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Mike and Chrissie Shepherd, a British couple bought a house in Cuncolim in south Goa, decades ago and have made it their second home. Their message to the law makers is that tourists are not a threat to Goa's environment but its the big land sharks.. THE RAINY season is in full flow in the Indian state of Goa. It’s time for many foreigners on long –term visas to retreat back to their native lands to escape the rainy season. Few brave the rainy season and stay back. Mike and Chrissie Shepherd, are one such British tourists who have fallen in love with Goa and have made the tourist-resort state their second home. No wonder they own two homes in Goa. But they too do want to stay in Goa for the rains. A Google search for Chrissie and Mike leads ones to Sanvorcotto ward in Cuncolim village in south Goa. If there is any chance that you have never heard of the village Cuncolim in Goa tourism related news, you are right; the village has nothing to do with tourism. The next question that

Universally, newspapers serve the role of disseminating news and help in opinion making. But hold on, they serve yet another purpose, if one follows the life story of thirty-nine year old, Shiva Mandre, who has a fluency in twenty-five languages.  UNIVERSALLY, NEWSPAPERS serve the role of disseminating news and help in opinion making. But hold on, they serve yet another purpose, if one follows the life of thirty-nine year old, Shiva Mandre, changing the course of his life from a homeless construction worker in 1985 to a bird watching guide in 2003. Shiva’s habit of reading newspapers got him into the business of selling newspapers at Colva Beach in Goa from 1991, a move which has brought about a sea change in the life of Shiva. This Karantaka-born has also attained amazing mastery over twenty-five languages, thanks to his interaction with foreign tourists and his determination to overcome all odds.  Since 2003, he has stopped selling newspapers and started to sell post cards and books.

Universally, newspapers serve the role of disseminating news and help in opinion making. But hold on, they serve yet another purpose, if one follows the life story of thirty-nine year old, Shiva Mandre, who has a fluency in twenty-five languages.  UNIVERSALLY, NEWSPAPERS serve the role of disseminating news and help in opinion making. But hold on, they serve yet another purpose, if one follows the life of thirty-nine year old, Shiva Mandre, changing the course of his life from a homeless construction worker in 1985 to a bird watching guide in 2003. Shiva’s habit of reading newspapers got him into the business of selling newspapers at Colva Beach in Goa from 1991, a move which has brought about a sea change in the life of Shiva. This Karantaka-born has also attained amazing mastery over twenty-five languages, thanks to his interaction with foreign tourists and his determination to overcome all odds.  Since 2003, he has stopped selling newspapers and started to sell post cards and books.

Climate change is real and solutions to it exist but there is a small window of time. It is a complex problem – no golden bullet that alone can meet all the needs of society and bring down emissions. There are multiple solutions to bring about climate change and that is already happening India, says Ana da Costa Co-Director of the Indian Climate Solutions Road Tour, member of the twenty-member team which under took the record breaking Electric Car Climate Solutions caravan in India covering 3500 kilometers for 30 days travelling through 15 major Indian cities. The aim of the trip was, to spread the message - a message of opportunity - that climate change is real, but that the solutions to climate change exist, and the greatest solution is our human capacity to act. We travelled through 15 major cities, and numerous smaller towns and villages, documenting climate solutions ( www.indiaclimatesolutions.com ), conducting climate leadership trainings at schools and universities, and holding

How much money is necessary to be happy? – That was the difficult question which troubled Switzerland-based couple Markus and Anita Rytz all their lives. Their world centered on materialistic things and in their pursuit for the luxuries of life they both suffered burnouts, on account of work-related stress. It is then they decided to change their lifestyles. Frequent road trips from Switzerland to different countries on their BMW motorcycle became quite common.   On August 10 last year they embarked on their ‘around the world trip’ which will take them to different countries and continents. Armstrong Vaz spoke to the couple . “It is not so important to have all the materialistic things, that’s is what we learnt through our travel in India. Poor people in India may be poor in terms of materialistic possessions but they are rich at heart,” says Marcuz Rytz, who along with his wife Anikta reached Goa as part of their ‘around the world trip’. The couple set on the road trip on their petr

Brand-new computers in offices, modern televisions in middle-class homes and mobile phones everywhere are all signs of India's recent economic growth. But what happens to these mini-luxuries when their owners want to replace them? Wilson Coutinho from Goa, had one such problem at hand, he wanted to discard his junk laptop. But, how to go about disposing his computer was a complex question troubling this environmentally conscious, former state footballer.   He is not only the only one to face the dilemma. The country does not have an all India law to deal with e-waste. Kerala is the only state which has drafted legislation, while elsewhere state and central legislators have not applied their mind in putting legislation in place. Big cities like Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai have private stakeholders like E-Parisram and Ramky taking care of electronic waste disposal. “Recently Greenpeace organized a protest at Zenith's factory in Zuarinagar, Vasco, Goa, by installing a big sna

