TidBits- (Re:"The Brand Image of Goa" By Rajesh Singh -NT Panorama -1 February 2004)
The article is well positioned and most likely well intentioned. But it's hidden agenda, if any, cannot be detected. And anything coming out of the Sangh Parivar headquarters in Goa aka Chief Minister's Offices, one tends to be overly suspicious. Straightfoward Goanness has been taken for a jolly good ride with double talks and double standards. Goa certainly needs, and very badly too, a brand image of a clean and citizen conscious State, where its governors be its real governors and not stooges of the masters higher up, enjoying retirement gifts for being ear licking poodles, where police is police and not the servants of those in power, where garbage and sanitation is given due attention, where ordinary people seeking to get their work done do not have to see the powers that be in the close confines of their government offices, where stray cattle is treated as stray cattle and impounded, with owners fined and even jailed for according lack of respect to those animals which they literally worship, where stray dogs are not used as garbage scavengers and dangers to human beings, where our beaches and surroundings do not become raping grounds of our foreign guests, where our rivers remain sacred rivers and not receptacles of gabage, sewage and flowers that we offer to our Gods, where drugs and rave parties do not directly fill the coffers of the Ministers and men in Uniform, where our markets, bus stands and railway stations do not become places of health and safety hazards, where government servants do their job they are paid to do and not believe that they are doing the citizens any favours, and where the government servants remember that their pay checks come from the toils of the people, through taxes they pay and not from the pockets of the their masters in the government, where our politics becomes real people oriented politics and not some Darbar of the people in power to blow away crucial funds on frivolous things and ideas, where roads and highways do not become killing fields, where Atalji's Yatras and Kasi's of the South become meaningless and people's needs become paramount. And let Goa regain back its image as Secular, Harmonious, Hospitable and Slumless State where Religion remains a private affair of the people and where elected Governments concentrate on the all round development and welfare of all its citizens without playing double standards to destabilize the above (like with the Official Language issue) with selfish interests to consolidate their power and rule. And that will suffice to self advertise to the world of an Unique Brand Image of Goa, without paid/hired pundits trying to mess up things for Goa with respect to its Band Image. Goa has always had a Brand Image of its Own over last many centuries. Let that image prevail. Let Goa be just Goa, a place for Goans to come back and cherish. Cheers Floriano goasuraj ########################################################################## # Send submissions for Goanet to [EMAIL PROTECTED] # # PLEASE remember to stay on-topic (related to Goa), and avoid top-posts # # More details on Goanet at http://joingoanet.shorturl.com/ # # Please keep your discussion/tone polite, to reflect respect to others # ##########################################################################
