Goan Voice UK: Newsletter. Issue 2008-12. March. 20, 2008

UK: Philip Fernandes jailed for using fake passport – “common practice in Goa”
17 Mar: Wiltshire Gazette & Herald (UK). Philip Fernandes, 47, from Goa who came to Britain and landed a job on a false passport has been jailed for a year. He bought a false Portuguese passport and identity card in Germany for 1,500 Euros but was arrested at his place of work, which was Del Monte … he indicated that it was common practice among those in Goa … Fernandes, of Manchester Road, Swindon had been a farmer in Goa and had struggled to provide for his family … he could have applied for a Portuguese passport but the process takes a long time … Judge Charles Wade said he wanted to send a message to others in the country that it has to stop. 440 words. Click here.

Engaging India: Just how safe is Goa
13 Mar: FT. … the main beach and bar areas in the Baga-Calangute strip attract some foreign tourists who see Goa as simply another destination in which to seek a hedonistic high. For their part, some of the more lawless local elements – the gangsters and touts – see the foreigners as walking bags of change to be taken advantage of, or worse. 964 words. Click here.

Foreign visitors most vulnerable to Goa's thriving drug scene
13 Mar: BBC. The average foreign tourist to Goa these days is a British citizen, usually on a budget holiday, staying for a little more than a week in one of more than 2,400 hotels, guest houses and paying guest homes that dot this tiny Indian state … The only statutory warning for the tourist, quips a local, is: If you walk the wild side in Goa, be prepared for the worst consequences. 953 words. Click here.

Late travel deals
13 Mar: The Times (UK). Flee Britain on Easter Day for a guaranteed fortnight of sunshine in Goa for just £419. This offer with Cosmos includes a flight from Gatwick and B&B at the Valentine Retreat in Candolim. 0871 4238560. Click here.

UK media draws flak for putting India in negative light
14 Mar: PTI. The British media which is giving blanket coverage to the murder of 15-year-old Scarlett Keeling in Goa has drawn flak for its negative reporting deriding India and Goa, with angry readers accusing it of making too much of the case. Many readers point out that the Indian news media do not pass similar judgments on British society when Indian citizens die in Britain. 491 words. Click here.

For foreign tourists, Goa offers cheap thrills
14 Mar: Times of India. They arrive in Goa like white chicken and leave golden-brown. They pass a lovely week eating, drinking and sunbathing, and all for less than five pounds a day. Goa may be one of the most expensive spots in India, but for the foreign tourist it is still luxury on the cheap. Click here.

Despite bad press, Britons say Goa is still a great place
14 Mar: Rediff. Goa has received some bad press in the British media after the death of teenager Scarlett Keeling, but there are many there who continue to repose faith in the delights of its sun and sand.
Tour operators say there has not been any let up in holiday bookings in Goa. Many Britons follow the daily reports on television and newspapers, but have not changed plans to hop on to chartered planes to Goa due to the incident. 459 words. Click here.

British love for Goa unaffected
14 Mar: News Today. Tour operators say there is no decline in holiday bookings in Goa as Britons tracked the probe in the suspected sea side murder of British teenager Scarlett Keeling. Click here.

Reality intrudes in the search for paradise
14 Mar: The Independent (UK). Five years ago, I ended a Goa love affair with a nasty itch … 938 words. Click here.

Flights a Goa
14 Mar: Loughborough Echo (UK). East Midlands Airport has launched flights direct to Goa, the airport's first Indian Ocean destination. This new addition is already proving to be the hottest destination at EMA, in the first month of service 99 per cent of the seats were taken.

Scarlett’s death is not an isolated case
15 Mar: Daily News & Analysis (DNA). Scarlett Keeling’s is not an isolated case as Goa Police would have us believe. DNA has learnt the police are also investigating a murder committed in August 2007 on the same lines of a 15-year-old Canadian girl … 417 words. Click here.

Goa: No more a tourist haven?
15 Mar: NDTV. The Scarlett Keeling murder case may have shattered that very image. But for foreign tourists who are already in Goa, has the perception of Goa as a tourist haven changed? Click here.

Goa on death bed
15 Mar: MidDay. Over 75 foreign tourists have died on Goa’s beaches since last year, 31 of them under mysterious circumstances … 369 words. Click here.

Dozens of suspicious death cases in Goa to be reinvestigated
15 Mar: Daily Mail (UK). The deaths of at least four Britons in Goa could be reinvestigated after police admitted covering up the death of Scarlett Keeling … Click here.

