​Balancing her studies with her spiritual growth has worked out well for Cassandra Khan who won the President's Medal, Gold for outstanding performance in the 2018 Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate examinations.
The 18-year-old Naparima Girls High School pupil, who lives with her parents Nancy and Haroun Khan at Ragoo Village, Wellington Road, expressed jubilation at her award.
In an interview, Cassandra said she was able to accomplish everything through the blessing of Jehovah God and his son Jesus Christ. 
"My father always said I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. It is a verse from the Bible which is my personal motto. I know that I was able to accomplish this because God has blessed me," Cassandra said.
Having written 11 subjects including Spanish, French, Chemistry, Physics, Biology, Maths and Additional Maths, Geography, English Literature and English Language as well as Dance, Cassandra was able to score 11 distinctions in all subject areas. 
She never studied Spanish and French in school but pursued the subjects on her own, doing private lessons with Spanish teacher Sherry Ragobar-Toolsie and her daughter Candi.
Cassandra said she was always involved in extracurricular activities but instead of detracting her from her studies, these activities strengthened her.
At the Diamond Evangelistic Centre, Cassandra taught Modern Dance, sang in the choir and participated in drama. 
Her father Haroun Khan who headed a Sunday School for decades in Ragoo Village honed her skills as a drama student. 
"I was stunned when I found out that I won the President Medal, gold. It was something I prayed for and I worked hard for it. I am just thankful that I was able to make my family and my village proud,"
Cassandra said. Asked what she wanted as a reward for her accomplishment, Cassandra responded, "I already have everything. I have a mother who is very encouraging and who prayed with me and for me always. I have a father who taught me how to persevere even when times get tough. I don't need a reward. I already got what I wanted and that was to make them proud."
Cassandra is currently in Lower Six and plans to pursue a career in geochemistry.
"I want to do laboratory work in the oil industry as well as a study of the earth. I love geography," she exclaimed. Cassandra thanked her teachers at Naparima Girls High School for motivating and assisting her.
Her mother Nancy said she heard of her daughter's success from the principal of Naparima Girls High School Carolyn Bally-Gosine. "I started screaming. My husband was dumbfounded and speechless. We were so excited and happy," Nancy said. 
Bally-Gosine said Cassandra was always a diligent and humble student.
She said the school has performed well in all subject areas at CSEC as well as the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) Unit One and Two levels. 
"We had 100 percent passes. At the CSEC level, we had 24 places in the merit listing for the region. Our students are doing well across the board in almost every subject area. Cassandra was an all-rounder. She was great in her balance of subjects and she was able to accomplish a lot. She deserves the Presidents Medal. She said Cassandra was part of the school's musical, the Sound of Music as well as a participant at Sanfest and the National Dance Festival."
- by Radhica De Silva. Photo by Ivan Toolsie.
Source:  CNC3 November 2018

Trinidad and Tobago's best and brightest continue to shine as shown by Trinbagonian Zubin Deyal, who was recently awarded the 2019 Commonwealth Caribbean Rhodes Scholarship.
Rhodes Trust Caribbean said in a Tweet on November 20, 2018, that Deyal, 20, won the scholarship while at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill campus. 
Deyal, son of journalist Anthony Deyal, studies Economics and Finance at the UWI Cave Hill and represented Antigua in swimming and youth cricket. 
Rhodes Trust Caribbean said Deyal will read for the MSc. in Economics for Development at Oxford University.
Edith Clashing, manager of the Wadadli Aquatic Racers swim club, congratulated Deyal via a Facebook post:
“Congrats to Zubin Deyal and his parents Indranie and Tony Deyal. This is indeed a proud moment for all of us. Zubin is a past member of the Wadadli Aquatic Racers (WAR)Swim Club and student of the St. Joseph's Academy. Keep reaching for the stars young man. Well done!”
In 2017, Trinbagonian Mandela Patrick was chosen as the 2018 Commonwealth Caribbean Rhodes Scholarship Winner and was selected out of nine other candidates to study at Oxford University. 
