Goanetters annual year-end meet is on Dec 27, 2010 (Monday) from 4-6 pm at
Institute Piedade (near Hotel Mandovi, opp Bread & More) in Panjim. Do come
along. RSVP via SMS 9822122436, f...@goa-india.org or 2409490 (after 2 pm).
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
COMMENTS:
We Goans have indeed NOT witnessed a DIRECT HIT of this type since 1961.
I have highlighted these many 'direct hits' that Raul Fernandes has scored
in this unique message to Goa. It was time that someone as prominent as
Raul
Fernandes should direct these sure hits.
AND,
All I can say to Raul's final 'coup de grace' in .." Let this reiteration
of this alliance between the people of Goa and O Herald O commence " is:
'JAI HO O HERALD O' at the very top of my voice.
Cheers
floriano
goasuraj
9890470896
www.goasu-raj.org
If we do not stop the rot now, we are damned
BY RAUL FERNANDES
[O HERALD O - December 26, 2010 - Page 1]
As we are on the verge of completing this year and beginning the next, I
extend my greetings and warm wishes to all residents of Goa as well as those
who love our land.
As we look forward to another year, we cannot however ignore the fact that
Goa is teetering on the verge of a breakdown. Its ethical fabric is being
stretched. The political class is a bunch of opportunists, who use every
institution- religious, social or educational, to influence votes, without
once giving back to the same institutions, an iota of what is promised to
them.
Who benefits? The usual suspects- the powerful, friends of the powerful and
those who grease the powerful. They bypass all laws, bend them, break them,
even mould them to their benefits. No plan, regional or Central and no law
can push them off any track or highway. If deviation is needed, to see that
they are not touched, so be it. If rules meant to be followed by you and me
are flouted by them or bypassed, it is allowed. Lawmakers and law enforcers
and law breakers are not strange bedfellows. They have become natural bed
fellows. And in some cases, they are one and the same.
This is a time when I call for an alliance. An alliance between the people
of Goa and their own newspaper - O Herald O, which has been as much a part
of their aspirations and struggles, as its tool for protest and change. If
we do not strengthen this alliance, we are doomed. And if we do not see the
need to do this now, we are damned.
I call upon all of us, the people who love and live in Goa to start a
movement of rejection immediately. Reject corruption by not paying the
policeman to protect your little drug racket, reject it by rejecting the
person who pays the policeman and take it further by rejecting the
politician who protects the policeman who protects the person who runs the
drug racket.
Secondly change politics by rejecting your time trusted MLA's who have made
money for themselves and done you assorted favours in the process. It isn't
easy when it's easier to ignore a politician who makes kickbacks out of
awarding road contracts, or contracts to lay underground power cables in
lieu of an NOC for a project or some assorted favour.
It's a hard choice. Do you hold a politician accountable for moral misdeeds
such as forging his son's birth certificate to allow him to play in the
under-15 Goa cricket team or just forget it for a possible favour of getting
the panchayat to allow an FAR violation for your building. Easy choices are
weak choices. With every weak choice, Goa is lowered further and you know
what - you really do not have the easy choice. Make that hard choice and
reject. And Herald will be with you.
Taking this further our Goa has always been a land of and for everyone and
of every faith, creed or colour, for ages. Goa has been a great melting pot
of cultures and faiths. Nowhere in this country do Hindus, Christians,
Muslims, Sikhs and others live in such harmony, sharing lives and festivals.
Goa is a celebration of diversity. However, of late, I feel that these
strong bonds, are sought to be threatened.
When old Portuguese street signs are torn, when useless protests over the
arrival of a Portuguese ships are taken to ridiculous melodramatic levels,
you need to reject diseased minds and diseased politics. If this is not a
handiwork of a diseased mind. It is the handiwork also of a communal mind.
If everything about Goa's history is pitiable, then why do sons of these
some of the so called "freedom fighters" have Portuguese passports. Reject
double standards. There is much about our Portuguese past which works. Its
systems, it mechanisms, its architecture and heritage.
Let this reiteration of this alliance between the people of Goa and O Herald
O commence. Change has to happen when the old order of things cutting across
parties needs to change. Shed the lethargy and act now.
If O-Herald-O is the voice of Goa, it needs to hear that voice. Yours.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is not ENOUGH that GOOD, HONEST citizens contest elections.
It is not ENOUGH that GOOD, HONEST citizen voters elect good, honest
representatives.
GOA urgently needs 'GOOD, HONEST, DISCIPLINED SYSTEM of GOVERNANCE'.
Wherein, even a dishonest person is forced to be good, honest n disciplined,
or to QUIT.
Only through PPS can such 'good, honest n disciplined system of governance'
be identified and accepted.
PPS GOA =PEOPLE for POLITICAL SANITY = PEOPLE'S POWER SYSTEM
for a date in 2012
Display the 'PPS' sticker on your vehicle today, to reject political madness
tomorrow.
http://www.goasu-raj.org/gen/articles/70.asp
http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/254068/1043608998/name/roadmap_goa-su-raj_party.pdf
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/gulf-goans/attachments/folder/132590897/item/64224316/view
