CONTAMINATED: Goans are worried that they will find more pollutants than just micro plastics in the free water that the Chief Minister has promised from September 1.

BY RAJAN NARAYAN

AND a few stray thoughts for yet another Saturday. For a Saturday following the week when the Taliban took over Afghanistan. For a Saturday following the week when the Chief Justice of the Mumbai High Court Dipankar Datta, expressed concern over the pendency of tenancy and munkar cases. For a Saturday following the week when protests continued over the failure of the government to take prompt action on the Benaulim and Calangute rape cases. For a Saturday following the week when Chief Minister Pramod Sawant promised free 16,000 litres potable water to all residents of Goa, as if in competition with the Aam Aadmi party freebies of promised free electricity to the poorest of the poor if it comes to power.

THREAT FROM TALIBAN

AND a few stray thoughts on the Taliban taking over Afghanistan. It is back to square one in Afghanistan when 20 years ago the United States intervened with a huge military presence to save Afghanistan from Russia. The Taliban itself is a creation of the Inter-Services (ISI) Wing of Pakistan which is behind all the terrorist attacks on India. It may be recalled that more than two decades ago when the BJP was in power under the prime ministership of Atal Behari Vajpayee, the Taliban hijacked an Indian Airlines passenger aircraft to Kandahar in Afghanistan.
The then Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh himself went to Kandahar to negotiate the release of the passengers, in exchange for arrested terrorists in India to be released. The Taliban was created jointly by Pakistan and the United States to fight the Soviet Union which had taken over large parts of Afghanistan. The Taliban belongs to a fanatic fundamentalist jihadi organisation which subscribes to a barbaric, feudal version of Islam. Such as banning women from studying beyond the fourth standard and stoning women accused of adultery to death. The Taliban allegedly murdered the Reuters News agency photographer Danish Siddiqi who was covering the March of the Taliban towards Kabul.
Over two decades United States stationed a large number of American troops armed with sophisticated weapons in Afghanistan, then President Joe Biden came to power and decided all US troops withdraw from Afghanistan. His decision was in response to strong opposition in the US about the increasing number of deaths of US soldiers in Afghanistan. Not only the US but the North-Eastern Treaty Organisation (NATO) and India played a very major role in restoring democracy and keeping a democratic government working in Afghanistan.
However, the Taliban which had continued to fight to occupy parts of Afghanistan took full advantage of the withdrawal of the US troops and within a week to 10 days captured the entire country including the capital city of Kabul. To the eternal shame of the country the Afghani President Ashraf Ghani, who was installed by the US, fled the country in a helicopter full of cash and four cars. The huge Afghan army of over three lakh could not counter the ferocity of just 3,000 Taliban guerrilla fighters.
The most scary part is that now the Taliban has taken control of the sophisticated defence aircraft and weaponry left behind by the Americans, including long range drones which can be controlled to stay in the air for 24 hours. These were the drones controlled from the Pentagon in Washington which had helped prevent the Taliban from taking over Afghanistan earlier. This unmanned drones could target Taliban camps and kill all their senior leaders.

TRAINED BY ISI

THE Taliban takeover of Afghanistan has been welcomed by Pakistan. Even more threatening to India is the fact that China has decided to recognise the new Islamic state formed by Taliban in Afghanistan. The Taliban has the support of all the Islamic countries dominated by Shia Muslims. A spokesperson for the Taliban regime in Afghanistan is now interacting with the international media from Qatar. There are thousands of Indians stranded in Afghanistan, most of whom are labour working on various infrastructure projects like the Kabul airport, the President’s Office and roads and hospitals in Afghanistan.
The US and others who were helping rebuilt Afghanistan from the ravages of internal or civil war had hoped that Afghanistan would remain a democratic country and succeed in taking on the Taliban. However, the speed with which the Afghan army crumbled with the president himself abdicating, shows how ferocious the Taliban is. And of course in this matter the Taliban continues to have the support of Pakistan.
The security threat to India has greatly increased with the Taliban take over the Afghanistan. India has now a third enemy after Pakistan and China. We would not be surprised if terrorist attacks against India are stepped up. A few drones have already been sighted near the Delhi airport. Let us hope that the latest model of drones armed with missiles are not used against India.

