GOMANTAK TIMES: SMD's strictures on PIs of Vasco, Mormugao, Canacona

[While officials debate the issue, what is the situation on the ground? Any comments from Vascokars? -FN]

SMD's strictures on PIs of Vasco, Mormugao, Canacona

[GOMANTAK TIMES, Dec 27, 2005 Page A4]

By A Staff Reporter reporters@gomantaktimes.com

MARGAO: The countdown to the New Year is generally known for its fun and festivity and dances galore being organised throughout the state. But the Deputy Collector and Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), South, Suresh Pilankar, who is the authority for implementation of sound pollution regulations, has condemned the "action on th epart of the police inspectors (PIs) for their indirect way of refusal of his instructions and the modalities they have employed in doing so" and flayed the PIs of the Vasco, Mormugao and Canacona police station for their ignorance of the law.

SDM Pilankar in his three-page report dated December 26, has referred to the copy of the order of the Bombay High Court in writ petition 366/1999 pertaining to noise pollution and has passed strictures on the police department, urging them to initiate immediate action against the violators of the sound pollution regulations.

In his report, Pilarnkar has regretted that "the in-charge of the police stations are unaware of the magisterial arrangements made by the government under the provisions of the CrPC in the state to handle the law and order situations.

He stated that "it is not understood under what provision of law, the in-charge of a police station can ask the SDM to deputy an executive magistrate at the police station during night hours".

The SDM claims that "as per the directions of the Supreme Court, no magistrate can be permitted to visit a police station, especially at nights and that the Supreme Court has also directed that the magistrate should not be asked by the police to be a member of the raiding party."

He stated, "inspite of the above directions of the Supreme Court, the PIs asking the SDM to deputy an exective magistrate during night hours at the police station is not only the height of ignorance of the police in-charges in the Margao sub-division but also it is contempt of the directions of the Supreme Court."

By such reply, the PI of the police stations in the South Goa district have shown their incapability of honouring the directions contained in the order of the High Court, instructions of which in fact has also been issued to the Director General of Police (DGP), Panjim by the Under Secretary (Home-II)."

"The wireless messages of the Vasco, Mormugao and Canacona PIs are more concerned as the in-charges of these police stations are ignorant as to whom they should approach for the orders for maintaining of law and order in their jurisdiction. He feared that such indirect refusal of directions would even put the chief secretary to problem due to such contempt.

The SDM has appealed to the South Goa Collector to draw this to the attention of the SP (South) and to convene a meeting of the senior police officials along with all the magistrates in the district, so that the concerned officers can be educated on the provision of law so far as maintaining law and order and complance of the direction issued by the court.

The SDM has also sought the intervention of the Home Secretary, if the district magistrate deems it essential.

Earlier, the SDM had on December 24, instructed the in-charges of the police stations in the Margao sub-division to be alert to the violations of the sound pollution regulations and received wireless messages from them requesting him to depute an executive magistrate at their respective police stations for the implementation of the court directives.

HERALD: Christmas spirit hits Vasco policemen

[Should policemen be celebrating religious festivals in their stations in a secular state, which ought to have no link with religion? Or do you see this as a good means of building inter-community understanding and tolerance? Your views? FN]

Christmas spirit hits Vasco policemen

HERALD, Dec 27, 2005

HERALD CORRESPONDENT

MORMUGAO, Dec 26 -- They may be men and women in uniform and most of them may be Hindus, but that did not stop the Vasco police from celebrating the spirit of Christmas by making a crib in the police station.

The cops attiributed this unusual project to their Police Inspector Sammy Tavares. The staff involved in the crib said that PI Tavares gave his full co-operation and support to the project and also praised him for his support and co-operation during the Ganesh Chaturthi.

"Even though we had no experience in making cribs, all of us got together and completed this crib," says Constable Santosh Bhatkar. "Earlier, there was no one to guide us and few had an interest in celebrating other festivals."

