goanet-digest Saturday, May 18 2002 Volume 01 : Number 3981
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
In this issue:
Re: [Goanet] MESSAGE TO ALL GOANS!
[Goanet] Police to start confidence building drive with public.
[Goanet] 18 MAY: GOACOM NEWS CLIPPINGS
[Goanet] JB D'Souza (of Mumbai) on politics, religion...
See end of digest for information on subscribing/unsusbcribing.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 02:59:28 -0700 (PDT)
From: ash k <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [Goanet] MESSAGE TO ALL GOANS!
That's exactly what I am trying to convey to the
people Rohit! You vote for BJP and you will wash your
hands off your religion OR/AND LIFE!
(don't get me wrong)
ash
To all Goans: "Vote for BJP and give up your life!"
Have we not had enough from "Narendra Milosevic Modi?"
A pregnant woman's womb torn open and the fetus burnt
to
ashes?????????????????
Beware pregnant women in Goa!
Rohit.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
LAUNCH - Your Yahoo! Music Experience
http://launch.yahoo.com
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 16:38:31 +0530
From: Goa Desc <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Goanet] Police to start confidence building drive with public.
*****************************************************************
Documented by Goa Desc Documentation Service
& circulated by Goa Civic & Consumer Action Network
(GOA CAN)<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
*****************************************************************
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
Police to start confidence building drive with public.
- -------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Deputy Inspector General of police (DIG), Mr Karnal Singh,
stated that Goa Police would soon be starting a confidence
building mechanism with the members of the public.
Mr Karnal said this exercise would help in reducing
the police-public phobia which is prevailing particularly
in the minds of the common man and others at large.
He said in order put this new feature into practice,
a special beat has been started wherein policemen
would be asked to meet certain people in the area and
collect their grievances in writing and feedback action
would be initiated as per the written complaint.
He said there was a blanket ban of sort for years together
as far as promotions were concerned.
He said "we have recruited over 800 constables and filled posts of PSIs
which were kept pending for a very long time,
besides recruiting drivers' posts which were also pending
for several years to be filled. Drivers have been recruited on ad hoc
basis after recruitment rules were finalised
and confirmation was under consideration.
Apart from this, there were some old buildings
which needed urgent attention since 1991,
so after money was sanctioned, work was taken up on war footing.
This was the major problem faced by most police family members.
He said, presently, there are 12 PCRs to attend to public calls,
two each for Panaji, Margao and Mapusa,
whereas Old Goa, Colva and Ponda have one each.
This has facilitated them in reaching the spot of the crime in a jiffy.
He said there is a sizable decline in the crime rate as compared
to the figures of crimes committed and detected in the previous years.
He also promised to bring down the crime rate further in future
as the new recruits would consume little time in providing qualitative
detection.
Meanwhile, he also said there is a sharp rise in the cheating cases
as compared to the figures of last year.
He revealed that there are still 38 posts of PSIs to be filled.
- ------------------------------------------------------------
THE NAVHIND TIMES 11/5/02 PAGE 3
- -----------------------------------------------------------
=======================================
GOA DESC RESOURCE CENTRE
Documentation + Education + Solidarity
11 Liberty Apts., Feira Alta, Mapusa, Goa 403 507
Tel: 252660 mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Working On Issues Of Development & Democracy
=======================================
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 17:03:34 +0530
From: "Joel D'Souza" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Goanet] 18 MAY: GOACOM NEWS CLIPPINGS
GOACOM NEWS CLIPPINGS
18 May 2002
FELIPE'S EXIT MOORS "RIVER PRINCESS": The charterer of the ground vessel
"River Princess" has appealed before the Tourism minister against an order
for its removal. (Felipe Neri) Rodrigues, who was the appellate authority,
has tendered his resignation to contest the elections. A piquant situation
has arisen in deciding the appeal�Meanwhile, Titan Maritime LLC, a
Florida-based salvage company, has in a communication to the Tourism
Director offered to attempt to refloat the grounded ship in the early stage
of monsoon. (GT)
BANGALORE YOUTH DROWNS AT BAGA: Eighteen-year-old Rajesh, who hails from
Bangalore, met a watery grave last noon when he went for a dip at Baga. The
undercurrents got the better of him and he was swept into the depths of the
waters. The search for his body is in progress. (GT)
NCP TO SUPPORT SILIMKHAN: Nationalist Congress Party state president Dr
Wilfred de Souza said that his party would extend support to the Congress
party nominee Ramesh Silimkhan in Panaji constituency. Dr de Souza said
that he (Silimkhan) was sought to be projected as a consensus candidate (to
dethrone Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar) though the idea did not take off.
