Urgent Information Needed!

Mahalaxmi Bhobe, the social worker from the government run Institute Of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour (IPHB) in Bambolim has asked us to enlist the help of netters from Goa to try and locate the sister of a patient in the institute.

The patient's name is Lucy Fernandes and is around 60 years old.
Her parents were Caitan & Marie Therese Fernandes.
Her present caretaker, Francis Fernandes lives in Reis Magos.

**Lucy's sister Juliet and her husband Bernard D'Souza now live in Canada.**

They used to live in Saligao's, market area (Tinto/Khotla).

Bernard's father was a professional cook.

***Urgently needed: Lucy and Bernard's contact details in Canada.***

Kindly leave any relevant information in the comment link below.

Thanks in advance for your concern.

anOTHERclip

This is anOTHERvideo clip....

It is called 'Save Goa From Destruction', a 40 second, silent movie by a publisher named 'GoaClips'.

Says the producer: "It is a video depicting the destruction of Goa's natural surroundings if the wrong people come to power...."

This clip was made before that fateful electoral day on 2 June 2007...

It leaves you speechless to know how powerfully you can say something in just 40 seconds...without uttering a word!

Let this 40 second video scream at you!



Well, well, well...so going by the current, dysenteric 'tamasha' in the sewers of power (that is what those hallowed corridors have been reduced to) do we have the wrong people in power once again, or do we have the wrong people in power?!

Thanks GoaClip for a brilliant plea!

HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI DAY OBSERVATION

The Department of Geography of Smt. Parvatibai Chowgule College, Margao, Goa, in collaboration with Coalition for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace (CNDP), Goa and Nature, Environment, Society & Transformation (NEST), Goa, will observe Hiroshima-Nagasaki Day on Thursday, 9th August 2007.

The programme for the day is given below.

All are requested to participate and show your solidarity.

Dr N N Sawant,
Co-ordinator.

Smt. Parvatibai Chowgule College of Arts & Science. Margao. Goa.
Department of Geography

Programme

HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI DAY OBSERVATION
Thursday, 9th August 2007

Chief Guest:
Adv. Bernard D’Souza

Guest of Honour:
Shri. Prasanna Utagi

Special Invitees:
Tarika & Suhail Kiran
(Save The Planet Club, Saligao.)

Venue: Smt. Parvatibai Hall
Time: 10.00 am - 1.00 pm.

All staff and students please join and show your solidarity.

-------------------------------------

Schedule for the day:

Inauguration: 10.15-10.30

Talk by the guest of honour: 10.30-11.00

Description, story and song
by Special Invitees: 11.00-11.30

Talk by the chief guest: 11.30-11.45
Film Screening: 11.45-12.15
Discussion: Till 12.45
LUNCH
Panel discussion: 2.00-3.15 pm
Panelists: Dr. Dasgupta,
Sebastian Rodrigues and Prassana Utagi

As a part of Hiroshima-Nagasaki Day observation, the GLOBE (Geographers Loving Our Beautiful Environment) Goa, of Geography Department is organising an essay writing competition on the following topic:

*Nuclear Development v/s Environment & Humanity*

-------------------------------------

New Feature: *anOTHERviewpoint*

One of the regular features at anOTHERgoa will be *anOTHERviewpoint*.

This time we carry an interestingly new political analysis of the latest 'tamasha' in Goa.

It is titled: Tyranny Of the Representatives.

"In Goa, the political economy of land is distorting the institutions and practices of democracy..." says the author, Delhi based Prof. Peter Ronald deSouza.

While in Goa, many knew him simply as Peter Ronnie when he taught at Goa University till a few years ago. He always was a good political analyst, in touch with grassroots democracy in Goa.

Check out his viewpoint: click on the link anOTHERviewpoint in the list on your right.

But before that, read a little more about this gentle Goan who has made a name for himself in political academia:

Peter Ronald deSouza is Visiting Senior Fellow at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. He is Co-director of the Lokniti programme and is currently coordinating the State of Democracy in South Asia (SDSA) project. He is working on two components of the SDSA project: the Case studies and the Dialogues.

Professor deSouza taught in the Political Science Department at Goa University for 16 years. He was head of the Department from 1996 to 2002.

He was a member of the International Political Science Association's Research Committees on Political Philosophy and Political Sociology and was a member to the University Grants Commission's expert panel in political science from 1997 to 2000.

Professor deSouza was awarded the British Council Visitorship to the U.K. where he made presentations at LSE, SOAS, Warwick and Sussex University in 1992. In March 2000 he was a Visiting Professor at Birkbeck College, London University, and in May 2001 he was a Visiting scholar at the Taubman Centre, KennedyProfessor Peter Ronald deSouza is a Senior Fellow the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) in Delhi School of Government, Harvard University.

