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ROHAN HIGHWAY CAUSES POLLUTION IN PORVORIM
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ROHAN HIGHWAY CAUSES POLLUTION IN PORVORIM

Uncategorized December 5, 2025 , by

AND a few more stray thoughts and few more observations for another Saturday following the week when the Sohum Spiritual Resort in Arambol, also referred to as the “love resort,” is holding a 5-day conscious community experience blending yoga, meditation, tantra, healing and dance celebration, all aimed at conscious connection between men and women.
The so called spiritual retreat is scheduled between January 8 and 12, 2026 starting at 1pm on the first day. The participants are being charged anything from Rs30,000 to Rs84,000. The promised highlight is tantra meditation rituals which include couple intimacy, live music and ecstatic dance and healing. The festival describes itself as a sacred space of devotion and divinity. Goans, however, consider it a front for solicitation and prostitution.
The Goan Women’s Forum has publicly criticized the festival asking the State government to investigate the organizers. This comes soon after the “Kamasutra and Christmas” celebration advertising in the run-up to Christmas and New Year in Goa. The Arambol resort is promoted by a Dev Shri who claims to have conducted workshops in China and Europe. The Goa Police including the director general have been informed to investigate but no action has been initiated so far.
The organizers of such events are reported to have godfathers high places not just in Goa but in Delhi. There are other similar events scheduled in January both by local and international groups. It is not known if the international organizers have valid work permits to conduct workshops or organize events in Goa.
Meanwhile, the organizer of the Kamasutra Tales event coinciding with Christmas, who apologized to go free, is unrepentant. The police have let him off without charging him for solicitation and living off the proceeds of prostitution. Reportedly, this conman is boldly organizing a new event in Jaisalmer in Rajasthan in early January.

HIGH POLLUTION
AND a few stray thoughts on the Met Department and the Agency for Monitoring Air Quality which has reported that Panjim and Porvorim are witnessing a very sharp fall in the quality of the air Goans are breathing. This may be related to the fact that the temperature in Panjim and Porvorim has dipped to less than 19degF in the last few days, much lower than the average of 23-24degF in November and December, that is this time of the year in Goa.
Data reveals a shocking pattern with regular breathing in Panjim or Porvorim across the Mandovi river being equal to smoking five cigarettes every single day, or 96 cigarettes in a month. The cause is the concentration of fine particulate matter small enough to penetrate the lung barrier and enter the blood stream. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has set the annual safe limit at 5micrograms per cubic meter. Panjim’s current average of 2.5 pm is a staggering 88 micrograms which is 18 times the recommended guideline.
ENT surgeon Erikson d’Souza claims the flare up is due to seasonal field burning happening in Taleigao and around the PDA Colony near Mall de Goa in Porvorim.

‘TOI’ REVENUE MODEL
AND a few stray thoughts on media organizations both online and print who still have a lot to learn from the “The Times of India.” The TOI regularly organizes contests and workshops in a very wide range of areas to supplement its bottom-line. The TOI publications have been inviting applications for paid workshops on artificial intelligence for various categories like students, business professionals, etc. The TOI group owns Magic Bricks which is the biggest real estate broker in the country. The TOI in every city holds regular competitions for restaurants and awards prizes which are paid for by way of advertising. The latest TOI revenue target is its own film festival called the TOI Film Award Ceremony which seems to have been more successful than IFFI. The recently concluded IFFI awarded “La Patta Ladies” the award for being “Film of the Year.”

PRIME PROPERTIES ATTACHED
YET another stray thought is that the Enforcement Directorate of Panjim on Monday, provisionally attached 19 immoveable properties measuring five lakh square meters in premium areas like Anjuna and Assagao, worth Rs1500 crore. The properties were attached under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act. These properties were illegally acquired by a group led by Shiv Shankar, who used fabricated and forged land titles to cheat Goans and others. The probe was initiated on the complain of a victim, Yashwant Sawant, who shares the same name as the chief minister of Goa.

POLICE UNABLE TO PROTECT RESIDENTS
AND a few stray thoughts on when the Goa Police accepted the inability to protect the residents of Panjim from dacoits and other criminals. The police have now proposed that the community itself should take over the job of policing. This proposal actually comes from Mayor of Panjim Rohit Monserrate, who apparently has lost confidence in the Panjim Police. It may be recalled the police have yet to trace the criminals involved in the dacoity which happened in Dona Paula, recently. However, the fear is that the proposed “community policing” may be limited to elite areas only. Apparently, the most worried citizens are the residents of Altinho. All the bold and beautiful people living at Altinho will probably hire a group of security personnel to maintain vigil during the night.
The initiative is expected to extend to the Miramar beach vicinities as also the La Campala and Lakeview colonies where a lot of senior citizens reside. Apparently, in the recent past, anti-social elements drink alcohol and start creating a nuisance in the La Campala and Lake View colonies. Citizens’ surveillance is the need of the hour in Caranzalen colonies too where Rama Kanconkar was assaulted quite recently near the old Children’s Park.

AIDS NOT IN CONTROL
AND a few stray thoughts on the discovery that cases of AIDS are increasing exponentially, particularly amongst young people. According to the Goa State Aids Control Society there are currently more than 4,000 patients receiving treatment for AIDS. What is alarming is that almost 25 percent of them are skipping follow up and the anti-retro viral therapy offered free to all AIDs patients.
Understandably, the young who may be have acquired AIDS, do not want their families to know, for fear of the stigma attached to AIDS, like TB. This is why they don’t turn up for continuing anti-retro vital therapy (ART) needed. This is according to Dr Sheetal Khalap at the Goa Medical College & Hospital.
Alcoholics and patients of substance abuse tend to miss their daily dose. A pill for HIV persons ranges from one to three tablets a day, but if the patients do not take their tablets regularly, they will develop resistance. Patients who do not take the treatment are also exposing themselves to tuberculosis (TB) and pneumonia, and other muscle wasting conditions. Migrant labor and tourists are amongst the largest groups of AIDS patients in Goa.

BURIAL GROUNDS BLUES
AND a few stray thoughts on burial grounds attached to Catholic churches refusing to allow burial of Christians of other sects like the Baptists or Church of England or Protestants. The cemeteries attached to every major church in Goa are reportedly exclusively for Roman Catholics. There have been many instances of the cemetery attached to a Roman Catholic church refusing to bury even Syrian Catholics, who have their own separate churches in Kerala.
Recently, there was a horrifying case of the St Inez Church which refused to bury a Baptist from Manipur. Apparently, despite pleading from even government authorities like the Collector and the Mamlatdar, the church authorities refused. Ironically, the only cemetery which is willing to bury anyone of any denomination of the church in India or abroad, is the historical British cemetery at Dona Paula.
This British cemetery was originally set up for British soldiers, who died while on duty in Goa, during the Portuguese regime and before the Second World War when Britain and Portugal collaborated on navigation. The British cemetery is situated near the Goa Raj Bhavan and we remember former British premier Margaret Thatcher visiting it while in Goa for the CHOGM meet in 1984.
Permission has now been granted to the Baptists to bury their dead in the old British Cemetery. A young activist we know from Dona Paula has taken the initiative and is willing to assist in the burial of any non-Catholic who is refused burial by the cemeteries attached to the Catholic churches.
Incidentally, you need special permission for a Catholic to be cremated in a Hindu crematorium. We recall that the late artist and cartoonist Mario de Miranda was refused permission for cremation at the Panjim cremation grounds and he was finally cremated at the Madgaon crematorium, thanks to the intervention of the influential Naik family who were close friends of the Mario de Miranda family.

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