The land where the hippy trail reaches a historic impasse
15 Mar: The Guardian. Adventurous travellers have found many things in Goa. Evelyn Waugh came to Goa in December 1952. "The scenery [is] delicious ... the people soft and friendly," he wrote to his wife … The explorer and translator Richard Burton, there in the 1840s, found it "a worse than useless colony" filled with drunk, lazy men, and abundant evidence that religious conversion and miscegenation led to "the utter degeneracy of the breed". Graham Greene arrived in 1962 to write a piece called Goa the Unique … at a party one night Greene was offered Benzedrine, a recreational drug and took some … 1266 words. Click here.

Editorial: Clean Up Goa
15 Mar: Times of India. It's a famed beach-holiday destination, easy-going and affordable. With its rich cultural and religious traditions, Goa offers a heady mix of the old and the new. However, over the years, it has also become an attractive hang-out for socially dysfunctional people … The people of the region should come together to clean up their home … 431 words. Click here.

At Anjuna beach, an air of siege
16 Mar: In Goa, the signs of a hash-laced decay are everywhere. Undercover cops at nightclubs, regular incidents of molestation of foreigners at night and the worst scenario for the wannabe hippie: fake LSD … 351 words. Click here.

German molested at Cavelossim
16 Mar: Herald. The safety and security of foreign women tourists on Goan beaches came to the fore again on Saturday, after a young German woman became the latest victim of molestation on the Cavelossim-Zalor beach stretch. 384 words. Click here.

Goa government to clean up coastline
16 Mar: The Hindu. In the wake of the alleged drugging and murder of a British teenager, the Goa government has undertaken a clean-up drive on its coastline. 370 words. Click here.

Goa: Destination For Drug Addicts
16 Mar: Navhind Times. Editorial. One thing we should never forget in the Scarlett murder case is the easy availability of drugs at Anjuna, and by implication, at other beaches of Goa. 736 words. Click here.

Drugs: Scarlett case a tip of the iceberg
16 Mar. Navhind Times. Scarlett Keeling’s rape and murder has opened a virtual Pandora’s box as the media attention, local, national and international have brought the seedy underside of the Goan tourist trade and the underlying drug trade under spotlight in sharp contrast to the usual singing praises of Goa’s pristine coastline as well as its thriving nightlife. 1185 words. Click here.

Tickets are Goa going, gone!
18 Mar: Leicester Mercury. Flights to an Indian resort have been a success, airport managers say.East Midlands managers said 99 per cent of seats had been snapped up since flights to Goa started last month

£318 - 14 Nights in Goa ex Nottingham
19 Mar: Travel Zoo. Click here.

Liquor consumption on the rise in state
14 Mar: Sources in the know, say that the number of illegal bars well could be double the number of licensed bars in Goa. The Assistant Commissioner of Excise … 222 words. Click here.

Rare hip replacement surgery conducted at GMC
16 Mar: Navhind Times. Doctors at the Goa Medical College and Hospital have developed an expertise in a new technique called cement-in-cement revision hip surgery and used it in conducting a rare surgery using the implants from the earlier total hip replacement surgery which failed … The process costs around Rs 20,000, a fraction of cost one otherwise would have to incur to buy new implants. 324 words. Click here.

Goa police 'in drugs clampdown'
17 Mar: BBC. Police in Goa say they have arrested at least 40 people in an operation against drugs dealers. 262 words. Click here.

First Catholic Church Opens in Qatar
14 Mar: Fox News. … A few days ago, Lourdes Carvalho and her elderly mother attended what they prayed would be one of their last morning services in the makeshift chapel. The 38-year-old housewife from Goa, India, was born in Qatar and grew up attending underground mass in neighbours' homes. She said: "We have been waiting for this for such a long time and we are feeling very hopeful, because finally we will have a proper place of worship." 667 words. Click here.

Let's kill him and rape his wife, screamed the mob …
16 Mar. Mail on Sunday (UK). … Goa may have a reputation as a hedonist's paradise but it has a dark and violent side. Many local men regard Western bikini-clad women as little more than prostitutes and have a seething resentment of tourists … 1621 words. Click here.

Claremont Group launches First Goa development
18 Mar. Birmingham Post. More than 100 members of Birmingham's property community joined property investment company Claremont Group at a cocktail party. The event marked another landmark year for the Edgbaston-based firm, which included the launch of its First Goa development.

Video: Sun, Sand & Murder
From Rosario da Cunha: I feel all Goans should view this discussion programme. It features Scarlett’s mother, Dr Oscar Rebello, Remo Fernandes, etc. Click here.

Scarlett case: The missing men
13 Mar: NDTV. While the Goa Police battles with the charges of a grand cover-up, the role played by four men, who were part of the teenager's life till minutes before she died, is under the scanner. They are Placido Carvalho, known as Shanaboy in local circles; Edwin Nunes, the sarpanch of Anjuna and the owner of Curly's shack, which Scarlett used to frequent; Mike Masala an alleged eye-witness and Murali, reportedly a relative of a deceased Bollywood music baron, 365 words. Click here.

