#GoaMediaLeaks part 2 So who’s politician ‘P’ who’s taken 460 crore, a hemorrhaged vision and Et tu Claude Alvares!
The second and the last leak from this batch of emails is a communication from August last year addressed to Herald Editor Sujay Gupta, general manager Michael Pereira and Datta Shetkar, who co-owns/ed Brand Mentors, a brand consultancy firm in the employ of the newspaper. The email is a compilation of minutes of a meeting held at Herald managing director Raul Fernandes’ residence. According to the matronly acronym MoM, those who were also present at this meeting were renowned environmentalist Claude Alvares, artiste Subodh Kerkar and one Pravin. The meeting was intended to draw up a skeleton for Vision 2022 for Goa. (Vision 2014/15 was perhaps articulated by Herald marketing manager Adwait Desai’s video-graphed pitch to the casino honcho) While it is the duty of a newspaper is to keep its readers informed, exposure to inter-office memos such as these, often offer a window to the inner functioning and thought-processes of an organisation and people at its helm. You can see for yourself, if there are any lines of similarity between the content published in the newspaper and the information cached in these internal documents. Many of the 77 points listed in the MoM are factual and no-brainers like the issue of communal harmony, ground water, dilution of Goan identity, etc. But there are several positions taken by those holding top positions in the media house and others present, could do with a bit of scrutiny. For example, when these gents agree on formation of a core team to achieve ‘Vision 2022’ and commit to choosing their own candidates (#10 of the MoM says ‘no people’s candidates), should newspaper readers not know the identity of these budding candidates, the media house is backing? How will the media house decide on coverage of the pool of other candidates, which the 2017 elections throw up, when political parties make their nominations and independents throw their hats in the ring? The Vision 2022 also reveals an insight of the members in this core group, including the media bosses, about the ruling BJP government and Defence Minister and former Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar. In one instance, there is a reference to Parrikar in #77, which says that the former Goa chief minister was utilising government monies to corner votes. There is also a reference to a political leader, whose name starts with a ‘P’, who, the Vision 2022 document alleges, has ‘taken’ 460 crore to be released just before elections. Although the leaked document contains the name, I have consciously chosen to blank it out, because it makes a direct graft charge against ‘P’ the politician. Perhaps, the Vision 2022 document guys possess evidence to suggest the exact quantum of corruption, I unfortunately, do not. The Saligao dump site, says the document, has been given to a BJP contractor to operate, while also adding that the Make in India campaign is an eyewash. Lastly, where does Claude Alvares, a green activist, who enjoys a more than significant amount of goodwill and regard in Goa and around India, fit into this Vision business? This question is most perplexing and I hope Claude does give us some kind of explanation for his choice, especially when his last known association in 2008 with Sujay Gupta, a journalist with terrific craft, ended up with the environmentalist writing an article ‘Mining blues and its many hues: when PR gets it badly wrong’ and summing up with this paragraph. “At the end, Gupta asks for a "mature" debate on mining. Mature debates can only be held with mature journalists, not immature hacks,” Claude says in the conclusion of his interesting article which you must, I repeat must, read here <https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/goajourno/NrRBdqyjQ-Q>. https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/goajourno/NrRBdqyjQ-Q Incidentally, Gupta had also filed a Rs. 500 crore defamation case against fellow green activist Sebastian Rodrigues in 2009, during the former’s association with the Timblo Group. This passage makes interesting reading now, in retrospect, especially when Claude along with Herald, editorially headed by Sujay, are working on a vision for Goa: Vision 2022! Excerpt... I confronted Gupta on the street outside the GUJ (Goa Union of Journalists) office after the press conference he had organised. (Miguel and a few of the brethren from the media were also present.) At this point of time, he flatly denied any involvement in the press conference "except for sending out two or three SMS messages." I got one of those messages, like many other journalists. Fortunately it has remained un-erased on my cell and so I can recall it here verbatim: "People of colomb, who were shown films by sebi rodrigues depicting the killing of policemen by naxalites will meet the press at the GUJ hall. They will also spk abt the activities of sebi and his group from jharkhand in the mining areas. Sujay Gupta." Now check the sheer 'quality' of the information being purveyed by this former editor and NDTV reporter: it emerges that there is no such film at all. His "group from jharkhand" is actually a group of students from the Nirmala Institute of Social Work in Mumbai, doing field-work for their degree courses in social work! Now would you trust a person who lies about his employment, refuses to disclose his actual employers, and then organizes press conferences on the basis of fabricated information Journalists informed us that prior to the press conference, Gupta had been carrying around Seby's photograph for circulation for four days. To what purpose? Ask him! Er... so what exactly is this collective Vision 2022 again Claude?