In 2016, Trinbagonian Simone Delzin won the prestigious scholarship for 2017, and prior to that, the scholarship was awarded to for­mer na­tion­al schol­ar Zahra Christi­na Gomes in 2015.


About the Rhodes Scholarship 
The Rhodes Scholarship is an international postgraduate award for students to study at the University of Oxford. It was established in 1902 making it the first large-scale programme of international scholarship.
The Rhodes Scholarship was founded by English businessman and politician Cecil John Rhodes, to promote unity between English speaking nations and instil a sense of civic-minded leadership and moral fortitude in future leaders irrespective of their chosen career paths.
Although initially restricted to male applicants from countries which are today within the Commonwealth, as well as Germany and the United States, today the Scholarship is open to applicants from all backgrounds and from across the globe.
Source: The Loop, November 2018

Lights out at Petrotrin yes­ter­day - and a new be­gin­ning for re­struc­tured com­pa­nies start­ing work on Mon­day.
That was the pic­ture as the life of the em­bat­tled state com­pa­ny flick­ered out on Gov­ern­ment's planned dead­line yes­ter­day, with re­struc­tured en­er­gy geared to kick off on Mon­day when 42 em­ploy­ees (so far) at its new com­pa­nies be­gin work.
En­er­gy Min­is­ter Franklin con­firmed the num­ber in the new com­pa­nies as he replied in Par­lia­ment to Op­po­si­tion queries on the clo­sure of Petrotrin op­er­a­tions and what would take place ahead.
Yes­ter­day's clo­sure of Petrotrin op­er­a­tions, mak­ing way for the Trinidad Pe­tro­le­um Hold­ing Com­pa­ny and its three sub­sidiaries, capped off Gov­ern­ment's "whirl­wind" three-month re­struc­tur­ing thrust an­nounced in Au­gust. The plan, which in­volved job cuts of all 3,500 per­ma­nent work­ers and ap­prox­i­mate­ly 1,400 tem­po­rary/ca­su­al work­ers, was fought all the way by the Oil­fields Work­ers' Trade Union.
Speak­ing to re­porters be­fore yes­ter­day's sit­ting, how­ev­er, Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "To­day will go down as a very dark day as the Petrotrin (cat­crack­er) flare and oth­er light­ing sys­tems have all gone out and with that light, thou­sands of work­ers are job­less and their fam­i­lies are fac­ing Christ­mas with lit­tle in their pock­ets."
Ac­cus­ing Gov­ern­ment of pres­sur­ing the Op­po­si­tion on the In­come Tax Amend­ment Bill to dis­tract from yes­ter­day's clo­sure of Petrotrin op­er­a­tions, Per­sad-Bisses­sar added: "The rea­son for this big 'dra­ma' on the bill is be­cause they've shut down Petrotrin to­day.
"I trav­el the Pointe-a-Pierre route very of­ten, the re­fin­ery flame was a land­mark, the re­fin­ery built in 1917 was there for 101 years. It was the econ­o­my's main­stay. So the Prime Min­is­ter knows the eco­nom­ic cat­a­stro­phe fac­ing us isn't this bill, it's be­cause Petrotrin's clo­sure will have far-reach­ing reper­cus­sions on T&T."
In Par­lia­ment, En­er­gy Min­is­ter Khan in Par­lia­ment, said, "As we speak, all (Petrotrin) plants and pro­cess­ing plants have been safe­ly shut down in ac­cor­dance with en­vi­ron­men­tal prac­tices. The re­fin­ery has been closed and steam plants are down.
"All hy­dro­car­bons have been re­moved and the en­tire plant has been placed un­der a ni­tro­gen at­mos­phere which is an in­ert at­mos­phere to save cor­ro­sion, fires and ig­ni­tions - and we're now go­ing out for a Re­quest For Pro­pos­als (RFP) for some­body to run the re­fin­ery."
Khan said the shut­ting down process­es are rou­tine op­er­a­tions that didn't re­quire any Cer­tifi­cate of En­vi­ron­men­tal Clear­ance, but not­ed that all ac­tiv­i­ties were un­der­tak­en in con­sul­ta­tion and un­der su­per­vi­sion of the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Agency.
