Yes, basically illegal mines work only because they have a lot of money. Mining is like extracting gold because you spend nothing and get huge profit. Say for example, a truckload of mineral ore containing 15-16 tonnes can fetch you anywhere upto Rs 25,000 profit. So obviously everyone is interested in making money. You can make money if you can extract immediately. Now who will stop illegal extraction? Is it the Police, Department of Mines or Department of Forests? Those who are controlling these departments themselves are involved in illegal mining or those who are very close to them are. Obviously it is going to be…a scam! It is bound to happen! It is political patronage with corruption in bureaucracy…

ON FRIDAY, I telephoned the leader of opposition Manohar Parrikar, who was till recently the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee which has exposed the illegal mining scam in Goa. Since the Honorable Speaker of the Legislative Assembly Pratap Singh Raoji Rane refused to allow the Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, Manohar Parrikar, to table the report following the refusal of three Congress members and one MGP member of the committee to sign the report, it has not been made public. Indeed Speaker Pratapsingh Raoji Rane, compounding the felony as it were, by sacking Manohar Parrikar from his position as Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee and appointed in his place Vijay Pai Khot, the MLA from Canacona who is expected to join the Congress. Since there was no way I could officially get a copy of the Public Accounts Committee report which exposed the illegal mining scam, I decided to ask Manohar Parrikar, the author of the report, to give me a copy.

WHILE the event managers of the Congress party in Delhi, including Sonia Gandhi and her political advisor Ahmed Patel and junior executives like the Congress party observer for Goa, Jagjit Singh Brar, are preparing for the mega Battle of the Bands, various band leaders and Djs are shouting hoarse for attention. The bands and the DJs are competing with each other to draw attention of the event managers of their skills to make the Goan voters dance to their tunes. Even as various band leaders are shouting from the rooftops about how they are best equipped to band bajao the BJP, veteran Goan pied pipers have began to protest over young upstarts and outsiders threatening to sideline the veterans who claim that they have not lost their touch and can give the new band leaders and DJs a run for their money.

FOR ALMOST a month now, a former personal security officer (PSO) has been hounding me for a job as excise inspector in the Directorate of Excise. Apparently he has tried twice in the past and, despite passing the written exam and doing well in the interview, he has not been selected because he was not able to raise the amount of Rs 25 lakh demanded as a bribe by the job ‘broker’. Which is incidentally considered an extremely remunerative and profitable job as the excise inspector, who is supposed to check the production and the excise paid by the liquor industry, can earn — through illegal gratification — over a lakh of rupees a month. My former PSO is aware that I know the Excise Commissioner P S Reddy, who has been promoted to the Indian Administrative Services cadre, fairly well. My former PSO tells me in a whisper that he has just managed to sell part of his ancestral property and, therefore, has enough money to pay for the post of excise inspector.

HISTORICALLY, VARIOUS lobbies have played a major role in elections in Goa. The mining lobby has been making major contributions to the political kitty of all political parties ever since liberation. During the tenure of Shashikala Kakodkar, it was the transport lobby which was the major financier of elections. Following the overthrow of Pratapsingh Rane in the early 90s after a coup staged by Churchill Alemao financed by builders like Cajetan Cordeiro, it was builders who became kingmakers. In the Babush era, it was land sharks from various parts of the country who pulled the strings. In the forthcoming elections, it is not just possible but probable that the Russian and Israeli drug mafia will call the shots. Yaniv Benaim, alias Atala — with his close links to Roy Naik if not Home Minister Ravi Naik — no doubt contributes heavily to the election war chest of Ravi Naik and his group. South Goa politicians like Churchill Alemao and Miccky Pacheco will probably be offered large amounts of money by the Russian drug mafia, which has been on the back foot consequent to Ravi Naik fully backing the Israeli drug mafia. The state may not get a Lokayukta in the foreseeable future, but it already has a drugayukta in Atala who has been brought all the way from Peru to bolster the chances of Ravi Naik and company in the forthcoming assembly election.

HISTORY IS all set to repeat itself. It may be recalled that about a decade ago Manohar Parrikar formed the first BJP government in the state of Goa after first encouraging Francisco Sardinha to stage a revolt against the Luizinho Faleiro-led Congress government and subsequently toppling the Sardinha government to take over the kodel of the chief minister himself. Which is precisely what Manohar Parrikar is planning to do this time with Churchill Alemao and Babush Monserrate as his accomplices. The photograph which appeared on the front page of the Gomantak Times’ Weekender with Parrikar seated in the front seat of his official car with Churchill Alemao doing the backseat driving is symbolic of the shape of things to come after the forthcoming assembly elections in Goa or even as early as in October when the last assembly session of the current legislature is scheduled.

