The vulnerability of Christianity in a predominantly Hindu India has invariably worried me. And now, we have an article that tells us that 'Church funds equal Indian Navy's Annual Budget.' Indeed, "Eduardo Faleiro, a former Union Minister and Goa NRI Commissioner, is among the number of Catholics like Prof Denis, who supports a law to govern Church properties and a far greater degree of transparency in the way the Church manages its earthly assets." Mr Faleiro is probably right in this endeavour and there may well be benefit in the long term to the Church but can we imagine the short-term and current antagonism to the Church with headlines like this? To read more about this click here.

The "Dharavi area of Mumbai is notorious for being Asia's largest slum." This is according to Ruby Goes who also tells us that "over 50% of Mumbai's population live in slums." Ruby tells us about the sordid reality of what is to be found in so many slums around Indian cities and presents a particularly penetrating case about "how the problem of slums has been both ignored and exploited," Click here.

Thanks to JoeGoa UK we have explicit pictures of the gruesome injuries inflicted in Porvorim, Goa to a 10-year old girl who worked as a maid for Adumber Pednekar and his wife. The public prosecutor in Panjim appears to be pursuing this case with rigour and I had absolutely no hesitation in immediately offering funds to help fight the case on behalf of the little girl. To me, it is absolutely disgusting that such hideous activity goes on in picture postcard Goa. Please visit this site to make up your own minds. Click here.

I was to do a presentation on the theme of University Quality Control and Research Assessment in UK universities to academic staff at the Goa University in April 2006. Unfortunately, passenger overbooking by British Airways could not get me to Goa on time even via Moscow and this thwarted my presentation. I thus missed the opportunity to meet Prof Olivinho Gomes the former Vice Chancellor of Goa University (pre 2006) who passed away recently. However, he and I exchanged many emails on Quality Control in universities and in particular about his first book on Village Goa. In our correspondence, I found Prof Gomes to be an excellent and warm-hearted scholar of high repute who had a particular interest in raising the profile of Goa University. I therefore want to convey my condolences and felicitations to this wonderful human being and scholar as so many others have done on Goanet this week.

Finally, my earlier hopes for an early retirement from this column on Goanet Highlights in the Goan Voice (UK) had been thwarted by editor Eddie Fernandes who has invariably insisted that a lot of people do read and welcome Goanet Highlights. Well, we put Eddie's confidence on this view to the test at the Goan Voice stand at the Goan Festival on 26/7/09. And yes, there were many favourable and supportive comments on the said column, apart from fulsome praise for the Goan Voice as a whole with some preference for the weekly version rather than the daily version. In my case, it seemed as though it was less the content of what I highlighted and more the human touch in which I couched it that definitely interested readers in drawing them to the column! Well well well, there go my retirement plans yet again---a bit like Prime Minister Brown wanting us to all retire well beyond 65!