Since there are no work­ers at the re­fin­ery now, he said a third-par­ty ser­vice con­tract has been award­ed to Damus Ltd (via pub­lic ten­der) to have staff mon­i­tor­ing the re­fin­ery, pro­vid­ing su­per­vi­sion and do­ing main­te­nance work.
"That's on as we speak," Khan added.
He didn't give the price of the Damus con­tract.
Go­ing for­ward from Mon­day, staff at the Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um com­pa­ny at San­ta Flo­ra and Point Fortin and Paria Fu­el Trad­ing Com­pa­ny at Pointe-a-Pierre will be on the job, Petrotrin ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cials told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day. They said Her­itage CEO Mike Wi­ley has been "on the ground" since Au­gust.
Khan in Par­lia­ment said, "As of to­day we've hired 39 se­nior and mid­dle man­age­ment man­agers. Of this, 16 are for­mer Petrotrin em­ploy­ees and 23 oth­ers (didn't work) at Petrotrin.
"At Paria Fu­el Trad­ing com­pa­ny, we've em­ployed three se­nior man­agers. Two are for­mer Petrotrin em­ploy­ees and one is a non-em­ploy­ee of Petrotrin."
Khan said no­body has been hired for the Guaracara Re­fin­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd, as that com­pa­ny will be the cus­to­di­an for re­fin­ery as­sets.
"There'll be very lit­tle em­ploy­ment there as there'll just be a cus­to­di­an and that em­ploy­ment will take place very short­ly," he said.
Khan said in­di­vid­ual state­ments were is­sued to all em­ploy­ees pri­or to clo­sure. He couldn't say if they were au­dit­ed, but as­sured the plan is in ef­fect and re­tirees are "all re­ceiv­ing their ben­e­fits."
Source:  Trinidad Guardian, Dec 1, 2018

Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley says the Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy In­dus­tries Franklin Khan is on the hunt for 50 en­gi­neer­ing grad­u­ates to fill spe­cial­ist roles with­in the min­istry.
Row­ley made the an­nounce­ment as he de­liv­ered the fea­ture ad­dress at the In­sti­tute of Elec­tri­cal and Elec­tron­ics En­gi­neers' (IEEE) Festschrift Con­fer­ence at the Hy­att Re­gency on Mon­day evening.
Speak­ing to the crowd of en­gi­neer­ing prac­ti­tion­ers and revered spe­cial­ists, Row­ley said tax­pay­ers had in­vest­ed a lot of mon­ey in the younger gen­er­a­tion, but de­spite many of them at­tain­ing their qual­i­fi­ca­tions they are lost with­in the sys­tem and many are now em­ployed.
“We have a lot of en­gi­neers in this coun­try who you (tax­pay­ers) paid for, in a va­ri­ety of uni­ver­si­ties, who are left un­der the floor and left to with­er some­where,” the PM said.
“I have in­struct­ed the Min­is­ter (of En­er­gy)…us­ing the skills of a for­mer per­ma­nent sec­re­tary, who’s vol­un­teer­ing, to go look in the sys­tem and see where we have aban­doned these peo­ple. “Some of them with the best train­ing com­ing from the best uni­ver­si­ties in the world and wind up aban­doned, ig­nored or frus­trat­ed some­where in Trinidad and To­ba­go or worse; would have been dri­ven out of Trinidad and To­ba­go as a re­sult of lack of ap­pre­ci­a­tion.”
He said Khan was in­struct­ed to give these new re­cruits spe­cial­ist po­si­tions so that they may de­vel­op the nec­es­sary skills to take the coun­try for­ward.
The PM said he hopes this ven­ture will be able to un­earth the coun­try's next Pro­fes­sor Ken­neth (Ken) Julien, whom he de­scribed as a key play­er re­spon­si­ble for de­vel­op­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go to where it has reached to­day.
Julien was al­so ho­n­oured at the event.
