies are, her advancements and struggles, how she deals with everyday issues and her philosophies on big-ticket global issues such as climate change and the need to go green. India wants the world to get to know her. Hence the reason for its Government hosting journalists from the Caribbean and Latin America on a seven-day media sensitisation tour in February. Media practitioners from Caribbean countries including Barbados, Belize, Grenada, TT, St Vincent, Suriname and Guyana, as well as Latin American countries Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, El Salvador and Honduras all participated.
Sitting in the lobby of the swank Le Meridien Hotel in Delhi, my first order of business was to damage Caricom integration and relations when, after hearing my media colleague Nadia Slater speak and listening to her accent, I made the wrong assumption and asked where in Jamaica she was from. An indignant Slater declared, “Me not from Jamaica, me is Vincey!” My error threatened to push TT’s diplomatic relations with St Vincent and the Grenadines back 30 years. The glare she gave me was enough to kill that conversation dead in the waters of the Caribbean Sea.
India is a living, breathing lesson in contrasts. But that’s the beauty of why she is hardly ever not in the world news. There is never a dull day there.Two hundred and 21 km from Delhi, or a little over four hours of travelling in a bus, lies the city of Agra in the state of Uttar Pradesh. In this place, 392 years ago, a Mughal emperor named Shah Jahan was overcome with grief over losing his favourite wife, Mumtaaz. He turned his grief, despair and love into a 17-year project, building a mausoleum of ivory-white marble where, to this day, while he and Mumtaaz lie in eternal sleep below, over 100,000 people daily visit the Shah’s enduring and endearing love legacy – the Taj Mahal.Thousands streamed through the Taj Mahal in the three hours I spent there with my media colleagues. The human flow took place whilst nearby, water flowed quickly along the mighty Yamuna River which borders the Taj Mahal. The Taj Mahal deserves its billing as a Wonder of the World and no visit to India, let alone a planned tour, should ever be undertaken without a trip to this magnificent testament to love.
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