PHOTOFEATURE :: By Frederick Noronha

Victor Hugo Gomes had been bugging me to visit Benaulim, and, as usual, I kept postponing. A man of few words (except when he’s writing detailed articles on themes like Goan music!), he just kept telling me, “You come and see for yourself.”

Finally, we did make it there.

His collection was the most amazing set of objects of the Goa of the yesteryears that I’ve seen at one place. That this artist and former curator of the Museum of Christian Art had done it all by himself, no state funding, and in his own home (with support of his lecturer-wife Alie, short for Aldina) is
all the more creditworthy.

In his collection, you can unwrap the story of Goa’s agriculture, cullinary practices and more. There are pots of every shape and size from yesterday’s Goa. There are spoons, and other kitchen utensils. Another collection deals with agricultural implements, and the technology — however simple, it was effective and sustainable — of the Goa of the past.

On Monday evening, November 2, 2009, Mario Miranda inaugurates the Goa Chitra museum, as Gomes calls it. As we forget what life was in yesterday’s Goa, this venture is a powerful reminder of a simple people, living simple sustainble lives. In a manner that probably made us more
contented than we are today.

Pots in their rich diversity:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/428684696/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

The artist behind it all: Victor Hugo Gomes
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/428570452/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

Kitchen technology: simple but eco-friendly, human-driven grinders
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/428228895/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

A torture chair from the past? Note the spaces to tie hands and feet.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/428150089/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

Goan tools, in diverse shapes and sizes
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/428144885/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

Can you guess what each is used for?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/428140015/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

Measures and agri implements, from another day.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/428130048/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

The artist’s home
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/428103682/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

Soda water bottles. Remember?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/427999195/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

Beer, from Madras.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/428003631/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

Windows 1950s
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/427938405/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

Baskets
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/427963631/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

The cutter’s arm
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/427367755/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

Ladles, of wood
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/425933914/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

Benaulim, where the museum is set
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/425767579/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

Scenic setting for such a succinct story.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/426700772/sizes/o/in/set-72157600013086437/

Checking out details of ‘A Survival Guide to Social Media and Web 2.0 Optimization’ by Deltina Hay. Interesting http://ping.fm/ZeXoV

Very nice intro to Free Software talk, demo at Goa Science Centre this morn/afternoon. Thanks for a good job, Animesh!

ONE KNEW BERNIE as a committed student activist in our college days. Later, I encountered her new avatar as Dr. Bernadette Gomes, sociologist, whose work and potential has been rated high by the likes of the US-based (Marblehead, MA) anthropologist Dr Robert (Bob) S. Newman. More recently, I got to know her as someone whose writing really deserves to be published (but that’s taking time to happen).

Bernadette Gomes

The paintings capture people’s practices; a way of life that’s fast disappearing. Like the gathering of dried leaves before the monsoon, to light kitchen fires. Like par-boiling paddy at night. Women bathing at the village stream… 

Others peep into little known aspects of Goa’s varied peoples. Like the Meazghor of the pastoral Gouly tribe, a living room-cum-kitchen-cum-store room, made entirely of woven cane. The men dancing the Powo during Dussehra. Or just taking a break as they tend the goats. 

Fun, frolic and solemnity is portrayed in the Sotryo festival of Cuncolim; the fire walkers at the zatra of Goddess Lairayee at Sirgao; the village church feast… 

Take a look at some of her paintings and decide for yourself:

My favourite, a lively scene of salt-pan workers, that could come from coastal Pernem, or any one of the villages in Bardez and Tiswadi that once made Goa a salt-exporting centre par excellence (now this traditional sector is facing immense pressure).

And here are two rich scenes from traditional Goa and its festivities…

The details are amazing and, sometimes, like a picture clicked by one of those modern, high-res digital cameras, almost better than life!