Row­ley al­so said he will be at­tend­ing a two-day meet­ing of the Cari­com Sin­gle Mar­ket Econ­o­my (CSME) at the Hy­att Re­gency next week. The key con­ver­sa­tion at the meet­ing, he ex­plained, will be al­le­ga­tions by oth­er mem­bers that Trinidad and To­ba­go has an un­fair ad­van­tage in Cari­com which needs to be ad­dressed. He said Cari­com coun­ter­parts were com­plain­ing that T&T man­u­fac­tur­ers were get­ting an un­fair ad­van­tage be­cause of cheap en­er­gy prices they were be­ing af­ford­ed here.
“I don't know what would be the out­come of that meet­ing but Trinidad and To­ba­go has forced that con­ver­sa­tion on the heads of Cari­com.” Source: The Guardian, Nov 2018

Machel Montano can now add doctorate to his long list of awards.
The soca king, who has been performing for 37 years, received an Honorary Doctorate of Arts from the University of Trinidad and Tobago on Thursday.
Montano said he felt great, honoured and humbled to be a recipient of the Honorary degree. 
In the presence of his close friend Anthony Chow Lin On, girlfriend Renee Butcher, Manager Che Kothari and mother Elizabeth, who graduated from the University of the West Indies last month with a Masters in Cultural Studies, Montano performed an acoustic version of 'We Not Giving Up' and 'Too Young to Soca'.
Also receiving similar honours from UTT was cultural activist, poet and playwright Pearl Eintou Springer. She received an Honorary Doctorate of Fine Arts.
Source: The Loop

Ca­lyp­so Rose, 78, must find room again in her tro­phy cab­i­net for yet an­oth­er in­ter­na­tion­al award.
The hold­er of this coun­try's high­est award, the Or­der of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, is to be award­ed the Grand Prize for World Mu­sic at the Sacem Grand Prix in France in De­cem­ber this year.
She is among a list of awardees that in­cludes Eng­lish song­writer Ed Sheer­an, in an event that will cel­e­brate the out­stand­ing in song­writ­ing, mu­sic pub­lish­ing, hu­mour and clas­si­cal con­tem­po­rary mu­sic at Salle Pleyel on the evening of Mon­day 10 De­cem­ber.
The Sacem Grands Prix are mu­si­cal awards giv­en an­nu­al­ly to pro­fes­sion­als in the world of mu­sic by the So­ci­ety of Au­thors, Com­posers and Mu­sic Pub­lish­ers (Sacem).
They give rise to an an­nu­al awards cer­e­mo­ny, which has been held since 2006.
Ca­lyp­so Rose, whose re­al name is Mc­Cartha Lin­da Sandy-Lewis, is no stranger to win­ning top in­ter­na­tion­al awards.
The vet­er­an ca­lyp­son­ian won the World Al­bum of the Year award at the Vic­toire de la Musique award cer­e­mo­ny in France in 2017.
The award is con­sid­ered the French equiv­a­lent of a Gram­my award.
Rose's al­bum, Far from Home, com­pet­ed against rock group Acid Arab with their al­bum "Mu­sic of France" and Rokia Tra­ore with her al­bum "Born So."
Far From home, the plat­inum-sell­ing al­bum was re­leased on the Be­cause Mu­sic la­bel on June 3, 2016.
Ca­lyp­so Rose was al­so award­ed the 2016 Artist Award by the World Mu­sic Ex­po (WOM­EX).
She topped artists from 95 coun­tries in re­ceiv­ing the pres­ti­gious award.
WOM­EX is an in­ter­na­tion­al net­work­ing plat­form for the world mu­sic in­dus­try.
The Artist Award is the top award giv­en out at the WOM­EX event.
It had nev­er been won by a Trinidad and To­ba­go cit­i­zen be­fore.
In 1975, the To­ba­go-born ca­lyp­son­ian won her first na­tion­al award, the Pub­lic Ser­vice Medal of Mer­it (Sil­ver).
Some 15 years lat­er in 2000, Rose won the Hum­ming Bird Medal (Gold).
In 2017 she won the high­est award the na­tion can of­fer. Source:  Trinidad Guardian