Goan Voice Newsletter: Wednesday 08 Apr. 2020
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Stuck in UK, Yash yearns for some Goan Fish Curry
5 Apr: Times of India. This was Yash Fadte’s dress rehearsal for the Asian Junior Squash Championship and the World Juniors later this year, but his preparatory trip to England didn’t go as planned. When Yash reached England for his two month training stint, everything was shut and he is unable to train at the Solihull Arden Club in Birmingham, Yash tried to return home but could not … “I have rented a house here and am all by myself. I cannot step out but I am managing,” Yash told TOI from Birmingham on Friday. The 18-year-old Goan squash star is now in the final year of his junior circuit … “I am hoping to get some news how and when I can return to Goa. He’s cooking on his own too. “I have enough groceries for two weeks. I have learned to cook. I look at videos online and prepare different kind of food. It comes out good,” said Yash [who has expressed a yearning for some Goan food like fish curry. If you can help, please contact him via Facebook or ask me for details]. 565 words. click here
Video: 3 Apr: Prudent Media. Yash Fadte sends a message from virus-hit UK …Goa's teenage squash star Yash Fadte is stuck in Birmingham-England as his training and competition schedule has been wiped out by the coronavirus pandemic. The India under-19 No 1 player, who resides in Vasco, sent this emotional message to his fellow Goenkars via a Prudent Media exclusive.
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Video: Prudent Media. My Goem | Yash Fadte | …
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Update from GOV.UK – India travel advice
7 Apr: 21:49 (UK). India travel advice: Change made: Additional information on UK special flights from Goa, Mumbai and New Delhi (‘Return to the UK’ page). Time updated: 9:45pm, 7 April 2020. The UK government will operate special flights from Goa, Mumbai and New Delhi (between 8-12 April 2020) for British tourists, short term visitors and their direct dependants to return to the UK… From Goa to London on 8th, 10th and 12th April … if you have difficulty booking online, you can call CTM on +44 (0)20 7429 9725…tickets will not be on sale at the airport. … A small number of you may receive a call about these flights, if you fall into a vulnerable group. More information on the flights themselves, including cost and baggage allowances, will be found on the booking portal… Exact timings of flights from India will be published on our travel advice and social media channels as soon as they are confirmed… If you’re currently visiting India and you wish to return urgently to the UK, email Conqry.Newdelhi@fco.gov.uk … The Goa State Government has set up the following helplines: food requests +91 9423890066 … medicine requests +91 7823026971… food deliveries in North Goa +91 94238 90077 (WhatsApp and Telegram only) … click here
For additional advice on making travel plans to return to the UK, or what to do if you cannot depart immediately,
click here
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India's Coronavirus Death Toll Rises to 124, Infections Near 5,000-Mark as Govt Considers Extending Lockdown
8 Apr: News 18. The coronavirus death toll in the country on Tuesday rose to 124 and the number of cases climbed to 4,789, registering an increase of 508 cases in the last 24 hours, according to data from the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. The numbers surged amid hectic discussions for a possible extension of the 21-day lockdown beyond April 14 as several states announced plans to ramp up their testing infrastructure and put in place strong 'cluster containment' plans in areas identified as hotspots of the outbreak. However, according to PTI, a tally of figures reported by various states as on 9.45 pm on Tuesday showed 5,192 testing positive across the country and at least 162 deaths… click here
8 Apr: Herald. State Cabinet to discuss lockdown exit or extension options today …
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For the bar chart of India’s coronavirus daily cases history,
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Foreign Office urged to arrange flights home for thousands of British nationals stranded in Punjab
7 Apr: Evening Standard. The Foreign Office has been criticised for failing to offer repatriation flights to thousands of British nationals stranded in Punjab. The Government has organised flights home for British citizens currently trapped in Goa, Mumbai, and Delhi due to the coronavirus pandemic. However, thousands of trapped British citizens in Punjab, a state with a majority Sikh population, cannot cross state borders to catch these flights. British citizens stranded abroad and several Labour MPs have called on the Government to arrange flights from Amritsar, a city in Punjab… click here
6 Apr: News International. Brits in Pakistan 'ignored' as UK launches chartered flights to repatriate stranded citizens …
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The Maharajah to the rescue: Air India operates special flights
