Austerity, ‘vulgarity’: Kudos Salman!

For a change, I thought of throwing up a tantrum on an issue not all that Goan. It's not 100 percent non-Goan either, though.

To start off, it's kudos to Salman. No, no. Not the Salman of Bollywood but the Salman of Indian politics... Salman Kursheed, to be precise, who is presently minister of state for corporate affairs and minority affairs (Independent Charge), in the Dr Manmohan Singh government.

Kudos to him, for having the courage (he's perhaps the only politician to have done it) to question the 'vulgar salaries' paid out by Corporate India.

At a time when drought has dried up a large part of India and everybody from Sonia to Rahul to the lowest Congressman is talking and seemingly walking austerity, Salman Kursheed pushed the argument into the turf of India's head-honchos. Terming salaries paid out in the upper echelons of India Inc as 'vulgar', Kursheed advocated that it's time to shed some of this vulgarity.

The response from India Inc was quick, and expectedly, not in the least approving of Kursheed's suggestion.

"Let market forces decide the salaries" was one from a leading industry association.

"Government has no business in this," was the response of another leading industry collective.

Why then, Dear FICCI and Dear Assocham, should the government have any role to play in tackling the recession, all of which is the making of very 'vulgar' salary-drawing Ramalingas from Leihmanian companies? Shouldn't it be the 'market forces' that should be dealing with the downturns instead of governments pumping in billions to insulate the 'vulgar' salaries of the tie-and-suit-boot-wallahs?

By the way... Salman Kursheed has a Goa connection. He's the grandson of India's third president, Dr Zakir Hussain and the son of Kursheed Alam Khan, who was Goa's Governor in the early 1990s.

Policing the politicos
There are just two politicians I know in Goa, who when in power, love to take on the 'criminals' in politics depending on which side of the political fence the 'criminal politicos' are sitting -- current Home Minister Ravi Naik and former Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar.

In the past, Churchill, Mummy and her son Rudy have tasted, through their days at Aguada, Ravi's penchant for action against politicos perceived to be in conflict with the law. More recently in the early years of this decade, Narvekar, Zuwarkar and Mauvin tasted Manohar Parrikar's love for 'teaching them a lesson'. Only, the trio learnt the trick to make their chests pain and spend time on a hospital bed instead of a jail until they got bail!

So, why am I throwing up a tantrum about it?

Because, it's some down and some more to go. At a recent press conference, Ravi spilled the beans when he indicated that Mickky wouldn't be the last of the politicians that the police will act against. There are some more lined up with pots of evidence lying in police files.

Ravi it is, who can be trusted with this one. When half-a-dozen ministers and MLAs dashed to the sprawling bungalow of a top minister as a show of solidarity when cops went hunting for his kin, Ravi was unmoved and let the 'law will take its own course' cliche, play out.

Lucky Canacona?

Everyone and sundry is taking to charity for Canacona. Our correspondent deputed to this southernmost taluka hit by floods following the wettest Gandhi Jayanti of my memory reports that aid is flowing in at least some of the areas, both in cash and kind.

Meanwhile, many have launched Canacona Charity Funds and we've lost count of how many such funds have been floated. On Sunday, a group of students in uniform from a prominent city school, came knocking at my door with a donation box for Canacona. Hope of hopes that all of it really reaches the many marooned Kankonkars.

And oh! How could I forget the philantropic gestures of Digambar and Co.? The next two months' salary is what all our ministers are going to contribute to the CM's Relief Fund. Wouldn't it have been great for Canacona if all the 'cuts' were also committed to the CM's Relief Fund?

Mickky-Alemao bonhomie headed nowhere?

