FROM: Times of India: December 1 (Link not available)

When the International Film Festival of India tried Panjim out for the
first time in 2004, the entire waterfront came to a standstill. Tens
of thousands of curious visitors clogged the promenade each evening,
and traffic remained snarled to a standstill. But all that has changed
over the intervening decade. Today, Goa’s  capital has been confirmed
as IFFI’s permanent venue, and the city handles the subcontinent’s
premier cinema festival with barely a ripple. Minimal disruption all
around.

Panjim’s ability to handle events of this magnitude without fuss has
brought increasing attention and admiration. Now the city is quietly
emerging as a prominent landmark in India’s cultural landscape. Now
it’s not just IFFI, a whole series of innovative festivals are
remaking Goa’s reputation far beyond the dominant cliché’s of sun,
sand, beach parties and cheap booze.

Days after IFFI ends, the Goa Arts and Literary Festival (GALF)
begins. Since inception five years ago, this homegrown, strictly
independent, non-profit and volunteer-driven showcase at the
International Centre Goa (ICG) at Dona Paula (this writer is one of
the organizers) has managed to attract a remarkable series of
exclusive debuts and international book launches, including, most
recently, the winner of the 2014 Shakti Bhatt Book Award, Pakistani
novelist Bilal Tanweer’s ‘The Scatter Here is Too Great’.

GALF 2014 (December 4-7) will be headlined by keynote addresses by
Charles Correa and Wendell Rodricks on 4th December at Maquinez
Palace, followed by Dr. Rajmohan Gandhi in conversation with Sagarika
Ghose about Indian democracy. Goan-origin journalist and editor
Rajdeep Sardesai’s hometown book release of his new bestseller ‘2014:
The Election that Changed India’ caps an evening of book launches at
ICG on 6th December, including ‘The Black Hill’ by Mamang Dai, and the
latest collection of stories by Goa’s own Damodar Mauzo. More details
at goaartlitfest.com

On 19th December, the India Ideas Conclave 2014 begins at the Grand
Hyatt in Bambolim, organized by India Foundation, the think tank that
has already supplied two ministers to the Narendra Modi Government,
Suresh Prabhu and Jayant Sinha. This new festival, according to one
the India Foundation’s board, is conceived to “replace Tehelka’s
ThinkFest” with an event featuring intellectuals, politicians and
spokesmen associated with the Sangh Parivar. An impressive list of
luminaries confirmed to attend includes Goan-origin senior British MP,
Keith Vaz.

Tehelka’s ThinkFest and India Ideas Conclave – and IFFI too – use Goa
as an exotic backdrop to host speakers and deliberations that could
otherwise happen anywhere else. But two charmingly conceived new
festivals are designed to weave in and around Panjim’s contours, to
highlight and uncover new facets of the proud little city by using
avant-garde, world-class light and photo displays.

Non-profit, and free-admission-to-all like GALF, the Story of Light
Festival (thestoryoflight.org) is a project of the International Year
of Light, “a global initiative adopted by the United Nations to raise
awareness of how optical technologies promote sustainable development
and provide solutions to worldwide challenges in energy, education,
agriculture, communications and health.” In Panjim on 14-18 January
2015, this translates to a range of displays, exhibits, workshops and
installations on a walking tour that starts at the Science Centre at
Miramar and winds its way through the city.

Starting on 25th February next year, Goa Photo (goaphoto.in) is an
ambitious attempt to establish “an annual international photography
festival” that will “transform the city into a platform for showcasing
contemporary photography.” The inaugural edition features the
acclaimed Spanish curator Frank Kalero, and brilliant photographers
from a half-dozen countries whose work will together present a theme,
‘The Other’. A wonderful bonus is the second-ever Magnum Workshop in
India, a four-day intensive course with some of the world’s best
photographers that has a dedicated spot and scholarship for a talented
young Goan.

What do most of these excellent cultural initiatives share as a common
denominator, and with the exquisite annual Monte Music Festival in Old
Goa as well as the once-wonderful Fontainhas Arts Festival? Their
organizers recognize the intrinsic charm and beauty of what already
exists in Panjim, an often-overlooked and badly treated cultural jewel
that mirrors and wonderfully represents the singular, profoundly
confluential culture and identity of Goa and Goans. The best of the
new events seek to evolve along with the city not to impose an alien
vision, to fit in not drown out.

In this regard, the newly trumpeted plans for vast new constructions
dedicated to the fortnight-per-year International Film Festival of
India should ring warning bells in the mind of every resident of Goa.
Just when IFFI has begun to settle into a sustainable pattern, this
administration seeks to dive into another round of its favourite
activity: scam, superfluous “infrastructure-building” to solve a
problem that does not exist. Nobody should be fooled.

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