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MIRABAG DAM WORK HALTED!
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MIRABAG DAM WORK HALTED!

Mar 21- Mar 27, 2026, Stray Thoughts March 19, 2026 , by

AND a few stray thoughts for yet another Saturday. For a Saturday following the week when Atanasio Babush Monseratte completed 25 very successful years as a politician. For a Saturday following the week when the centenary of the legendary cartoonist Mario da Miranda. For a Saturday following the week when Irrigation Minister Subhash Shirodkar agreeing to halt work on the Mirabag bhandara project. For a Saturday following the week when the Oscar awards this year going to the film “One Battle After Another.”
 AND a few stray thoughts on when Atanasio Babush Monseratte completed 25 very successful years as a politician. Babush first entered politics contesting a Taleigao seat in 2002. He contested the elections from Taleigao on a United Goans Democratic Party ticket. Babush brought his money lending skills to politics and became a powerbroker. His big break came when Manohar Parrikar offered him the Town & Country Planning portfolio to save his minority government.
In fairness, Babush delivered, not only in joining the BJP himself but also getting Pandurang Madkaikar and Isidore Fernandes to resign their Congress seats and getting them re-elected on the BJP ticket from Old Goa and Canacona in 2002. Babush learned very early how to cash in on his political office. Babush was the first to tamper with the regional plan and invite builders to take over Goa. Babush was the author of the notorious regional plan 2011.
Manohar Parrikar did not have the political will to restrain Babush Monserrate. It was the RP 2011 agitation which led to the collapse of the first Parrikar government. It was Digambar Kamat who scraped RP 2011 but even he could not govern without Babush Monserrate, who shifted from the BJP to the Congress to join Digambar Kamat who had also defected from BJP to Congress to be appointed chief minister.
Babush Monserrate has no permanent political ideology. Babush is only concerned with personal aggrandizement. However, Babush unlike other politicians, spends liberally on his vote bank comprising of the migrants and the poorer class of Goans. Babush pays the school fees of their children, he offers medical help, even offers homes, not to mention two-wheelers and other consumer durables for a little bit of comfort at home.
Needless to say Babush’s freebies have always been conditional. Babush will pay the first installment for a two-wheeler before election, if he wins he pays the rest of the installments. Babush also built a huge real estate empire by lending money at extortionate rates to builders, and when they failed to repay he would demand x number of floors in the buildings, so much so that he owns floors in just about every high rise building, including the earliest highrise of Shalom — where he owns a penthouse. Babush accommodated the Congress high command observer Margaret Alva at his Shalom penthouse across Miramar beach.
Babush Monserrate has admitted that he did not contest the Panjim seat when Manohar Parrikar was alive. This was not because out of respect for Parrikar but because he was not confidant about defeating Manohar Parrikar. Babush was one of the first MLAs to buy immunity from harassment or arrest by striking a deal with Manohar Parrikar. He agreed to support Parrikar in the Panjim assembly constituency in return for protection from enforcement directorate income tax agencies.
Babush Monseratte staked his claim for the Panjim assembly seat only after the death of Manohar Parrikar on a Congress ticket. He defeated Utpal Parrikar, the BJP candidate. Today Babush says that he and Utpal can coexist together. Babush is planning to field his son Rohit Monserrate from the Taleigao constituency in place of Jennifer, who is reportedly suffering from cancer. She has not been seen around even in the assembly for quite some time as she is being treated in Mumbai.

