Lone survivor of the storm in #Goa Stranded farmer in Benaulim

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.
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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 15th 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 village of Benaulim are becoming rarer and rarer to find in Goa , one who continue to cultivate their paddy fields in the face of many obstacles. All his life he has lived on the profits from his paddy fields and buffaloes rearing business - to take care of his family needs and to provide education to his five sons. Giving up on what he has been doing all his life is hard thing and that is what Rebello finds difficult.

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Western tourists in Indian state of Goa celebrate World Ocean's day in Arambol village

Western tourists  clear Arambol Sweetwater Lake of dangerous 'mines'ahead of tourist season
Thousands of volunteers plucked plastic, broken beer bottles and other waste products from the rocks around Sweetwater Lake of Palyem and Arambol beach along Goa’s coast for the last four weeks under
Volunteers however fear that a number of broken glass piece of beer bottles, which they fear lie underneath the water, pose a potential hazard for people who use the SweetWater lake
with divers unable to clear garbage from the water.
volunteers retrieved rusted scrap metal, plastic bottles, and other waste alongside Plastic waste. Volunteers dressed in blue T-shirts sifted through fine sand to remove fragments of plastic as well as collected larger items like beer bottles.

The Sweetwater Lake, situated a few metres away from Arambol Beach, and which falls in the property of Congress leader Jitendra Deshprabhu, the scion of the Deshprabhu family and the erstwhile viscount of Pernem, is one of the most important wetlands on the Arabian coast and a habitat for many migratory birds.

The Sweetwater lake has been in the past been a site for many Full Moon parties, patronised mostly by european tourists and indians too, parties in which trance music and drugs flow easily in the coastal paradise of India, a state which has gained notoriety for the easy availability of drugs

The World Oceans Day kicked off Saturday as a reminder of the major role oceans have in everyday life.
This year, the UN General Assembly launched "Play It Out" -- a global campaign against Plastic pollution that includes a music festival.
"Today, 13,000,000 tonnes of Plastic leak into the oceans every year, what among other damage, kill 100,000 marine animals annually," the UN said in a statement.
"While most Plastics are expected to remain intact for decades or centuries after use, Plastics in the oceans that do erode end up as micro-Plastics that are consumed by fish and other wildlife, quickly making their way into the global food chain,” it said.
"From Plastic straws to Plastic bags, we all are at the frontline of efforts to #BeatPlasticPollution."
The UN added that globally, the market value of marine and coastal resources and industries is estimated at $3 trillion per year, or about 5% of global GDP, showing the financial importance of oceans for the world.
More than 1,000 related events are being held around the world this year, including film screenings, clean-up activities, interactive talks and painting contests.

The UN General Assembly decided that as of 2009, June 8 would be designated as World Oceans Day to draw global attention to the benefits derived from the oceans and the challenges faced by the international community in connection with the oceans.
According to the UN, the concept of a "World Oceans Day” was first proposed in 1992 at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro "as a way to celebrate our world’s shared ocean and our personal connection to the sea”.

 ‘Dolphins are not entertainers’

On the occasion of World Oceans Day, World Animal Protection, an international non-profit animal welfare organization, released a statement on its website concerning dolphins.
"Some dolphins are condemned to a life of utter boredom in the confines of a manmade concrete tank or artificial lagoon," it said, criticizing "Swim with the Dolphins" programs.
The movement also stressed that wild dolphins can swim more than 100 kilometers (62 miles) a day and can live for over 50 years, "which amounts to a life sentence in a small, chlorinated pool".
It also criticized the detention of dolphins in Australia for tourism.

Urgent: Clean Arambol campaign needs Goa Tourism department's help

100 beer sacks, each containing of 30 to 40 bottles each, remain to be moved from Sweetwater lake in Armabol before the Southwest moonsoon sets in Goa.

Beer bottles are not the only thing which the Clean Armabol Swach Abihyan have collected for the last several weeks, plastic bottles and several others items have been collected and packed in discarded rice bags. They are on need of more rice bags and more volunteers to join the campaign.

Jade Kim, a Korean born Australian citizen, a yoga teacher is the face and the driving force behind the biggest beach cleanup project undertaken in Goa.

The cleanup is not over yet. And all the effort of the team, which is made up of nationals from different nationalities ranging from France, Australia, Russia, England, and also some local volunteers will be vain if the collected is not lifted from the site on an immediate basis before the rainy season sets in.

Dristi Beach Cleaning servicing have promised help by sending labourers to the sight on Saturday to clear the place, which has turned out to be the biggest beach side garbage dump in any coastal village of Goa.

The panchayat authorities including the sarpanch Dominic has had no role to play to clearing the mess and any calls to him by the volunteers gets a typical response "I am busy with the court cases of the Panchayat.

The restaurants who are also the culprits in littering the garbage and creating the mess are also not cooperating in the drive and some of the people of the area are guilty of burning garbage and adding to the air pollution and global warming up.

The local church help was sought by the volunteers in the clean up drive.

The volunteers are hoping that history does not repeat itself next season and there needs to be an awareness among the local business community and local alike in keeping the place and free of garbage.

The tourists need to be informed and adequate sign boards need to be installed along with dustbins so the garbage is not littered everywhere in the village, says Kim.

And the group has focused their campaign in keeping the area free of plastic and have had launched several eco friendly projects including banana leafs as straws and locally made garbage bins of bamboo sticks to get rid of plastic from several restaurants in the area.