########################################################################## # Goanetters-2004 meet in Goa. Dec 21, Tuesday. 12 noon to 2 pm. # # Clube Vasco, Near Municipal Garden, Panjim. Pass the word around! # ##########################################################################
The 35th International Film Festival of India (IFFI) is over. It was held in Goa. To some it was a feast to others it was a nightmare. Some politicians and their contractor chums must be still feasting over the quick dividends they have amassed and are still swallowing by ensuring they hurriedly executed works for the International Film Festival of India (IFFI). But the people of Campal and densely populated Miramar are still recovering from the 11 day trauma and ordeal they have had to undergo due to the noisy and chaotic IFFI which was held in their vicinity. I salute the people of that area for having patiently and peacefully endured the pain. Anywhere else in India the organizers of such a show would have had to run for cover. Goa was chosen as the venue for the 2004 IFFI on political considerations. So was also almost everything focussed at Panaji to allow Goa's Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar some political mileage in his constituency? One get's a feeling that Assembly elections may be round the corner! The Government instead of focussing on priorities of good roads, uninterrupted power supply, adequate water supply and a decent health care for the local people chose to drain over Rs 120 crores to help the film industry, which is already one of the richest. So obsessed has been our Chief Minister with IFFI. It would have been appropriate that to begin with the IFFI idea should have been discussed within the Goa Legislative Assembly. Besides there should have been consensus within all political parties and leading NGO's. What was the need to steam roll such a mega project. A delay by a year or two would not have brought heaven's down. A well-planned IFFI might have made sense. But Manohar Parrikar likes to have his way. He has shown that he does not believe in the basic tenets of democracy. He has no time or the patience to consult and take others into confidence. This his own cabinet colleagues will vouch for. They may be 13 but they have nothing to do or any say in their portfolios. It is the Chief Minister who manages and manipulates it all. And the film world wants Goa as the permanent venue for IFFI. Where else will they get such hospitality. They were all treated like royals at taxpayer's expense. They had the best of it and will look forward for some more of it next year. The Government should have come out with a white paper as to in which way IFFI would be beneficial to Goa and Goans. Compared to the inconvenience and chaos the locals have had to endure we would have to see whether it was worth it. However a particular section of Goa's majority community has definitely made hay in the name of the IFFI bonanza. They have anyway had the last laugh ever since Manohar Parrikar assumed office as the Chief Minister has ensured that his community makes the best of it. The whole Government machinery was engrossed in IFFI. Infact most of the administration had come to a standstill. A forced holiday for governance which was infected with the IFFI virus. Will it be an annual trauma that will be forced on Goans? The organizers have been boasting about the thousands of registered delegates. It is public knowledge that most registered delegates were locals some of who had nothing to do with films but assembled as loyal BJP workers to ensure that the show goes on. Even a naked eye will record that most of the activities of the 11-day show had nothing to do with a film festival. Any and all entertainment under the sun was juggled up to the menu. With even a Kite festival loosely tagged to the fag end of the film festival. A film festival has to be serene, serious and business like. What we have seen was organized chaos and a noisy mela. If the government taught it could mislead the local people and the youth in particular they were mistaken. Nobody was and is against IFFI. What is and was rightly objected was the manner in which the idea of IFFI was bull dozed. No transparency and no consultation whatsoever. Nobody was involved. It was a one-man show and only Mr. Manohar Parrikar knew as to what was happening. The least that was expected was that at least the Corporation of city of Panaji would have been consulted on such a mega project being organised in their backyard. The reap of the project were so huge so why did the Chief Minister hesitate to share some crumbs with the Corporators of the City of Panaji at least for the sake of protocol. Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar should publicly apologize to the people of Panjim and its surrounding areas for the grave 11-day inconvenience caused to the residents due to the mismanagement in holding the IFFI. Goans also have a right to know as to how much of tax-payer's money has actually gone into this event which has lacked transparency and merits an inquiry into the alleged financial and other irregularities connected to the IFFI works and there is concern that the IFFI works, which have been hurriedly executed, are bound to be substandard. Some of the works are still incomplete and will get no attention till I guess the next festival. Dayanand Bandodkar Marg, the avenue on which the IFFI tamsaha was stage-managed is not all of Panjim. The authorities have ensured that the IFFI Avenue was all decked up. What about the other Panjim roads that languish dug up and dusty. Will we have to wait for another festival? Whether the hurriedly carried out IFFI works are substandard and unplanned will be known only in June when the monsoons set in. Only then could we certify that the all these works were worth the while and the taxpayer's money. Perhaps the Chief Minister was so busy supervising the IFFI tamasha works that he had no time or may be the energy to catch up and monitor the renovation of the Panjim Bus stand which still languishes in dire straits. What will happen to the posh cars and special buses bought for IFFI nobody knows. All we know is that the Chief Minister desires to hurriedly build another multiplex this time with a 2000 sitting capacity for the next IFFI. It would be nice if he could consider increasing the life saving ventilators at the Intensive Care Unit of Goa's Medical College from 6 to at least 16. This they will not do because when in pain the VIP's are rushed to be cuddled and fondly nursed at the plush private hospitals. Goa is amidst rising crimes. Sizeable numbers of victims are women and children. Goa 's Director General of Police Mr. Amod Kanth was unceremoniously shunted out of Goa on the eve of IFFI for not agreeing to Chief minister's plan to block traffic on one of Panaji's busiest roads for the 11 day IFFI. The DGP's post was kept in abeyance and in a few days Mr. Kanth was relieved without following the established protocol. Left to him Mr. Parrikar is capable of even keeping the post of Chief Secretary in abeyance. His capable of saying he could run the state without a Governor too. The Chief Minister even dared to close the Aldona bridge and have an IFFI party on it for the delegates. Is the Chief minister aware that the Delhi High court had strongly reprimanded the Delhi police for having closed a Delhi road for just a few hours to facilitate a motorcade of VIP's? The Court had ruled that no road can be closed and that if VIP security was a concern they should be flown through the skies. "India Shinning " and " feel good factor" were slogans that met BJP's waterloo in the last Lok Sabha elections. Mr. Parrikar may feel that Panaji is shinning with the so-called cosmetic upgrades he has hurriedly carried out in the name of IFFI. All of Panaji is definitely not shinning and the feel good factor is yet to descend. It was expected that with the IFFI phobia off Chief Minister Parrikar's mind, the administration would return to normalcy and that the Government would have the time to ponder on other pressing problems gripping this tiny but very corrupt state. But with the next IFFI also being hosted in Goa it is clear that IFFI and IFFI alone will weigh on Mr. Parrikar's mind. Aires Rodrigues Ribandar