Her images include:

• Goa under one umbrella — the sotryo festival of  Cuncolim, celebrated by Hindus and Christians alike.
• Goulys get going — the Powo dance, a unique Gouly Dussehra custom.
• No fear of fire — the Dhonds of Goddess Lairayee walk on burning embers.
• Leav-ing nothing behind — gathering dry leaves for the fire before the monsoon in the zabblo (traditional coir-net bags).
• Salt of the earth — salt pans were once Goa’s principal industry.

Not for nothing does Bernie mention that she’s from Santo Estevao “also the native village of (noted Goan artist who rendered Christian themes in Indian style) Agnelo da Fonseca.”

She recently took premature retirement from her job at the Government Colleges where Bernie lectured in Sociology. But maybe the loss of students in Cuncolim and Quepem could be the gain of the local art scene. Enriched not just with lively colours but a deep understanding of the rich lives of the poor Goan who now gets turned invisible and often falls beyond the radar of urban Goa.

PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST… AS A WINE-MAKER
http://osdir.com/ml/culture.region.india.goa.saligao/2004-08/msg00015.html

Commodity tourism: wine & dine in the farm!
http://www.commodityonline.com/news/Commodity-tourism-wine–dine-in-the-farm!-12561-3-1.html

Winemaking is way of life
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/winemaking-is-way-of-life/398546/0

The Wine Classroom

http://pawinenovice.blogspot.com/2009/08/md-e-letter-features-winemaking-school.html

Make your own wine (it’s not what you think)
http://www.blogcatalog.com/blog/the-wine-case/038ea3b381af454efc0e012fb1a646fb

By Frederick Noronha

Selma Carvalho spent part of her Goa holiday trying to finish a book dealing with stories of Goan migration. The UK-based mother of a three-year-old believes her work has inputs that could help Goans better understand their own complex reality.

Carvalho is one of a growing trend of writers bringing Goa-centric work to the fore. An increasing number of books on Goa is getting into print, here and elsewhere. Goa, the size of an average Indian district, has an amazing set of numbers on its side. Outside of the metros, it is probably the most intensely published region nationwide, given its size.

“Each year, between 200 to 250 books are being published in Goa alone. Out of these, about 70% are in Konkani,” notes Central Library curator Carlos Fernandes.

Fernandes, a soft-spoken man with a reputation for his quiet efficiency, sits at the helm of the oldest public library in South Asia. The Central Library was set up as the Publica Livraria in 1832, but has been overtaken by the metros across India. Formerly with the Goa Engineering College, Fernandes believes that good writers can help sell books in a world where a market exists and technology has made things simple — you can layout a book on your desktop computer at home.

The trickle is turning into a flood. Old-timers remember the situation in the 1980s, when there would be just a handful of Goa-related books visible at exhibitions and sales. Today, there are literally dozens, if not a few hundred books on Goa in print. That is, if you know where to find them.

“Goa is in a unique situation,” avers Vivek Menezes, a Goan expat who returned home while in his 30s. He has published two books, that offer overviews of music and art in Goa. “Yet the market is ridiculed. People make false assumptions about Goa.” His suggestion is that much more is possible.

Miramar-based Menezes, who can be often found in the mornings working hard at writing from his office near Panjim’s municipal garden, sees Goa as a “potentially large and lucrative market”. He points to the tourist purchases of local books. Besides, “Goa is on top of the national food-chain in terms of interest and visibility.”

GoaWriters meeting underway. Photo: from left, Rahul Shrivastav, Willy Goes, Victor Rangel-Ribeiro, Jose Lourence and Vivek Menezes. More GoaWriters below, from left, Xavier Cota, Cecil Pinto, Alito Sequeira, Damodar Mouzo, Jose Lourenco and Augusto Pinto. Women members are absent from photos for some reason!

Menezes argues: “You have all the ingredients in place for huge growth; but we’re told that Goa is too small and cannot sustain! We have a huge captive audience. In the last two to three years, due to the presence of (top national writers like) Amitav Ghosh (who have homes in Goa), the writing community is also getting built up.”

