Burning garbage
Burning of garbage including waste papers and plastic bags has become a common practice in different locations. In Ponda, municipal workers engaged in sweeping the streets often indulge in this practice. As a result, travellers and pedestrians proceeding along the road face great inconvenience and trouble due to the smoke emerging from burnt garbage. Besides, burning of garbage inside the dustbins is also a common practice. On Saturday, November 14 (at 6:10 pm), garbage was found burning inside a concrete dustbin situated adjacent to ‘pay parking area’ at Mangueshim. The spot is in the vicinity of Shree Manguesh temple. The emerging smoke was quite large and caused inconvenience to pedestrians proceeding along this area at that particular moment. I hereby sincerely request the concerned authorities to take a serious note of the above undesirable practice and initiate favourable action against persons involved in burning garbage along the road side.
Pravin U Sardessai, Adpai
Trust deficit
I refer to your Editorials and the detailed account of the two citizen journalists on Fr. Bismarque’s death. Friends and admirers of the priest, except a few, have not asserted that it was a case of murder but only raised suspicions because of the threats he received and were not taken cognizance of, and his relentless fight against the powerful to save our land and the environment. Though you may want us to believe the version of the two boys as gospel truth, those who knew Fr. Bismarque well, are not prepared to buy their entire story. You have chosen not to question the absence of one of the boys from home for two days, and to ignore lapses of the Police on the threats and in failing to collect fingerprints from the beer bottles, etc. The Police in Goa are well known for taking serious issues very lightly and conducting shoddy investigations which have in the past allowed many guilty people to go scot free. Their lapses and casual attitude and approach to problems of the people, even in the present case, are subject of regular criticism in the Press.
Jose Maria Miranda, Margao
Someone is guilty
Your front page story a few days ago mentions that "someone" had filed a Rs 1 crore defamation suit against the late Fr. Bismarque 10 days before his death, and that he had approached his friend Adv. Andre Pereira for advice. Who is this "someone"? Someone powerful and influential? A politician or a developer? It stands to reason that whoever slapped this suit on Fr. Bismarque wanted to muzzle his voice on some issue. What was the issue? What was deemed defamatory? More importantly, are the cops taking cognizance of this angle? It just might turn out to be a turning point in solving this vexed case. That is, if they seriously want to.
Ahmed Bunglowala, Mapusa
Fight communalism
That Islamic State has its people across the world and even in India is quite common knowledge, but we have to refrain from getting into communal mode because that’s exactly what they want. The minute we start to marginalise the Muslim community we will play into IS’ hands and automatically give them recruits on a silver platter. The more the Indian government works towards refuting claims of intolerance and accommodating communities in the country, the better chance we have to defeating radical forces that want to harm humanity.
Bhushan Kamat, Panaji
Sunday party
I and along my senior citizen colleagues, happened to visit Garcia de Orta late evening on Sunday and surprisingly I have noticed that the garden was almost turned into bar and restaurant. It is a pity that CCP acts blind to this, least bothered about what will happen to this garden provided money comes in.
What is more interesting is that our regular clubs like Nacional , Vasco de Gama , Club Gaspar Dias etc have become dormant because the government imposes all kind of taxes etc and the spirit of entertainment which we had before is disappearing day by day. Garcia de Orta was earlier used for entertainment , relaxing for children and senior citizens. What we see now is just eating , drinking and playing with plants and using the garden for keeping plastic chairs and tables in the garden for drinking and eating. You will see how these outsiders or so called migrants are enjoying our garden and can be seen eating pork etc and drinking all sort of hard liquor. If such trend continues than Panaji Smart City will be turned into drunk city and Garcia de Orta will have to be closed down.
Stephen Dias, Dona Paula