(GT)
CALL TO OBSERVE GUJARAT PEACE PROGRAMME: Archbishop-Patriarch Raul N
Gonsalves yesterday issued a circular to all the priests, chaplains, etc,
in the Goa and Daman Archdiocese to observe "Gujarat Peace-Solidarity"
programme on 24 and 26 May. (GT)
MEASURES FOR PREVENTING MENTAL DISORDERS: The State government is
undertaking a comprehensive awareness campaign with special focus on rural
areas, to educate people as to the provisions of law relating to mental
health, right of mentally challenged persons, the fact that chaining of
mentally challenged persons is illegal and that mental patients should be
sent to qualified doctors, trained medical practitioners or Health Centres
for systematic treatment and not to religious places. (NT)
CYBERMATRIMONIALS: The next issue of this matrimonial listings is being
currently prepared. We carry free details in the form of classified
advertisements. Send in your submissions, in under 50 words, to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (Ads are subject to editing, caste affiliations will
not be mentioned.)
COURSE CANCELLED: Family Service Centre announces that due to unavoidable
circumstances the marriage formation course, which was supposed to be held
at Institute Piedade, Panjim, on May 30, is cancelled. (H)
CAR MISHAP: A 52-year-old woman, Manisha Kerkar, died on the way to the Goa
Medical College Hospital, Bambolim, after husband's Maruti 800 car went off
the road and turned turtle at Poroscodem, Pernem, yesterday afternoon. (NT)
GRAMOPHONE RECORDS: Konkani music was recorded for the first time in 1908
and later the 78 rpm gramophone records were released in 1910. The first
song was "Mog Mirmiriancho" sun by Bab Joao Agostinho Fernandes, the father
of Konkani Tiatr. The song was sung along with his daughter Sofia
Fernandes. (From an extract, in GT, from the proposed book based on the
History of Konkani Recorded Music by Andrew Greno Viegas.)
WILLIAM DE CURTORIM'S TIATR: "Bailanchi Dadaghiri, Ghou Ratnagiri" will be
staged by Konkani Heritage, Kuwait, Award Winner William de Curtorim today
at 6.30 pm at the Kala Academy, Panjim. Subsequently, on May 20, William
will be proceeding to Doha Qatar.
BIRD WATCHING TRIP AT BONDA: Southern Birdwing will organise a "Wild Goa"
trip on Sunday, May 19, at the Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary. The bird watching
trip will commence from the Bondla Sanctuary main gate at 7.15 am. (NT)
GALDINO'S PAINTINGS: An exhibition of paintings in oil by Galdino de Souza
will be inaugurated by GR Khandolker, general manager GTDC, in the presence
of P Pushparad, tourist officer, Govt of Tamil Nadu, at the Big Foot Art
Gallery in Loutulim on May 22 at 5 pm. The exhibition will remain open for
the public viewing from 23 May to 2 June. (GT)
S P O R T S
ENDURANCE KART RACING AT NUVEM: On 26 May Goa will add another first to its
list of motor sports achievements. It will be host to the Formula KnK
Endurance Challenge 2002. (GT)
VASCO OUT OF TROUBLE: Mandar Phadke's unbeaten 96 enable Vasco XI to pile
up an impressive 274 for eight (against Chowgule)5` on the opening day of
their three-day finals of Goa Cricket Association Premier League at the
Panjim Gymkhana Ground.
