GOANVOICE DAILY NEWSLETTER MON 15 FEBRUARY, 2010
Photo Gallery | ||
| Canada: Nina Burford: Different Cultures | ||
 15 Feb: The Aurora (Labrador). Over the years, Nina Burford was called upon to organize the first Multicultural Council of Labrador West. The initial meeting will be held Feb. 20 and is open to everyone because multiculturalism is about the cultures of all people… she moved to Labrador West 29 years ago and started working as a teacher… She had originally come from Goa …
She ate different food, spoke Portuguese, practiced Roman Catholicism, and had a different attitude towards socializing, so she felt like an outsider… 340 words.
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| Goa Messenger re-launched | ||
 15 Feb: Navhind times. Mr Savio Rodrigues of Kaydence and Mr Sigmund Desouza,
spoke about the makeover of the new Goa
Messenger as a weekly magazine, followed by a daily online news portal and
a travel magazine. It also plans to publish material like guide books, novels,
self-help books and eventually look at the prospects of starting a Daily in Goa
.. 480 words. | ||
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| Video: Louis Theroux in Goa | ||
 14 Feb: BBC. Indian Gurus. Louis (photo) travels to India to witness Westerners
seeking enlightenment. In Goa he meets 57-year old American astrologer Deepak
who studies meditation… Pt. 1: 8m. 26s. Click
here. Pt. 2. 8m. 14s. Click here. | ||
| Australia: Vindaloo proves a red hot recipe for solidarity | ||
 15 Feb: The Age (Aus). More than 10,000 people have signed up on the internet
for Mia Northrop's ''Vindaloo
Against Violence'' campaign when people will eat at their local Indian restaurants
on February 24 to denounce violence and show solidarity with the Indian community…
Dinners will be held in Amsterdam, Thailand, Malaysia and all Australian capital
cities... 337 words. | ||
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| Love and sex in India: Why some Indian men can't take a hint | ||
 14 Feb: Global Post. By Hanna Ingber Win, Editor of the World section of Huffington Post (photo). Some foreign women find the barrage of messages and phone calls to be nothing short of harassment or even virtual stalking… there is confusion over what type of behavior is acceptable in personal as well as work environments, says Jerry Pinto, author of "Surviving Women," a manual of gender politics in India… When they meet foreign women, they rely on the stereotypes of foreign women as free and loose… They think the Western woman is fair game… 1107 words. | ||
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| Dima Bilan: Integrate in Goa | ||
 14 Feb: Murmansk KP (Russia). Dima
Bilan, winner of "Eurovision 2008" with the song "Believe",
has just visited Goa again after six years … He says: "Almost every
second holidaymaker in Goa is from Russia … lots of friendly people …
distinctive culture,.." 373 words + photos. Machine translation. | ||
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News Summary | ||
| Viola da Cunha: Monte Music Festival: Off the beaten path 15 Feb: The National (UAE). By Rebecca Conway. The Monte Music Festival coordinator, Yvonne Rebello, says the aim of the event is to promote international bonds, celebrate Goan heritage, and offer a unique musical experience in one of Goa’s most beautiful locations. This year, the London-based mezzo-soprano Viola da Cunha’s repertoire swept through English and German composition … 1222 words + photos. Full Text. | ||
| Toronto: Stalin Nunes: Province shuts down Niagara chef school 15 Feb: Toronto Star. Ministry, border patrol raid site after students from India say they were used as `cheap labour'… One of the students who filed complaints was Stalin Nunes. Text, 1311 words and photo at the link. Full Text. | ||
| Video: Goa Carnival Floats, Panjim. 2010 13 Feb. JoeGoaUK. Part 1. 9m. 28s. Click here. Part 2. 9m. 36s. Click here. Viva Carnival! Traditional Intruz. 1m. 23s. Click here. | ||
| German minor rape trial begins in Goa 15 Feb: IANS. Trial proceedings into the alleged rape of a minor German girl by the state education minister’s son began at the Goa Children’s Court on Monday. Media persons were asked to vacate the court room during the trial proceeding … German consular officials had to intervene to force the police to probe the rape case. The police were also censured by the Panaji bench of the High Court … 194 words. Full Text. | ||
| Lates & Breaks 13 Feb: Daily Star (UK). Goa: Seven nights at the three-star plus Heritage Village Club in Arossim Beach, all-inclusive, is £649. Price includes flight from Manchester on April 19. Call Thomson on 0871 231 5595 or visit thomson.co.uk | ||
| Security measures stepped up at Goa ‘German bakeries’ 14 Feb: The Pioneer (India). 479 words. Full Text. | ||
| Goan, Goan... 15 Feb: Indian Express. For the last four years an extraordinary people’s stir has been on in Goa. As this movement against a politician-decreed idea of economic progress consolidates itself, a united front of grassroots groups will be formed at a rally in Panaji on Thursday… Maka naka gho is the cry from the villages, the refrain from a famous Konkani folk song, “I don’t want it!” 816 words. Full Text. | ||
| Visa rules: Tourists face tough time 15 Feb: Times of India. Foreign tourists to Goa are having a tough time filling up forms, standing in long queues at Indian embassies and reporting to the foreigner's registration offices in the country with the tightening of the visa rules, and frustration is writ large on their faces… 590 words. Full Text. | ||
| Death: Hamilton Gracias 13 Feb. Orpington, UK. HAMILTON GRACIAS. (Aged 73; ex-Kisumu, ex-Nairobi). Loving husband of Maureen and much loved father of Rory and Sofia. Son of the late Caetano and Sofia Gracias, Banda, Assolna, Salcete, Goa. Died suddenly and unexpectedly at home. Funeral details to follow. Condolences to rmgracias@gmail.com | ||