Mothers and monsters
14 Mar: The Guardian (UK). … the treatment of Fiona MacKeown, the mother of the 15-year-old murdered on a Goa beach, has plumbed new depths of harsh judgmentalism. ... In the media's hands, Fiona MacKeown has become a scapegoat for the middle classes … 663 words. Click here.

Scarlett Keeling's mother summoned in Goa
15 Mar: The Telegraph (UK). The mother of Scarlett Keeling, the British teenager raped and murdered in Goa, was last night summoned for police questioning amid allegations that she was negligent. Click here.

Corruption has become a way of life: Vahanvati
16 Mar: The Hindu. Observing that corruption has become a way of life, Solicitor General of India Goolam Vahanvati spoke of the recent murder of British teenager in Goa and controversy related to her autopsy report. "What action we took against those who filed the first autopsy report which found nothing wrong?" she asked. Click here.

Tourist 'saw Scarlett on beach'
16 Mar: BBC. A British tourist in Goa, Michael Mannion, aged 35, from London, has said that he saw Scarlett Keeling on the beach with a man on top of her on the night she was killed. He named the man as Samson D'Souza, one of two men arrested by local police. 452 words. Click here.

Scarlett’s mother wanted to settle in Goa
16 Mar: Malaysia Sun. Murdered British teenager Scarlett Keeling's mother says she loves India but has abandoned plans to settle down in Goa for safety reasons. 'I don't feel safe here. I am sure there are many people in Goa who want to see me dead,' Fiona MacKeown told the Observer newspaper in an interview published Sunday … 251 words. Click here.

Casual sex, drink and drugs: The disturbing last days of Scarlett Keeling
16 Mar: Daily Mail (UK). Murdered schoolgirl Scarlett Keeling was living a hedonistic life of sex, drugs and alcohol in the holiday haven of Goa in the weeks before her death … now the final chapter of the tragic teenager's life can be told in her own words, through details in a diary found by police … Scarlett's diary was discovered during a search of the cabin she was sharing with tour guide Julio Lobo in a village called Siolim. 1544 words. Click here.

Scarlett's mom accuses Goa minister of mafia link
16 Mar. CNN-IBN. Continuing her attack on the Goa Police and politicians, Fiona Mackeown, mother of slain British girl Scarlett Eden Keeling, has accused the Goa Home Minister and state Director General of Police of being in nexus with drug mafia. 331 words. Click here.

“Mackeown’s charges baseless”
16 Mar: The Hindu. Goa Home Minister Ravi Naik on Saturday described the charges made by Fiona Mackeown, mother of British girl Scarlett Eden Keeling, against him as “irresponsible.” He said it was high time the government probed her background and sources of income. Click here.

Goa govt says UK must check Fiona's background
16 Mar: NDTV. Goa's Home Minister has said the British government must look into the background of Fiona Mackowen, mother of murdered teenager Scarlett Keeling ... 300 words. Click here.

Scarlett mother 'feels harassed'
16 Mar: BBC News. Dozens of journalists have descended on a corner of India to follow the investigation into the murder of British teenager Scarlett Keeling, as many questions about her death remain unanswered. 751 words. Click here.

Legal experts deride Scarlet murder theory
16 Mar: Herald. Even as the police claim they have solved the Scarlet Keeling case, legal experts now say police investigations into the teenager’s death may not stand in a court of law against the two arrested persons … 421 words. Click here.

Goa to oppose re-issuing visa to Fiona Mackeown
17 Mar: PTI. The Goa government will write to the Union Home and External Affairs ministries asking them not to re-issue visa to Fiona Mackeown, mother of slain British girl, Scarlett Eden Keeling, for her anti-state campaign and her shoddy background. 423 words. Click here.

Michael Mannion speaks out
17 Mar: Daily Mail (UK). Michael Mannion, 35, known as Masala Mike, today told how he was left "shocked and appalled" after witnessing his friend Samson D'Souza attack 15-year-old Scarlett. Mannion, a carpenter from London, is to be questioned by police in Goa following his decision to come out of hiding and hand himself in … Mannion was staying in Goa with D'Souza and his French wife Cecile after meeting the couple six years ago on a previous trip to India. 942 words. Click here.

I have often said that Goanet is a repository of a wide range of opinions on an equally wide range of topics. This week, we seem to have a surfeit of 'heavyweight' articles that have been difficult to select in order to keep to the confines of this weekly column. Hopefully, readers of the Goan Voice (UK) will be encouraged to read the many excellent articles that have been impossible to include but a sample of which is provided here.

