Category: Popular Essays

Popular Essays

What made ‘Goemkarponn’ so Manoeuvrable?

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

 

From the get go, there was no sign of Goem, Goemkar, Goemkarponn at all. Not even when the 2017 Goa Legislative Assembly election results were beginning to trickle in. One would have thought that small is beautiful and manageable and that the smallness of Goem affords a unique opportunity to better and more expeditiously manage.  But despite EVM machines as in other states, which should have seen the results pouring in rather than trickling in, Goa’s results took a longer time than those of UP with ten times the number of seats.  Indeed Goa’s counting in relation to that of the rest of India’s states that went to the polls was ajeeb (strange).

 

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Popular Essays

Racism: Theory and Practice

By AMITA KANEKAR

 

How can we forget Atithee devo bhava (the guest is god), that pillar of Indian culture? Such was the lament from some sections of the Indian media following the latest murderous attacks on Africans, this time in Noida and triggered by the death of a local teenager. Five Nigerian students in the neighbourhood were arrested after being accused by locals of everything from drugging the boy to eating him, following which mobs began to search for and beat up other Africans, grievously injuring four men who were cornered in a mall. Except for arresting the Nigerians on charges of murder (they were later released for lack of evidence), and thus adding credence to the wild rumours going around, the police did nothing.

 

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Popular Essays

The Ambiguous Aid of the Goan taxista

By JASON KEITH FERNANDES

Ever so often public ire in Goa turns against the Goan taxi-drivers who are seen, at least by certain dominant sections, as the single group that is upsetting the order in Goa. The taxistas, and in particular the taxistas of Salcete, have been accused of refusing to accede to a regime of digital meters and proper fare charts, charging exorbitant amounts in the absence of these standards. Additionally, if the clients ask for details of the fare calculation, they are allegedly often abused or threatened. These men are seen as uncouth, unreasonable, prone to violent protest.  A number of concerned voices were recently raised when the taxi drivers blocked the entry of the transportation network companies, like Uber and Ola, into the local market. These voices pointed out that such behaviour was in fact enforcing a monopoly, and thanks to the uncouth and violent behaviour of the taxistas would in fact result that a tourist’s first impression of Goa was a negative one. This could only result in the decline of tourists to Goa and the killing of one of the most lucrative industries that the state enjoys.

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Popular Essays

आंतोनियो कॉश्तांच्या माफीचे राजकारण

कौस्तुभ नाईक/KAUSTUBH NAIK

गोमंतकीय वंशाचे व पोर्तुगालचे सद्याचे पंतप्रधान आंतोनियो कॉश्ता हे गोवा भेटीवर असतानाचे निमित्त साधून साडेचारशे वर्षाच्या पोर्तुगीज राजवटीसाठी कॉश्ता ह्यांनी माफी मागावी अशी मागणी महाराष्ट्रवादी गोमंतक पक्षाचे नेते सुदिन ढवळीकर ह्यांनी केली आहे. ऐन निवडणुकीच्या तोंडावर आलेली ही मागणी आणि ढवळीकरांचे सनातनी हिंदुत्वप्रेम लक्षात घेतल्यास ह्या मागणीचा रोख नेमका कुठे आहे हे सुज्ञास सांगायची गरज नाही. पण अशा घोषणामागे गोव्याच्या वसाहतवादी इतिहासाचे एकसुरी चित्र रंगवून सामाजिक तेढ निर्माण करण्याचे प्रयत्न अधोरेखित केले पाहिजे.

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Popular Essays

Is Camões Goan?

By JASON KEITH FERNANDES

camoensSome months ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a discussion on Goan literature in Portuguese. Central to that discussion was the question of defining a canon of Goan literature in Portuguese. For example, where would the history of such a literature begin from? Who could be considered Goan for the purposes of constructing such a history? In the course of these discussions, a question was half-jocularly posed: could Camões be considered Goan?

 

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Popular Essays

When Malaysia Looks like India and Vice Versa

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

 

Malaysia’s Bersih movement was in the news recently. The Bersih movement is a movement for free and fair elections.  It has raised questions of how electoral rolls come to be drawn, and how constituencies come to be delimited in ways that ensure that the ruling party’s vote banks are appropriately configured within each constituency so as to give the ruling party a lead. This is so familiar to us in Goa where such constituency delimitation has been reorganised to facilitate the ruling party.

 

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