Men still run the economy, but they are losing the classroom
Mauritius has published its 2025 gender statistics, and the split is stark. Men still hold most of the economic and political power, they also fill most of the seats in Parliament and at the top of the boardroom.
Look lower down and the picture flips. Boys are slipping behind girls in the classroom, leaving school earlier and turning up more often in the figures tied to risk and poor health. The country's own gender data now shows the group with the most power also carrying some of the sharpest social strains. Same report, two gaps pulling in opposite directions.
Cane fields make way for the M4 as the bill lands on empty coffers
The M4 motorway, 29.7 kilometres from Forbach to Bel-Air, should break ground before the end of 2026, with construction running across 30 months. Infrastructure Minister Ajay Gunness told Parliament the road is a necessity, even as members weighed its cost against a treasury he admitted was tight.
Bulldozers will clear fields of sugar cane for the route, a choice Gunness says development demands. Others argue the cost and the environment deserve a longer look.
Thirty months of works, on a budget the minister himself calls tight.
Can Mauritius quadruple its economy by 2050?
How does a small island push its output to USD 50 billion within a generation? That is the wager behind Vision 2050, the government's draft strategy branded '50 by 50', open for public comment until 7 August. The plan is long on ambition and thin on the how: where the workers, the investment and the money comes from is left for the consultation to settle.
Eight workers, every road line on the island
Painting the white lines on every road in Mauritius, along with a stack of small safety works, currently falls to eight people. That is the entire team at the Traffic Management and Road Safety Unit (TMRSU), the body in charge of road markings nationwide. The unit says the workload far outstrips the hands it has.
Eight people, one island, and every faded line starts to make sense.
Shorts
Hotel boss robbed at knifepoint in Plaine-Verte – Two men attacked the Pakistan Hotel director with a cutter and made off with more than Rs 100,000.
Dialysis deaths inquiry stalls again – Families watch the judicial inquiry into the dialysis patient deaths slip to yet another date.
La Vigie's 40 km/h sign vanishes in hours – Officials pulled 40 km/h limit sign off the La Vigie slip road after barely a day of complaints.
Starved Dobermann reopens the cruelty debate – An underfed Dobermann case has pushed animal protection back onto the agenda, campaigners say.
Worker pulled alive from a Bagatelle ravine – Rescuers reached a labourer who had fallen into a ravine at Bagatelle and brought him out alive.
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