He is a member of the Editorial Committee for Indian Council for Social Science Research Survey on trends in Political Science and on the of Indian Journal of Social Science Review. He was part of the team that did a review of Social Science Research Capacity in South Asia for the Social Science Research Council, New York.

Professor deSouza has worked as a consultant to the World Bank on Rural Decentralisation, to the Ford Foundation on Local government in India, and to the International Institute of Democracy and Electoral Assistance (International-IDEA) in preparing their handbook on Democracy Assessment.

Impressed?

Now read him @ anOTHERviewpoint, near the top of the list of links on your right...

anOTHERchuckle With Alexyz

After over 10 years of www activity in Goa, someone at last realised that Alexyz needed to make the scene in cyberspace. It took Goa Sudharop - Goa's out-of-town, expat NGO - with one lone representative in the state, to recognise that Alexyz should have a website to showcase his work on the global stage.

Goa Sudharop, thanks for your sensitivity to the communication needs of those of us who are not yet IT savvy.

Alexyz is Goa's cartoonist. He really is anOTHERcartoonist in Goa. No glitz, glamour or slick high brow humour for him.

Alexyz is an earthy cartoonist. His humour is down-to-the-red-earth of Goa. It is straight out of the village and its vaddos. No subtlety. No truth hiding around the corner waiting to suddenly spring on you. No mental strain to read between the lines.

(click pic to enlarge)

Alexyz pokes fun up front. His message hits you between the eyes. He makes his point strongly and leaves nothing to the immagination. That is why the common person in the vaddo can identify with his creations.

(click pic to enlarge)

From today we carry Alexyz's "Cartoon Of The Day" as a separate link to his well designed site. 6 days a week, Monday through Saturday, you can get anOTHERchuckle for today...and much more.

Get it NOW...click on the first link right on top of the list to your right.

Savio Jolted By Underground Cabling!

Savio Fernandes (Nigvaddo, Saligao/UAE) was sufficiently jolted to get his creative, cartooning juices flowing with the following post:

Dear M&M,

Your report on the "Underground Cabling" issue realy gave me a jolt and I thought of writing on the issue.

Well, I have not written this time but have edited your website photos with bubble quotes alongside. You may use them online if you are fine with it. Apologies for not taking your permission before using the photographs :-(



I have been a freelancer cartoonist for the Times of India (Goaplus) and Herald, but I have been on the back burner of late due to my hectic work...I need to devote more time to my hobby again and would cherish the opportunity of contributing to your website on a freelancing basis if permitted..

Would also like to appreciate and thank you for the great work done by you and all Saligaonetters by keeping Saligao alive through the web.

Thanks & Brgds,

Savio.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

M&M's reply:

No need for permission to use any of the material on anOTHERgoa. It is all in the public domain; as long as you acknowledge the source (if possible), you are free to do anything you want with them for Saligao's and Goa's sake.

You are most welcome to contribute to anOTHERgoa. Just send us your creations and we will put them up if they are broadly within our mission statement. The only thing is they will not fetch you any income on our blog as it is unsponsored and done purely in the public interest. We believe that, "Information is power and it must be shared equitably." The idea is to empower people with information so that they can take the action they see fit.

You could also get back to cartooning for Herald and Gomantak Times as these are papers that would encourage your kind of humour. This way you could also earn from your hobby. With everything done online, sending them your work is really easy. Drop Rico/Fred a line and he will guide you.

We are sending you the original pictures so that you have more space for your blurbs. Please blurb as many of them as you want and send them back to us. We will put them up @ anOTHERgoa immediately.

Thanks for your appreciation, but what we do in Saligao is just part of being villagers in Goa...

Solidarity.

M&M.

Future Shock: GED, L&T And PGCIL Keep An Entire Village In Suspense!

Anytime after their new underground electricity cables are charged, residents from Saligao, Goa, may well be in for a surprise. And it will not be pleasant, because it could shock them into an Intensive Care Unit if not straight into the next world. Instead of cool, life-giving water gushing from Saligao’s taps, villagers do not know when 11,000 volts (11 KVA) of raw, electric power will zap and toast them to a crisp. The suspense itself is shocking!

There is a running feud between Larsen & Toubro (L&T) the company that bagged the prestigious contract for the underground cabling in Goa and their sub-contractors who are actually digging and installing the cables here in Saligao. The dispute ensured that the 11 KVA cable criss-crossed water pipelines in Tabravaddo, while in neighbouring Donvaddo, residents claimed they were laid squarely on top of a network of 4 water pipes under a narrow road. No one has a clue where the cables are being laid in the rest of the village, least of all the local Public Works Department-Water (PWD) that maintains the water pipes in Saligao.