7 Apr: Business Traveller. Air India is conducting three special flights to London from April 8-10 to repatriate Canadians who are stranded in India … The Canadian government will arrange flights to take them to Canada after the Air India flights drop them in London… Air India has also signed contracts with the governments of Germany, France and Ireland to repatriate their citizens from India via special rescue flights. It has scheduled to operate 18 such rescue flights from March 31, 2020… It has transported stranded foreigners from countries such as Israel and Germany in India to their respective homelands… A Tourism Ministry report suggests that over 750 foreign tourists are still stranded in the country and they are in touch with the Ministry through its recently launched portal strandedinindia.com… click here
For the Stranded in India portal,
click here
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The Pandemic That Has Turned the Tables on Racism
7 Apr: Latin America Herald Tribune. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed racist outbursts across the world, targeting the nations most affected by the virus and disrupting the traditional dynamics of racism. In India, the Spanish Embassy recently denounced the “systematic harassment towards foreigners” and expressed concern over a group of Spanish tourists who had been trapped in Goa. “They are being denied the sale of food,” the Spanish consul in Bombay Jorge de Lucas y Cadenas … 867 words. click here
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COVID-19: Back from Cairo, engineer deconstructs stigma in isolation in Goa
7 Apr: Gulf News. Edgar Julian Remedios, a 55-year-old mechanical engineer believes he picked up a COVID-19 infection in Cairo … He is mow in hospital, one of the seven coronavirus afflicted patients in Goa. On Monday he wrote about his whirlwind journey from Houston to Amsterdam to Cairo to Mumbai and Goa over the last month on his Facebook account and decided to tear to shreds, the shroud of stigma which patients afflicted by the dreaded virus tend to cower under. He said he wanted to thank all the nurses and doctors who have been caring for him and other patients through the difficult period. "This doctor Edwin Gomes especially…” Based out of Houston in Texas, US, Remedios, a father of two, who travels six months a year as a consultant for a German firm, had visited Cairo last month, to oversee facilities at a process plant, where he believes he caught the COVID-19 virus… Remedios traces his roots to Saligao village in North Goa… click here
7 Apr: Times of India Exclusive: one of Goa’s 7 Covid +ve cases, Edgar Remedios speaks from his hospital bed … Wife Gauri and daughter Ruth are in Texas… I have worked at Zuari Agro for 18 years …
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For the Facebook profile of Edgar Julian Remedios,
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Travel curbs force British widow to cremate husband in India
7 Apr: The Times. A British woman whose husband died during their holiday in India has been forced to cremate him on a funeral pyre because travel restrictions prevent her from repatriating his body. Ray Murray, 67, of Worsley in Greater Manchester, died of pneumonia last week in Goa. His wife Lesley, 61, has been stranded … Mrs Murray will face her husband’s open air cremation today … as Goa has no electric crematoria, her husband’s body will be burned on a wooden pyre in a thin wooden casket… Although he ultimately tested negative for Covid-19 his high temperature and pneumonia convinced doctors that he must have contracted the virus. Some refused to see him, and the couple were passed between several hospitals before Mr Murray was admitted to the coronavirus ward of a hospital in Panjim, the state capital. “It was absolutely filthy. I couldn’t have imagined it. The staff wouldn’t give us any water, there was just one bed pan for the ward and I had to change Ray’s sheets. It was awful, they didn’t want to help,” said Mrs Murray… 635 words. click here
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The odyssey of Julen Esnaola
7 Apr: Mundo Deportivo (Spain). The odyssey of Julen Esnaola, the football coach ended at his home in Irun yesterday afternoon after a long journey back from Goa that started on Saturday night and ended yesterday after landing in Madrid and heading to house in a van. Gone were the fear and uncertainty caused by the outbreak of the coronavirus crisis and the measures of confinement in the Asian country, his wife and his two young children without a house and with little food … Recall that Esnaola, coach for Bengaluru FC, was trapped in Goa with his family when they were on vacation for a few days after the end of the season … they had to find a house in which to stay, which was not easy due to their nationality, fear and prejudice that led them to be denounced by a neighbor before the police after finally finding accommodation in a chalet… “I can tell you that some Spaniards here have been beaten on the street, but I have been lucky…” last Thursday he was informed that the Spanish government chartered a plane to repatriate the Spaniards who were in India .., 654 words. click here
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Five immersive experiences in Goa for when you go again
7 Apr: Femina. Weeks and weeks in quarantine are sure to get your travel bones rusty. And a vacation sure must be on your mind. We suggest a short getaway in the land of beaches, Goa to rejuvenate yourself and pick up where you left off, but this time with ultimate experiences that make your long-awaited trip worth it … Cycling across Panaji … 2. Discover the old Christian art trail … 3. Enjoy a tavern trail … 4. Go dolphin-watching … 5. Discover ancient rock formations … click here
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