There has been an ongoing discussion among a fair number who have been arguing that we need to find the means to confine the paradise of Goa to people of Goan origin. Clearly, making this a reality, even if possible, is highly problematic but I want to draw attention to an outstanding article titled Xenophobes and Patriots, by Santosh Helekar, a Goan physician, scientist and researcher working in America. He makes the point that "taking a separatist or segregationist line, maintaining the racial, casteist or cultural purity of the Goan population deserves nothing but condemnation...for the notion of purity is is the figment of an impure mind. No such state has ever existed in our history, nor is it desirable from a biological standpoint because endogamy has taken its toll on our stagnating gene pool." In contrast, Helekar sees "the welcome development of the younger generation forging matrimonial ties with an ever widening circle of humanity, ignoring all geographical boundaries."

Two rather "rotten underbellies" seem to have come to the fore over the Scarlett Keeling rape and murder on Anjuna beach, Goa.The British press and the Western media have referred to the "rotten underbelly" of Goa tourism. At least one strident Goanetter has retorted with a reference to the "rotten underbelly of white society---breakdown of families and their drug use...and this rotten situation/behaviour is no longer confined to their own geography." Well, is the "rotten underbelly" of caste in India exempt from this Goanetter's perspective especially as it is also a major 'export'? Also, can a Goan who chooses to live in the "rotten white society" he seemingly so despises have much integrity in his pronouncements? Hopefully, GV(UK) readers will wish to throw some light on the "rotten white society" so depicted (and in which we live of course), when young Goan people choose to happily integrate into it through marriages, partnerships and all aspects of social and cultural life.

Finally, if not yet sufficiently challenged by the above, do read the debate between Fr. Ivo da C. Souza and Dr U.G. Barad on the essential difference between Hinduism and Henotheism. This topic may sound a bit like rocket science but the discussion is presented in such a way that understanding it is made relatively simple by the two writers, and of course, with the Easter break before us, we may have more time to read the more 'heavyweight' articles on Goanet at this time of year!

Sun. 23 Mar. Konkani Dramatic Association proudly presents 'Easter Dance' at St John’s Church Hall, Bourne Hill, Palmers Green, London N13 4DA. From: 2.30 p.m. - 9.00 p.m. Music provided by Nite Life. Tickets, (includes buffet meal): adults £10.00 Children £5 (5-16, under 5 free). Dress: Formal (Strictly NO Jeans or Trainers). For tickets & further details call the following: Antonio - 0208 4529406 / 07988896904; Judy - 0208 76302606 / 07949403741; Domacian - 0208 3761609 / 07940501196; Rosy - 0208 8352 9450; Johnny - 0208 7693168

Sun 6 Apr. 1pm – 8.30pm. Charity Dance in aid of Osteoporosis Brittle Bone Disease. Venue: Archbishop Lanfranc School, Mitcham Road, Croydon, Surrey CR9 3AS. All proceeds will go to St. George’s Hospital Tooting. Featuring Music by Dimensions Band. Disco by ‘Say One Do One’. Plus Cabaret shows. Admission: Adults - £13 with food; Children (4-10 yrs) - £5 with food. For tickets, please contact: Derrick Pereira – 020 8952 8899; Clare D’Souza – 01784 421421; Irene Mendonca – 020 8767 2762; Hazel Rodrigues – 020 8357 6776; Bernie Gracias 020 8723 1322.

Sun 4 May. 12:30pm- Cortalim Union (UK) 30th Jubilee Celebrating the Feast of Sts. Philip and James at Irish Centre, Pretoria Rd, London N17. Holy Mass followed by the social. Music provided by Nite Life. Also hosting the May Queen and May King. Smart dress essential. For tickets, (includes snacks, meal & desert): adults £12.00; Youth (11-17yrs) =£6 Children (2-10yrs) =£2.50, under 2 free. For further info call Maria 0208-803-5146, Melissa 0208- 888-0393

Sun 11 May. Margao Union UK – Feast of THE HOLY SPIRIT. Mass at St. Boniface Church, 185 Mitcham Road, Tooting, at 1.30pm. thereafter a get-together at the Church Hall. Price including snacks and buffet £ 10.00. Band “DIMENSION”. Contact: Bella-020 8372 1253, Rosalind-020 8767 8652, Lucas-020 8967 7471, Agnela-020 8646 6996

Sat 31 May. 7pm. GOA Anniversary and May Ball. Wandsworth Civic Suite. Crowning of May Queen and May King. Music by Mellow Tones and Nite Life. Further details from Norma Menezes Rahim 020 8771 4457 Rosy De Souza 020 8677 0390 Rose Remedios 020 8658 7769 Claire De Souza 01784 421421 and Bernie Gracias 020 8723 1322. For full details click here.