| UK: Michael D'Souza has breathed new life into a 17th-century tapestry works 13 Feb: The Times (UK). There are those who say a real home is a place with a past, where memories are made and cherished. If this is so, Michael D'Souza's South London flat qualifies easily, for it is steeped in history, some of it of D'Souza's own making, the rest stretching back through the centuries… 711 words. Full Text. | ||
| Ailing public sanitation in dire need of reforms 15 Feb: Navhind Times. It was utterly shameful to watch ‘BBC World News’ which highlighted the lack of public sanitation in India … 585 words. Full Text. | ||
| Tourism policy needs to be overhauled 15 Feb: Navhind Times. The tourism director, Mr Swapnil Naik said that major proposals of the 2001 policy document remained unimplemented and that the policy as a whole has become sort of obsolete and needs to be revamped … 669 words. Full Text. | ||
| Abu Dhabi Goans celebrate Viva Carnival & Valentine’s 14 Feb: Mangalorean. It was celebrated with much pomp and splendour on February 11 with more than 200 guests in attendance… 509 words + 40 photos. Full Text. | ||
| ‘Probe 3 mysterious explosion-like sounds in Goa’ 14 Feb: IANS. Goa’s MP has requested that the Central Government dispatch experts to “solve the mystery of three explosion-like sounds which rocked coastal parts of South Goa district” on Feb 10, in view of the terror-strikes in Pune on Saturday … “since Goa has been one of the prime targets of terrorists for sometime now”… 313 words. Full Text. | ||
| Anna Grossman and Jesus Diaz marry 14 Feb: New York Times. Anna Jane Grossman and Jesus Diaz were married Wednesday at the Marriage Bureau in Manhattan… On Jan. 25, Pandit Manjunath Raju Hegde performed a Hindu wedding ceremony on Ashwem Beach in Goa… Ms. Grossman, 29, is a freelance writer in New York and the author of ''Obsolete: An Encyclopedia of Once-Common Things Passing Us… Mr. Diaz, 37, is a senior contributing editor at Gizmodo … 253 words + photo. Full Text. | ||
| WHO THE BLEEP CARES. Weekly column by Selma Carvalho. 68. Who the Bleep cares about Colonial clerks and Goan honour? I have an image of him in my mind, snatched from a black and white photograph. A tall, feeble-looking man, holding a glass of wine at my mother's wedding, edging towards the side as if embarrassed to be in the picture. I never met the man; he died before I was born. I know very little about the life of Conceição Miguel Gomes, my grand-father. Yet his presence looms large in our house. Stories of him permeate my mother's conversations as she resuscitates him with her memories. He had arrived in Kenya as a young man of 17 in the early 1920s and worked as a clerk at a bank in Nairobi. Of his life in Africa, we don't know much; an empty space in our family history filled now with a reconstructed memory of suppositions. At the age of 38 he returned to Goa with a smattering of Swahili in his repertoire and not much else. As was the custom in those days, he took a young bride of sixteen. He never went back to Kenya; instead he worked in Poona as a stores clerk in the British Indian army. His life as a colonial clerk is the life of so many Goan men of the early 20th century. Despite the confines that race wrought upon them, the lack of advancement in employment after a certain level, the racial inequality in the working relationship, it was still a relationship anchored in mutual respect and in the best British tradition marked by a certain paternalistic benevolence. There were deprivations, terrible deprivations especially in the early days and the remote outposts of East Africa, such as Kitui or Isiolo, where they served so loyally. The cotton-trousered clerk endured water scarcity, sitting snakes in the outhouses and other reptilian surprises on the way to work, lions who hunted near-by and thatched houses with decrepit ant-eaten roofs dissolving into their evening meals. Yet they persevered, unfailingly described by Colonial officers as the backbone of the administration and "very high-quality people". Young English officers just entering the service were entirely dependent on their district clerks to teach them the ropes; how, to write a letter, to address people, to handle situations without causing too much embarrassment or making undue enemies. The District Commissioner seldom had time to train his district officers in these rudimentary tasks. Perhaps one of most noteworthy accolades paid to the Goan community in Kenya is by Sir Noel Anthony Scaven-Lytton, 4th Earl of Lytton, a descendant of Byron and an author of some note himself. Between 1922-26 he served in the King's African Rifles, in Kenya. In a taped interview he says: "They (Goans) occupy in Africa the small places, the places of respect; a first-class cook, a care-taker on whom you can absolutely rely, a bank cashier upon whom you can absolutely rely….that is the mark of a not ambitious but rather humble status in life, nevertheless one of complete integrity and respect…a very good community. They served Kenya very well." The relationship between the Goan and British in Africa was marked not just by a utilitarian, symbiotic co-dependence. It was that rare relationship based on the sort of unquestioning trust shared between a parent and favourite child, diminished only by the child forever being an unequal in the partnership. Michael George Power, who served as a District Officer at Kilifi and Taita Hills, talks of how the Secretariat in Kenya would have collapsed without Goan clerks. Why? "Because they were meticulous and they were honest." And because the British couldn't bring themselves to trust Africans with their money, their land and their lives. Ultimately Goans were the buffer between Africans and the British and between Indians and the British. My grandfather returned from Africa in no way prosperous. My mother tells me he had an unwavering belief in the virtue of righteousness. Like so many men of his generation, he upheld that Goan tradition of firm loyalty, integrity and honesty in his dealings at work. Words which are disappearing from our Goan vocabularies. Do leave your feedback at carvalho_sel@yahoo.com | ||