The 'Goan Treasure' feni, brewed by Madame Rosa Distillery, Goa is participating at the prestigious International Spirits Challenge 2009 (ISC) event in London. The event, dubbed as the "Oscars of the liquor brands", will give `Goan Treasure ’ international exposure and recognise its quality. The event will give the Goan Treasure brand the opportunity to be discovered in the UK and elsewhere in the world. But on the ground in Goa, the situation is quite different, in the face of urbanization many toddy tapper families, tapping coconuts are giving up the business for lack of hands to help in the trade, one of them is Jack Silva from the Coastal village of Benaulim. Goa produces two types of feni’s-coconut and Cashew. Dominic   Alfonso   of Dominic shack at Benaulim village is hard pressed every time Russian Andrei demands a bottle of Coconut Feni – Goa’s favourite liquor. For quality conscious Dominic, giving the guest the best is his motto , but given   the dwindling

The Toddy Tapper and the coconut Plucker are both becoming rarer and rarer to find in Goa. With a high-risk, live threatening job, Pluckers daily-wages are going up, but are hard to find. But then, few from the younger generation are keen to take up the Toddy Tappers job (Render mam - Toddy Tapper uncle as he is called locally by the children) in the tourist-resort state. If the head count of Toddy Tappers  in the state is decreasing, so has been the corresponding decrease in coconut tree cover in the state. The decrease in numbers does not argue well for the Feni drinkers. Goa’s famous drink called Maddi or Feni which is produced from the coconut palm sap or juice, a local variety of liquor, which is very much in demand among the tourists and locals alike. Increasing flow of tourist to the sun-kissed silvery beaches has meant that many a coconut plantations are being flattened either to build a small resort or a big five-star hotel in the coastal village of Goa. And if that was not en

“Just wanted to say, that we at Goa Civic and Consumer Action Network ( GOACAN) are promoting the idea that if you do not take any grains from the ration shop or kerosene from the authorized dealer, then there is no need to have a ration card. This is also not the only document to prove your residency. Perhaps you would like to comment on it,” wrote my neighbor and consumer activist Lorna Fernandes in an email send to me in the month of December last year. That was the activist view. The ground reality was quite different. This is what I discovered painfully for the last one and half year when the talathi of Cuncolim misplaced our ration card and we had to make endless rounds to the government offices involving a lot of paper work, including   sworn affadavits to get back the ration card. My first stop was at the doors steps of a nationalized bank in Margao. The bank official insisted from my mother a xerox copy of the ration card, over and above the electoral card and the senior citiz

Nineteen-year-old Melvin Fernandes hailing from the Velim constituency part of the South Goa Lok Sabha constituency in the western state of Goa is in upbeat mood. He will cast his vote for the first time. But, the eagerly awaited excitement to press the button of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) to cast his vote has not come easy for the catering student. He had to toil for it. He had to travel from Velim to Margao city- the nerve centre of Goan economy and the centre of the South Goa district to get his missing links in his voting card restored in the system which dramatically within a span of one year. Although Melvin’s name and other details were correctly featured on the electoral roll his photograph was the missing link. With his photograph missing from the electoral roll his old electoral card was rendered useless.   A greater threat of being turned back from the polling booth door on election day of April 23 held in store for Melvin. It was then he decided to take the trip to

Goan houses have been the handiwork of some remarkable artisans. My neighbor late Indunberg Gama, an engineer by profession had a lot of fond memories associated with old ancestral house in Sanvorcotto Cuncolim. He passed away four years back in Mumbai. With his death spelt the death knell for his ancestral house. His children who were born and brought up in Mumbai had no idea how his forefathers had toiled to build the house. On the death of Gama, the house was not periodically repairer and the house constructed in old traditional style with the aid of lime and sand crumbled under its own weight two years back. And the inevitable happened the debris of the house were cleared and then the children decided to sell the plot to an originally Karwari family settled in Goa for the last twenty years. Like Edinburg house a number of houses surrounding my house lay unoccupied., with some toying with plans to sell their land and settle elsewhere. Call it migration or work call demands. The bott

Heta Pandit’s book Hidden Hands-Masterbuilders of Goa amply illustrated with photographs and gives the reader an insight into the lives of the artisans-carpenters, masons, stonecutters, roofers, basket weavers, potters, painters and gardeners- that have made the houses of Goa look and feel the way they do. The contribution of each of these artisans, their relationship with the house owners, the tools they used, the methods of construction they employed, their remuneration and their lifestyle have all been described vividly and sympathetically. But that was a few decades back. In the current age the masterly artisans which abounded in Goa have become a vanishing tribe in Goa, discovers Charles D’Silva as he set out in pursuit to build his dream house. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Tour guide Charles and Nicol D’Silva’s dream house is taking shape in Benaulim. Every day and night he monitors its construction, stone by stone. From

Music is his passion and farming as a hobby give him kicks. He is all but eighty-one years in age, but yet not given up on the things he was most of fond of in life- cultivating his paddy field and rearing his she buffaloes for milk.   A decade back, his paddy fields yielded two crops in a season. But with the adjoining paddy fields converted into a housing project only one crop is possible per season now – a death knell   for farming in the Indian state of Goa.   For the umpteen time Joao Santan Rebello cast his vote last month, to elect his representative to the 15 th Lok Sabha, the lower house of Indian parliament, since Goa got liberated from the Portuguese in 1962. Much has changed over the years with modernization in the tourist-resort state,   the small state of India which welcomes some four millions foreign tourists every year. In the race to build mega housing projects to cater to the tourists many a paddy fields have fallen prey. People like Rebello who hails from coastal v