FOTASHI
For more than two months, Vishwajit Rane as TCP Minister was turning out to be a darling of Goa's green lobby and why not?
Mangroves, hill slopes, agricultural lands, orchards and forests, which had for decades been pried upon by the ever prospering real estate lobby via the corruption-tainted Town and Country Planning Department had finally found a champion of green causes in the new TCP Minister, or so it seemed.
His bold move to suspend three Outline Development Plans (ODPs) alleging large scale irregularities was music to the ears of many a green activists.
Then comes this bombshell. Golf courses, film cities and farmhouses are now the flavour of the TCP department. All by nature, projects which are mega in scale, will again make otherwise pristine non-settlement chunks of Goan land hot cakes for the pro-development lobby.
The farmhouse push, for instance, will enable landowners whose land is otherwise useless (in the lucrative real estate way) make it useful. In late May, Rane, had gone hammer and tongs against swathes of green cover being shaved off the famed Vagheri hill in his Sattari.
It didn't matter to him that his own father Pratapsing Rane was among several relatives in the list of 'land owners' who had initiated a legal process to promote an eco-tourism project there. An RFO was suspended, a Deputy Conservator of Forest put on notice and he moved to declare the hill an 'eco-sensitive zone'.
Old habits die hard, they say, and the farmhouse policy is the son's way of smoking the peace pipe with dad, apparently. Blood is indeed thicker than water.
Clash of the titans in Calangute (Michael pic+ Joseph Sequeira)
Calangute, the richest of them all, will once again see a fierce contest and a clash of the titans at the August 10 panchayat elections.
Former Calangute sarpanch Joseph Sequeira and his bête noire Calangute MLA Michael Lobo are back in action at the opposite corners of the ring to prove their might.
After winning Calangute three times on the trot, Lobo is the undisputed raja of the constituency. But holding the reins of this richest panchayat body in the State is very crucial for him.
Five years ago, Sequeira had to eat humble pie after Lobo’s panel swept the local body polls and the former sarpanch himself lost to a novice in his own ward.
But Lobo was then part of the government and he had his way even while drawing the contours of the wards in the delimitation process. This time, the boot is on the other foot. He is now in the opposition and Sequeira is a member of the BJP and had his say in delimitation and reservation of wards.
Unmindful of the circumstances, the Calangute MLA went ahead and announced his panel ‘Together for Calangute’ with much fanfare under full media glare. Not to be left behind, Sequeira too launched his campaign with a tag line ‘Together We Achieve’.
While Lobo’s punch line was no harassment and no sending notices to villagers, a clear reference to previous panchayats under Sequeira’s reign, the former Calangute sarpanch is running a series of social media campaigns one of which said: ‘They are responsible to turn Calangute into Sex Tourist Destination. Don’t let them ruin our village’, a clear reverse jab on, you know who.
With four more days to go, the campaign is set to get only shriller.
Luizinho making the right noises (Luizinho pic)
Suddenly, the old warhorse from Salcete Luizinho Faleiro is finding his voice on matters Goan and has in the last few days hit the news with a series of questions raised by him in the House of elders.
Unusual for a man who over the last decade or so been known more for his silence rather than his otherwise eloquent speech. Remember his famous "I am in tapasya" riposte to refrain from wading into any political controversy since 2007?
Coal transportation, the cause of retiring seamen, the unemployment crisis. Faleiro is indeed on a roll and seemingly on the path to making up with his loyal pro-Congress constituency in Salcete which he so mysteriously alienated with his sudden, pre-election switch to Mamata's TMC.
Tendulkar chases rats, cockroaches on trains
At a time when Luizinho Faleiro is seemingly well on his way to finding his own, the other Goan in the Rajya Sabha, Vinay Tendulkar, is finding his.
The lone MP elected to the Rajya Sabha from Goa (Faleiro has been elected from Kolkata) had an innocuous question raised -- on rodents and cockroaches keeping company to passengers on trains in India.
Tendulkar wanted to know what the Railway authorities were doing to get rid of these pests and make life better for railway commuters on their journeys. The riposte he got from the government was: When we find them, we get rid of them with pest control measures.
Concern for railway commuters is indeed fine, but how about some pest control for rodents and cockroaches swarming our political arenas?
(Compiled by Ashley do Rosario with inputs from Agnelo Pereira)
