Govt gears up for exposition
The state government has proposed to arrange accommodation to 7,500 pilgrims daily during the exposition of the sacred relics of Goa's patrol saint, St Francis Xavier. The 42-day exposition will begin on November 21 and culminate on January 2, 2005. Official sources indicated that nearly 3 million people - both pilgrims and tourists - are expected to visit Goa during the exposition period.

IFFI work gains momentum
With Goa signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the Centre on the staging of the International Film Festival of India (IFFI), the process to get the state ready for the big show has started picking up. The Entertainment Society of Goa (ESG), which is the parent body for IFFI-Goa will hold its governing body meeting on August 14 at the old GMC complex, to finalise the arrangements for the festival. The IFFI executive committee meeting will be held on August 19 to okay the arrangements finalised by the ESG. The ESG meeting will be chaired by the Chief Minister, Mr Manohar Parrikar who is also the ESG chairman.The IFFI executive committee meeting will also be attended by Ms Kapoor, film makers, Mr Subhash Ghai, Mr Shekhar Kapoor, Mr S Chopra, principal of Goa College of Art, Mr Mahesh Vegurlekar, Mr Rajendra Talak, Mr Rajiv Shinde, Mr Tomazinho Cardozo, Ms Madhavi Dessai, Mr Anil Samant, Mr Lucio Miranda, Goa CII representative, Mr Caesar Menezes and IFFI's nodal officer, Mr Sanjit Rodrigues.

Uniting goans across the world
Rene Barreto acknowledged as the Father of World Goa Day, swings into action once again, exhorting Goans of the world to celebrate being Goan. An UK-based Goan NRI proves that while you can take the Goan out of Goa, it's not easy to take Goa out of the Goan. Non-Resident Goans of all shapes, sizes and vintage jumped at his idea of a World Goa Day in 2000. Resident Goans are lukewarm about a World Goa Day but a fever is already building up among the Goan clubs in India and abroad. This is a day to celebrate quintessential Goa - traditions, heritage, culture, cuisine, music, literature, poetry - anything and everything that is truly Goan

Hell breaks loose over helmets
Mapusa came to a standstill yesterday over the move of the traffic police to implement the helmet rule within the city limits with two-wheelers owners protesting against this decision of the cops. Thousands of two-wheeler owners resorted to a traffic blockade at the Hanuman Chowk on August 16 evening demanding return of their money paid by way of challans issued by the traffic police and documents confiscated in the process.Caught in the traffic jam was the Law Minister, Adv Francis D' Souza, who was forced to alight from his vehicle and subjected to a barrage of questions by the residents of Mapusa. Bowing to pressure, D'Souza concurred with the views of the protestors that the helmet rule needs to be enforced only on highways and not within the city limits.

New rules threaten charter flights
The Indian Navy is all set to play nemesis to the tourism industry's ambitions for the third time in less than a decade. This time, however, the problem has reached serious proportions and threatens to halve the number of charter flights landing in the state during the upcoming season. Allotment of landing and take-off slots to foreign charter flights at Dabolim airport has once again become the centre of controversy only months after Rear Admiral Shekhar Sinha, Flag Officer Goa Area, assured the state that the airport was open for civilian operation 24-hour-a-day.