When out of the blue, the Alemaos and their former bete noire Mickky did the unthinkable -- buried their almost decade-long hatchet in a single sitting of diplomacy at the office of the mining company owned by Joaquim -- tongues went wagging over the development's fallouts, how long this 'marriage of convinience' would last, etcetra, etcetra.
A forthnight later, a lot of water seems to have flowed under the Khareband bridge, from Benaulim to Navelim and back and forth, to the extent that the Alemaos are on the verge of dumping their brand new mascot Mickky for a newer, chopper-hopping one from the North East -- 'Lui'.
Even as Mickky and Joaquim keep flaunting their new found political romance in public here in Goa, elsewhere, a deal for the peaceful, political co-existence between the khumpars of Salcete politics -- Churchill and Luizinho -- is being explored. Some top central leaders who are in talks with the two are reportedly close to the point of bringing them face to face, to clinch the deal. The details of the deal are yet to get 'leaked' but should it go through, where it would leave an already beleagured Mickky, is anybody's guess.
A little bird in Mumbai, informs that Joaquim, who was there to witness Musli-powered Churchill Brothers' lacklustre essay against Mahindra United in the I-League Opener, was predicting the fall of Mickky from the Goa cabinet. According to Joaquim, his outburst against the CM and his demand for a replacement to Diggu could prove to be the final nail in his latest friend's political coffin.
Chacha, ice cream...
ith the inclusion of a certain former lawyer in its ranks, the Juvenile Justice Board (JJB) has truly lived up to its prefix.
The former lanky government lawyer, who has in the past been granted several extensions despite a sketchy career, is better known for his overtly juvenile behaviour.
There have been times, when the former government servant walked into the Panjim police station or dropped by the numerous offices in the Police Headquarters, asking the cops to buy him a pack of a litre or two of ice cream. He’d pick up the ice cream and walk away without paying them for the treat.
Most Panjimites would see this guy thumbing down lifts anytime of the day on the city’s streets, lest he have to dig into his own pockets to foot the motorcycle or rickshaw charges.
Sounds juvenile doesn’t it? But then that’s how things work… a guy, who begs the cops for an ice cream, will now take a righteous call on juveniles in confict with the law presented by the men-in-uniform.
More moolah from casinos
The times may not be all that smooth up there in the skies for India's 'Maharaja' but here on Goa's Mandovi waters, its gonna be Maharaja all the way.
When different voices in the government recently raised cries of varied hues hinting at denial of renewed licences to the off-shore casinos, one thought the biggest loser would be the Essel Group which owns Maharja Casino.
But it's not to be. After all, the Maharaja is finally is slated to set sail in the coming month and the big factor to ensure it has a smooth sailing is obviously the moolah.
In an interview aired by CNBC-TV 18 as part of its Generation Next programme, Amit Goenka pompously said, Essel would pump in several million into Casino Maharaja, enough to keep Ali Baba and his 40 men.
Just for the record, Amit Goenka is Essel promoter, Subhash Chandra's youngest son and currently CEO of Pan India Network Pvt Ltd that runs Casino Maharaja.
It’s all about the money, honey!
The tantrum we threw up about the Rajiv Gandhi IT Habitat a few weeks ago in the immediate aftermath of the visit by AICC general secretary in-charge of Goa, B K Hariprasad, and the Sancho Panza of cricket administration in India, Rajiv Shukla, is turning out to be true.
The Big B from Taleigao has spoken now. The Rajiv Gandhi IT Habitat can come up in his pocket burrough after all, provided the right kind of monies reach the coffers of the.... Taleigao panchayat. Make it the cash cow of the Taleigao panchayat, and damn 'Taleigao Bachao' the abhiyanwallahs and the abhiyans. Incidentally, the Taleigao panchayat is currently manned by the Big B's woman -- Jennifer Monserrate.
After all, isn't it all about the money, honey?