TWO GOAN SAILORS IN TRAINING CAMP: The National Optimist Association of
India has selected Salil Sabir and Chaitanya Chowgule of Goa among sailors
from rest of the country to attend a special training camp from May 21-31
at Marve Beach Mumbai, under British coach Peter Martin. (NT)
TWO GOANS AMONG BASKETBALL PROBABLES: Goa's Amar Jain (boys) and Jennifer
Pinto (girls) are among the 96 players, who have been selected for
Basketball Federation of India's zonal coaching camp to be held in Delhi in
June. (NT)
ANJUNA PREVAIL OVER ARPORA: Anjuna Gymkhana scored a deserving 3-1 victory
over Arpora Sporting to enter the quarter-finals of St Savio Super soccer
at Calangute grounds. (NT)
DBO IN FINALS: Don Bosco Oratory, Fatorda, roared into the finals of
Chinchinim Villagers' trophy soccer with a 4-1 win over Varca Sports Club
at Chinchinim church grounds. (NT)
G R E E T I N G S
SILVER JUBILEE: Congratulations and Best Wishes to ANTONIO (Antonio
Mascarenhas [EMAIL PROTECTED]) and RUBY MASCARENHAS on their 25TH
WEDDING ANNIVERSARY today i.e. May 18, 2002. They are blessed with two
children Maria-Renata and Roberto.
D E A T H S
17 May: Calangute-Cobravaddo: BEVINDA SOUZA EREMITA, daughter of late
Adv Amaro/late Beatriz, sister/sister-in-law of Late Antonio/Alda, late
Jose/late Zita, Visitacao/Teresa, Idinha/late Bruno, Olegario/Juliet.
G O A W E A T H E R
Min Temp : 30.1 deg C (86.2 deg F) (At Assagao at 7.30 am today)
Max Temp: 34.0 deg C, Rel Humidity: 69% (yesterday-Panjim)
Courtesy: H=Herald, NT=The Navhind Times, GT=Gomantak Times
Daily Goacom News Clippings also at: http://www.goacom.com/news
Website: http://www.goacom.com
------------------------------
Date: Sat, 18 May 2002 06:06:51 -0600 (MDT)
From: Frederick Noronha <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: [Goanet] JB D'Souza (of Mumbai) on politics, religion...
EPW Commentary
May 11, 2002
Politics, Religion and Our Ailing Public Institutions
It would, of course, be naive to imagine that the corrosion of our
political life could be arrested simply by tightening up
law-enforcement. And yet one can't escape the conclusion that the
accelerating erosion of our public institutions, the apathy of the
judges and the death of professionalism in the civil services -
particularly the last of them - are matters of far more concern than
the inroads of religion into the nation's politics.
J B D'Souza
Some 65 years ago, still some years before I abandoned religion, I
regularly attended services at a Catholic church. Even in those
British days there used to be regular elections to the Bombay
Municipal Corporation. At one of these elections there were two
contestants for our area, both Christian. One of them was young
Joachim Alva, a Congressman; the other, a good friend of the parish
priest. It was during this poll campaign that our priest suddenly
interrupted the service to yell from the pulpit: "Congress is nothing
but Communism". That settled his parishioners' vote. After all, the
priest spoke only the word of God, so Communism, and Congress, could
be only the work of the devil.
For me that trivial incident began the intrusion of religion into
politics, and I have watched it grow ever since. So at a seminar in
Mumbai on the March 27, I confidently answered 'No' to the question
before us: 'Politics of Religion: Can We Get Rid of It?' The seminar
was less an expression of revulsion against the mixture of politics
and religion than a Congress Party effort to embarrass the BJP after
the Gujarat tragedies, but it didn't altogether work out that way.
Whatever you do, religion will affect politics, at times even
dominate it, particularly in this country. Fifty years after
independence our people still suffer untold hardship. Two to three
hundred million of them cannot afford even two meals a day, although
they might spend nothing on clothes, shelter, medical care or
transport. About half that number don't have safe water to drink.
About half our adult population are illiterate. And yet widespread
misery agitates our people far less intensely than even
pseudo-religious issues that arise out of festival celebrations, cow
slaughter, the declaration of religious holidays, the construction of
temples, mosques and gurdwaras, or the destruction of those built
illegally.
In our indifference to our own economic welfare we Indians are not
alone. In the early 1930s Adolf Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that a
political leader could never arouse a people on the basis of their
economic misery - at that time the Germans were in a pathetic
condition. So Hitler picked on the Jews as an object of hate, to
unite the German nation behind him. Are we in India too choosing a
set of scapegoats, choosing a similar route to destruction by letting
religion dominate our politics?