In this high suspense drama, where the main players are the
Goa Electricity Department (GED) as the owner of the project, L&T as contractors, with the Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd. (PGCIL) as consultants, no one, especially the GED know what is happening.

There is no one from GED on site to ensure safe procedures. When we talked to one engineer from GED, he was shocked to hear of the safety measures employed and asked us to write a complaint to the engineer looking after the 11 KVA lines in this area.

There also is no coordination between L&T and the Telephone (BSNL), PWD-Water and PWD-Roads departments. For instance, when the digging was started on our road opposite St. Anne's chapel, the local PWD-Water supervisor was not called in to point out the exact location of the water pipes.

L&T have instructed the digging contractors to maintain a minimum of 300 mm or 1 foot distance between the cable and the nearest water pipeline. "If the distance is not available, a partition of loose bricks will be constructed by the side of the pipeline to separate the 11 KVA cable", says Jayshanker, L&T's engineer in charge of the Saligao project (see Jayshanker's diagram of the 300 mm distance).

We insisted that Santosh Mandrekar, the supervisor in charge of PWD's water department in Saligao, meet Jayshanker at the site outside our house a few days ago. Mandrekar pointed out the future danger of local PWD staff working on a damaged pipeline next to the 11 KVA power cable. "If by mistake my worker's pick axe digs into the power cable, in a trench filled with water, can you imagine what will happen? Not only will my worker be electrocuted instantly, but every pipeline and tap in the village will immediately be charged with 11,000 volts of electricity!" (see pics showing leak caused by cable digging and emptying of trench after valves were shut)

Jayshanker assured Mandrekar that adequate precautions will be taken and that wherever the11 KVA cable crosses water lines, the cable will be put under the pipeline at a safe distance. This however does not seem to be happening at all places, as the digging contractors are refusing to dig deeper or broader to maintain the 300 mm safe distance when they come across a water pipeline. It was only when we insisted that they reluctantly installed the cables under the pipelines outside our house.

This means that if local citizens do not supervise and insist on the 11 KVA cable being laid below the water pipes, or a safe 300 mm away, we may just have the cable lazily laid above them or too close to them. There they will lie in wait, like a mass death trap for unsuspecting Saligaokars in future (see pictures of cables laid on, side-by-side or just below the water pipe).

Opposite our house we had decided to jump into the trench and physically stop the work if better sense did not prevail on L&T and its local digging contractors. Some safety measures were employed like laying the cables under the pipe instead of over, as had been planned. But the safety measures are far from adequate as can be seen from the accompanying pics. We actually have a potential 'gramicide' (extermination of a whole village, where 'gram' means village!).

We spent 4 entire days to ensure that at least some semblance of safety was maintained on the cables being laid from St. Anne's Chapel to the transformer by the side of our house. Time and time again we have had to liaise between and call for common meetings between local PWD staff, digging contractors, panchayat member and L&T. And then to the extent humanly possible, we actually supervised that the maximum safe distance is maintained between the power and water lines.

Dr. Wilfred D'Souza , our previous MLA and Deputy Chief Minister who brought the underground cabling to Saligao has been informed. Bhola Ghadi, the local panchayat member is aware of this dangerous situation and is with the villagers to avert any potential danger to lives in future. We raised the issue at the Gram Sabha yesterday and asked for a Panchayat member to oversee the entire operation in the village. Last evening, we also met the new MLA, Dilip Parulekar who has promised to take up the matter at higher levels.

We hope the madness will end somewhere…sometime!

Maybe when the High Court appoints a Friend Of The Court to investigate...??

~~~~~~~~~~

Besides following the links in the above report,
one can also tackle this potential, shocking danger
by contacting these officials:

Shri. K. P. Nambiar
Principal Chief Engineer (PWD)
Tel: 0832-2224984, 2422901, 2226443,
2226342, 2222607, 2225515.
~~~~~
Shri. Nirmal Braganza
Chief Electrical Engineer (Elect. Dept.):
Tel: 0832-2224680, 2426986, 2426421.
~~~~~
S C Jamir
Governor of Goa
Tel: 0832-2453506, 2453507, 2453508
Fax: 0832-2453510
~~~~~
Digambar Kamat
Chief Minister
~~~~~
Shri. J P Singh, IAS
Chief Secretary
Government of Goa
Tel: 0832-2419402
Fax: 0832-2415201
~~~~~
Registrar - High Court of Mumbai at Goa
~~~~~
Jack Coelho
Sarpanch - Saligao
Tel. (Panchayat Ghar): 0832-2278374
********************