Of Parrikar’s ‘Tendlim Pickle’

Oh, what an eventful week it was last week here in Goa for journalists and journalism!
At the end of it, unfortunately, journalism hasn't really come out trumps, although a few journos may have ended up better favourites of their favourite politicos.
First things first... the big 'pickle story' that emanated from a Manohar Parrikar interview aired by the fledgling, Sandesh Prabhudesai-led Prudent Media. Parrikar, who throughout seemed uncharacteristically flatterred when reference was made to reports floating that he's the top contender for the BJP's top post, was interviewed by Prudent's trying-to-be-Rajdeep by trying-to-be-Sandesh who himself is trying-to-be-Rajdeep, Pramod Acharya.
And gosh, how this pickle-sounding Achar....ya got Manohar Parrikar to land in a pickle, thanks to a 'Parrikar Likens Advani to Rancid Pickle' story on the interview put out by the Goa correspondent of the Indo-Asian News Service, IANS for short, which got picked up by newsrooms all over and soon became national headlines. 'Blown out of proportion', 'misreporting', 'yellow journalism', etcetera, etcetera were some of the expletives used to describe that bit of reportage by the IANS correspondent.
In this tantrum, I'd like to skip how the controversy played out ball-by-ball. Instead, I'd rather focus on the response of the Goa press corps, after the story became a controversy -- an outright, overt defense of Manohar Parrikar to the extent of calling the IANS correspondent names. Some journos and the sections of the media they represent even went to the extent of describing the IANS Correspondent's effort as a 'conspiracy at the behest of a BJP faction led by the incumbent president Rajnath Singh. Another section termed it mis-reporting, as did Prudent Media itself! A third, actually made an appeal in its editorial to the BJP think-tank, that this whole 'Advani like rancid pickle' episode be discounted from Parrikar's report card, if he's in the race for the party's top post!
Parrikar himself denied that his 'rancid pickle' remark referred to Advani. He said, his rancid pickle remark was in the context of Sachin Tendulkar's cricket career rather than Advani's political one. What he did not say is that his citing of the Sachin Tendulkar example in the interview was itself in response to a querry on the longetivity of Advani's reign in the BJP.
But as much as it was dictated by this unusual craving among journos to intentionally or inadvertently be lackeys of top politicos, this Parrikar has-to-be-defended kind of a response from them seems dictated by this intense hate pervading among the Goa journo corps for Mayabhushan Nagvenkar, the IANS correspondent in Goa, whose impersonal style of journalism like in the case of the Pickle Story, is a thorn in the side of those who dish out 'lackey journalism' day in and day out. How many times haven't our Pratapsing Ranes, Dr Willies, Luizinho Faleiros, Sardinhas, Churchill Alemaos, Ramarao Desais, Dayanand Mandrekars, etc, etc, got away scot free despite their journalistically tempting foot-in-the-mouth remarks, simply because our 'lackey journos' refuse to report them because it would hurt their favourite politicos? And if by chance the gaffes get reported by a journo or two, how many times have these self-appointed guardians of Goan journalism, not rubbished these reports of the gaffes? If what's said on TV can be coloured, twisted, turned and even denied the way it is, pity those journos who work in the print media and want to report what is, rather than what those in power want it to be!
Mickky’s survival = Diggu’s exit?
Finally, the cops have booked the enfante terrible of Goan politics -- Tourism Minister Francisco (Mickky) Pacheco. Beats me why they didn't do it when the episode in the South Goa Casino was first reported in June, when all the evidence that they now present to the courts, was handed over to them in CCTV captured footage on a platter.
But this is politics, not criminal law or justice!
Mickky, meanwhile, believes attack is his best defence. And so, unmindful of how a TV interview landed his former mentor Manohar Parrikar in a soup...nay pickle, he goes on air on another TV channel known more for its tiatrs rather than news, and enacts the latest political drama by demanding a change in ministry's leadership. Diggu, he says, is only ruling because of his divide and rule policy. He is building up dossier's of criminal cases of ministers and holding them to ransom, he charged. Don't know if Congressmen here in Goa and in Delhi as well will take Mickky's outburst lightly, but his own bosses in the NCP are at wits end how to handle this most unpredictable politico from Goa. Busy as they are with the Maharashtra elections, which many political commentators believe could be the final battle of survival for the Sharad Pawar-led party, no leader of that party has commented on the unsavoury Casino affair of Mickky. The party here in Goa, however, is making discordant noises of 'backing' him. But if the words of its national general secretary, Gurunath Kulkarni, are any indication, Mickky has a whole load of explaining to do to his NCP bosses.
But round one in this latest Mickky v/s Diggu political bout seems to be going the CM's way with the sheer power of the latter's dignified silence.
KTC: Will it survive?
The great public transport elephant of Goa is 29 and getting whiter by the year. The youthful and talented Aleixo Reginald Lourenco at the helm, we thought would breathe in some life, but a year into his reign it seems he's only flattered to deceive.Can we have some 'corporate governance' in the KTC? Directors who will work like CEOs, instead of mere chelas of politicos? A Managing Director who will be worth every penny he draws from the Corporation's dried up coffers as salary and perks?
Live a week in the headquarters of the BEST, of course at KTC's cost dear Lourenco, and bring home some tricks of the trade to make travelling a little better experience than it currently is. First and foremost, 'nationalise' public transport across the state... not just a handful of routes as it currently is the case. The private operators are willing and have publicly urged it, provided it's done lock-stock-and-barrel. Which means KTC will not only have to buy all their buses, but also take on its staff the drivers, cleaners and conductors. It could be a boon for KTC, as the fatt-voch-fuddem-voch experts could instill some fire power in the men-in-blue who man the fleet of KTC's buses.
Are you up to it, Mr Lourenco? We are still hoping.