IF THE salt itself loses its flavour, wherewith shall the salt be salted, said the father of the nation Mahatma Gandhi. If the voter himself is corrupt, how can you expect elected representatives to be clean and corruption free? I recall that almost a decade ago when we were taking a break at the Bambolim Beach Resort, the present Minister for Power Aleixo Sequeira gave the better three-quarters Tara Narayan a long lecture on how the voters forced the elected representatives to be corrupt. Which, unfortunately, is the bitter ground reality in Goa today. In the case of Goa, the Anna movement against corruption should insist that every voter in the state should take a pledge not to demand or accept any inducements from those seeking elections at any level, whether it is the panchayat elections, the civic elections, the Zilla Parishad elections, the Assembly elections or the Parliamentary elections.

YOUNG AND old from all over the country joined the Anna movement for a strong Lokpal bill. An exceptional number of young people who normally shunned agitations and are happier twittering and blogging joined the agitation. So did professionals, some of them even taking leave to join the protesters at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi where Anna undertook an epic fast lasting 12 days. For the first time, captains of industry ranging from the much respected Narayan Murthy of Infosys and the most reputed banker, Deepak Parekh extended support to team Anna. Not just individual industrialists ranging from Rahul Bajaj to Azim Premji lauded the citizen’s protest against corruption, but for the first time ever the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) extended support to the mass movement against corruption. A mass movement which forced Members of Parliament cutting across party lines to pass a unanimous resolution agreeing to the three demands of Team Anna which had threatened to derail the talks between the anti corruption movement and the central government.

ON SATURDAY, a colleague whose grandmother stays in New Vaddem went to look at the site of the conflagration that had broken out for the second time in 12 hours which, but for the Navy, could have destroyed the houses of thousands of Goans and migrants. She sent me an SMS message: “Why don’t you ask all those protesting against the criminal treatment of Anna Hazare and the Lok Pal bill to go and protest against the management of Zuari Industries and Zuari Indian Oil Tankers Limited (ZIOTL) for their criminal irresponsibility in endangering the lives and property of the residents of Vasco.” In the case of the act of arson by residents of Balli, which claimed the lives of two young tribal activists, a case of murder was registered against Deepak Faldesai. Indeed, in the Balli incident, the police even went to the extent of filing complaints of murder against the leaders of the tribes. But in the case of Zuari Industries and ZIOTL, who have been endangering the lives of a large section of the population of Vasco, only non cognisable offences have been registered against ZIOTL officials and one of the contractors of the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI). Forget about arresting the president of Zuari Industries and the Managing Director of ZIOTL, the officials concerned were not even summoned for interrogation over criminal negligence which endangered the lives not only of the largely migrant residents of Varunapuri, Navel Enclave which has been encroached on and has become a large slum, but also the residents of Mangor where the fire broke out the second time. All that has happened is that Chief Minister Digamber Kamat has ordered an enquiry into the incident which will no doubt be dismissed by the Deputy Collector of Vasco, as in the case of the incident of arson at Balli.

IN HER book on the cultural revolution that was initiated by Chairman Mao, economist Joan Robinson points out that the underlying principle was ‘bombard the headquarters’. Chairman Mao, who was the father of the revolution in China which overthrew the monarchy and put in its place a Marxist regime, discovered that freedom and liberty had turned into license. Mao discovered, as the comrades in West Bengal did in more recent times, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The very leaders who were entrusted with the responsibility of creating an ideal state, which will bring maximum benefit to the actual workers whether in paddy fields or factories, had forsaken their ideals and started behaving like dictators. Far worse, the party cadres had got involved in looting and plundering the very people who they were supposed to liberate from capitalist oppression. Instead of the workers state, which Mao had envisaged, the administration had deteriorated to the extent that the new rulers had become oppressors. Mao, who was then the head of the communist party and enjoyed absolute power over both the party and the administration discovered, that he was increasingly helpless in trying to control the officials and party cadres. What was meant to be the People’s Republic had become a monster which was oppressing and repressing the very people they were expected to serve.