To Goanet, Goa University's annual Youth Festival concluded at Kala Academy yesterday. St.Xavier's, MES, PCC, RIT, GDC, Salgaokar's and GMC were the participating colleges. It was a good display of talent and team-spirit. Salgaokar's won the Fashion show and St.Xavier's won the dance competition. All participating colleges made the best possible use of all talent at their disposal to make it a truly memorable evening for any neutral observer.
On the other hand, the judging was average, at best and in the instance of Ms.Personality, Steve Bucknor would have done a better job. Some shocking decisions. Anyway, that's the way the game is played. The projector screens kept flashing the message "Special thanks to National Students Union of India". For the uninitiated, NSUI is the Congress backed student wing, in power at Goa University. And in keeping with the tradition of the Congress party, gatekeepers were making a royal buck at the expense of students without ID-cards. The rates for such students were fixed at Rs.50/70. But in several cases, the gatekeepers insisted on taking Rs.100, and whatever denomination note they got, without issuing change, saying that rates have accordingly increased due to the crowd. (!!??) The stadium was nowhere close to packed at any time. The gate-keeping committee was disordered and disorganized, no one exactly knowing their role, all hovering around, and the person actually putting the entry stamp did not have the volunteer batch, either. When I spoke to the head of the Congress students union (The organising committee, Sunil Khauntankar, he vociferously denied that any non-volunteer was at the gate, but was reluctant to give any names. The events were woefully off-time, everything started late, to the frustration of participants, and several events were even cut-short. Unfortunately, the innocent participants had to pay the price for the organising committees bloopers and pathetic organizational skills. Next time over, let's hope for a more honest organization committee and some better-coordinated event Every generation of congressmen seems to be inheriting the traits of corruption and dishonesty from the previous generation. -- Truth Liberates, Nigel Britto http://amicusnaturae.blogspot.com