                       * * *

Simultaneously, the market for Goa books has opened up in recent years. This is not to say that everything is gung-ho. There are big challenges; but opportunity is now felt more strongly than ever before. Outlets are coming up in Goa, in a shape and size that marks a dramatic departure from the conservative, play-it-safe past.

Peter Nazareth, the editor of an anthology of Goan writing (”Goan Literature: A Modern Reader”, Journal of South Asian Literature Winter-Spring 1983) was surprised on encountering online videos about a couple of bookstores in Goa.

He wrote: “I am astounded! They look like very good bookstores with many, many books. (One belonging to Khalil Ahmed) looks as good as the best bookstore in Iowa City, which is the city of writing in the US.”

Broadway at Sant Inez in Panjim was set up by Khalil Ahmed, who decades back looked after the Goa market while working for major publishers in New Delhi. Today, Broadway is into publishing too, and has earned a reputation for its special counters that offer books at bargain prices. Khalil Ahmed runs it with son Faheem, in his twenties.

Broadway, at St Inez.

Besides this, there are others like the Coutinhos of Margao, whose sprawling premises in an old-styled Goan house is in the heart of the city. Located behind the Margao main post office, it is called Golden Heart Emporium. In one room, a number of Goa-related books lie crowded in shelves, vying for the reader’s attention.

Special ‘Goa sections’ for local bookshops are a fairly recent trend though.

Bookshops that first made their Goa book sections visible included the Other India Bookstore, a charming place almost hidden — but widely written about in travel guides and known in alternative Indian publishing circles — above the old Mapusa Clinic at Mapusa. OIBS is an alternative network that has a good selection and does a lot of mail-order business.

Lawyer Norma Alvares has been associated with this network as a trustee, and has displayed innovation and the ability to build a market where none existed. Besides their environmental, activist and NGO books, the OIBS also has a long-standing commitment to promoting Goa-related books.

OIBS, till recently, would activelytrack down and chase self-published authors. By pursuing those who came out with a book on Goa, they managed to put together a wide choice of Goa-related books, in a market that is otherwise fragmented, and marked by a lot of difficulties in finding the books you need.

                       * * *

This is a major problem with Goa books. Most are self-published, or brought out by small-time publishers.

Local newspapers, mostly, don’t review newly published local books. So, when the book is just out, very few people are aware of it. By the time readers get to know of it, the title could well be out of print, or difficult to locate!

Apart from the OIBS, Golden Heart at Margao, and Broadway, those with good Goa-related book sections include The Hotel Mandovi’s bookshop, and even the unusual Literati, just off the Calangute-Candolim road. It would probably help if there was more reader-pressure on bookshops to stock more Goa-related titles.

Margao’s Golden Heart Emporium.

There are other factors too.

Having good bookshops does help. It’s not just numbers sold that matters; even the glamour of the printed word grows, and could get taken more seriously.

Says the prestigious Frommers.com, one of the best travel guide in America: “It’s Literati … that has the atmosphere. You can sit for hours in the terrific book cafe and read or browse or buy secondhand as well as newly published works, while at the same time enjoying a delicious brownie or a tall glass of chilled kokum (fruit drink). Ask owner Divya Kapur about any upcoming events like poetry or book readings and writing workshops.”

Writer Shikha Tripathi writes online at myfidgetyfeet.com: “As uncanny as chalk and cheese, Goa and books sounds like a divorced idea. My last trip to the place, however, revealed the literary culture of a place I had previously equated not with books but with the greater known b’s — beer and beaches.”

                       * * *

Things are changing fast. The bookshops are there; so are the books, and the authors. So what stops Goa-related titles from getting a better place in the local sun — not to forget wider national and diaspora markets?

“Distribution. Distribution. Distribution. A distribution network is sorely needed. There are no real distributors in Goa,” says Cecil Pinto, who in 2007 published ‘Domnic’s Goa’, a book by Gulf-returned Domnic Fernandes of Anjuna, which nostalgically narrates life as was in Goa two generations ago.

Like the proverbial chain, the strength here too is that of the weakest link! For most in the field, the distribution networks, or lack of them, is the serious most constrain that Goa currently faces in making its books viable and visible.

