By Nisser Dias – Chief Minister has goofed up big time in Goa on Covid-19.

Chief Minister Dr. Pramod Sawant

Is Goa safe in the hands of the chief minister in these trying times? This is the question that keeps popping up in my mind while observing and analyzing the battle against Covid-19. With three Goans testing positive the answer to this is emphatically NO.

On 20^th March 2020, chief minister Pramod Sawant made a statement to the media that he was not aware of the seriousness and the gravity of corona virus and realized only after communicating with the Prime Minister Narendra Modi via video conferencing. Can one imagine this coming from an individual who is supposedly an ayurvedic doctor? His qualification and credentials are in doubt too.

More than 21,500 persons have fallen prey worldwide to this novel virus at the time of writing this article, but the chief minister did not know this.

Since 23r^d March a day after Janata Curfew, the state has been plunged into utter chaos by the irresponsible chief minister by extending the curfew without applying any mind to how the masses are going feed themselves and their families.

That Sawant was clueless about handling the situation was exposed when he allowed stores and markets to be open from 6.00am to 11.00am and then ordered its closure. This was completely idiotic. It laid bare his capabilities of running state administration.

Secondly, he ordered migrants or domestic tourists to leave Goa or threatened to quarantine them. Then he asks them to stay put. This is childish and showcases his ignorance. How could migrants and tourists leave the state when all modes of transport were shut?

He casually says lockdown and curfew. I doubt whether he even knows the difference between the two words? Does he know the impact it will have on the state’s economy? As it is Goa’s financial situation is in the red and he is taking loans of more than Rs. 100 crores almost every month.

With no money coming in due to lockdown he is digging a deeper grave for the state finances.

Sawant has not applied his mind how to provide groceries or provisions to the masses. From 23^rd March he should have drawn up a plan of supply chains and lines to make food items available for the masses but he did not. Maybe it did not even strike him that people need to eat. This is the very reason the lockdown and curfew has been a total failure.

General public are moving about freely, there is crowding even if a shop or vegetable is open. And the reason is the government has snapped the supply chains and links. People are venturing out in search of food. They have to feed their families. They have to feed their infants and toddlers and kids and senior citizens.

CM is now trying to shut the stable doors when the horses have bolted. He should have listened when his health minister Vishwajit Rane had advised him to seal the borders and allow only essential commodities to come in.

Nisser Dias

Second most important, could the chief minister spell out his plans during the lockdown period? Has he any plans in place to start testing the general public? Has he initiated the process of procuring the equipment required for testing? Has he the necessary masks, scrubs, covers for the doctors, nurses and others involved? Has he worked out a plan on how the doctors and nurses are going to work? Has he made arrangements for ventilators? Has he made arrangements to take over private hospitals under Endemic Act?

Pramod Sawant is a complete failure. Till last week he was campaigning for his BJP Zilla candidates. During press conferences he would advocate social distancing and then address political meetings contrary to his advice. He wasted precious weeks by taking Covid-19 virus casually and now he wants to shift the blame on the general public. Such a useless and ineffective chief minister has been placed at the helm of state’s affairs.

Shame on you Mr. Chief Minister. With your low IQ, lack of intelligence and lack of administrative knowledge and experience you do not deserve to be occupying that position. You need to step down and let more capable take over the reins.

I am Goan -- By Nisser Dias

In the first month of January 2020, sweet truth emerged for the Goans from the mouth of a railway officer. Though some may term it as ‘controversial’ or ‘slur’ or ‘insult’. I strongly refer to it as the ‘truth’ nothing but the ‘truth’ but mixed with lack of knowledge of history

It all started with south western railway general manager Ajay Kumar Singh’s spat with a delegation of Goans led by Cortalim BJP MLA Alina Saldanha.

To Alina’s objections of double tracking of railway lines as it would cause damage to Goan houses which are 500 years old, Singh retorted, "India has houses that are 5,000 years old. Goans were the invading force who came about 500 years back. When you all came, you also must have destroyed houses here...By you I meant Portuguese."

By this Singh supposed we were Portuguese-Goans or from Portuguese lineage and ancestry.

To this BJP MLA Alina’s countered stating we are Indians.

Both of them were wrong, we are neither Portuguese nor Indians. We are ‘Goans’ in capital letters.

Firstly Goa was never the land-mass of India, millions of years back we drifted from European continent and attached itself to currently where we are.

Secondly when the fight for India’s independence from the British rule began, Mahatma Gandhi travelled the length and breadth of India by train as the initial steps towards independence from the colonial rulers.

There is no history of the great Bapu visiting Goa ever, this is a clear indication that Goa was never part of India.

Thirdly India was freed from the British rulers in 1947 and Goans had to request the Indian government to free Goa from Portuguese shackles in 1961 that is 14 years after India got its independence. Indians came, Portuguese fled but Indians never left Goa too.

 To commemorate that we were liberated from the Portuguese and we continue to celebrate our Liberation Day. In real sense we were never gained independence.

