1st January 2024: Basdeo Panday passed away in Florida (USA) after suffering from Pneumonia at the age of 90. His body was repatriated to Trinidad and Tobago for the first Trinidadian state funeral performed with Hindu rituals. Basdeo was the 5th Prime Minsiter of this Caribbean nation and the first of Hindu origin.
Born in 1933, Basdeo’s grandparents came to Trinidad from Uttar Pradesh (India) under the system of indenture. He served two terms as a Prime Minsiter, in 1995 and 2001. With 35% of its population descendants of Indian indentured migrants, Trinidad and Tobago has one of the largest Hindu communities in the Caribbean (18% of the population).
Image credits: Roy Rique via Wikimedia Commons (license: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0, modifications: cropped)