Where are the candlelight vigils?

Goa's 'Big Goenkar' Rajendra Kerkar is a solitary man ploughing a lone furrow these days. In his battle against those who mauled a tiger in the Keri forests, he has everyone ganged up against him. Now, even in his village where he has this huge father figure image among youth and elders alike, he has become a persona non grata, following a suspect, orchestrated campaign against him.

Pitted against him in this battle for the tiger is almost everyone -- the villagers, the politicians, and even the Forest Department officials, whose job it otherwise is to be on his side. The Chief Conservator of Forests, Dr Sashi Kumar, who's otherwise frugal with information, voluntarily announced to the media that "preliminary reports" from Dehradun indicated that the animal killed is 'not a tiger'. It turns out that the highly credible Dehradun Wildlife Institute, to which the forest department sent two samples - a tooth and blood on leaves -- has confirmed, do not belong to a tiger. Why Dr Kumar chose to make this morsel of information public when results of tests on 10 other samples of the slain animal are yet to come, beats us. But no sooner Dr Kumar did what he did, the campaign against Kerkar which borders on ostracising him in his village, gained wings. The campaign is reportedly backed by powerful political families who have for decades erased from government files, the evidence that striped cats live in Goan jungles for the obvious benefit of lobbies with mining interests in these forests.
So, Kerkar is left to fight his battle all alone. Except for the band of dedicated volunteers he himself groomed under the banner of Vivekananda Environment Awareness Brigade, he has no one else to bank on for support. And, in these trying times for him, not one of our so-called greens have lent him their shoulders. Instead, all of our civil society activists find it more appealing to hold candle-light vigils for the causes of Aires Rodrigues et al. But then, why should they bother about a Rajendra Kerkar? If they did, wouldn't they be soiling their Pierre Cardins in the forests of Keri?

FOOT NOTE: Suryakant Majik, one of the accused in the tiger killing case, based on on whose complaint the Goa police have booked one of Forest Department's most deligent official, Paresh Parab, for assaulting and torturing him while in their custody, was a friend of Kerkar's. In fact, a couple of weeks before the tiger killing incident came to light, Majik had borrowed Kerkar's two-wheeler and had met with a terrible accident while riding it. The injuries that Majik's medical examination has unveiled, some forest officials believe, were sustained by him in this accident on Kerkar's two-wheeler.

