For more than 36 hours the fires were raging in the forests of Satre in Sattari, yet Forest Minister Vishwajit Rane remained cool and unperturbed. The Holi holiday, however, snapped a brain cell and the Sultan of Sattari swung into action, even taking to the skies to aerially take stock and lead the fight against the wildfires.
The manner in which Rane switched into a frenzy of action, rattling out instructions to his forest officers, giving out updates on the fires on Twitter and roping in the choppers of the Navy, even riding one to view from the skies the fires, left us wondering what it was that triggered the minister.
The answer wasn't difficult to find. It so happened that on Holi day, rather night, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant convened a meeting of the Disaster Management Authority at Morlem, where he began calling the shots and listing out the action to be taken even as reports were pouring in that the forest fires were spreading.
Known to be extremely sensitive to being seen as subservient to his boss, Rane swung into action and whatever he did, he made sure it got seen in the public domain. Be it the discussions with his forest officials, the Navy men and his chopper ride over the hills of his own Sattari turf.
Clearly, the wildfires had Rane on fire, but not without his boss Sawant adding the fuel to it. At the end of the near one-week saga, he didn't fail to sign off with the cherry on the cake with a tweet: 1. Since 2 pm, no fresh fires recorded.
2. With the combined effortsof a team from forest, fire department and local residents, as well as aerial efforts of IAF and Indian Navy helicopters, the intensity of all seven active fires has been reduced.
3. Adequate manpower is being used to moniter the active fire area closely.
Light at the end of the tunnel?
For several years it has been a saga of disappointment after disappointment for Goa and especially for the State's sports world. Now, however, there seems to be some light at the end of the dark tunnel -- the National Games will finally be held here this year.
The team of the Indian Olympic Association (IOA) which came here to check on Goa's preparedness to host the marquee Indian sports event has given its stamp of approval and announced that Goa is indeed "ready" with the infrastructure.
Sports Minister Govind Gaude could not hide his emotion and was all smiles when the IOA team's Amitabh Sharma showered praise on him. We are however wondering what it was that triggered the minister into a smiling tizzy: Was it the wholesome words of praise from Sharma or is it the prospect of presiding over the hosting of the event, a fat fund allocation for which the Chief Minister has already publicly committed, will be made in the State budget.
Any which way you may look at it, Govind wins. Let's hope Goa's athletes and sports as a whole, also win. Fingers crossed.
Mapusa gets Shigmo on
Sunday but has it won?
It was something that even we got wrong. And we believe in giving the devil his due. The government did the unthinkable and gave in to the demands of a handful of Mapusa residents to hold the Shigmo parade on a Sunday.
If you look at it, the decision to meet the CM seems to have done the trick for the group of diehard citizens.
The good dotor called the Tourism Minister in the presence of the residents and the rest was history.
The opposition as usual was quick to lampoon the local MLA Joshua D'Souza on the achievement.
"What Mapusa MLA could not, residents of Mapusa did," said opposition councillor Shashank Narvekar, who is incidentally the Vice President of Mapusa Shigmotsav Mandal. So Mapusa will have the parade on a Sunday along with Porvorim.
But the big question is how will the floats be divided between the two centres. The floats coming from the South and even Tiswadi will apparently prefer Porvorim rather than Mapusa due to proximity of the former. Or will we be proved wrong yet again?
Well, let's wait and watch whether holding the parade on Sunday was indeed a victory or not.
