Frederico Thank you for your reply and for spending yourprecious time. The focus of my text is on the fame of India's wealth thatreached the West and provoked curiosity and covetousness. It is important toemphasize this. As for the griffin and giant ant, these legendswere accepted as truths by the ancient Greeks because their religion waspolytheistic, which included the Minotaur, a creature with the head of a bullon the body of a man. That was the mentality!
India lifted between 248 and 302 million peopleout of poverty in the last decade (approximately 2013-2023/2024), with drasticdrops in multidimensional poverty (around 270 million) and extreme poverty,according to recent reports from the World Bank and the Indian government,which cite the impact of social policies, health programs and basic sanitation,significantly transforming living conditions, especially in states like UttarPradesh and Bihar. Poverty in the EU affects more than 90 million people (in2024), with high rates in Romania, Bulgaria and Greece, while the CzechRepublic and Slovenia have the lowest. Portugal is below the EU average in therisk of poverty/social exclusion (20.1% in 2022), but has a growing rate ofworking poor, affecting more women, young people and people with lower levelsof education, with the cost of living exacerbating the situation, especially inhousing. In 2025, Portugal continues to struggle withpoverty, with the risk of poverty or social exclusion hovering around 19.7%(2.1 million people). Legend or truth, the case of St. Thomas is notclosed. But one thing is certain: The first Westerners who arrived in southernIndia were surprised when they heard about "Christians of St.Thomas". Marco Polo, while traveling through India in the 13th century,mentioned and acknowledged the existence of the Saint Thomas Christians insouthern India, a Christian community that existed long before the arrival ofEuropeans. I am referring to certain books (not all) aboutAsia, Africa, and America published in Portugal before 1974 that eitherdistorted the truth or simply omitted it. Salazar's dictatorship did not allowfor any other option! It was in primary school that I heard "ThePortuguese discovered India" (1), then in high school I read in textbooksthat "Vasco da Gama discovered the sea route to India" (2), and as anadult I learned that in Malindi, Kenya, Gama established relations with thelocal leader, who then provided the Portuguese with a pilot who knew the way toCalicut, India. Therefore, he did not discover the route to India, but theroute to East Africa. (1) No one discovered India, which was already there! (2)Gama did not discover the sea route to India, but to East Africa, and arrivedat Kappakadavu near Calicut. Some read books by Winston Spencer Churchill thatdistort the truth to cover up his Empire. But there are also good old books byauthors such as Jean Chesneaux, Richard Lewinsohn, Robert Mortimer Wheeler,etc. I wish everyone Merry Christmas. At this timeof year I remember Teotónio de Souza, founder of GRN, who had been hospitalized shortlyafter Christmas. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Goa-Research-Net" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/goa-research-net/1380324213.2793558.1766398728113%40mail.yahoo.com.
