On Jan 5 Eddie Fernandes replied but deliberately chose not to discuss point-by-point. Instead he has proposed some new ideas, basically an extension of the Tourism Minister's stand. As such his posting may be amenable to a brainstorming exercise. A cardinal rule here is to entertain the new ideas without attacking or criticising them so that useful ideas are not inadvertently shut off. But we need to amplify the bullet points to introduce some realism and fit them into our common frame of knowledge about the issue. Hence this is what Eddie Fernandes & Co's proposal sounds like to me:
<We dont like the Navy ("dog" in our Dabolim "manger") and Mopa (airport) is poison to us. So why not feed the latter to the former (i.e. shift the pooch from one part of the manger to another) . If the Navy seems inclined to swallow the bait let us quickly propose that they relocate to some other equivalent place out of the state where they can train their Sea Harrier and helicopter pilots. An added attraction would be a blank check drawn on Goa's notional funds lying with the Centre (on account of Mopa, IFFI or whatever) in favour of the Navy for setting up some barebones facilities. We really dont know what we will do with the Dabolim airport (and of course Mopa which we are now "rid" of). Our priorities in both cases are clear: keep up our hotel occupancy rates vis a vis Mumbai/Maharashtra hotels/ beach resorts and keep up our property values while bleeding those of the rivals who speculated in Mopa land.> That then seems to be the gist of the new idea. At this point it may be useful to introduce a corollary to the brainstorming rule viz to try to desist from defending or explaining your idea and rely on others to do it. So, as the saying goes, over to the folks on goanet! What they may want to seriously consider is whether they want to be part of a solution for Goa or part of the state's problem.