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What do Goans actually want?
Posting on GoaNet
http://www.goanet.org/archivetype.php?name=News&list=goanet
Tuesday February 3, 2009
What do Goans actually want? Fr. Peter Fernandes,
SFX.
Finally, the honorable Chief Minister, Digambar
Kamat (O'Herald, Be positive on Development) has the
courage to ask the public the most important
question: "What do you really want?" This question
should have been asked long ago, but all this time
the cries of the masses fell on deaf ears. How
ironic! Yet true. We were being led in the wrong
direction by leaders who made a sham of their
service to the people.
The Chief Minister made it clear in his statement,
that while under the guise of being faithful public
servants, our leaders have been totally heedless of
the needs of ordinary citizens. Now he asks, "What
do you really want?"Goa should be an educational
hub, having the best of universities, and
engineering colleges, attracting students from other
states, as well as those from foreign countries.
Upgrade the present medical college, build the
finest hospitals, and set up research centers, which
will induce a needed boost to our economy, and bring
steady revenue to the state, and employment to the
locals. India is known for attracting medical
tourists from all over the world, and Goa is an
ideal place for recuperation and convalescence of
those under medical treatment.
Headed for such advancement and progress, our top
priority requires that a stable, well-designed
infrastructure be in place, generating adequate and
efficient electricity and supplying a continuous
flow of clean drinking water. Of equal importance is
the transportation system. A sound and intact
network of roads having four lane highways, and
two-lane interior roads would have a major effect on
reducing the accidents and fatalities, which bring
sorrow to our families and scorn to our name. No
less critical, is the need for a centralized and
scientifically monitored sewage system, to ward-off
the contamination of our rivulets, thus reducing the
menace of mosquitoes. Public sanitation and
well-organized collection of garbage and proper
disposal of all refuse is vital for any tourist
spot.
Remember, there are thousands of Goans living in
Diaspora, who are totally immersed in first world
conveniences and comfort, receiving with ease the
same efficient services that the governments of
those countries provide for its citizens. Upon
retirement, many desire to return home to Goa, but
are reluctant, because of our failure to adequately
and duly supply basic amenities. If said
infrastructure is put in place, many of our brothers
and sisters, who live overseas, will come home to
reunite with their families. Such action on their
part would help to negate the imbalance caused by
non-goans in our state of Goa. The present scenario
decries the government in its deficiency to uphold
the family unit, which has undergone a dramatic
change due to migration of our people to foreign
countries. It is the moral obligation and
responsibility of the government, to protect this
basic unit-the family, which is the strength in the
fabric that keeps a community together with higher
ethical standards.
Goa is a natural tourist destination, and beckons
visitors' year around. To keep the tourism industry
alive and active, an added feature, like a
"Disneyland /Sea-World" type park would enhance the
delight and entertainment of our guests. In place of
a new airport in Mopa, build a Disneyland there. The
construction of such an amusement park would benefit
the state with increased revenue, and local
employment at a higher payment scale. A Sea-World in
the south would reap similar advantages. Having been
blessed abundantly by nature, Goa has the
ingredients and capacity to house a well-designed
national garden- a botanical beauty, to showcase and
exhibit the flowers, plants and trees that flourish
copiously in our homeland. Let us offer the public a
place of serenity and relaxation, and an opportunity
to enjoy and learn about the natural beauty of our
creation.
Our rice-fields and farmlands are languishing for
proper attention. At one time, these paddy fields
laid out an emerald carpet of welcome to our
visitors, and brought delight to our farmers. Now,
the number of farmers is diminishing, and our fields
are prey to ambitious builders, who want to grow
concrete jungles. It is time that our government
provides incentives to the farmers to restore the
agriculture, as well as horticulture; thereby,
returning vitality to our lives and to our
environment. By the same token, enforce the
three-months fishing ban during the breeding season
to replenish the depleted ocean with fish, and
revive the dying fishing industry.
Goa has the potential to be the football power of
the world, but we are not seriously tapping the
talents. If world class academies had been
instituted, with insurance for each player, India
would have qualified to play in the world-cup a long
time ago. Our budding athletes are slipping away to
work in the hospitality industry, in middle-east,
the west, and on the ships. This loss of sports
talent is a shame. Furthermore, please extend
support and cooperation to our "Tiatrist," who have
maintained our traditions and kept our culture alive
to date, by their sacrifice and hard work.
Goans on average, have better English diction than
that of the population in many of our other states.
Call centers would have presented Goans with ideal
jobs, if our government was, in fact, interested in
provided such for our citizens. Investment for such
a project would have been minimal; job opportunities
for our youth would have been plentiful. We would
have been better served had we not allowed such job
possibilities to slip from our hands. "IT Park" is
good, but before going in that direction, I believe
greater deliberation on the call centers would have
possibly demonstrated a greater economic advantage.