Photo: The crib at the Vasco police station. Photo by Elvino Araujo

HERALD: Electricity Dept has few men to power up Vasco

[An interesting issue for Vascokars. Would you buy the usual official argument that short-staff is to blame? In a state which has the highest bureaucracy-per-capita, we keep hearing this version. Any opinions? FN]

ELECTRICITY DEPT HAS FEW MEN TO POWER UP VASCO

Herald, Monday, Dec 26, 2006

HERALD CORRESPONDENT

MORMUGAO, Dec 25 -- Given the high density of industrial and domestic buildings in the port town, one would have imagined that the Electricity Department would be present in full strength.

On the contrary, the acute shortage of staff at the Electricity Department has posed a number of problems in the maintenance of power supply at Vasco.

Residents have complained that officials are rarely at the department to attend to electricity-related complaints.

The general grouse is that officials either don't lift the phone or simply state that linesmen are attending to a complaint.

At times, angry locals have literally forced the linesmen to come out of the office and restore a faulty line.

Speaking to Herald, Executive Engineer Lakshmanan S explained that the deparmtnt is faced with acute shortage of manpower.

"Many have retired and their posts are yet to be filled up," said Lakshmanan.

According to the Executive Engineer, the Mormugao Sub-Div IV presently has 21 linesmen and three JEs, though the actual requirement is 35 linesmen. The Vasco Sub-Div, he added, has 53 linesmen as opposed to the actual requirement is 75 linesmen.

"Due to shortage of linesmen, when any power is disrupted simultaneously at two places, the linesmen cannot attend to both calls at the same time. Peopledon't always understand the difficulty the department faces due to lack of staff," said Lakshmanan. "Sometimes, the department cannot even dispatch the required number of linesmen to solve the problem."

Commenting on the erratic behaviour of linesmen at the complaint's section, he pointed out that linesmen are already burdened with other complaints and tend to snap at people who insist on immediate restoration of a faulty line. Lakshmanan, however, promised to look into the matter.

The Executive Engineer informed that one once the new line starts from the Kadamba bus stand, the problem in the city would be solved and added, the workload on the city linesman would be reduced.

He also mentioned that the department will install a new transformer at the Kadamba bus stand power station, which will also benefit parts of Mangor area. (ENDS)

From: Goanet News Bytes * Dec 15, 2005 * Vasco houses razed to make way for highway

Vasco houses razed for highway. 28 houses demolished. (Herald)

o Defence ministry has 1678 acres of land in Dabolim airport, since April 1962, Rajya Sabha MP Shantaram Naik was told in a parliamentary reply. Naik sought to know whether the Government had title documents of the Dabolim airport, its date of acquisition of title, area, etc.

VascokarsUnited... the inspiration

There's this mailing list called VascokarsUnited which has a lot of potential... but is moving slowly. Wonder if this blog could be of any help to help with their goal...

HERALD: Mangor garage cause of mishaps

[Any views on this issue? Is this a concern in other parts of Vasco too? FN]

Mangor garage cause of mishaps

HERALD, DEC 26, 2005

HERALD CORRESPONDENT

Vasco, Dec 25 -- Rash and negligent driving is normally the cause of mishaps in the port town.

But at Mangor-Vasco, the mishaps have been attributed to another cause -- a roadside garage at Mangor-Vasco.

Residents of Mangor have complained that a number of mishaps have taken place at a spot in front of a garage near the Ambabai temple. They stated that two vehicles find it difficult to negotiate as the footpath is allegedly occupied by the garage.

The residents allege that one Salim Mohammed, who runs the garage, utilises both sides of the road to repair vehicles or to dump damaged chassis of vehicles.

They claim that fights have regularly taken place between the garage owner and parents, who fear that their children could fall victims to mishaps in the area.

When asked to pint out their area of activity, Salim Mohammed's son insisted that there was no such thing as an area of repair. He went to state that they could repair the vehicles anywhere on the road.

To a query on the garage licence, he could not show the licence and stated that it had been left at home.

Vasco links...

