Category: Popular Essays

By AMITA KANEKAR

I have written in the past about how the policy of caste-based reservations enjoined by the Constitution is systematically violated in Goa. The purpose of this violation is simple, to deny representation in government and higher education to the marginalised communities, and ensure that these positions are illegally swallowed by the already over-represented dominant castes. After a recruitment scandal at the Goa University in 2014, Goa has seen many efforts by individual citizens and groups to get the authorities to implement the reservations policy fully and correctly, as mandated in the Constitution and laid down clearly by many court orders and government memorandums since the 1980s. Petitions were made to the University, the Governor and the state government; long meetings were held with many worthies in these institutions (most of whom shamelessly claimed ignorance of the rules, as if ignorance is a valid excuse); the issue was also discussed in the print media. (more…)

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

As kids growing up, we would be presented with two similar pictures and asked to spot the difference. While that was a good exercise for sharpening visual observation, our political acumen should have driven us to take that skillset to another level, to detect the political hypocrisy, chicanery and cunning of today. (more…)

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

Oftentimes, we are so obsessed with ourselves and our aspirations, demands and objectives, that we do not realise that the (political) positions we take vis a vis ‘others’ are a slippery slope towards disaster for us ourselves. I will illustrate this with the use of the word ‘outsider’. (more…)

By AMITA KANEKAR

Another educational institution has been announced, again very prestigious. As always, it needs huge amounts of land, and, as always, the government of the tiny state of Goa has more than enough to offer – and on long lease no less, which means practically free. The project is a new India International University of Legal Education and Research, to be run completely by the Bar Council of India (BCI). This proposed university requires 2,00,000 square metres of land, which Goa’s government says it has already identified in Dharbandora taluka. A state bill has also been passed, formalising the setting up of this university, one of whose objects – according to the bill – is to reserve 20% of the university’s seats for ‘permanent residents of Goa’. (more…)

By AMITA KANEKAR

The recent news that bonded labourers were working on the infamous double tracking project of the Indian Railways through the Mollem forests should cause no surprise. The labourers were rescued from their abusive situation only because of complaints made by ARZ, a Goa-based NGO, and the efforts of an Adivasi organisation in Telangana. The Indian Railways now claim that the labourers were not bonded at all, but ‘only’ underpaid and ill-treated by their contractor. According to the workers themselves, the oldest of whom was a 72-year-old woman, they were paid less than minimum wages, were prevented from leaving and going home, and were forced to live right next to the tracks, without adequate shelter (in the monsoon) and without toilets either. (more…)

Por AMITA KANEKAR

O templo goês está a desaparecer a passos largos ao ser substituído por formas arquitetónicas de outras partes da Índia.

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Por JASON KEITH FERNANDES

Ninguém sabe ao certo como tratar o denominado património português em Goa. A confusão deve-s ao facto de que este património não se refere apenas a alguns monumentos ou práticas do passado, mas é um património vivo e que respira, corporeamente materializado nas pessoas de Goa, como um todo e, particularmente, nos católicos. Isto faz com que se trate de um património volátil e, por isso, muitos esforços académicos têm sido investidos em negá-lo ou rejeitar a sua complexidade.

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By AMITA KANEKAR

The new Union Education Minister is expressly charged – so we are told – with the fast-tracking of the New Education Policy (NEP). A new approach to education is actually something that this country needs desperately, given the huge failings of India’s Brahmanical education system, like the continuing lack of universal access to education, and the stratified system of education quality, which ensures that a child from a disadvantaged background remains disadvantaged in education too. But will this NEP make any difference? As has been discussed in this column earlier, this NEP is actually hardly new at all, for, like earlier such policies, it ignores or brushes over all the fundamental problems of the education system. All of which have been exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, as we shall see below. (more…)

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

We are witness today to a heightened terrorizing by the State of the marginalized sections of society and of those who support the marginalized sections, in order to stomp over their lives and usurp their resources, especially land. The State has been deploying various means to do this, one being the weaponising of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act, 1967 (UAPA),   or by repeatedly invoking the equally draconian National Security Act, 1980, for crimes, or under the guise of redressing or preventing crimes, that can well be handled by the existing criminal law, if only the police and other authorities are efficient  with their investigations. (more…)

By AMITA KANEKAR

Goa’s government finds itself the butt of almost constant ridicule nowadays. From the widely-appreciated twitter-thrashing of Mauvin Godinho by Tamil Nadu’s Finance Minister P. Thiagarajan, revealing, among other things, the former’s anti-people support for GST on COVID19 drugs and vaccines; to the surrealistic declaration that the government wants to forest areas in Madhya Pradesh to compensate for forests destroyed in Goa; and the unbelievable announcement that Goa is a top performer in the Niti Aayog’s Sustainability Development Goals’ (SDG) ratings, every bit of news about this Sawant-led government gets greeted with disbelief, scorn, jokes, and memes, not to mention hashtags like #PramodSawantMustGo. (more…)