{"id":41060,"date":"2024-08-23T21:46:05","date_gmt":"2024-08-23T17:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=41060"},"modified":"2024-08-23T21:46:05","modified_gmt":"2024-08-23T17:46:05","slug":"ppp-press-politics-for-progress","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/ppp-press-politics-for-progress\/","title":{"rendered":"PPP: Press &#038; Politics for Progress"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #ff0000;\"><u>MT @ 70<\/u><\/span><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #0000ff;\"><strong>By Dr Michael Atchia<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Since my time as a volunteer <em>Compagnon B\u00e2tisseur<\/em> in the 1960s, to leader of <em>Action Civique<\/em> in the 1980s, to President of the Secondary and Preparatory School Teachers and Other Staff Union (SPSTU), and as a director of programs at the United Nations (among other roles), I have always read, criticized, and often contributed to our local newspapers.<\/p>\n<p>My first-page article was widely critical of the number of \u201cexperts\u201d called by Mauritius to \u201cassist\u201d us (Expert Export), in the English edition of <em>L\u2019Express<\/em> by Dr Forget. I also contributed to <em>Le Mauricien<\/em> under Lindsay Rivi\u00e8re, often once a day, about civic behaviour in our society. I read <em>Mauritius Times<\/em> (created in 1954) and the main weekly in English, as well as <em>La Vie Catholique<\/em>and <em>Advance<\/em>. Occasionally, I sent an article to Mr BeekrumsingRamlallah.<\/p>\n<p>I have always recognized the major influence of the press on politics, but my main personal focus has been on how the press can influence and contribute to progress in society. I salute <em>Mauritius Times<\/em> here for its contribution over the years to this goal of influencing and contributing to progress in society. This is also true of <em>L\u2019Express<\/em>, but not so of the political party papers, with their never-ending blah-blah-blah on the merits of their party and no one else!<\/p>\n<p>Now, in the 2020s, as editor of <em>Democracy Watch Mauritius<\/em>, I greatly appreciate the new online MT. You cover a great diversity of fields and are clearly open to a variety of contributors. Very readable and most welcome once a week! Carry on!!<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 40px; text-align: right;\"><em>19 Aug 2024<\/em><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><strong>Mauritius Times ePaper Friday 23 August 2024<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>MT @ 70<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":438,"featured_media":41061,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[9968],"tags":[47607,4550,47611,47606,5816,9150,7124,26456,47612,4333,3438,3067,795,47610,36,47614,2058,12994,47605,47613,47608,47609,1635],"class_list":["post-41060","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-media","tag-action-civique","tag-advance","tag-beekrumsingramlallah","tag-compagnonbatisseur","tag-democracy-watch-mauritius","tag-diversity","tag-dr-forget","tag-dr-michael-atchia","tag-influence-of-the-press","tag-lexpress","tag-la-vie-catholique","tag-le-mauricien","tag-lindsay-riviere","tag-local-newspapers","tag-mauritius-times","tag-online-mt","tag-politics","tag-ppp","tag-press-politics-for-progress","tag-progress-in-society","tag-secondary-and-preparatory-school-teachers-and-other-staff-union","tag-spstu","tag-united-nations"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Michael-Atchia.jpg?fit=1200%2C675&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-aGg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/438"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}