For some of our otherwise bankrupt politicians religious pretences
can offer remarkable gains. After a shortlived flirtation with
cartooning, Bal Thackeray began in the early 1960s to attack south
Indian immigrants into Bombay. That attracted a large lumpen
following, which welcomed their master's preachings as a good excuse
to loot Udipi restaurants and other south Indian establishments.
Thackeray's was an economic issue: South Indians were competently
filling jobs in Bombay that unqualified Maharashtrians could not.
However, all his eloquence got him too little mileage, so by 1968 he
set his eyes on the Mysore-Maharashtra territorial dispute. Belgaum
suddenly became vital to Maharashtra's survival. On January 18, 1969
he declared that if Indira Gandhi didn't award Belgaum to Maharashtra
in a week, no central ministers would be allowed into Bombay. I
haven't noticed that in the last 33 years the ministers of the centre
have avoided Bombay.
Obviously that issue didn't do him much good, so in 1992 Thackeray
jumped on to Ayodhya for a cause, and to Muslims for persecution.
With greater success than before. You will remember the horrors of
1992-93, and how they brought Thackeray into national prominence. One
bit of wisdom that fell from his lips: "After independence India
belongs to Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, etc, can stay, but
must accept that India belongs to Hindus". To add to his otherwise
doubtful appeal, he dyed his clothes saffron and put on a rosary of
beads, in an attempt to look religious.
What about our secular Constitution and the laws we have, to
discourage the intrusion of religion into political campaigning?
Thackeray himself suffered a six-year disqualification for breaking
one of those laws in the heat of electioneering.
No Constitution can effectively fence off a country's politics from
religious prejudice. The American Constitution is even clearer than
ours in its effort to distance governance from religion. This is what
it says: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". Yet American
politics has suffered bitter intrusions of religious issues - prayer
in schools, and abortion, to name just two. Some of the most bigoted
religious preachers on TV in the US have been courted by presidential
candidates. One of them even aspired to the presidency.
In our country Narendra Modi has quite forgotten his oath of
allegiance to the Constitution. He prefers to quote Newton's law of
action and reaction to justify the brutal pogrom Gujarat inflicted on
its Muslims. But neither Newton nor Einstein ever predicted a
reaction over 20 times larger than the first action. And if Modi's
allegiance to the Constitution might strike you as shaky, how do you
regard Advani's? I heard him answer in parliament for the Gujarat
atrocities: What about the 1984 massacre of Sikhs in Delhi, asked
India's home minister in reply to opposition charges. So, under this
Constitution, I, responsible for law and order in India, defend the
killing of thousands under Gujarat's BJP regime because you, the
Congress, let 3,000 Sikhs be killed in Delhi 18 years ago. Talking of
defence, our defence minister's loathsome utterances in parliament -
that the public splitting open of women's insides is so common in our
country - must have filled all decent citizens with revulsion.
Neither the Constitution nor the laws our law-makers enact from time
to time under the delusion that they thereby solve serious problems,
can keep religion out of politics. Nor need we dread the mix, if we
have leadership that is moral, honest and sincere, leadership
committed to the common man's welfare, leadership that has been
missing in India ever since Lal Bahadur Shastri died. Since then we
have had to suffer either leaders like Charan Singh, who, when asked
for his views on a particular subject, said he would have to ask his
followers, or leaders like Indira Gandhi and Atal Behari Vajpayee,
who have totally identified the good of the nation with their own
survival.
Let me not leave you with a totally negative answer to the question
before us. Even with the leadership we are doomed to suffer, the
intrusion of religion need not mean the end of India. When they go to
vote, Indians - and that means Hindus, since they are in so large a
majority - choose carefully. In just the last few weeks, after the
Hindutva forces had played up the Ayodhya temple theme for all it was
worth, the BJP was trounced in elections in UP, Uttaranchal, Manipur,
Punjab and Delhi itself. And yet, lest we delude ourselves into
reliance on our voters' good sense, we have to remember the kinds of
options voters face. At the recent UP polls for some 400 seats, no
less than 965 candidates had a criminal track record. Nearer home,
the 220 seats in our Mumbai Municipal Corporation attracted 250
criminals - 45 of them Shiv Sainiks (in the lead, of course), 33 NCP,
23 Samajwadi, 20 Congress and 11 BJP, the rest independent. Who knows
how many of our MPs have similar track records?