Alina Saldanha and Ajay Kumar Singh

We were cornered by India. They took our huge tracks of land and gave it to the Indian Navy and the army. They even took our civilian airport and turned it into a naval base. They took our mineral ore and paid us only royality and foreign currency earned from tourism industry and from our Goan brethren working abroad is being deposited in Indian banks. What is the benefit for us?

The Indian Constitution too was authored much before Goa was freed. Hence interest of Goa are not reflecting in it, but we are forced to abide by it.

Diverting a bit. Union government headed by the BJP has spent precious Rs. 3000 crores to build the statute of Unity in honour of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel.

Patel is recognized as the person behind the unification of India after the departure of British in 1947. He oversaw the incorporation of more than 550 princely states into the Indian union, thereby blocking splitting of a country into miniature nations.

This is the proof that princely states fought the British and then were incorporated in the Indian Union. That is where ‘Unity in Diversity’ was coined.

Goa was not even in the picture during this amalgamation of princely states into Indian state, nor did Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel even try to incorporate Goa into India. Yet another indicator that Goa was never part of India.

During Jawaharlal Nehru’s visit to Goa after being liberated from the Portuguese, he said Goa and Goans were different and promised Goa would be accorded different status. Sadly it never got done and the fault can squarely be placed on the shoulders of the politicians who were elected after liberation and immediately thereafter. 

Like Nehru’s observation, Goans are different. I cannot be Portuguese, I cannot be Indian simply because I am Goan.

‘Journalists kindred souls’ exposed to abuses of power. GUJ a spineless entity. - By Nisser Dias

Freedom of the media has been deteriorating around the country over the past 5 years. In Goa muzzling of the media began much earlier. It roughly began during the reign of Luizinho Faleiro as chief minister and was carried forward by late Manohar Parrikar.

Parrikar used not only schemes to lure journalists, he even offered party tickets to contest elections. Those whom he could not entice or tame, he abused them during media briefings.

Hence the recent taunting of a journalist by Fatorda MLA Vijay Sardessai at his party office in Panjim does not come as a surprise. This politician is undoubtedly a control freak. He just wants to have total control over journalists.

He does have some journalists lapping him all over, he does have journalists doing his PR work, allegedly there are snitches among the journalist fraternity who pass information to him and there are others who even send video and audio clippings to him.

But there are other journalists who are true to journalism and care two hoots for his chips and goodies. These guys have the courage to ask him embarrassing questions. These are the type of journalists he abhors and resort to insulting and abusing them.

At the moment he is a spent force, he was stripped of his powers. Non-Goan chief minister of Goa has questioned Vijay’s growing graph of wealth. His construction at the residence has been stayed hence the frustration.

These are concerted attempts by the politicians to throttle the independence of the press. These are signs of repression. Because of few journalists who display guts and grits to question politicians is what keeps the light of journalism being extinguished.

The Fatorda legislator, who sold his soul for power and was then unceremoniously dropped as deputy chief minister of Goa should first know that journalism, is all about asking questions till the truth is unearthed. Press conference or briefing is held so that the journalists can get an opportunity to question otherwise press-note could be issued.

Press briefing is not about journalists taking dictation, journalists are not stenographers. Briefings are about cross-examination, it is about finding the truth among the heap of lies that politician adopt to show themselves in good stead. For politicians like Vijay lies are “alternative facts.”

Thus Sardessai’s outburst of being cross-examined by the media at a press conference is misplaced and tantamount to abuse of journalists and demeaning its freedom of press.

The erosion of press freedom is both a symptom of and a contributor to the breakdown of democratic institutions and principles. Legislators like Fatorda MLA thrive is such situations and condition.

Goa Union of Journalist is just toothless identity. The union does not have the spine to take on erring politicians. After some explosion on the social media, things are back to normal. The journalist who was abused has to swallow the insult and get on with his work.

The executive committee of the GUJ should try to bring unity among journalists. GUJ should urge its members to boycott Sardessai’s functions in his offices or in his fiefdom and instead direct him to address the media in the press-rooms. Fatorda MLA should not be even given importance during state functions or other events.

He should be made to realize the importance of journalism and journalists and that they are not his secretaries to take down dictation.

But what can you expect of individuals who have come into public life after spending major part of his life in the company of anti-social elements, the mannerism learnt and adopted with goons and the likes tend to surface when dealing with civilized world.

The language that the Fatorda MLA used to abuse the journalist, smacks of such attitude.

Nisser Dias

Now coming to the ‘regret’ expressed by Vijay Sardessai. It is ridiculous for GUJ to even accept it as sincere regret. He clearly says that he does not feel his statements were unwarranted and unethical. He regrets that Goa Union of Journalists and its member Harish Volvoikar felt it that way. There is absolutely no genuineness and sincerity in his regret. That is Vijay Sardessai.

And for the journalist’s body to even accept it is hogwash and outright nonsense and injustice to Harish Volvoikar. By accepting it as ‘regret’ GUJ has exposed itself as spineless and incapable of safeguarding the rights and freedom of journalists and journalism.