AND a few stray thoughts for yet another Saturday. For a Saturday following the week when Chief Minister Pramod Sawant threatened to take action against his Cabinet colleague Minister of Art & Culture Govind Gaude. For a Saturday following the week when fears were raised about the return of Covid-19. For a Saturday following the week when the monsoons arrived not only in Goa but also in Mumbai and many places in the country a week or two earlier by mid-May in Goa, never has the monsoon arrived so early. For a Saturday following the week when Ravi Naik, the agriculture minister, asked Goans not to sell their ancestral land to builders and people from Delhi and Hyderabad.
ATTACK ON CM
AND a few stray thoughts on Chief Minister Pramod Sawant threatening to take action against his Cabinet colleague Govind Gaude, who is the minister for art and culture. The provocation is allegations by Govind Gaude of rampant corruption in the Tribal Welfare Department. Gaude, who belongs to the notified Schedule Tribe had claimed that the funds allotted for tribal welfare were being misappropriated. The contractors were forced to pay huge bribes.
This is a direct attack on Chief Minister Pramod Sawant as he is in charge of the tribal affairs portfolio. Reacting angrily, Pramod Sawant lashed out at Govind Gaude. Gaude had alleged that “a huge amount of taxpayers” money is allotted to the Tribal Welfare Department. If it is unable to organize programs efficiently, it is “lack of control over the administration by the chief minister.”
Pramod Sawant has threatened to take action against Govind Gaude. Sawant retorted, “It is not acceptable to raise issues in the media, we will not tolerate such a thing in the media. It is not just the warning. Action will be taken at the right time.”
Clearly, this is the signal to Govind Gaude that he will be dropped from the Cabinet. This is typical of Pramod Sawant. If anyone raises issues of corruption, Pramod Sawant threatens the person making the allegations. It would appear that it is a crime to make any allegations against the chief minister, however valid they may be.
Not surprisingly, the state BJP President Damu Naik has also attacked Govind Gaude for making allegations against the chief minister. Not surprisingly, the Goa Forward Party president at Fatorda MLA Vijai Sardesai, has insisted that the BJP has cultivated and encouraged corruption in every department.
Cabinet Minister Govind Gaude’s statement that “contractors need to pay a fine to get files cleared is a sign of utter frustration.” The CM should resign and conduct an inquiry into the allegations. Perhaps sensing that he may be the next target, Vishwajit Rane has quickly reiterated his loyalty to the chief minister. Vishwajit Rane has also been accused of widespread corruption in the Town & Country Planning Department.
COVID-19 RETURNS?
AND a few stray thoughts on the fears being expressed about the return of Covid-19. It is been revealed that the number of COVID-19 cases in the last month alone has crossed the 1,000 mark. Cases have been reported from Delhi, Maharashtra, Kerala and Gujarat witnessing a large number of cases last week. It is suspected that the current upsurge in cases is caused by a new variant of the coronavirus infection that has escaped immunity development despite the vaccination.
As of now the cases are claimed to be mild as there have been only four deaths so far. The symptoms, of course, cold, cough and more importantly, respiratory difficulties. There is no advice to isolate patients or in any case for imposing the kind of restrictions of quarantining as dictated at the peak of COVID pandemic 2019 onwards last time. Director of ICA Mark Dr Rommel Tickoo does not think it is necessary for the general public to test themselves for COVID-19. But as a precaution, infected persons and those close to them are advised to wear masks. It is now being admitted that the number of people who died during the COVID-19 epidemic was much larger than publicly admitted.
COVID-19 also caused huge losses to businesses and industry. But on the positive side, COVID created the culture of working from home. All the software companies in the country adopted the system of getting their staff to work from home. Except that the staff got so used to working from home that they later became reluctant to go back to office.
Many IT companies have now adopted a hybrid system where by software engineers have to report to the office only for 10 to 15 days a month, with the option of working from home also. The COVID-19 epidemic gave a big boost to mobile phones, particularly smartphones. They began to be widely used both by teachers and students. COVID-19 created a generation of smart students and distance learning.
EARLY MONSOON
AND a few stray thoughts on the monsoon arriving early this year, not only in Goa but in the country, one week earlier. Actually, in the case of Goa, it arrived more than 11 days ago. The so-called pre-monsoon showers continued into the regular monsoon rains. So much so, Goa has witnessed cloudy skies and heavy rains from the middle of May.