SPEED UP MUNKAR CASES

AND a few stray thought on the Goa Bench of the Bombay High Court finally shifting to its new premises in Porvorim, opposite the Government Secretariat complex. Many of the judges were not happy over the shift and preferred the old High Court building near the Lyceum Complex at Panaji’s Altinho. Architects have criticised the Goa government and the Goa Infrastructure Development Corporation (GIDC) for constructing a building with a flat roof to accommodate the High Court and the lower court rooms in the same complex.
At present the lower courts are distributed all over Panaji. The main objection to the flat roof is that given the intensity of the monsoon rains in Goa, High Court building should have had a traditional sloping roof to facilitate the drainage or run off of collected water easily. With a flat roof there is the risk that it will start leaking with accumulation of water, given the substandard quality of works executed by the GSIDC.
We only hope that the new High Court premises do not become yet another Atal Sethu, which was the dream of the late chief minister of Goa, Manohar Parrikar. Given the condition of the Atal Sethu bridge today, the BJP may want to change its name as it is a disgrace to the first BJP prime minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee.
Goa’s first chief minister Dayanand Bandodkar introduced the Tenancy & Munkar Act so that the Bahujan Samaj, which included all the non-Brahmin caste people, could share in the prosperity of Goa. Prior to Liberation, most of the land in Goa was owned view big landlords who were rewarded for helping the Portuguese to control the lower caste Goans. Under the Tenancy Act the land which was actually being tilled by the lower castes, particularly the tribals such as the Gaudis, Kunbis and Velips, would be transferred to them at a token price.
Similarly, the munkars who also doubled as the households servants of the landlords, who were permitted to build small mud houses on the bhatkar’s property were also allotted 250 meters in rural areas and 150 meters in the urban areas. The BJP raised the huge controversy by trying to fix the time limit for tenants and munkars to exercise their rights.
At a time when Chief Minister Pramod Sawant wants to create vote banks for the BJP by legalising legal encroachments by migrants, the chief justice of Goa who is not a bhumiputra, is anxious that Goans should get their rights first. Unlike in the case of other several matters the Tenancy & Munkar Acts were under the jurisdiction of the revenue courts. Which affectively meant that it was the Panchayat secretary, tahsildar and mamlatdar, who completed the formalities for transferring the land to the tenants or munkars.
Speaking at the inaugural function of the new High Court Building Chief Justice Dipankar Datta expressed his concern over the long delay in clearing agricultural tenancy and munkar cases in Goa. Chief Justice Datta pointed out that in many cases civil suits have been stayed until the matters are disposed by the revenue courts, “This correspondingly increases the pendency of cases in several courts.”
Under the circumstances and protests from a vast majority of Goans cutting across all party lines, the proposal for transferring munkar and tenancy cases to the Judiciary was dropped. It is revealed that there are 1,540 munkar cases pending with mamlatdar and joint mamlatdar as well as 325 munkar cases pending with deputy collectors. Part of the problem is that the staff of the Revenue department have so many other responsibilities, that they barely get time to attend to tenancy and munkar cases.
This is compounded by an acute shortage of judges with even the High Court functioning with only 66% of its strength.

PENDEMIC OF RAPES

AND a few stray thoughts on the continuous protests against the pandemic of rape cases in Goa. In the wake of the rape of minors in the presence of their companions, by men pretending to be cops, at Benaulim beach, Goans were shocked anew with discovery of a dead 19-year-old girl on Calangute beach. The residents of north Goa and several NGOs led a protest march from the Aldona Church on Monday, August 16. The girl’s family which is reportedly a BJP karyakarta family from Aldona, has insisting that it is a case of murder and not accidental suicide by drowning. The police seem to be supressing facts even after they got the mobile phone of the victim which she had left behind at home.
Reportedly, the young girl had joined as a sales girl at an establishment at Porvorim just four days prior to her death and she was the main bread earner of the family. Nobody has any faith in the autopsy conducted by the Forensic department of the GMC which has attributed the girl’s death due to drowning. In the wake of the widespread outrage, the Calangute police claim that they have asked the family to join the investigations.
Even the bus conductor on the bus on which she had travelled from the Mapusa bus stand at 11am on August 11, told the police that she seemed to be in a disturbed state. The question everyone is asking is how did the girl (a resident of Nachinola) whose father had dropped her of Guirim Green Park land up dead on Calangute beach?
It seems like an action replay of the Scarlett rape and murder case. Churchill Alemao has jumped into the controversy and has alleged that senior BJP leaders are involved in supressing the case. The shoddiness of the probe by the police is not limited to the Calangute incident. The police have only recently managed to get the mobile phones of the minors who were gang raped at Benaulim beach.
Goa, which is considered a safe destination for women, is now witnessing a collapse of law and order. Apart from the rape cases there have been a number of dacoity and kidnappings cases in the state, recently. In the context the Chief Justice of the High Court has asked the government to set up a full-fledged forensic lab so that investigations can be completed soon. At present the viscera in such criminal cases is sent to Mumbai or Hyderabad labs for examination.

FREE TOXIC WATER

AND a few stray thoughts on the Chief Minister Pramod Sawant promising 16,000 litres of free water to every Goan. This seems to be in response to the recent promise of Delhi’s AAP Power Minister Satyendra Jain, that his party would extend free power to Goans if it wins in the next assembly elections in Goa, just as the party is doing for the low income groups in Delhi.
There was even a power debate between the Goa’s Power Minister Nilesh Cabral and Satyendra Jain, where Cabral pointed out that Goa did not have any captive power plant and had to buy power from other states. While 16,000 litres might sound like a large figure, it is only a little more than a large tanker of water of the PWD which is supposed to supply free water to citizens when there is a power break down or water shortage.
Considering that the breakdowns in water supply are very frequent, Goans would be grateful even if they continue to get their two to three hours of water which they get every day so they can fill up their reservoir tanks. The pipelines that supply water to Panaji and Bardez all the way from Opa and Ponda are 50 years old. The new pipelines are even worse and keep bursting.
The telecom and other departments and in particular the labour hired by contractor Venkaya Rao for expansion of highways keep damaging the water pipelines. If you take into consideration a family of four, 16,000 litres will provide just two buckets of water for each individual. The water supply problem is aggravated by Nilesh Cabral as there is frequent power failure and even shut down of the pumps at Opa waterworks.
Recently, during the widespread floods in vulnerable areas of Goa due to the heavy monsoon rains, the water pumps were down and sections of Goa were without water for a week. With Karnataka already stealing the Mhadei waters we do not know where Pramod Sawant is going to supply water from. May be he will get additional water from Kolhapur where he was reportedly born and educated. Pramod Sawant has not clarified whether the water he is going to supply will be treated drinking water or water from the St Inez nallah.