The high-pitched tu-tu-mein-mein between the two principal political parties in Goa in the run-up to the assembly elections, and later, in the early weeks post the results is a by-gone it seems. Rather than being at daggers drawn at each other, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress, which is the principal Opposition party, have seemingly gravitated to a common ground on deferring the conduct of the panchayat elections, seamlessly.
From announcing initially that the elections will be held on time, that is ahead of when the terms of the current village-level self-government bodies ends in June, the Panchayat Minister Mauvin Godinho, changed stands multiple times to now firmly announce they will be held after monsoons.
A Supreme Court order on the manner in which ward reservations for OBCs must be allocated was latched on to justify the move. One would have thought, the Opposition would grab the opportunity to go hammer and tongs at the minister. Quiet to the contrary, however, the minister and the government got support from the Congress for the move to postpone the polls.
Opposition Leader, Michael Lobo, in fact, 'demanded' that the polls be postponed to ensure that the ward reservations are done judiciously as per the directions of the Supreme Court. It leaves us wondering if the otherwise boisterous and vociferous Bardez don has lost his bearings in his quest for cover against the ballistic missiles directed towards him and his MLA-wife Delilah by the TCP Minister Vishwajit Rane.
Of Lit fests, economists and Hindutva flavour
The country's economy may be under stress, the rupee tumbling and prices of fuel and essentials skyrocketing but Bibek Debroy, who heads the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, is not one to be bogged down by the rigours of managing a tanking economy.
Debroy spent the entire weekend in Goa pursuing his passion, and it wasn't economics. Yes, you heard it right. Not economics but mythology.
Over the two days of the last weekend, Debroy graced the opening ceremony, delivered a key-note address, released a book and also graced the closing ceremony of the Kumaon Literary Festival which had a heavy brush of saffron all over it.
At the lit fest, Debroy held forth on Indian mythology, Translating the Ancient Text: The Place of Mythology in the Popular Consciousness, was the title of his key-note address at the inaugural where Goa's Governor PS Sreedharan Pillai, was the chief guest.
To be fair to him though, apart from his core competency which we believe is economics, Debroy has 'translated' the unabridged version of the Mahabharata into English in 10 volumes, the Bhagavad Gita, the Harivamsa, the Vedas and Valmiki's Ramayana (in three volumes).
He has also translated the Bhagavata Purana (in three volumes), the Markandeya Purana (one volume) and the Brahma Purana (two volumes).
For now, at a time when gloom is hovering at the horizons for India on the economic front, we hope his economic advice is not lost in translation as it traverses the passage from North Block which houses the Economic Advisory Council he heads and the South Block where the office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is.
Gandhi to Godse: The fall of Goa's bureaucracy
Remember the time when you walked into a government office and were not surprised to find a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi on the wall behind the official you went to meet?
In the rapidly changing times that we are living in, Gandhi's killer Nathuram Godse appears to have become the flavour of the season for a section of the State's bureaucracy. The precursor of obvious change are the small slips that tend to show.
The slip in this case is a Whatsapp status put up by a Grade I state services officer on May 19, the birth anniversary of Nathuram Godse. The officer put up this black and white photo of Nathuram Godse which describes the latter as an 'amar veer' 'immortal brave', while also attributing the man convicted for the killing of Gandhi with the prefix of 'Pandit'.
Perhaps the official was following the State administration's cue of restoration of the old civilisational glory and ham-handedly replacing peer-reviewed history and restoring it with Whatsapp university dribble.
How's the josh?
It's becoming a legacy too heavy to handle for current PWD Minister Nilesh Cabral to handle. And the josh? Well, as low as the depth of the biggest pothole, perhaps.
Inaugurated with much fanfare and 'josh' despite his failing health then by the late Manohar Parrikar, the Rs 850-plus crore 'Atal Setu' is proving to be quite a blot on his legacy and an embarrassment for his successor, Chief Minister Pramod Sawant.
Day in and day out, these days, the bridge has been making headlines for the wrong reasons: mishaps and misses owing to the many potholes on its surface. Unfortunately, it is Cabral who has to do the fire-fighting and face the brunt, even as the legion of Parrikar acolytes, rumoured to have scrapped off dollops of the bitumen, tar and cement that went into building the signature bridge, are nowhere around to face the brick-bats.
Cabral, meanwhile, has played his strongest hand, relying ironically on Parrikar's alma-mater -- Indian Institute of Technology -- to find the remedy for the ailing 'Atal Setu'. The only issue however is that the crux of Atal Setu's problem could hardly be technical or any matter of design but one related to the direction in which the moolah actually disappeared.
Gaude's tryst with ghost of Correa prolongs
The ghost of renowned architect the late Charles Correa is refusing to stop haunting Goa's Art and Culture Minister Govind Gaude, it seems. The ongoing renovation work of the iconic Kala Academy edifice, original designed by the world renowned architect, has again stirred up a controversy with Gaude snapping at the Charles Correa Foundation which has red-flagged the secretive manner in which the work is being carried out, fearing it could completely alter the feel and architectural layer of the edifice.
More than a year ago, the battle of wits between Gaude and the Foundation had landed the controversy over the KA's renovation before the Bombay High Court at Goa. The latter ruled that the work can go on, but the renovation must ensure the facets are "preserved".
Now, when the work of the renovation project has reached the stage where the architectural layer is being restored, the Charles Correa Foundation and others have again cautioned of a possible transformation of KA's character and originality. It has left the minister red with rage. We wonder why.
(Compiled by Ashley Do Rosario with inputs from Amit Pokre and Mayabhushan Nagvenkar)
