Different strokes for different folks on Goa’s roads

By AMITA KANEKAR

The horrific crash by an over-speeding Mercedes-Benz SUV at Banastarim last month, which killed three people and left others seriously injured, is already fading from our memory. And why wouldn’t it, given that crashes causing multiple deaths are now almost routine on Goan roads? The news, visuals, and tragic personal aftermaths occupy the media for a few days before being replaced by the next horror. Less horrible crashes, causing non-fatal injuries or even single deaths, have meanwhile become so frequent and normalized that they hardly get any coverage. On the day of the Banastarim disaster itself, another drunk driver ploughed into a shed in Siolim, injuring two labourers sleeping inside. Not worth reporting for most media outlets – that is what we’ve come to. (more…)

Should children of freedom fighters be gifted government jobs?

By AMITA KANEKAR

Chief Minister Pramod Sawant, in a recent public event, handed over letters offering government jobs to 42 ‘children of freedom fighters’, and announced that a further 90 more will be handed over by December 19, making a total of 132 of such job-offers in just these few months. These offers are the result of the reservation in government jobs for this group of people, part of the official policy of reservations for various sections of society. Within a few hours, however, at least one recipient announced his refusal of the offer, saying that he is comfortably off and does not need a government job. His statement was celebrated by a section of social media, implying that other beneficiaries of reservations (especially, one is sure, caste-based reservations) should learn from him. (more…)

Do we really need a government?

By AMITA KANEKAR

In Goa, the answer to the question would be: to facilitate the building-construction industry any which way possible, including allowing building on agricultural lands and coasts, killing every river for dredging sand, and planning to rebuild supposedly-destroyed temples of which it has no proof. Is there anything else? (more…)

Worshipping Portuguese-era trees

By AMITA KANEKAR

Chief Minister Pramod Sawant has been the butt of much derision after his statement that he wants to wipe out all signs of Portuguese rule in Goa. People have been asking just how he planned to wipe out everything from the staple diet of not just Goans but all Indians (consisting as it does of vegetables, condiments, and fruit introduced then), to his own wardrobe and a million other things, including, not least, Catholicism and Catholics as well. (more…)

Who Let – Or Threw, Rather – The Dogs Out?

By AMITA KANEKAR

The newspapers recently reported the case of a lady in Vasco who was attacked by street dogs while walking to her home; she suffered multiple bites and had to be hospitalized for a night. The news was shocking and also depressing, given that it was not the first such incident in Goa in recent years. Also because the fallout was already known: angry, ugly and irrational demands, in the media and social media, for an immediate end to the ‘stray menace’. The usual articles showed up – of the rising number of dog attacks (which revealed that serious attacks are actually very few, that rabies has been controlled in Goa, and that most dog-bites in general are by pet dogs to their own owners), and also of the increasing population of dogs on the streets. Here the tone varied from dismay and horror, both absolutely understandable, to – more often – fury and demands for a Final Solution, so to speak. (more…)

Where ‘Hostile Architecture’ feels right at home

By AMITA KANEKAR

My advancing age hit me hard this weekend, when after buying provisions at Panjim market, I reached the bus-stop in time for the last bus, but there was no sign of it, only the massive traffic jam that has become the norm in this Smartening City. I turned, planning to park myself and my bags on a bench, and found, instead, a pipe. Three of them, actually. Three pipes, sleek and shining, each rising from the ground, running horizontally for a few feet, and returning into the ground; separated from each other by a couple of feet. The old benches had disappeared. (more…)

Goa’s taxis: Scapegoats for a hyper-elitist transport model

By AMITA KANEKAR

India needs to focus on ease of travel, declared Prime Minister Modi while inaugurating Goa’s new airport last month. The PM’s declaration might have sounded like a joke to some, given that his own one-day-long visit to Goa, just to inaugurate the airport, created utter chaos in the traffic here, with some commuters reaching their destinations three hours late, and official announcements that movement of even emergency vehicles would depend on the position of the VVIPs. (more…)

Toxic Tourism Goa-Style

By AMITA KANEKAR

Aren’t the casinos enough? Apparently, no. According to A Study on Human Trafficking in Vulnerable Districts in India, a nationwide study by the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), partly funded by the union ministry of Women and Child Development, and completed in 2019, Goa is a major destination (as well as a source) for sex trafficking; and – surprise, surprise! – the tourism industry of Goa is the main reason for the trafficking of both women and children for the sex trade as well as other illegal activities. Interestingly, the report, though ready three years ago, was published by the union government only now. Not just this, the report was also taken down from the government website just days after being released. What could be the reason for this cover-up? Could it be the focus on the tourism industry? (more…)