ONE FOR MIRANDA DA MIRANDA
AND a few stray thoughts on the centenary of the legendary cartoonist Mario da Miranda. Mario graduated from the JJ School of Art in Mumbai. The very talented Mario was offered a job in “The Times of India” for some time but the resident tyrant of the Old Lady of Boribundar RK Laxman could not stand any competition. It is not widely known that RK Laxman was meaner than the crows he loved to draw. He forced the management to sack Mario Miranda.
I first became close to Mario when I was the editor of the magazine “Imprint” in Bombay, now Mumbai. I invited him to do several covers for “Imprint” and paid him generously. Amongst the most memorable covers was the one on the large scale migration of Mumbaikars and Goans to the Gulf countries. The title was “Goodbye Bombay, Hello Dubai” and Mario did full justice to the subject. Mario used to live in a rented flat in Navy Nagar at the end of the Colaba Causeway, close to the sea.
He of course kept in touch with his home state Goa and I first met Dr Wilfred D’Souza at Mario’s end of Colaba Causeway residence. Mario was the person who invited me to go to Goa to take up the job of editor at the then Portuguse paper “OHeraldo” in 1983. Mario was a good friend of the late AC Fernandes, publisher of the paper. Mario warned me to get a jacket stitched, he told me I could attend Catholic weddings without a jacket but not Catholic funerals. Tara and I were also friends with Habiba, who was Mario’s wife, she was a former airhostess. We used to meet the da Mirandas quite occasionally at their ancestral home in Loutalim.
I remember that Mario had no business sense and it was Habiba who managed his life and collected on payments due to him. Habiba teamed up with the architect Gerald D’Cunha to monetize the work of Mario da Miranda. Mario also tried to get the Reis Magos Fort leased out to UK’s Lady Hamlyn but eventually it was Dipti Ambani who took over the responsibility of restoring the historic Reis Magos Fort which still has a Mario da Miranda art gallery featuring his work.
To commemorate the upcoming centenary event old friend of Mario, Athaide Fernandes, will be displaying his collection of very early sketches and paintings of Mario. Gerard da Cunha is planning to open a Mario Gallary at the Latin heritage precint of Fontainhas, reportedly located in the ancestral house of the late historian Perceival Noronha. Before Mario de Miranda said goodbye he expressed his wish to be cremated rather than buried. The story goes that the Panjim St Inez crematorium returned the request down and so he was cremated at the Margao crematorium courtesy his good friend Mohandas Naik of Tata Motors who ran interference and got Mario’s final wish fulfilled.
AND a few stray thoughts on Irrigation Minister Subhash Shirodkar agreeing to halt work on the Mirabag bhandara project. The project has not been revoked but only stopped for a few months or so we understand. The Water Resources Department made a presentation to the locals accusing them of being mislead by the protestors. The protestors rejected the explanation offered by the officials. For the first time it was women police between the representatives of the department and the locals at the meeting venue.
Not only politicians but bureaucrats also need to be protected against the people’s wrath in Goa. In any case, the Mirabag protestors carried the battle to the assembly where from the visitors gallery they displayed placards and also shouted for justice. It was the first day of the assembly meeting and Chief Minister Pramod Sawant who did not have ice on his head that day screamed and shouted for the protestors to be arrested. The protestors were arrested and promptly the Opposition leaders in the assembly joined the protestors and demanded for their release. The Mirabag protestors moved to the Azad maidan and were not allowed near the assembly again. Protests in the assembly are now banned.
Finally, after a meeting with the CM they were told by Irrigation Minister Subhash Shirodkar that the bhandara project is being kept in abeyance for the time being. The protest is expected to continue until it is shelved.

AT THE OSCARS
AND a few stray thoughts on the Oscar awards this year going to the film “One Battle After Another.” The film is actually about a dumping ground for activists. The message sent out is that the rightists are evil while the leftists are basically comic. The film trivializes all protest movements calling them silly affairs. Though ostensibly the film is anti-Donald Trump it is actually supporting the right wing protests. The film has attracted a lot of criticism for trivializing activism. The film perhaps reflects the new generation of young people who have no patience with protests of any kind, this is a dystopia generation only concerned with survival.
It is perhaps not surprising that the ongoing protests in Goa is made up largely of senior citizens who are the most active. Claude Alvares of Goa Foundation is 80, Justice Ferdino Revello is in his late 70s, Dean D’Cruz is in his late 60s. There are but very few young people on the ground at the public meetings held by Justice Ferdino Rebello. It is mostly women who are the activists at the forefront of both the Chimbel and St Andre protests. But to return to the Oscar awards perhaps the organizers are very much part of the conservative American establishment and not surprisingly they gave the Oscar award for best film to “One Battle After Another” which ridicules protests than supports them.

SOCIAL MEDIA KILLS BRAIN
AND a few stray thoughts on the finding by eminent neurologists from Oxford declaring that social media threatens to make us all brain dead. The neurologists point out that smart phones are rewiring the brain of human beings, referring to this as neuroplasticity. The brain learns through repetitive tasks. This is how you learn how to drive a car or a two-wheeler, once learned never forgotten. This is the mechanism which enables us to remember what we read and see in visual memory. Of the artworks you see or the movies you experience. Similarly, your brain is addicted to the stimulation provided by social posts and U-Tube videos. These make your mind dependent and impact the cognitive function of the brain. The neurologists advise a breaks in the morning and afternoon from smart phones. Progressively increasing it to four to six hours daily. They recommend walking away from the smart phone for small stretches of time in between scrolling and messaging. Liberate your brain from the tyranny of the smart phones.

HARD COPY OF `ARTHASHASTRA’
AND a last stray thought for yet another Saturday, about the Union Public Service Commission, in an exam paper asking a question based on the Arthashastra which is the Indian equivalent the famous European classic called Prints written by Macaulay. The Arthashastra is a not a book on economics but a guide to kings and prime ministers like Narendra Modi on how to get the better of rivals.
One of the candidates appearing for the exam challenged the official answer to the question from the Arthashastra. The Delhi high court upheld the student’s petition claiming that there was no evidence that the book existed. The question was based on a PDF claiming to be the soft copy of the Arthashastra. No hard copy was produced.

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