And now, we look forward to global market, while our
schools have changed their courses to regional
economics. English is no longer being taught in the
primary school. We are such wise fools!What we do
not want is SEZ, lame industries, mega-housing
projects, and the destruction of our environment. We
do not want drug trafficking, casinos, rapes,
pedophiles, gangs, murder, robberies, and
corruption. Establish a strong police force, which
will uphold the law and protect the citizens; keep
lifeguards on every beach to avoid the all too
frequent drownings of our visitors and our own
people, and have restrooms on all beaches for public
use, and parking space where people congregate. Keep
Goa safe, clean and green!Had this question been
posed years ago, and answered sincerely and
progressively, the fabric of our society would have
remained intact: the mass exodus of our citizens to
foreign countries, lessened; the influx of the
immigrants from other states, contained. We must not
delay any longer. Now is better than never. Goa is
calling! Those who have ears let them hear her plea.
Her wounds are showing! Those who have eyes let them
see. |
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Why I Fear The West's Luck Has Run
Out
By Luke Johnson
From:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/ed725cc4-ecda-11dd-a534-0000779fd2ac.html
Published: January 28 2009
Over the months I have told my colleagues at Channel
4 and the Royal Society of Arts that this is not
just a financial hiccup, or something happening to
the City and Wall Street.
We need to make programmes, do research and deliver
lectures about this moment - because this downturn
is very bad indeed. It will sear itself into a
generation's memory and scar lives. It may well be
the worst slump most of us have ever experienced. It
surely needs to be recorded and discussed, while
solutions are sought - and in the meantime we have
to struggle through it.
For at least a year I have been as restrained and
positive as I felt I could be. I am past all that
now. It is time for some blunt talk, I fear.
It is clear that as a society we must learn
something painful and radical - how to live within
our means - because the credit just is not there any
more. The easy money is all gone, and there will be
no more for a long time.
Previous assumptions simply do not apply. Homeowners
should forget about houses going up in value - all
that is history. They are places to live in. So cut
back on your outgoings. Pay rises are off the
agenda. Wholesale pay cuts may yet become common.
Put some cash aside if you possibly can; you might
lose your job. I fear most citizens' plans for the
future must be put on hold. This is not something
happening to other people - we are all in trouble.
Business must adjust to the idea that this
stagnation could last for many years. The age of
free money from mad lenders is finished. The growth
game is over. Whole swathes of industry are on life
support. The banks are in desperate straits. If
their management cannot see that, then they are even
more incompetent than they are portrayed.
Indeed, too many of us still fail to see just how
severe conditions are, and how horrible things are
likely to get. This is not a correction, a brief
hiatus until the upward march once more resumes. At
some point, the Japanese, Chinese and Saudi buyers
of US and European government bonds will see just
what miserable value they offer. Then governments
may have to stop all the runaway state spending and
bail-outs, and even put up interest rates.
Plenty of observers, including me, have criticised
the media for being too gloomy. I am now beginning
to believe that they have not been gloomy enough, if
they want to reflect the true consequences of our
profligacy and past conceit.
After all, who wants to face up to the bleak reality
that confronts us? The experts say we will not
suffer a repeat of the 1930s slump. Indeed, we have
to contend with fresh issues. Like the fact that
there are 1.5bn recent additions to the capitalist
workforce in China and India - hard-working,
increasingly well-educated people, all keen to
better themselves. Meanwhile, modern logistics and
communications mean trade and production can take
place almost anywhere if it makes economic sense.
So why should industrious Asians earn a tiny
fraction of what citizens in the west earn?
Especially when they have so much of the cash and
productive resources, while we have deficits, high
costs and poor demographics.
Prepare for a wrenching, unstoppable redistribution
of wealth - and I am not talking about domestic
taxes. For too long it has been more profitable in
the west to finance consumption rather than
production. That cannot continue. I am afraid that
the west's credibility - and luck - has run out.
This vast reordering of our economic system has only
just begun. We shall have to cancel all the
self-indulgence of endless welfare spending and
cultivate rather more of a work ethic and a sense of
self-sufficiency. Expectations must be modified and
attitudes altered profoundly. Expect years of
negligible growth, permanent high unemployment,
declining property prices, higher taxes, crumbling
currencies and falling living standards.
We shall look back on the last decade and think: we
never realised what we had until it was gone.
lukej@riskcapitalpartners.co.uk The writer is
chairman of Channel 4 and runs Risk Capital
Partners, a private equity firm |
