Category: Popular Essays

Popular Essays

Of Big Daddies, Sugar Daddies, and Just Daddies

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

Of late, all kinds of ‘Daddies’ are in the news. I want to state here that I had a loving and caring father, who has been with me through all the times that I have endured. This caring did not mean pampering and he did not fail to reprimand when it was called for. I wouldn’t have exchanged him for anything in the world. He was a father who taught me the value of hard work and not to yield to any pressures. He would recount anecdotes with such gusto that even when he repeated them, one still listened as if to new stories. He wasn’t tall, dark and handsome. He didn’t flaunt his hairy chest. He and my mother cooked jointly. Not that he was without his faults, but this is an attempt to highlight certain positive traits that are not usually attributed to men. (more…)

Popular Essays

A Republic Always in Crisis

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

The Indian Republic is, was, and will be in crisis. And perhaps the biggest issue that dogs the Republic is social and economic inequality. Seventy years of electioneering has not solved the problem. Successive governments and civil society groups have failed to address the issue of inequality. The social and economic inequalities manifest in the form of routinized violence and discrimination in everyday life for the marginalized and minoritized communities. The crisis will only deepen in the future if these inequalities remain unaddressed. (more…)

Popular Essays

Ami asa, mhunn tumi asa: Of the Big Daddies who would rule us

By AMITA KANEKAR

The above is what someone campaigning in the Panjim bye-elections said to a group of voters living next to the St. Inez creek, when they spoke up at the election meeting about how the creek had not been cleaned even though monsoon was around the corner, which usually means terrible floods engulfing the houses and their residents. Don’t complain, was the answer. You live here because of us; be grateful. But the people did not stop complaining, so the meeting ended with a lot of promises of action and improvements, none of which have been fulfilled till date.

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Popular Essays

Corporate Social Responsibility or Actual Corporate Irresponsibility?

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

A recent cycle tour sponsored by Adani ostensibly for health under the cover of Corporate Social Responsibility, a citizens’ protest against these double standards, and police protection for the cycle tour, makes us all ponder about what this Corporate Social Responsibility is all about. Indeed, cycling is good for health, but carrying out such as CSR exercise in today’s Vasco is akin to planting a handful saplings while axing thousands of trees.

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Popular Essays

Conversations for our Future

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

In the Lok Sabha elections 2019, most voters faced the proverbial horns of a dilemma. These voters who want a non-communal, non-corrupt government have, on the one hand, voted for a particular party whose record in combating communalism and corruption belies its lofty rhetoric of upholding values of honest politics and secularism. On the other hand, some may have voted for a new party, whose unique selling pitch is its tirade against corruption, and whose new-ness has ensured that it has no real record of malfeasance.

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Popular Essays

Chowkidar? Protecting Who from Whom?

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

Chowkidars, as we understand, are watchmen, whose services are hired by people who need protection. And, of course, different people need protection for different reasons. But what kind of protection must the head of the country provide, and to who, and from whom? The Constitution of India proclaims that we, the people of India, have solemnly constituted ourselves into a sovereign, socialist, secular, democratic Republic. So clearly, the Constitutional imperative is for those in governance to protect people from want, starvation, violations of bodily integrity, targeting as a community, discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, sex, sexual orientation, ableism, ageism, or any other axis, violation of freedom of speech and expression, among other things.

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Popular Essays

In Life and Death: Politics and Politicians

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

In Goan politics, the politician is an indispensable cult figure, one whose image is more important than his or her ability to discharge his or her public responsibilities. The unexpected presence of the ailing Pandurang Madkaikar, Cumbharjua MLA, for the first time in public in 11 months, at the floor test of the BJP government, a few weeks ago is a case in point. Madkaikar, who suffered a brain stroke last year, has been away from public life all this while. Despite his ill health, Madkaikar contributed, or was forced to contribute, to the cutthroat power struggles, even though he has not discharged his public responsibilities and was dispensed from his minister’s post since last year.

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