Fortunately, schools are closed for delayed summer vacations and are only expected to open in the first week of June. The monsoon normally arrives in Kerala in the last week of May and progresses to Goa by the first week of June. The monsoon has created havoc not only in Goa but also in Mumbai with record rains on Monday, May 26, when the underground metro stations are flooded. The lifeline of the city which are the suburban electric Western and Central railways also came to a halt with flooded railway tracks and stations. Flights both to and from Goa and Mumbai had to be diverted or re-scheduled.
For those who are interested in the monsoon and the romance of the monsoon rain, I would like to recommend the book titled “Chasing the Monsoon” by English travel writer Alexander Frater. Frater literally chased to monsoon from Kerala right up to Cheerapunji in Meghalaya which still records the highest rainfall in the country or is there another place now claiming to have the highest rainfall?
The book describes a hectic chase with Frater flying from destination to destination to catch up with the monsoon it arrived at its next destination. I have had the privilege of meeting Alexander Frater and helped him to get an air ticket to Mumbai in time to arrive before the monsoon.
India must be the only country where the infrastructure collapses promptly with the first heavy rain fall. This is primarily because of the lack of an efficient drainage system or its maintenance at regular intervals. I have never seen roads flooded in London or in Brazil, let alone in the Gulf countries. Interestingly, the Gulf countries have been experiencing very heavy rains and even flooding due to climatic changes in world weather patterns.
DON’T SELL LAND TO OUTSIDERS
AND a few stray thoughts on Agriculture Minister Ravi Naik asking Goans not to sell their ancestral land to builders and people from Delhi and Hyderabad. Ravi Naik, who was the chief minister of Goa for a few years in the 90s, claims that the rampant sale of land to non-Goans will leave Goans landless and lead to the death of agriculture. To quote the minister, “Delhi is hot with a lot of pollution. During these days, people want to come to Goa. They buy homes here and buy land. Goans should not sell their land to people from Delhi.”
Ravi Naik seems to be lobbying for the hotel industry. He insisted that we should not allow tourists to stay in the open in Goa. He was referring to tourists who comes to Goa in jeeps and buses and camp on the roadside near the beaches and doing everything out of door including messing up the area, leaving behind litter for somebody else to clean up. Because of these budget domestic tourists occupancy in hotels is being affected.
The Delhi people who have bought holiday homes are renting them out to wealthy tourists. It is the growing popularity of home stays which is hitting the hotels hardest and eating away their revenue. Home stays are more economical than hotels that keep increasing their tariffs with any excuse, even for the long weekends which come when there is a rush of tourists anxious to relax in holiday state Goa.
POPULAR SINDOOR YATRA
AND a few stray thoughts on Narendra Modi now launching a Sindoor yatra in Gujarat ahead of the elections in the state. Operation Sindoor has now become Modi’s private war against Pakistan. Going by Modi’s speeches in Gujarat on Monday, May 26 it is Modi’s bullets which killed the terrorists in Pakistan. Modi sent out a warning to people living in Pakistan, “Roti khao varna meri goli toh hai.”
So the army, the navy, and the air force can retire. Modi will shoot the terrorists with his own gun. Modi repeated the slogan “my bullet is always there against terror.” There used to be continuously a lot of controversy on Operation Sindoor. In the wake of the statement by the Madhya Pradesh BJP minister Kunwar Vijay Shah, a Rajya Sabha BJP MP, Ram Chander Jangra, has accused the widows of the Pahalgam victims of cowardice.
The MP claims that the women should have attacked the terrorists. The MP has also accused the victims of surrendering to terrorists. They should have fought the four terrorists and overcome them. They should have trained under Agniveer. Understandably, the widows are very angry over the remarks of the Rajya Sabha MP.
Incidentally, Modi and company have yet to even discover the identity of the four to six terrorists who killed 26 tourists in Pahalgam recently. They seems to have appeared suddenly and disappeared without a trace. Modi’s bullet may have killed a hundred terrorists in Pakistan. The defense forces may have crippled the Pakistani air defense system, making it worse for Modi. But the widows of Pahalgam are still waiting for action to be taken against the terrorists who wiped off the sindoor from their foreheads.
BEWARE INSTANT VIDEOS
AND a last stray thought on VIPs and VVIPs having to be very cautious these days about instant videos. Anyone with a mobile phone can record every moment of their life. The latest victim has been French President Emmanuel Macron. Apparently he and his wife Brigette has a major scrap when the door to the air craft opened on a state visit to the capital of Vietnam, Hanoi. This video shot shows his wife pushing away the face of President Macron. The president admits that he was quarrelling with his wife and that the petty difference had become catastrophic for them, for everyone now thinks his wife slapped his face over something and the video is evidence.