If you want to check out useful links to Vasco in Google's groups (including Usenet and groups such as soc.culture.indian.goa) then please visit:

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=Vasco+Goa&start=0&scoring=d&

FN

Met Jen

Finally, I met up with Jen Lewis in real life. She needs no introduction here, being moderator of Vascokars United. We were yesterday at the Xavier Centre of Historical Research's continued discussions on Konkani and the script issue.

Couldn't help wondering who was that young lady who kept nodding in agreement with some of the points being made, and clicking photographs of some debating the issue. She did look NRIish.

Jen is doing a great job, IMHO. If we had a hundred Jen Lewises, then Goa would surely not be an information-poor state, and informal communications (via cyberspace, specially) would have been very rich.

Of course, Jen was a bit dispondent that so few people post to Vascokars United [1]. Maybe I can contribute one post here. But, beyond that, I'd like to say that every mailing-list goes through a kind of initial enthusiasm-plateauing-stagnation phase. If you can outlast that, then success is assured.

Please see this excellent article posted below, which I've read a large number of times, whenever I've felt despondent. http://oii.org/lists/lifecycle.html [2]

On Goanet, we reached a point where we would get two new members and lose three old ones! It was at that point that we started Goanet-News (earlier called Goanews). We found that some subscribers can't cope with high volumes of mail, but would nevertheless like to be kept in touch.

On Goajourno, a restricted-to-journos list, I was the only fool posting for maybe a couple of years or more, till a controversy (related to a journalists' union election) helped to build interest in the list. Many started posting, and also insisted that they be added to the list!

Of course, you need to keep making regular posts to the lists. You also need at least 2-3 committed persons posting regularly. It helps if lists are moderated once they cross a certain size (maybe a 100 or so, it depends on the nature of the membership). Try to rope in some journalist who would commit to post regularly whatever he writes, specially if it's on-topic.

Okay Jen, here's wishing you all the best for what you do for Vasco, from distant Birmingham! FN

--------- [1] http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VascokarsUnited/

[2] Originally Posted to Gleason Sackman's Net-Happenings

Date: Wed, 5 Apr 1995 07:07:16 -0600 From: Mike Gurstein <mikeg@nywork2.undp.org> To: Multiple recipients of list <futurework@csf.colorado.edu> Subject: Fwd: Life cycle of Lists (fwd) --------------------- Forwarded message: From: mforster@findhorn.org (Michael Forster) To: communitarians@civic.net Date: 95-03-31 07:57:23 EST

This seemed like a good time to post this item from the Humor List. Michael Forster

THE NATURAL LIFE CYCLE OF MAILING LISTS

Every list seems to go through the same cycle:

1. Initial enthusiasm (people introduce themselves, and gush a lot about how wonderful it is to find kindred souls).

2. Evangelism (people moan about how few folks are posting to the list, and brainstorm recruitment strategies).

3. Growth (more and more people join, more and more lengthy threads develop, occasional off-topic threads pop up)

4. Community (lots of threads, some more relevant than others; lots of information and advice is exchanged; experts help other experts as well as less experienced colleagues; friendships develop; people tease each other; newcomers are welcomed with generosity and patience; everyone---newbie and expert alike---feels comfortable asking questions, suggesting answers, and sharing opinions)

5. Discomfort with diversity (the number of messages increases dramatically; not every thread is fascinating to every reader; people start complaining about the signal-to-noise ratio; person 1 threatens to quit if *other* people don't limit discussion to person 1's pet topic; person 2 agrees with person 1; person 3 tells 1 & 2 to lighten up; more bandwidth is wasted complaining about off-topic threads than is used for the threads themselves; everyone gets annoyed)

6a. Smug complacency and stagnation (the purists flame everyone who asks an 'old' question or responds with humor to a serious post; newbies are rebuffed; traffic drops to a doze-producing level of a few minor issues; all interesting discussions happen by private email and are limited to a few participants; the purists spend lots of time self-righteously congratulating each other on keeping off-topic threads off the list)

OR

6b. Maturity (a few people quit in a huff; the rest of the participants stay near stage 4, with stage 5 popping up briefly every few weeks; many people wear out their second or third 'delete' key, but the list lives contentedly ever after)