Well Mario, I do appreciate your mental block.Please do not forget that Anthony D'Silva is talking to the ordinary people at ordinary places. That is why he has chosen the most commonest of theplaces like the Mapusa market. If he was going to talk to Marios, Florianos, Dianas, Vidhyadars etc., he would have been doing so in places like Cidade de Goa, Marriots etc.
As for me, the thing to do is to bring in the necessary legislations like you suggest and do not bother who likes it or not, whether people want to vote for your second term or not. If the mandate is given to rule as according to the election manifesto, then just bull-doz and get things done. If Goans are ready for such a show then I must be talking from the moon and not from Moira.
Goa Su-Raj Party has opened up its vision through its Road Map for Goa. And, it is absolutely certain that it will not be possible to implement this Road Map with the type of MLAs we have been electing since 1961. That is why we are following the unwritten rule that we shall not accept ex-MLAs into our party. So far, 8 years down the line, we have stood by that decision.
In his interview, MP talks about the impossibility of reducing the cabinet size. I totally disagree with him. To me it is nothing more than 'Too many cooks spoil the soup" MP also admits that since the work-load is heavy, the reduced cabinet, if at all, must have very intelligent Ministers. I disagree with this totally again. For one, people are not fools to elect village duds to the Assembly. Again, it is not necessary for MLAs to be highly educated such as IITs IAMs and such like. We need normal people who know and/or can recognise right from wrong, more so, people who will not pocket large amount of public money through devious manipulations. Today's politics seems to be zeroing on just this. Besides, Ministers must work as a pool towards a common goal and see that the policies which are formulated collectively are implemented absolutely and not want to design policies to suit them individually. The recent jaunt by our MLAs to Australia on a study tour is one such thing I am talking about. The intelligence part is supplied to the government via the IAS, IFS and other Civil cadres and MLAs and Ministers are not supposed to use them as their errand boys and peons but listen to them and act wisely. They could be guiding or misguiding. The elected representative is supposed to have enough of what it takes to know what is what before taking a particular decision. In short we need maturity in our Mlas and Ministers.
Anthony Silva seems to be a sincere person who wants to give something back to his Goa in his own way. It may not be much. But nevertheless it is something that will go a long way to save Goa for what it is. Maybe he has an ulterior motive in doing all this. Maybe he will be a totally selfish person if he is using this platform to achieve his hidden dreams. For us, it is not possible to identify what is ticking him at this early moment when we have hardly heard of him. This is one way to put him to test. If this is test number one, for sure there will be others, if he passes this one.
Do not forget what I have said many times over. If only Goa can muster just 10 of her sons and daughters, who will be like the chosen ones we read in the Bible in particular, Goa can be delivered from this hell.
There may be more than just 10. There may be hundreds. But for Goa to count on them, they have to come forward and identify themselves. Maybe, just maybe, Anthony D'Silva is one of them. Let us understand this before we redicule simple motivations.
Cheers floriano goasuraj----- Original Message ----- From: "Mario Goveia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, April 09, 2008 10:14 PM Subject: [Goanet] Constructive suggestions for controlling blight in Goa
Date: Mon, 7 Apr 2008 20:47:48 +0530 From: "Floriano 1" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>Like Anthony Silva of Asolna succinctly puts it " If you are not a Goan and if you come to Goa and like what you see, why do you have to buy it?? Likewise, if you visit a museum and if you like what is displayed there, can you buy it all?"Mario responds:These questions seem pretty rudimentary to me. No knowledge of rocket science required, just the fundamentals of demand and supply among citizens of a democracy.If I am a non-Goan Indian, my answer to the first question would be, "Because I want to. How is it any of your business if it doesn't belong to you? Is there a law against it? Come, let me buy you a Bela beer that you can weep into:-))"The answer to the second question is that artifacts in a museum do not typically belong to private individuals. If they do belong to private individuals and have been loaned to the museum, they just may be available for sale.I'm sorry, Floriano, Diana, Anthony, Vidhyadhar, et. al. I share your pain but I don't think you are going to get very far with this line of reasoning, other than in your level of frustration. This is not N. Korea, Cuba, Zimbabwe or Venezuela we are talking about here.You will be far more successful by encouraging the MLA's in Goa to pass some zoning-type laws to restrict the size and height of buildings, make the architecture compatible with the surroundings, protect the environment or the historical significance or some other sophistry that will stand constitutional muster.Any legislator who does not cringe in horror after seeing the recent pictures by Rajan Parrikar of St. Diogo Church in Guirim from the Panjim-Mapusa road, or the Chimbel slums, doesn't deserve to be an MLA.For example, on Hilton Head Island, a popular resort in the US that was developed fairly recently, the developers cannot build the typical box stores, fast food places, shopping strips etc. in such a way that they are intrusive and visible eyesores, as in most of the rest of the country. They have to present architectural drawings that preserve the ambience of the place, including requirements that the buildings be compatible with existing structures and be built behind several lines of trees that maintain the pleasant and attractive forest-like nature of the local environment. These are exhaustively reviewed by a Zoning Board, whose members are either elected or appointed by elected officials before they can get their building permits.The kind of architectural atrocity and wanton visual damage that we saw in Rajan Parrikar's pictures of the Church of St. Diogo in Guirim as well as the Chimbel slums, could not happen if such a process were in place.
