Hi Selma, I've always enjoyed reading your messages to ''GoaNut' but this one, although clearly your passion and opinion, is not the way I see my homeland going down the tubes!
Manufacturing and retail, while appearing to be the up and coming darlings of the Indian economy, will create much more strife and heartache for Goa than tourism and mining. "We can't see the forest for the trees" as the saying goes becomes more apt in the context of saving the remaining biodiversity of our little corner of the Western Ghats. Pretty soon we will not be seeing the forest because all the trees (think Tivim) have been replaced by factories and malls. A recent talk given by a Canadian philosopher, John Ralston Saul, at the Mississauga campus of the University of Toronto elaborated on how the lure of globalization has not panned out for many countries and is a slippery path that India (and with your help, Goa) is on already. Some of his thoughts on this topic can be read in this review of his 2005 book "The Collapse of Globalism: And the Reinvention of the World" http://www.freeindiamedia.com/book_review/30_oct_06.html In my opinion, Goa will have a much better chance of sustainable development by parlaying her current status as a tourist destination into a viable eco-tourism industry and reducing or eliminating the short-term gain 'Casino' mentality. Am I allowed to say "Viva 'Goa Bachao Abhiyan'" in Romi script? Kevin Saldanha Mississauga, ON.
