By Rajan Narayan

AND a few stray thoughts for the first Saturday of 2025. For a Saturday following the week when MAGA deeply affected the aspirations of Indians to live and work in the United States of America. For a Saturday following the week when we started seeing the dangers of artificial intelligence. For a Saturday following the week when I rediscoverd Caranzalem, the upmarket suburb of Panaji where I stay. For a Saturday following the week when on the demonized domestic tourists still came to Goa to usher in the New Year.
AND a few stray thoughts on MAGA deeply affecting the aspirations of Indians to live and work in the new United States of America. This follows the campaigning of President-elect Donald Trump (and his stress on Making America Great Again or MAGA). He blamed migrants for the problems of American citizens. Indeed, Donald Trump is returning to power on the platform of reclaiming America for Americans. Trump has declared war on the migrants who have played a major role in making America great. Trump’s biggest supporter, tech magnate Elon Musk, is himself a migrant of South African origins. Indian migrants account for almost 2% of the population of the United States.
Indian migrants are highly skilled technocrats who have been the backbone of the information technology and the emerging artificial intelligence sectors. American citizens of Indian origin manage some of the biggest United States companies such as Google which is headed by Sundar Pichai and Microsoft of which Satya Nadella is the chief executive.
Donald Trump ironically is unable to find native Americans even to head important departments in his new government in the making. He has Kash Patel to run the Federal Bureau of Investigation which is the primary intelligence agency in the United States. Heading the artificial intelligence regulatory body is Vivek Ramaswamy who hails from Tamil Nadu. The new surgeon general who heads the medical establishment is also of Indian origin, namely Dr Vivek Murthy.
Here is a president-elect who claims to hate migrants but is unable to find native white Americans for jobs in his administration. During the election campaign, trump went to the extent of claiming that some migrants are uncivilized and are eating pet dogs and cats of American families.
The American dream has been sustained by the H-1B visa (temporary work visa for foreign nationals from Chile and Singapore who are employed in specialty occupations in the United States), holders of which who have been supplying the hi-tech workforce of IT and other industries in the US. This is not something new and even before Satya Nadella and Sundar Pichai, woman of Indian origin, Indra Nooyi, from Tamil Nadu, headed the Pepsi Corporation.
Elon Musk has extended support for the continuation of H-1B visas before the MAGA lobby forced him to back track. The ground reality is that not enough young Americans are getting into information technology and other Sunrise sectors in the United States. Historically, it is the manufacturing sector that pushed the United States to the top of the world.
There was a time when the US made the best cars and planes and a host of other manufactured goods. But with the cost of labour shooting up to the sky all the leading companies moved manufacturing to cheaper destinations like China and India. Not a single Apple phone — which is the largest-selling smart phone in the market — is made in the US. Even Donald Trump’s company depends on migrant workers. In his obsession with making America great again, Donald Trump may be destroying America. If he expels the migrant working people from India and China the American economy will collapse.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
And a few stray thoughts on the dangers of artificial intelligence. The latest versions of AI can even irritate writing styles and signatures. This means that important documents like sale deeds and even commercial agreements can be forged. AI is already producing essays and books. AI is being increasingly used to commit major financial frauds. For a long time, the images of leading industrialists have been forged or morphed to lure ordinary citizens to make investments in get-rich-quick schemes.
Even the RBI panicked when images and the voice of the outgoing Reserve Bank governor Shaktikanta Das were used to get people to double their income by investing in cyber frauds. The latest trend is to use the images of well-known journalists like Nirmal Goswami of Republic and Rajdeep Sardesai of the India Today channel.
AI could also lead to large-scale loss of jobs as it threatens to replace human beings in the workplace. AI can reproduce or re-imagine paintings, books and now even handwriting and signatures on documents. Social media is full of AI-generated deep fake images. To the extent that it becomes difficult to distinguish between real and unreal or fake. Some may say AI is a major revolutionary step forward but we have to be very cautious in believing what we see and hear on social media.

