Tag: environment

Popular Essays

Intergenerational Equity: The Old and the New

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

The end of a calendar year often makes us reflect on the ‘old’ that we leave behind and the ‘new’ that we hope for. When most of the economic, social, and political problems that Goa faced last year, or even over the last few years, remain firmly in place, it makes little sense to hope for a better 2021. The pandemic, of course, gives us reasons to be even more pessimistic. We really do not know how 2021 will unfold, especially because the government everyday reinforces its spectacular inefficiency in handling the pandemic. It is for this reason that, rather than offering the usual clichés about a new calendar year, it might be better to reflect on some of the positive changes over the last six months. (more…)

Popular Essays

Misplaced Priorities: Profit at the Expense of Goa

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

Of all the misplaced priorities of successive Goan governments, the most recent is the Vibrant Goa summit. The summit aimed to attract investment in the areas of pharma, tourism, IT, and real estate. Even a cursory glance at the industries that the Goan government is promoting should make the alarm bells ring. For it is precisely these industries and their unregulated promotion that causes economic, social, and cultural problems in Goa. (more…)

Popular Essays

Delayed Rains are the Cost of ‘Development’

By DALE LUIS MENEZES

Water reserves are dangerously low owing to the delayed rains in most parts of the country; in some places, reservoirs are bone dry. Scientists express fears that in 3 or 4 decades, most Indian cities will be unlivable as they will run out of water. The delayed rains and the disruption of the seasonal cycles is another aspect of climate change, and it should be clear by now that such a change has dire consequences for the survival of life.

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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

Big Corporates and their Political Minions need the Boot

By AMITA KANEKAR

 

Monkeys are taking over village roofs across Goa, from Pernem to Canacona. According to Rama Velip, environmentalist and anti-mining activist, this is just one of the ways his village of Colomb has changed over the last decade. Most of the paddy fields and coconut plantations were damaged by mining run-off. Water availability went down; with heavy pollution of the river and wells running dry, the winter paddy cultivation was stopped. Increasingly erratic and unseasonal weather changes routinely cause crop failures. On top of all this are unwanted visitors: hoards of monkeys, along with leopards, wild boar, and bison. In fact, with bison attacks becoming common in the talukas of Bicholim, Sattari and Sanguem, some villages have demanded a drastic change in the classification of Goa’s state animal from ‘protected’ to ‘vermin’, which would allow them to be killed.

 

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Popular Essays

Mega Projects and Mega Infrastructure in Goa: Who is Coming in the Way of Whom?

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

 

The immediate trigger for this article is an Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Report for the proposed modernization and expansion of port infrastructure, supposedly for fishing, coastal, multipurpose cargo berth and liquid/general cargo at Mormugao Port, Goa, which has been prepared for Mormugao Port Trust, a body corporate under the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963, by Ultratech Environmental Consultancy and Laboratory.

 

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Popular Essays

Wanted Urgently: A New Model of Governance

By AMITA KANEKAR

 

I was astounded to hear, a couple of months ago, of a glass house being built in Goa. Large-scale glass usage in buildings was developed to allow in maximum natural heat in cold climes, which reduced artificial heating and thus saved energy. Glass-fronted commercial buildings then became popular the world over, an aspirational look that became known as the International Style, even where they had to be supported by expensive airconditioning. But a glass house in a hot and humid place like Goa? Described in trade journals as the vision of fashion designer Tarun Tahiliani and architect Sameep Padora, and ‘nestled among the lush green fields and backwaters of Goa’, the villa will apparently sprawl over about 660 sq m., in a huge 1690 sq m. plot. It uses very special kinds of glass, we are told, designed for ‘intrusion-resistance’, privacy, and energy efficiency, besides keeping out dust and noise. No information of its cost, nor its consumption of air-conditioning.

 

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Popular Essays

High Time for Just and Equitable Transition

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

 

With the Supreme Court having directed closure of mines in Goa, with the “mining-dependents” having taken to the streets, and the issues of workers’ displacement lying unaddressed, it is necessary to expose the myths that are being fomented by the mining mafia, that has so far managed to lawlessly hold sway and control everything from governance and land, to media and identity.

 

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Popular Essays

Public Hearings: How the Coal is sought to be tempered

By ALBERTINA ALMEIDA

 

Public hearings under the Environment Protection Act, were lobbied for by people, as a space to articulate their concerns about any proposed project and also to seek clarifications. But from the State’s point of view they seem to have been envisaged to contain and co-opt people’s views within the frameworks of the project proponent by saying they considered people’s concerns and finalised the environment impact assessment report.

 

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