Beautify F L Gomes road in Vasco
Chief Minister Pramod Sawant reportedly unveiled a 15-foot-tall bronze statue of Dr Francisco Luis Gomes at Navelim on Thursday. The Chief Minister announced that the state will observe the birth and death anniversary of the unsung hero of India’s freedom movement on May 31 and June 9, respectively.
Born in Navelim in 1829, Dr Francisco Luis Gomes was a versatile personality. A linguist, thinker, master of several European and Indian languages, doctor, writer, orator, economist, social activist, politician and a freedom fighter.
Dr Gomes, a polymath, left a rich legacy in various fields. We need to salute his vision for Goa. Unfortunately all these years precious little has been done to honour this great son-of-the soil. Now with the unveiling of the statue, hopefully all this will change. One of the main roads in the port town of Vasco is the FL Gomes road, named after the great personality.
This road stretches from Tilak Maidan to the IOC Terminus and needs to be spruced up. At several places there are no proper pavements, especially at the vegetable market place. In the past the constant repairs of the sewerage line passing beneath the road and the soft mud has led to multiple potholes.
The entire road needs to be beautified. A statue of the nationalist Dr. Francisco Luis Gomes could even be installed along the route.
Adelmo Fernandes, Vasco
Women’s empowerment must be a reality
The law enacted for 33% reservation for Women in Assembly and Parliamentary elections has been a step in the right direction to encourage women to play their role in the political arena and to serve the society. Let us hope this law will be a reality soon. But a mockery should not be made of the good intentions of the lawmakers who framed the policy to encourage women to contribute their bit to public life.
At the Panchayat and Municipal level, we have been sadly witnessing that in many cases the women elected are only on paper while their effective role is factually being unlawfully played by their spouse, brother or at times some other relative.
Women candidates like all others must be selected and elected on their own merit and aptitude, not as a front or smoke screen for others to run the show. They must not be puppets on a string manipulated and pushed along the way with no say. This defeats the very purpose of reserving seats for women which is meant for ensuring their empowerment.
Never dull your shine for somebody else. To shine your brightest light, you need to be and represent who you truly are. If you cannot be uniquely you, then please do the honourable thing and let someone else capable of standing on her own two feet take your place.
Aires Rodrigues, Ribandar
FM could have presented a more credible budget
Interim union budgets or vote on account budgets are not meant to make big bang announcements but for the sheer manner in which all of India’s problems were papered over makes this a sad milestone. There is huge unemployment in the country and food inflation is high but no mention of this.
The icing on the cake perhaps was the decision to examine the mismanagement of the economy before 2014 (under the UPA), and present it as a white paper in the new parliament building. Who would believe the credibility of such a report unless it were done by an independent agency?
The FM could have presented a more credible budget but given that this was one of her shortest, at under an hour, seems to suggest she had run out of ideas.
Brian de Souza, Margao
Salcete gets facelift for Prime Minister’s visit
The preparations being done for the Prime Minister’s visit, need to be paid attention to. All the interior roads were dug up in AVCC, which caused extreme difficulty in traveling. Some still are, especially the Baga-Cuncolim route, which is in ruins.
In no time, nearly the whole of Salcete has seen tarred roads, which look as good as ever. All of a sudden, there came a need to place safety barriers at the Assolna bridge and ponds nearby. The speed breakers on the Chinchinim-Navelim road have been taken off. Roadside vendors have been asked to shut their carts on February 6 and a holiday has been declared for all schools in Margao apparently, to facilitate traffic.
Our government has indeed done quite well to prove to the Prime Minister that Goa is flawless and its people are cared for. But do we, the citizens of Goa, not notice all of it? Of course we do! Are we doing anything about it? Well, not really! As a result of the merciless cutting of trees in the past few months, we now have tigers and leopards in our villages that are moving about freely, causing terror in the people. Stepping out has become frightful because it is not one tiger but an ambush of tigers, scattered all over, feeding on the dogs, pigs and cattle, whose number has reduced drastically.
My dear Goenkars, let us all ponder upon this act and be aware of what is happening and raise our voices when needed, before our picturesque Goa turns into a nightmare.
Stesha Pereira, by email
Kudos to those Goans promoting Konkani
Serving our own mother tongue is a mission and not for commission and so it’s our duty to protect and develop our language, land. I am observing minutely every scholar, writer, reader, thinker, actor, singer etc of Konkani is working for the upliftment of our rich language. Let’s appreciate them from our deepest heart . I would like to mention Festakar Marius, R J Roque Vaz (Konkani uloi, London fuloi fame) for their yomen service towards our mother tongue. They are real heroes I would say.
Armando L Fernandes, Navelim