CARANZALEM WHERE I STAY
AND a few stray thoughts on my rediscovery of Caranzalem, the upmarket suburb of Panaji where I stay. When I first came to Goa in 1983, there were only paddy fields on either side of the road from Miramar beach to Dona Paula. Much of the village of Caranzalem and Dona Paula were either acquired or given as grants to Cannon Souto Mayor, a leading member of the Portuguese church in Goa. The Souto Mayor family left all its property to the Diocese of Goa. It was the late Caitan Martins of the Martins Beach Corner (no more now) who first revealed to me the fact that all the property in Caranzalem was originally owned by Cannon Souto Mayor. Souto Mayor has ordained that the income from his property should only be used for the welfare of the people of Goa. Indeed, Souto Mayor is reported to have declared that the property should not be used for commercial purposes even if the sun rises in the west.
Unfortunately, the diocese of Goa entered into a deal with Peter Vaz to develop the Sauto Mayor property. All the Model buildings in Caranzalem were developed on the basis of power of attorney given to the late builder Peter Vaz by the archbishop of Goa Cardinal Filipe Neri. This is not the only property sold to private parties. The Santa Monica convent set up as a refuge place for the widows of Portuguese soldiers has restored a lot of property that was sold by the diocese.
One of the first properties to be sold was a large parcel of land that presently houses the Santa Monica plant of Deccan Chemicals. The village of Vanxi close to Divar island, owned by Santa Monica, was also sold recently to the developer of a marina project from Bengaluru.
We do not object to the sale of property as such. Every religious establishment sells property, for example, also take the Muslim Waqf Board. This is a claim being made that Mukesh Ambani’s Antilla building in Mumbai has come up on Waqf land. The church should take into confidence the members of the Conferaria which comprises the Catholics who are attached to a particular church. Even Pope Francis has asked the church to return to its simple roots.

KARAN KASHYAP
AND a few stray thoughts on the sudden death of 26-year-old Karan Kashyap at the Sunburn EDM festival at Dhargal on Saturday, December 28, 2024. The claim is that Kashyap is a Delhi resident and he dropped down unconscious at the Sunburn music festival at around 9.40 pm on Saturday night. He was rushed to a private hospital at Mapusa where he succumbed to the drugs he had been imbibing.
The post-mortem report has confirmed death due to acute kidney failure, which is a classic symptom of drug overdose. Doctors conducting the post-mortem apparently discovered five different narcotic drugs in his body including ampheta, which is a stimulant, and methamphetamine which is a recreational drug or a performance enhancer. Drugs on their own depending on what they are can lead to fatal consequences. But to mix several drugs into a cocktail of drugs is the worst thing to do. Plus, Kashyap combined his drugs with daru or alcohol.
The crazy part about Kashyap’s death is that the police is yet to take an action against the organisers of Sunburn, even though the death occurred on the first night of this notorious concert. It would appear that Sunburn has so much protection that no politicians including the chief minister is willing to take them on. Chief Minister Pramod Sawant was not willing to confront them. There was stiff opposition to the Sunburn event in 2024.
All the panchayats of south Goa rejected Sunburn. The venue of 2024 Sunburn was finally provided by Deltin, which owns a large piece of land in Dhargal village. Dhargal panchayat granted permission by a narrow margin of 5 to 4. There was enough warning that Sunburn is as much about drugs as liquor and drilling trance music. In fact, sadly, it is not just at Sunburn but drugs are easily available at all the night clubs of the coastal belt of Anjuna and Vagator. Young adults come to Goa for the adventure of getting highs on drugs and to take advantage of the fact that liquor is cheaper in the state. Goa should become famous for live music shows like the Bryan Adams music concert or other famous choir concerts instead of Sunburn EDM concert or festival.

LOCAL TOURISTS DEMONISED
AND a last stray thought on the demonising of domestic tourists coming to Goa. On New Year’s Eve all the beaches in Goa including the riverine Miramar beach in Panaji is overflowing with domestic tourists, many with booze bottles, be it beer bottles. The latest complaints are that domestic male tourists get in and out of their clothes on the beaches quite unmindful of women on the beaches.
The curious part is that the beaches are full of conservative Gujarati tourists who wonder around in hot pants and acid-holed or torn tops looking more provocative then the foreign tourists clad in their mini bikini attire. The ground reality is that it is domestic tourists who are sustaining tourism in Goa. The high earning tourists both Indian and foreign are an unreliable lot and prone to flying off to other destinations which beckon more like Thailand or Vietnam or even Sri Lanka which are now rated more economical holiday fling destinations than falling apart in infrastructure Goa. Only the really rich can afford the five-star resorts of Goa during the peak of peak season over Christmas and New Year.
It is local business resorts which benefit most courtesy domestic tourists. Instead of cursing them, the government should create decent and adequate facilities for domestic tourists to use. But do not permit drinking on beaches. Create more washrooms and changing rooms even if these have to be paid for nominally. Make it easier for domestic tourists to enjoy themselves.
For migrants working in Goa it is the beaches which are their “dance floor” or entertainment places for ushering in or celebrating the New Year. For here there are charges. Why make it difficult for the small people seeking a recreational break from their otherwise busy lives, let them also breathe in the New Year revelry in peace and goodwill towards all humankind under the stars on a beach.