Talk to any author, publisher or reader, and the most common complaint is that books don’t travel beyond Goa. Not even to cities which have large Goan pockets, and could be potential markets.

Amitav Ghosh, one of the writers who has made Goa his home for part of the year.

But, to be fair, it takes for a huge cost and many challenges to even try to tap this scattered market. Pinto points to the disappointing experience of his book not reaching diaspora communities, even via mail-order networks. But book sellers here have to cope with difficult and costly (or unavailable) payment mechanisms, delays in receiving payments, and poor communications. Unless this severe bottleneck is somehow overcome, a lot of potential will remain stymied.

Remy Rodrigues, former partner of advertising and publishing firm Era, says the biggest problem with books is “marketing obviously”. One has to work hard to build the profile of a book, and “experienced writers” are important he feels. “If you throw peanuts, you only get monkeys.” Of course, this leaves Goa in a chicken-and-egg situation. Where does the money come from if the market is yet to be built up?

Cecil Pinto agrees that things are falling into place: “Writers and readers can be from anywhere. They don’t have to be physically present in Goa. Editing, illustration, photography, designing, printing, packaging and publicity talent and facilities exist here. What we need is an efficient distribution network which can make the book visible and available locally, all-India and worldwide.”

But others see the problem as lying elsewhere.

Dr Fatima Gracias, historian, says: “Publishing books in Goa is time-consuming for the author, as in some instances the author has to look after many aspects of publishing. Publishers often do not pay much attention to finer points — editing, appearance, cover, paper quality. Academic books lack a good bibliography or reference list, correct footnotes, end notes, ISBN (International Standard Book Number) and, most importantly, an index.”

“Publishers in  Delhi takes time to come out with a book but they take care of all aspects of publishing. In some cases, the publication needs to be financed by the author. The author has no control or idea of number of copies published,” she adds. Dr Gracias has published four books, two each in Delhi and Goa, and is awaiting completion of the fifth.

Add to this the other typical problems of a small and scattered market. Books can be published in limited numbers — usually a thousand copies, sometimes 500. This pushes up costs and makes it costlier to promote each book.

Money can be slow to return, both for authors and publishers.

                       * * *

Yet, despite this, publishing continues unabated. Goa comes out with a significant number of titles each year.

In the mid-1980s, after reading a really insightful essay by a Western scholar on Goa, this writer began collecting books on the region. Today, one has a collection of about 28 shelves of Goa books, each with approx 30 books, reports and the like. Others like ex-librarian and Goanvoice.Org.UK editor Eddie Fernandes has a collection of a few thousand books. All related to Goa.

Loretta Nunes, manager of the Other India Bookstore, volunteers to count the number of available books on the Mapusa-based outlet’s “Goa books catalogue”. It’s over 190 right now! Goans seem to be the most prolific — for reasons tough to understand — in the fields of biographies, history, religion, tourism and cookery (for obvious reasons).

Margaret Mascarenhas (front), another prominent local writer.

“Some books don’t move (sell) fast. Most Goans don’t buy books. It’s the foreigners who go for it,” she says. But this may also be because the OIBS has received favourable mention in places like the trendy Lonely Planet guide, which, in turn, influences many foreign tourists to visit.

OIBS, and its sister organisation, the Other India Press, are quaint outfits, which trace their roots to the environmentalist couple, Dr Claude and Advocate Norma Alvares. Almost hidden by an un-typical entrance at the rear of the old Mapusa Clinic building, this outlet is unknown to most Goans. But it does, as mentioned, good mail-order business, and is known across the country and beyond. It has a wide selection of environmental and activist titles, and now, a rich selection of Goa books too.

                       * * *

The other part of the puzzle is the book collector, mentioned above. There are perhaps a handful of hard-core addicts who collect every Goa-related book they could get their hands on.

Konkani writer N Shivdas, currently head of the Goa Konkani Akademi.

