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Sangath, www.sangath.com, is looking to build a centre for services, training and research and seeks to buy approx 1500 to 2000 sq mtrs land betweeen Mapusa and Bambolim and surrounding rural areas. Please contact: [email protected] or [email protected] or ph+91-9881499458 http://lists.goanet.org/pipermail/goanet-goanet.org/2009-July/180028.html ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dear Goans, Have some leaders of the Goa Balchao Abhiyan brand fame got muck on their faces? For this we need to read Herald of today 31st July 2009. Their honeymoon with Digubab seems to be over. He now cares less for them as he has succeeded in diffusing public wrath through his chellas in GBA. With the news that Mr. Edgar Ribeiro has resigned from the government's steering committee on the RP, a politically over smart orator, who a year ago was so impressed with the CM's sincerity and adamant that GBA cooperates on the RP 2021, was finally shamelessly heard spitting fire at a meeting opposite T.B Cunha's memorial in Panaji. The orator has overnight started talking about green Goa when he was cheering the mega projects just a few months ago saying that housing is required. Can he publicly declare his stand on the 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendment regarding self-governments? Truth has definitely prevailed after all the persecution to some of us who refused to agree with GBA trusting and flirting with the government. But these misguided Bachao kids thought they knew better. Now section 16 & 16A is coming back to haunt the GBA. A repetition of the RP 2001 is expected with the RP 2021. Will these leaders now publicly admit that they have blundered or will they shamelessly change gears and talk a different lingo and entertain the public? Peaceful Society and CSJP were ridiculed for not going ahead and accepting the pilot project on the village planning with false claims that they did not want to submit accounts. No one bothered to check the facts which are all on record. A migrant editor joinned in the chorus of these chellas in maligning our names as the saffron brigade in GBA. This tirade only strenghtened our resolve and the reason we recall these malicious attributions is to bring them on record and remind these traitors that we have not forgotten their stance one year ago. But there is something called 'Truth' which manifests itself in due course. Believers in 'Truth' may not be in a position to prove themselves right on the spur of the movement and that is why politicians prosper as they operate with short term goals of fooling the people by presenting 'Falsehood' as 'Truth'. We have not forgotten 8th of June 2008 when Mr. Ribeiro shockingly told us to stop demanding a proper planning process on the RP and to take what we get because that is how a government works. That "Village Panchayats have no right for spatial planning", countering our claims on article 243ZD of the Constitution. What has happened now? At every GBA meeting we have repeated that we are dealing with bandits and rascals in the guise of a government. We definitely respect the seniority and experience of Mr. Ribeiro in dealing with governments but we definitely do not subscribe to his view that we should bow down and accept the crumbs thrown to us by an insincere government. When we bargain for 25% we land up getting nothing and that is what GBA and Ribeiro have contributed to Goa. There is no need to mention that some professionals in the name of GBA have greatly benefited in expanding their network within the Town & Country Planning depatments and the Village Panchayats under th e guise of people friendly planning. We were shouting from day one that the present TCP Act should be scrapped in toto but professionals were not comfortable and wanted peice meal changes. Mr. Ribeiro at least had the guts to resign but these professionals who have one foot in GBA and the other on government committees continue to operate both ways. Who is fooling whom? We are not professionals and neither would we want to belong to this club of serpents. We just consider ourselves as unskilled Goans who have our eyes, ears and minds open to the 'Truth'. We have not changed. We have seen power and we have shunned power. But we will not compromise the interests of Goa and our principles for personal gains. We are not cowards to whisper against the government behind closed doors while externally dealing and negotiating our professional deals with the very same government. We did not have advisors when we dabbled in politics and got cheated by politicians time and again only to learn from our mistakes immediately. We have learnt to never expect a politician to be straight and to never take a policeman as a friend in Goa. We refuse to believe that any politician who has served for more than one term as an MLA is clean. And we will not fall prey to GBA's emotional blackmail with claims of 'Save Goa' and ''73rd and 74th Amendment'. Though we do not support the Health Estates and Health Corporations being set up by the government, we definitely do not believe that GBA will do any justice to this cause of opposing such government policies. Some leaders of GBA fame who had gone underground now seem to be resurfacing in circulation possibly to divert people's attention from the RP 2021 by focussing on the Health Estates. But we shall not allow their betrayal of the people to go unnoticed. The simple approach of the people should be to ask them as to what they have been doing on the RP 2021 process. Ask them for a copy of GBA's submissions to the Task Force on the RP 2021. Mr. Ribeiro's revelations on what is going on in the TCP as regards the RP 2021 are very clear. GBA needs to give answers about its monitoring and interventions on the RP 2021 processes. Assisting people to make village plans will not set right the legislations on the RP 2021process. So Goans be watchful. Some people are definitely back upto some of their political tricks. Elections may be due in 2012 but politicians start preparing well in advance. Trinamool Congress may be good in West Bengal but definitely not favourable for Goa's political conditions. The peasants of Nandigram and Singhur are not snakes with two heads as we find in Goa. They have not sold their culture and Bengali pride to western forces and non-Bengalis. Adieus! Let us enjoy Goa's cashew nuts till then. -Soter D'souza
