Freedom fighters must earn respect. Fighting one regime doesn’t earn perennial admiration, says
DR FRANCISCO COLAÇO.

Reproduced here are newspaper accounts of the Opinion Poll fervour that led to Goa retaining its unique identity and rejecting the plans to merge with neighbouring Maharashtra.

The former tourism minister of Goa, Matanhy Saldanha, feels that tourism is a leech that sucks the wealth out of Goa. Saldanha related his sentiments at a seminar on ‘Regional Plan 2021 - Imagining Goa’s future’ held in New Delhi on September 18, 2010.

There are allegations that Roy Ravi Naik has been extending patronage and protection to drug peddlers and organizers of rave parties. Should Ravi Naik be asked to step down as Home Minister just as the NCP directed Mickky Pacheco to resign from the cabinet over charges of abetting Nadia Torrado’s suicide? There is no smoke without fire is the public response to Goan Observer.

Once one of Mickky Pacheco’s ‘Men Friday’, CALVERT GONSALVES, recounts his experiences with the former tourism minister.

THE WORD opprobrium comes from Latin, meaning “the disgrace attached to conduct considered shameful”. I couldn’t find a more appropriate word to describe what the newspapers have been reporting over the last two or three weeks. Take the issue dominating the headlines at the moment: the Bhopal tragedy. We are consumed with how and why Anderson got away. There is hardly any coverage of the fact that the health consequences were and continue to be grossly underestimated. MIC (Methyl Isocyanate) not only caused immediate fatalities, but continues to do so over the years, often in the most excruciatingly painful manner.

BY SUJOY GUPTA

THE HISTORY of India is pockmarked with tales of backstabbing and backbiting. Of shallow traitors who have destroyed what heroes attempted to create. When Muhammed bin Qasim attacked Dahir of Sindh, it was Dahir’s astrologers who joined hands with the Muslim invaders to facilitate their first intrusion in India after defeating Dahir. Then traitor Jaichand backstabbed the warrior Prithivraj Chauhan. Jaichand joined hands with Mohammad Ghori to ensure Chauhan’s defeat.

GOA, WHICH shot into prominence as a seaside holiday destination, is slowly turning into a place which is famous for dance, drugs and crime. The paradox is that, with the advancement and progress in the tiny state, conflicts and tensions have increased in direct proportion. It is the job of the state to deal with these conflicts and tensions and, in case of crimes, to bring the offenders to book.

WAKING up to a rather paradoxical truth that when we, as a nation, could cross swords with the British Empire for freedom from all sorts of bonds, and gain it too, the efforts by successive governments to deny legitimate rights to its citizens who are bracketed as ‘minorities’ for their scattered presence in the statistical report of the country’s population census, has only facilitated a further division of the nation on the lines of religion(s).

TO COMMEMORATE the dual celebrations of August 15 - the 62nd anniversary of India’s independence - and the feast of the Assumption of Blessed Virgin Mary, an essay competition in Roman Konkani was held at Our Lady of Merces Church, Merces.