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If you receive this more than once, please bear with me. I am understaffed and underpaid, that’s why. * SHACK ATTACK: Following the script - 3* *Lionel Messias* *Strangers in their own land* In April 2008 the shacks of 15 Goans were demolished after the Tourism Department declared their shacks were illegal because their locations were changed from the originally allotted sites. The license fees were not refunded to them. Each year after a great deal of wheeling and dealing, the government allots shack licenses (total: 237) in north Goa and south Goa. In 2008 this writer accessed through RTI (Right to Information) the facts on how a beach restaurant The Sunny Side Up was set up by Anup Sharma on Candolim beach encroaching on government land. How it got past the scrutiny of both the Tourism Department and a private consultant who inspected it in December is another question. Tons of sand were used to elevate the area on which Sunny Side Up was built to raise it above the roofline of the shacks in front of it and give it a view of the sea. Sunny Side Up continues to do business till today thanks to its hard-boiled owner and a government that looks down on its own. *Goanspirit *was able to document the following events that took place in Colva, easily the most abused beach in India by any reckoning: Read Full Story: http://www.goanspirit.com/index.php/lead/346-shack-attack-following-the-script-3 * August 12-18, 2013* *Pushpa Iyengar* *30 extra minutes does not make the cut* “The extra five minutes in every period does not help at all. On the contrary students get fidgety, are fighting, noisy, throw paper balls around …. In some primary schools, children keep asking ‘Miss, when will the bell ring?’”. This is the heartfelt experience and the on the ground report of a government school teacher about Goa government’s August 6 circular extending school timings by 30 minutes every day constituting a five and half hours day or full-day schooling of six hours for five days a week, to fulfill 1,100 instructional hours for the academic year. Earlier schools had a five hour day. The extra half hour a day, implemented in June this year, had caused a furore among teachers, parents and even political parties over the last several weeks. They had demanded a rollback, but chief minister Manohar Parrikar has stuck to his guns and now the die has been cast with the release of the circular. Read Full Story: http://www.goanspirit.com/index.php/news-summary/349-30-extra-minutes-does-not-make-the-cut *August 12-18, 2013* *Lion Roars -18* *Land sale moratorium easier than Special Status - Concluded* *Food for Thought* There is a moratorium on the sale of agricultural land (till January 1, 2016) in the Ukraine known as the bread basket of Europe only because the moratorium prohibits not only alienation of any land that is designated (zoned) as “farm land”, but it specifically bars all foreign citizens and foreign-owned companies from owning such land. Last month Georgia prohibited the sale of land to foreigners and foreign firms following amendments made to the law on ownership of agricultural land. They establish a moratorium on the sale of land to foreign citizens and companies registered abroad before December 31, 2014. The law also requires the government of Georgia during six months to develop a unified state policy on ownership of agricultural land for rational use and protection of land resources. *By comparision Goa appears to be hell bent on converting all of its land for building purposes or DEVELOPMENT as politicians call that in Goa. From 2012 to March 2013, 53 conversion sanads were issued in Pernem taluka and 461 in Salcette taluka, making it a total of 514 sanads issued. During the same period 74 applications were pending in Pernem and 353 in Salcette. A total of 426 sanads.* Read Full Story: http://www.goanspirit.com/index.php/lion-roars/lion-roars-2013/347-lion-roars-18 *Faster, Higher, Stronger into the ground* *August 12-18, 2013* *Team GS* Is the Parrikar government laying the ground to get out of holding the Lusofonia Games scheduled in Goa from November 2 to 10 this year? There’s no other explanation when different people in the BJP and the government, including chief minister Manohar Parrikar, have made it clear that a gun is being held to their heads to conduct the games. It’s not the first time that an opposition party has come to power and has to fulfill the commitment made by a government whose party is now in the opposition. Sample these discordant voices: “Even though I am not personally in favour of hosting the games, we are doing so due to the commitments of the earlier government and the games will be completed successfully.” This was Parrikar while addressing the BJP’s Gao Chalo Abhiyan in Canacona on August 9. Read Full Story: http://www.goanspirit.com/index.php/bits-bytes/350-faster-higher-stronger-into-the-ground *August 12 -18, 2013* *Goan liquor producers - 1* *The adrenalin rush of at Adinco* *Lionel Messias* If you were told a Goa made vodka with the not-the-so-heady name of Flo will soon be sold in Canada and the US, you might feel a tad heady. Blame it, if you want, on the huge in-your-face ad spend or the intoxicating effect of all those promos on the north coast line, but sober up fast. What you do not know is that vodka is produced through an intricate and expensive process and is not merely distilled from an assortment of grain mashes (or potatoes even) which the Russians did for a long, long time before they knew better. So, know this. The Cotombi based Adinco run by the Diniz brothers Truman (production), Solomon (marketing) and Wilfrid spelt with an ‘i’ (logistics) use the later discovered Russian filter method to make Flo which hopefully is going to be ‘shot’ in bars soon into the North American continent. “The Russian filters are so compact they can be installed in a room,” says Solomon. Adinco uses both the carbon (cost: approx. Rs 2,00,000 ) and silver (cost: approx Rs* *5,00,000) processing methods or filters. Read Full Story: http://www.goanspirit.com/index.php/travel/348-goan-liquor-producers-1 *August 12 -18, 2013* *Poems on Goa* *Gita Krishnan* Nostalgia for the Goa of her childhood and years away from her homeland spurred Maria Conceicao Pereira, an Administrative Assistant in a law firm in Bahrain, to pen a few lines about the days of yore. It struck the mother of two that perhaps the new generation would never know about many of the simple pleasures of her uncomplicated growing years. And thus was born *Goenchi Girestkai, *an ultra slim booklet of a mere 14 pages with 12 poems about professions that have all but disappeared today. Read Full Story: http://www.goanspirit.com/index.php/writer-s-flow/351-poems-on-goa *August 12-18, 2013* *Team GS* *Doublespeak is the name of the game* This government needs to come clear on whether it supports rave parties, dance bars, casinos, even a Playboy club instead of running with the hares and hunting with the hounds. Doublespeak seems to be its middle name. There was Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar’s whine about what he would do if he lost the revenue of Rs 150 crore from casinos. Subtext: casinos are ok. Then, while he says he will not “allow” dance bars in the state, you have BJP vice-president Wilfred Mesquita saying ““If alcohol is allowed to flow in the gutters of Goa, I don’t see why anyone has a problem against dance bars.” Read Full Story: http://www.goanspirit.com/index.php/contact-us/letters/111-the-week-that-was/352-doublespeak-is-the-name-of-the-game Lionel Messias Editor, *Goan Spirit*, *Goa's Spirited Online Weekly Magazine.* ** Website:www.goanspirit.com Worked for the best: Goa Today, Gomantak Times, Herald, Mid-Day, The Pioneer, Indian Express (Bangalore), Economic Times (Chennai, Hyderabad), Newstime (Hyderabad), Gulf News (Hyderabad) 125-E, Bellem, Velsao, P.O. Cansaulim, Goa 403712 Tel: 0832-2884484 Mob:9822152164