News stories by Nasseem Ackbarally

PORT-LOUIS, Mauritius, Apr 19 (IPS) - An internationally renowned scientist, Ameenah Gurib-Fakim became Mauritius's sixth president on June 5, 2015 – and one of the few Muslim women heads of state in the world.

PORT LOUIS, Aug 29 (IPS) - They come from Bangladesh, China, India and Madagascar, mainly to run the machines in the textile industry here. But they do all kinds of other jobs too, from masons to bakers, house cleaners and gardeners.

PORT-LOUIS, Mauritius, Apr 26 (IPS) - Fifty year-old Prem Kanoosingh rages against his peers who excessively apply chemicals, mostly pesticides and fertilisers, to their crops. "They make cocktails from several products and they use them on their crops. They are criminals", he shouted at a function where the Food and Agricultural Research and Extension Institute launched a bio-farming project in early March 2016.

PORT LOUIS, Jun 10 (IPS) - While Mauritius has been forced to transform its sugar industry because of low prices for the commodity, the country's small-scale sugarcane farmers who contribute to it say they are barely earning a living.

PORT LOUIS, Feb 20 (IPS) - "The Marine Protected Area (MPA) created around the Chagos archipelago is a new obstacle that the British government has placed in our path to prevent us from going back to our homeland," claims Olivier Bancoult, leader of the Chagos Refugees Group (CRG).

PORT LOUIS, Jul 29 (IPS) - Tourism, agriculture, fishing, the water supply – climate change threatens the very foundations of society and the economy in Mauritius. As the Indian Ocean island nation develops its adaptation strategies, it is working to ground the next generation of citizens firmly in principles of sustainable development.

PORT LOUIS, Jul 11 (IPS) - Raja Venkat, a food vendor on the sidewalk of Immigration Square in the centre of Port Louis, the Mauritian capital, sits on his tricycle with a bag full of dhal puris - small, round, flat Indian bread stuffed with pulses - which he sells together with tomato sauce and bean curry.

PORT LOUIS, Jun 25 (IPS) - "No fighting, please. Everybody will get their fish. Give us time to empty the crates and weigh today's catch," Patrick Guiliano Marie, leader of the St. Pierre Fish Multi-Purpose Cooperative Society, shouts at the crowd jostling impatiently at the fish landing station in Grand Gaube, a fishing village in northern Mauritius.

PORT-LOUIS, Apr 16 (IPS) - Mauritius may be one of the best-prepared countries in the world when it comes to cyclones, but recent heavy rains and flooding due to climate change have brought the country's readiness for coping with increased rainfall into question. 

PORT-LOUIS, Apr 04 (IPS) - Residents of Albion, a small village in Pointe-aux-Caves, western Mauritius, say that by opposing the construction of a new coal power plant near their homes, they are defending their constitutional right to live.