Politics of HSRP

And now, those opposing the High Security Number Plates have announced another bandh on September 25. So fearless of the administration and the law are the agitators that they had the gumption and gall to tell the media on Sunday when they announced the bandh, that they would appeal to educational institutions in the state to close down on that day to avoid inconvinience to students.

Now, one of the main figures in this agitation whose political hue is getting exposed with each day that passes, is the Goa Pradesh Youth Congress (GPYC) president, Sankalp Amonkar. Far from fighting for the interests of the youth including school and college-going students, Amonkar it seems is engrossed in this political exercise to earn the scalp of Transport Minister, Sudhin Dhavlikar.

Another prominent anti-HSRP agitator is the Bharatiya Janata Party's spokesman, Govind Parvatkar. A former teacher, it surprises us that Parvatkar is party to this decision which is bound to affect scores of students whose parents cannot afford to send them to school in plush private cars. In short, he has no business to endorse the bandh on September 25, and hold a large section of the population that does not own vehicles and are solely dependent on public transport to get to schools, colleges, places of work, etc, etc.

Friends in distress?

Days after the unthinkable happened -- the Alemaos and Mickky Pacheco joining hands -- the reasons why it happened are getting unravelled.

Apparently, both Mickky and the junior Alemao, are under attack in their respective parties for behaviour bordering on impropriety. The latter has a running battle with greens in Quepem taluka where he is being accused of mining iron ore in verdant forests and the former has earned the ire of his party bosses for his much-publicised misadventures in casinos.

But the casino episode is not the only one haunting the bandana-sporting flamboyant minister.

One rainy day, he apparently got into some 'deadly argument' with the staff of a North Goa five-star hotel, which is the darling the state administration, and whose promoter is a pal of his party boss, Sharad Pawar. Unfortunately for the minister, every detail of the fracas at this hotel, like the events in the Treasures Casino at Majorda Beach Resort, have been recorded on tape through CCTVs. While the tapes from the casino have reached the cops, the one from the North Goa hotel has reached Krishi Bhavan in New Delhi!

The elections in Maharashtra may have bought Mickky and the junior Alemao some time during which the duo have decided to try out this out-of-the-blue friendship among Goa's worst political foes in an attempt to pre-empt any action being contemplated against them by their respective parties.

An aside: The other day, I bumped into an youthful looking Radharao Gracias in Panjim and spent a good 20 minutes in conversation. This rare meeting, coming as it did in the immediate aftermath of it, couldn't have skirted the Alemao-Mickky truce and it didn't. Politics, what politics? It's all about making money, was the response my probing got, in typical Radharao-speak. Minutes later in the conversation, when I drew attention to his youthful, freshly-dyed look, this is what he said, like only Radharao could: "I'm now into black topping. The PWD does not charge me.

Not even the 10 per-cent V-added tax."

Adieu Noel

Never thought even once in the over 15 years that I knew him, that this day would come when I'd have to write about him with the knowledge that he's no more.

I went numb when I first got the news on Sunday afternoon that my friend Noel de Lima Leitao died so suddenly. Just the previous night I watched and heard him render the commentary on ESPN for the live coverage of the IFA shield final between eventual winners 'Musli Power Churchill Brothers' and Kolkata giants Mohun Bagan.

Surely, football and India will miss Noel. More than just his commentary on television, he'll be missed most in the administration of football here in our own Goa, although I'm not too sure if those at the helm at GFA share this view. But the man, was surely an administrator par excellence, and more importantly one who minced no words in cutting the weeds that corrupted matters football in Goa. Perhaps, that's why he held no post or responsibility of note in the GFA, for over a decade since he relinquished the treasurer's in the mid-1990s, much as is the case of Anthony Botelho, another no-nonsense football administrator, of Noel's ilk. A radiant personality, Noel sure will be missed though, by a legion of friends to which I too belong. At 51, his end came too early, depriving us of the pleasure of his company for longer in this earthly journey. But then, they say those that God loves, die young. Noel sure was loved by many, and by the gods for sure, it seems. Don't know what words would soothe his loved ones in these hours of crisis. So, I'll skip them. Instead, I'll stick to prayer for his good soul and for his kin to face this great loss.

