To Goanet - I just found out that a delegation of the Tourism dept of the Goa government was on a tour of the United States. Ostensibly the fellows were attending a conference in Las Vegas. As part of the junket, they also dropped in on two other cities - Los Angeles and San Francisco.
My informant said that there were 10 - TEN! - members in the delegation. He mentioned some names out of which 3 sounded familiar: Nilkanth Halarnkar (Tourism minister?), Swapnil Naik (Tourism Director? Useless guy - I know him from the time he was a Collector. Met him several times to end the menace of noise from cruise boats), and Vijay Sardesai (Kangress apparatchik). It is possible of course that only 2 guys were part of the official party and the other 8 were paying out of their own pocket. If you believe that, let me know - I have some things to sell you. Still, this is a good candidate for an RTI application. Nothing will come out of it, needless to add, but at least we'll know for sure. Lionel Messias has been documenting all this fraud for quite a while now, but to what end? Is anyone ever held accountable? I once made an RTI application to the GAD (General Admin Dept). Our ministers, chief secretaries, secretaries, and other officials travel large. In most advanced countries these guys would be in jail for misuse of public funds, but in Goa and India you can boast about your exploits publicly and chalk them down as accomploshments. r