Leroy Veloso is one such avid collector of Goa books, based in Moira. He began buying books on Mumbai’s street markets in 1998, when he first went to work on board the ship. He started collecting Goa books since 2006, when he changed careers and opted for the shore.

Says he: “Obviously newer published books are easier to get on Goa, out of print books are difficult. You have to keep asking around and searching in second-hand shops, jumble sales, etc. It’s more like fishing. Don’t know whether or what I’ll get books on Goa but I am usually pleasantly surprised.”

Veloso argues: “I don’t think there is much market for Goa books in Goa, people expect to get free copies of books. Also I feel the government should make it compulsory, or facilitate, the publication of PhD theses on Goa issues, as these are simply lying in the Goa University library now.”

Expat Bosco D’Mello, from Toronto and earlier from Bombay who traces his roots to the Bardez village of Socorro, says: “Books from Goa fill a void in my understanding of Goa and its people. It supplements my knowledge of Goa and Goans through the ages and helps understand how Goan society has morphed into its present state. I am drawn to non-fiction and historical manuscripts although I do own novels authored by Goans or about Goa. The other reason I buy books authored by Goans — fiction or non-fiction — is to support Goan writers.”

He suggests that copies of Goa-related books should be donated or submitted to public libraries in cities around the world that have large Goan populations. Goan associations could also act as channels to popularise Goan books. Interested Goans could act as local points of contacts for selling such books, he suggests.

Leading hotels in Goa could purchase large volumes of Goa-related books at cheaper prices and handout to their guests as part of a welcome package, he suggests. But, of course, it’s a question of everybody just taking care of their own business interest. So….

                       * * *

When one talks to different interest-groups involved, it becomes clear how disparate the concerns are.

Odette Mascarenhas, author of a book on the famous chef Masci (her father-in-law) and two more Goan “Harry Potters” for kids, says: “We writers have a tough time to break into big houses in Mumbai and Delhi. Most of our writings are Goa-centric. So perhaps a local publisher would help. We need to create a niche to showcase Goan talent.”

Sheela Jaywant, a Goan author, compares the local market with Mumbai: “Not much difference between the two. Goa being smaller, everyone knows everyone and books have to be given free. Mumbai is bigger, one has lots of colleagues and acquaintances, and books have to be given free.”

She adds: “Price-wise, too, not much difference for a self-publisher. Ah yes, many in Goa have space to store the undistributed books. In Bombay, that’s one big pain!”

Tales from the Attic, by Savia Viegas

“I took self-publishing as a way to leverage my writing into public space,” says former journalist and academic Savia Viegas, who recently sold a thousand copies of her novel set in Goa, ‘Tales from the Attic’. To do so, she went beach-to-beach, around Salcete where she lives, acting as “hawker” to many, including to visiting tourists.

Cut to Rama Harmalkar (40), a traditional printer who studied the art in Bicholim. Harmalkar quickly realised that there is a need for quality print jobs, and outsources his work to printers in Mumbai. For a marginally higher price, he offers a quality job, which has drawn business for him from a wide section of those going in for book publishing, both individuals and some publishers.

But novelist, former journalist and musicologist Victor Rangel-Ribeiro, who is 83 and yet keen to share skills with others here (he helped kick-start the GoaWriters group), believes that one shouldn’t gloss over problem areas.

Rangel-Ribeiro says: “Publishing in Goa differs from publishing as it is practiced in the West: in Goa, a publisher seems to be any individual who takes a manuscript and prints it. A book launch is held, people are invited, and the book is considered published.”

Even when backed by a knowledgeable and powerful array of forces — acquisition staff, editors, copy-editors, legal experts, proofreaders, a sales force, advertising and PR — books that are published in the West often fail to sell. “To me it seems that most books that are written and published in Goa are orphaned and abandoned at birth. It is a miracle that books published in Goa sell at all,” says Rangel-Ribeiro, not mincing his words.