Wrong side of the powers that be

What is it in her that the politicos and the 'system' abhors? For years nay decades, this question keeps cropping up about Goa's Director of Sports, Dr Suzanne D'Souza. And, it's still unanswered.

The other week, Chief Minister, Digambar Kamat, led a delegation of politicos and babus to New Delhi for the quintessential meeting with Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, to jostle, if I may use that word, for Goa's annual plan. Sports, thanks to the controversial 'Sports City' was to be a serious component of the negotiations. But Sports Minister, Manohar Azgaonkar, known to many if not all simply as 'Babu' didn't think it fit to take Dr Suzzane along. Instead, the blue-eyed boy of every sports minister Goa has had in the last decade or more, V M Prabhudesai, made the grade.

Prabhudesai, for the record, is the executive director of the Sports Authority of Goa (SAG) which is an 'autonomous body' not a department. Dr Suzzane on the other hand is the state's Director of Sports, a post she earned through a protracted battle in the High Court. If I've got it right, by virtue of being the Director, she is also the ex-officio Joint Secretary to the Government of Goa.

Does this mean anything to the government of the day and the politicians that run it?

Swine flu and the art of wasting money

Director of Health Services (DHS) Dr Rajnanda Desai’s critique of the media for ‘often untrue’ and ‘almost every often incomplete’ reportage at a recent swine flu workshop needs to be taken with a pinch of salt.

This is the same official who simply refused to speak to the media whenever called for clarifications. It was a very obvious communication gap between the Desai and Dr Rajendra Tamba, which was responsible for the chaos in Goa’s handling of swine flu.

But Dr Desai is a smart cookie. There are things she has certainly learnt under Baba’s tutelage. As soon as she got off the lectern after delivering her address at the workshop, Desai refused to take any questions from the media saying she would face the queries after she returns from a meeting with the chief secretary ‘in a few minutes’.

The workshop lasted for nearly two hours and there was no sign of the lady. She wasn’t even around when the ethically ominous envelopes with Rs 500 bucks were slipped into the pockets of most attending journos as ‘travelling and dearness allowance’.

Barring three to four journos, everyone pocketed the money after duly signing a receipt for the same. Thanks to the workshop, journalists were richer not just when it came to information on the disease.

An aside: A few words of commendation to the Sanatan Prabhat reporter who attended the workshop, who had the nerve to return the Rs 500 bucks some days later, after accepting it on ‘payday’.

We got the name wrong!

Last week we wrote about Goa's mining industry being 'cry babies'. In that tantrum, however, we got the name of the secretary of Goa Mineral Ore Exporters Association all wrong. It's S Sridhar and not 'S Sudhir' as we referred to him. The error is regretted.

Tail piece

The political spectrum got a shocker last week with one local daily, known to chronicle exceptionally well the Salcetian politicians and especially the Alemao clan, reporting the news of the most unusual happening in the political realm -- the thawing of the ties between Mickky and the Alemaos.

Donno, how long this honeymoon will last, but it sure has left a bitter taste in the mouth of someone who learnt the hard way that honeymoons with the Tourism Minister don't last very long -- Sara Pacheco.

As for the political impact of the unfolding story of the Pacheco-Alemao theatre of the absurd, not much may come out of it as neither seems capable of giving up their seats and contesting again as non-Congress candidates, in their respective constituencies. They belong to two different parties and are unlikely to make much of an impact in terms of numbers in the ruling coalition group. As for the disqualification petition filed by Mickky against Churchill, it's the 'property of the House', and as much as he (Mickky) would like to, the pleasure of 'withdrawing' it rests now with Pratapsing Raoji Rane, who as Speaker is the undisputed boss of all adjudication under the Xth Schedule.