Rather than blame religion for horrors of the kind perpetrated in
Gujarat in February and March, we have to recognise the failure of
leadership and the breakdown of public institutions in our country,
specially the judicial system, and the civil services, including the
police. With persistence, determination and unfortunately with
success too, Indira Gandhi set about undermining the law-enforcement
establishment. An endeavour which her successors have continued with
vigour. "As one who has served in the IAS for over two decades, I
feel great shame at the abdication of duty of my peers in the civil
and police administration", Harsh Mander writes about the Gujarat
tragedy. "The law required them to act independently, fearlessly,
impartially, decisively, with courage and compassion. If even one
official had so acted in Ahmedabad, she or he could have deployed the
police forces and called in the army to halt the violence. I have
heard senior officials blame the communalism of the police
constabulary for their connivance in the violence. The same forces
have been known to act with impartiality and courage when led by
officers of integrity." Having myself joined the IAS in 1947, when I
served in the Punjab during the partition riots, I too hang my head
in shame.
District magistrates and senior police officers in Gujarat who
neglected their duty under the law must be prosecuted. Instead,
Narendra Modi will promote them. In Mumbai the delinquent police
commissioner who sat in contemplation while about 1,000 live were
lost during the 1992-93 riots moved up into the Public Service
Commission. His joint commissioner, indicted for murder of Muslims,
soon became the city's commissioner.
And the judiciary? (Here one has to tread with care, however grave
one's misgivings. Truth, our judges tell us, is no defence against a
contempt charge. I learned to think that respect had to be earned,
not demanded, but that lesson is now obsolete.) The criminal justice
system creaks along at a miserably slow pace, specially when it deals
with Narasimha Raos, Satish Sharmas, Harshad Mehtas, or Laloo Prasad
Yadavs. There is hardly an instance where ministers or top-level
bureaucrats are jailed for their crimes. Delay makes the suborning of
witnesses a routine practice, so that conviction and punishment are
rare. Nor is anyone unduly bothered about these endemic delays. Our
judges continue to work at a leisurely pace, with vacations lavishly
interrupting their working time. They are liberal in staying the
operation of decisions, in granting adjournments, and in allowing
lawyers to spin out their arguments for weeks, even months. So you
have in Mumbai the cruel protraction of the bomb blasts case of 1993,
which has kept a large number of Muslim undertrials in jail for eight
years, while practically none of the Hindu criminals who perpetrated
the brutal riots before the blasts have suffered. The superior courts
don't seem to mind. The 1984 Congress-inspired killings of Sikhs in
Delhi have also gone unpunished. At the seminar on March 27, the
Youth Congress president complacently told us that three Congress
leaders who inspired those murders have now disappeared from
prominence in the Congress - as if that were sufficient penalty for
their crimes.
It would, of course, be naive to imagine that the corrosion of our
political life could be arrested simply by tightening up
law-enforcement. And yet one can't escape the conclusion that the
accelerating erosion of our public institutions, the apathy of our
judges, and the death of professionalism in the civil services,
particularly the last of them - these are matters of far more serious
concern than the inroads of religion into the nation's politics.
Another 60-year old story: I recall with nostalgia an example of
commitment that has stayed vividly in my memory. Bombay suffered a
wild, destructive cyclone in the 1940s. We then lived in an old house
at Versova beach, isolated from other habitation by a 100 yard-long
drive. About mid-day, while the rain poured in torrents and the wind
roared and we speculated whether our roof would weather the storm or
be blown off, we suddenly spotted a slight crouching figure pushing
his way doggedly down the drive against the wind, drenched to the
skin. It was our humble postman, come to deliver a single letter.
Where shall I look for that dedication, that professionalism, at any
level of the services today?
------------------------------
End of goanet-digest V1 #3981
*****************************
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=--W-E-B--S-I-T-E--=-=-=
To Subscribe/Unsubscribe from GoaNet Digest | http://goacom.com/goanet
======================================================================
* Send e=mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] (NOT [EMAIL PROTECTED])
* Leave SUBJECT blank <--- Commom Mistake !!
* On first line of the BODY of your message, type:
subscribe goanet-digest YOUR.EMAIL
OR unsubscribe goanet-digest YOUR.EMAIL
DO NOT include the entire digest when replying to goanet !!!!!!
Questions/Problems? Contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
