After a lull, the speculation of a possible reshuffle of the cabinet by Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has made a comeback to prime time in the media, thanks to an impromptu visit to the State by the Bharatiya Janata Party's national general secretary B L Santosh.
While the buzz is that at least two of three defector-legislators who are yet to bag a loaf or fish of office -- Digambar Kamat, Aleixo Sequeira and Michael Lobo -- are likely to be rehabilitated, the question on everyone's mind is, when.
The biggest hurdle faced by Sawant is which two from his current team he will show the door. A little birdie, which often perches itself on the mango tree in the garden of 'Mahalaxmi', the CM's official Altinho residence, was heard twitting that a couple of big names facing criminal charges in courts may be on the radar.
With numbers on his side, pulling off the reshuffle should have hardly been a worry for Sawant. But then as Goa has proved time and again since the 1990s, politics is not exclusively about arithmetic and numbers and two plus two does not make up four. It sometimes triggers a nuclear reaction kind of an outcome and even ends up into a zero instead of four.
Covid upsurge: no one cares
The daily count of fresh Covid-19 cases reported in Goa have witnessed a sudden upsurge but there is no sign of any alarm or urgency in any quarter -- either in the government circles or among the people -- perhaps because no fatalities have been reported other than a solitary death reported earlier this week.
Nonetheless, the Directorate of Health Services has issued its advisory a salient feature of which is the mask policy and self-regulated home isolation if symptoms like cough, cold and fever are experienced. But beyond issuing the advisory there is little inclination the health authorities and the administration are showing to step in.
As for the advisory to mask-up, citizens in Panaji have a reason other than the fear of contracting Covid-19, to follow the diktat -- the dust pollution triggered by the haphazard and extensive road excavations carried out throughout the city's internal roads for much-touted 'smart city' work.
Road accidents the new epidemic?
The Covid-19 upsurge notwithstanding, it's the road mishaps that are proving to be more lethal in Goa than the dreaded Coronavirus which drove the world into a complete disruptive mode for over two years.
In the first three months this year, that is from January to March, Goa has witnessed 91 deaths. This is nearly double of the total number of deaths reported in the same three months last year.
A total of 751 accidents have been reported in the State in the 90 day period as against a higher 781 last year. However, fatal mishaps this year were a massive 86 resulting in 91 deaths. Last year, the fatal mishaps in these three months were 49 killing 53 people.
And with the traffic chaos, Atal Setu et al, showing no sign of improving anytime soon, it's not Covid-19 but road accidents that the government will have to come up with advisories against. Sooner the better.
Who will eliminate the political touts?
The State government seems anxious to eliminate the 'touts' from the watersports ecosystem on Goa's beaches.
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant and Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte had been vociferous on the topic during the just concluded budget session of the Goa legislative assembly. They argue that the chaos in the business is denting the State's competitive edge and tourists are looking at alternatives up North in Sindhudurg and Malwan.
The operators in the business, however, are not amused. While the argument appears all very logical on paper, they argue that the ground reality is something else and are stiffly resisting the government move to bring them all under the tutelage of the Goa Electronics Limited (GEL) to roll out a queue system for the operations.
This is yet another battle between the government and a tourism stakeholder to watch out for after the one between the taxiwallas and the establishment.
Touts are villains no doubt. But there's a very thin line separating them and a more organised avtaar called 'commission agents'.
Switch to the political field and they take an even more sophisticated avtaar -- liaison -- and in some cases a more formal 'OSD' (officer on special duty). None will dare talk of eliminating them.
