MARHABA READERS. The week gone by was a joyous one as a member of the fake ‘SMS lottery’ gang - a woman - was apprehended by the Goa police. Hope the victim gets back all his money now. The police force needs to tackle such cases as fast as possible. Hopefully the courts don’t show leniency towards the woman just because she is a woman.

IF IT’S good health you’re seeking, it’s here for your taking! More and more businessmen are taking the subject of restoring the good earth seriously and some of them are both enlightened and willing to put their money where their convictions are. Take, for example, businessman extraordinaire, owner and chairman of Mumbai-based tabloid The Afternoon Despatch & Courier, Mr. Kamal Morarka. He has been working hard to inspire a collective of farmers in presumably where he hails from i.e. the Shekhawati region of Nawalgarh, near Jaipur in Rajasthan. Under the guidance of the Morarka Foundation set up by him, he has motivated hundreds of farmers to switch over to organic farming seriously…

WHO’S NOT complaining or grumbling about the heat these days?! May must be the hottest and most humid month of them all although here in Goa the coastal breezes offer some soothing relief and that too if you live by the beachside and life is a beach! Summer time is definitely the time to be by the beachside. While the countryside homes with open spaces around makes life less oppressive weather wise, urban homes can become veritable hell holes. Cities are where folk look for ways to beat the heat the most! For most of us, it’s not practical or economical to live in air-conditioned premises round the clock.

WHAT IS a woman’s place in modern-day times? Should women strive to be equal to men or to be like men? And why do men have a pathological fear of women!? These and many other pertinent and provocative questions came up at the 2nd Regional Women’s Assembly at the Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in Panaji on March 27, 2009. This was a Western India Region of YMCAs meet and speakers included chief guest Shashikala Kakodkar (Goa’s second chief minister and only woman chief minister to date), Vivek Aranha (chairman of the Western Region YMCAs), Rajiv John (national secretary-programs, New Delhi), advocate Joseph Vaz (president, Goa YMCA, Panaji), Farida Dias (chairperson, Regional Women’s Forum) and various other speakers unhappy about the status of women in India.

IT IS true that all kinds of exhibitions set up shop in Goa regularly and many homemakers who’re up to date with the times love frequenting these exhibitions where presumably one may get qualitatively better goods. This year’s grand combo exhibition organised by MSME-Development Institute (GOI), Goa Chamber of Commerce & Industry’s Women’s Wing and the Goa Panchayat Mahila Shaakti Abhiyan promised a lot vis-à-vis variety and quality of goods of household interest…and the three-day exhibition advertised in the local media from March 20-23, 2009, was even extended by another day when one managed to catch up with it.

THEY HAVE some interesting lectures at the Fundaçao Oriente if you’d like to become a member! Recently, there was Prof. Timothy Walker speaking on “An Indo-Portuguese Medieval Garden in Goa (1580-1830)” who offered fascinating insight into the subject of a mutual exchange and trade vis-à-vis medicinal herbs, and special medicinal gardens attached to the hospitals of old in Goa and other erstwhile Portuguese colonies. Gardens were something both the Moghul and European rulers were interested in and if you’re asking me all gardens big or small are medicinal and therapeutic in nature regardless of whether they grow medicinal herbs for hospital use or spices for culinary purposes or are just extraordinarily ornamental or running wild - gardens are vital open spaces in an urban or a rural landscape.

Dairying is a mega industry in India and one of the world’s largest producer of milk – according to the latest Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), worldwide milk production is an estimated 678 million tons out of which Indian’s production is an estimated 106 million tons and the effort is on to double production without too many questions being asked about the quality of dairy milk or a growing array of dairy milk products in the market.

Taking Mahatma Gandhi’s observation that India lives in her villages to heed Tata BP Solar has been playing a key role in improving the quality of life of people in rural India and this has apparently set off a chain reaction vis-à-vis education, boosting health-care, providing much-needed incomes and improving infrastructure.The company has ushered in near grid-quality power to villages in dense forests in Chattisgarh without felling a single tree!

INCREASINGLY, IN a modern urban milieu, women are finding it difficult to get pregnant. There’s also the tendency nowadays to think that the moment a woman gets pregnant she should cease to engage in any work of a physical nature! Many young urban women engaged in sedentary office jobs today think that getting pregnant is more like a disease - when they should protect themselves in cotton wool so that no harm comes to their un-born baby!

WISH GOA had a service like this! The Health Education Library for People, an NGO in Mumbai which runs a spacious modern library dedicated to the lay public seeking to educate itself on the plethora of health problems which make life a painful and unhappy experience