by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Panaji : Even as iron ore extraction and transportation from Goa’s 88 mining leases is due to come to a temporary closure on Thursday following a Supreme Court order, the state government’s Cabinet Advisory Committee on Wednesday recommended filing of a revision petition in the apex court, seeking continuance of mining activity until the state’s mining leases are eventually auctioned.
Speaking to IANS on Wednesday, Agriculture Minister Vijai Sardesai, who is one of the three ministers forming the advisory committee, said the committee had recommended its view to Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, who is currently undergoing treatment for advanced pancreatic cancer in the United States.
“The Chief Minister will take a final decision soon,” Sardesai said.
Sardesai said the Committee had recommended that the state government should approach the Attorney General of India to file the review petition in the Supreme Court as soon as possible.
In its order last month, the apex court had ordered stopping of mining activity in the 88 mining leases from March 15 and directed the state government to issue fresh leases, after completing the necessary environment-related formalities.
An amendment to the Mines and Minerals Regulation and Development Act in 2016 has made auctioning of natural resources mandatory.
The apex court’s decision has triggered a rift in the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition in Goa, with several legislators including BJP MLA from Curchorem assembly constituency Nilesh Cabral.
They accuse both state government as well as National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre of betraying the interests of people depending on the mining industry in Goa by not working quickly enough to prevent iron ore extraction from shutting down on March 15.
Urban Development Minister Francis D’Souza, who is also a member of the Committee, said that auctioning of the mining leases in Goa was the only option vis-a-vis issue of fresh mining leases, but added that until the auctioning process was completed, mining companies currently engaged in ore extraction should be allowed to continue.
Stopping mining, he said, would cause economic losses to the state exchequer as well as to the workforce linked to the mining industry.
D’Souza also said that MLAs from constituencies located in the mining belt would be heading soon-to-be-formed committees which would be tasked with assessing losses caused to individuals and companies linked to mining trade.
“The MLAs heading these committee will be assessing the loss, and welfare schemes started by the Goa government in 2012, when mining was first banned, will be extended to ensure that there is no panic,” D’Souza said. The schemes involved financial doles to owners of truck, which were used to ferry iron ore.
On Tuesday, three MPs from Goa, including Union Minister of State for AYUSH Shripad Naik, met BJP national president Amit Shah and Union Ministers Nitin Gadkari (Shipping) and Narendra Singh (Mines) and urged them to find a solution to the mining imbroglio, which the Goan lawmakers claim will impact the livelihood of over one lakh people.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
By Mayabhushan Nagvenkar,
Panaji : Less than a week after Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar, suffering from pancreatic cancer, was rushed to the US for treatment, his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led coalition government already appears to be shaky and dissent-ridden.
Signs of a seeming implosion in the coalition, caused by the absence of the authoritarian Chief Minister, can be seen in recent statements by not just coalition partners but also by frustrated BJP MLAs, who are now questioning their own party and government’s resolve to find solutions to an impending ban on mining.
BJP MLA Nilesh Cabral is one of the faces of dissent.
Cabral, who has in the past found fault with the government’s will vis-a-vis tackling the mining ban, has now also questioned the protocol created by Parrikar to govern Goa in his absence, which involves a three-minister committee and a slew of powers to Chief Secretary Dharmendra Sharma and Parrikar’s Principal Secretary, P. Krishnamurthy.
“Today, we have practically no government. With due respect to the Chief Minister it is very clear there is no governance happening,” Cabral said. “The CM is not here to take cabinet (meetings) and he has given some powers to the three. Who will chair the meeting? This has become confusing. I do not find any solution in this,” Cabral added.
Cabral represents the Curchorem constituency in the state’s mining belt, which is expected to bear the brunt of the Supreme Court-imposed ban on mining in the coastal state from March 16, to facilitate fresh issue of 88 mining leases.
The BJP MLA also claimed that no visible effort was made by the Goa government to find ways and means to resolve the issue, despite the fact that the Supreme Court order was delivered last month.
Deputy Speaker Michael Lobo, a BJP member, is also openly critical of his government’s lack of decision-making and has subtly dared the party’s central leaders, including Union Minister Nitin Gadkari, to urgently visit Goa and assure the state that a solution would be found to work around the ban.
“The BJP leaders who came down to Goa after the elections like Mr. Gadkari, should come to Goa now and assure the people that there is a plan to solve this problem. Over 100,000 Goans will be affected by the mining ban,” Lobo told IANS.
He also wanted Parrikar, who has already been admitted to a hospital in the US, to urgently speak to the party’s central leadership over phone and implore them to find a solution to the mining imbroglio.
Parrikar, as Chief Minister, has always been known to run a tight ship, cracking down on even the slightest whimper of dissent from his flock. But his absence has now emboldened leaders of the party’s coalition partners.
Deepak Dhavalikar, president of the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, following a meeting of its central committee, has raised a question mark over the future of the alliance — especially due to the severe nature of Parrikar’s ailment.
“Till he is the Chief Minister, we are there with the government,” Dhavalikar has maintained.
