GOA NIRBHAYA RE-PLAY?
THE Pramod Sawant BJP government is trying to impose patriarchal misogyny in Goa. The chief minister in a Facebook post reveals that he has a 14-year-old daughter and is equally concerned about the safety of all daughters in Goa. This is with reference to the two teenage girls who were gang raped on Benaulim beach on Sunday, July 25. They were accompanied by two adults who were assaulted by the four rapists including a driver working for the Agriculture department.
In the case of the 19-year-old teenager raped in Ponda by two truck drivers on Wednesday, July 28, she was at a bus stop and not on a beach. In a third incident which took place on Thursday, July 29, a 25-year-old woman from Assam was lured to Goa on the pretext of giving her a job and she was raped in a flat at Quepem.
The first incident at Benaulim was an action replay of the Nirbhaya case where the 23-year-old medical physiotherapy intern was raped and tortured in a moving bus in front of her male friend. Will the chief minister please admit the fact that law and order has broken down in Goa and such incidents rarely happened in the past?
The fact that the victims and the rapists were both migrants requires that better policing is in place. The rules on the verification of tenants, particularly by those who build small little rooms to rent to migrants to earn an income, should be strictly enforced. Employers should also check the credentials of their employees and insist on police verification.
KARNATAKA ANIMALS
KARNATAKA has agreed to authorize local dealers in Belgavi to supply animals to Goa for slaughter at the Goa Meat Complex. Earlier, the former Yeddyurappa government had banned the movement of cattle and goats outside Karnataka. Goa has been dependent for its supply of meat on Belgavi. Though Goa has a slaughter house, namely the Goa Meat Complex, it has not been functioning for lack of animals for meat. Despite the special arrangements made for EID only six bovines were slaughtered at the meat complex this time!
MARGOA URBAN SHUT DOWN
THE RBI has cancelled the banking licence of the Margao Urban Co-operative Bank Ltd. While the deposits of Margao Urban are Rs189 crore, the non-performing assets are Rs45 crore. The NPAs are above 15% and the capital adequacy ratio is only 6.1%. In its present status the bank will be unable to pay the present depositors in full. At the most the depositors can expect upto Rs5 lakh on their deposits in the bank as provided by the Banking Insurance Act. This follows the collapse of the Mapusa Urban Co-operative Bank which was controlled by a former Union minister, namely Ramakant Khalap.
PUBLIC POWER DEBATE?
MANY members of the public had come to attend the power talk between Power Minister Nilesh Cabral and AAP’s Power Minister Satyendra Jain from Delhi at the Institute Menezes Braganza hall on July 25, 2021. Police has condoned off a large chunk of the area here and refused to let anyone attend the meeting if they were not media people or some VIP they recognized. Members of the public who had turned up to listen to the debate were agitated not to be allowed in and couldn’t understand why, many of them were senior citizens.
What they asked pertinently is what is the purpose of this kind of a public event or function if members of the public are not allowed in. After all the debate was about getting 24×7 power free in Goa and many Goans were interested. Why should AAP give, why can’t the Goa government offer free power? Now AAP has given its verdict and will offer free power on the lines of what they’re doing in Delhi under the orders of the Arvind Kejriwal regime. That is of course it comes to power in the forthcoming Assembly elections!
Senior citizen Stephen Dias confided to media friends, that he had cordially invited to come and listen to the power debate by AAP leader Valmiki Naik himself, but what was the point would not let him in? What is even more absurd is that the police refused to even let Valmiki Naik in once he had come outside to collect some documents being delivered for the debate. Valmiki had to hand over the documents to the police who promised to deliver them to visiting AAP speaker Satyendra Kumar Jain! After that we do not know what happened.
But it does seem ridiculous at a public function members of the public were kept out! For that matter why should there even be such a show of strength by the police to frighten off everyone? Has Goa become a police state? (Take a look at these pictures taken by our feisty citizen Stephen Dias of Dona Paula!)