The legacy of controversial, unpopular decisions of successive BJP-led coalition governments, like renewing mining leases in favour of tainted companies, U-turns on assurances to ban the casino industry, support to increased coal handling at Goa’s only major port, nationalisation of rivers and now the intra-government chaos, as well as the shroud of secrecy surrounding the Chief Minister’s illness, has triggered a rising trend of criticism against Parrikar, especially on social media, a fact that former Deputy Chief Minister and a member of the three-member ministerial committee Francis D’Souza concurs with.
“It is quite disturbing… Lot of things are happening which are not very palatable and are not right. I do not know whether it is political or not, but the fact is it is coming up on the social media,” D’Souza said.
And fatalistic apprehensions by BJP lawmakers like Cabral appears to be only adding to the chaos.
(Mayabhushan Nagvenkar can be contacted at mayabhushan.n@ians.in )
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Manohar Parrikar
Panaji : The Goa government has withdrawn the contempt petition filed before the Mhadei River Water Disputes Tribunal, following an assurance by Karnataka government, that it would not carry out any construction work to divert water till the dispute is resolved, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Tuesday.
“Based on the assurance, our lawyer informed the Tribunal, that we would not like to press the contempt petition,” he said.
Goa, Karnataka and Maharashtra are currently involved in a dispute in the tribunal over controversial Kalsa-Bhandura dam project across Mhadei river, through which Karnataka aims to divert water from the Mhadeibasin to nearby basin on the Malaprabha river.
Mhadei, also known as the Mandovi river, is considered as a lifeline in the northern parts of the coastal state. It originates in Karnataka and meets the Arabian Sea in Panaji, while briefly flowing through Maharashtra.
The river course is 28.8 km in Karnataka, and over 50 km in Goa.
Last month, Goa government had filed a contempt petition against Karnataka, after the latter latter allegedly carried out construction work to divert water from the Mhadei basin.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Books
By Mayabhushan Nagvenkar,
Book: The Sting of Peppercorns; Author: Antonio Gomes; Publisher: Amaryllis; Pages: 240; Price: R. 325
Antonio Gomes’ “The Sting of the Peppercorns” is set in an era of transition and tumult. It opens in the lavish, stately village of Loutolim in South Goa, once the abode of elite Catholic landlords, who had converted from the Gaud Saraswat Brahmin caste. Incidentally, Loutolim is now a well sought-after piece of real estate for the wealthy elite from Indian metros who are obsessed with the quest of owning perfectly preserved Indo-Portuguese homes.
On a balmy summer morning in 1961, one of the village’s grandest mansions and its masters — Afonso de Albuquerque, his wife Dona Maria Isabella dos Santos Albuquerque, other son Roberto and daughter Amanda — await the return of their ward Paulo from Coimbra in Portugal, where he had ostensibly gone to pursue law, but had wallowed in debauchery in the seedier parts of the river-fronted city, unknown to most others in the family.
The author immediately establishes the inevitable air of change, when Paulo, soon after his return, faces a brutal attack by a band of anti-colonial guerrillas keen on looting the valuables in the homes of the rich landlords of the time in the name of raising money for their subversive war against the colonists.
“The Sting of the Peppercorns” captures the steady decline in the fate and fortunes of rich, aristocratic Catholic families in Goa in the wake of the socio-political changes following the Liberation by the Indian armed forces and the subsequent takeover by the Indian administration.
Thanks to Paulo, the privileged, stoic Albuquerque lineage now finds itself getting charmed by the hippies in Anjuna and Calangute beach villages who had just begun to descend on Goa from Europe and Northern America in the mid to late 1960s.
The major socio-political changes in Goa in the 1960s, like the transition of power, the iconic referendum where Goans chose to be an independent state rather than merge with the neighbouring state of Maharashtra, the emergence of the hippies on the Goa canvas, as well as clash of cultures, both old and new, is vividly described by the author using the characters which are at his disposal.
“The Sting of the Peppercorns”, where the reference to peppercorns is undoubtedly linked to the overwhelming spice trade off Goa and the west coast fuelled by the colonisers, serves as a timely fictional reference of a relatively less-documented period and region.
Antonio Gomes, a native of Goa, is a Professor of medicine at the Mount Sinai Medical Centre in New York and specialises in cardiology. Not surprisingly, he has very aptly analysed Goa’s beating heart through one of its roughest periods.
(Mayabhushan Nagvenkar can be contacted at mayabhushan.n@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | News, Politics
Manohar Parrikar
Panaji : Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Friday hinted at a conspiracy vis-a-vis sustained coverage of the strike by Goa’s beef traders by the national media, while also claiming he had an intelligence report suggesting so.
“Ten to 12 national media reporters have been camping in Goa for 15 days (reporting) on the beef issue. This is my intelligence report,” Parrikar told reporters here.
“I am not taking names. I am willing to take the name… Ten to 12 cameramen camping here for last 15 days. What does that indicate? There was anticipation of news,” he also said.
Beef was not available for sale in Goa for four days, with beef traders going on strike alleging harassment by police and cow vigilantes.
The strike was called off on Tuesday, after the state police were instructed to provide protection to beef consignments brought in from Karnataka.
—IANS