Indo-Portuguese historian Dr Teotonio R de Souza, based in Lisbon and working towards a reprint of his ‘Medieval Goa’, believes that writers need to improve their inputs into their books. He calls for rigorous scholarship in the social sciences, relating contents to actuality (even in History), and the courage to face controversial issues like caste, conversions or colonialism. Souza was founder-director of the Xavier Centre of Historical Research, and some of their books have been published through networks like Concept, New Delhi.

                       * * *

Unfortunately, language is another factor that fractures the Goa market; not to decry diversity. For instance, outlets which stock English-language books might not keep Konkani and Marathi titles, or vice versa. Inspite of Goa’s multilingual situation, very few translations happen here still.

Visibility of Goa books is another issue. In a situation of profound ignorance about new books being published, how are potential buyers to get to know of what’s available? South Goa is getting a plush new district library opened, and one suggestion is to hold a permanent exhibition of books published in Goa. Likewise, Goa, with its pleasant weather for much of the year, could hold open air book-fairs to widen its market. Indoor fairs for books are held here, but these lack the scale or colour needed to draw in the crowds.

Goa’s postal service needs to offer better facilities, if wider markets are to be tapped. At Panjim’s General Post Office, one could run into widely fluctuating postal rates and unawareness, though the official policy is actually quite helpful and aimed at offering books preferential postal rates.

Much needs to be done to promote the reading habit in Goa too. Despite claims, the village libraries set up in Goa in the 1980s are either in a state of collapse, or not growing significantly. Showing an inability to run the network of village libraries, the government is now handing these over to voluntary groups. This may work in some cases, but the need for an expansion of village libraries is undeniable.

                       * * *

Prabhakar Bhide, of the Rajhauns Vitrans, heads an active publishing house started in 1981. Till date, they have a total of 941 titles in print, including school and educational books, Bhide says.

The biggest challenge, says Bhide, are “bread and butter issues”. He says: “If I can’t create a viable business, then how can one continue? I need to be good enough to market whatever I produce, or produce whatever the market needs.”

While Goa books have a small market, the reading habit is actually improving, he feels. Among his popular books, he lists Goa, A Social History (by P D Xavier), Magnificent Monuments (by Xavier Lobo), the recently reprinted The Goa Inquisition (A K Priolkar) and Goan Home Wines (by Edwin Saldanha).

Literati, a fashionable bookshop where Calangute meets Candolim.

Broadway’s managing director Khalil Ahmed says his bookshop is keen on publishing titles from the region. “It takes time to recover the investment, but it’s okay. Though this is a small market, there is still scope. One cannot predict which book will click,” says he.

He praises government support, and says this helps too. Broadway has published some 15 titles. Faheem Ahmed (24), the next generation at the firm, says publishing Goa is their way of giving back to a state which hosts their business.

Author Vishnu Wage (44) has himself authored and published 15 titles (six collections of poetry, four plays, one biography, two in free verse, and two satires). Besides this, he’s also been an editor, a theatre personality, a cartoonist, and a politician!

What’s the economics of publishing these books?

Says he: “I’ve self-published my books. But I also have a tie-up with distributors in Maharashtra, and give it to them to sell. This (selling in Maharashtra) is not possible if one writes in Konkani. It’s very tough to move from door to door selling books (laughs).” To ensure attractiveness, Wagh says he’s careful to maintain layout and production standards, while making the books aesthetically appealing too.

“More or less an equal number of Konkani and Marathi books published each month, say about 15 to 20 each. Over 100-150 new books (in Marathi and Konkani each) get published on an average in a year. But hardly 5% of these would be worth reading,” avers Wagh.

Says Dr Pratap Naik, a Jesuit scholar and Konkani promoter: “Whether we published our own or published by others, experience is not so good. Sales are limited.”

“‘Romans’ (Romi Konkani fiction) used to sell because readers then didn’t know English. Konkani was the only option (in those times). Who reads Konkani now? Those who were earlier Konkani readers have now learnt English,” he says.

In his view, the religious publication ‘Dor Moneachi Roti’ (at one stage even published from Karachi) and the ‘Romans’ were two ways for keeping the Goan Catholic in touch with their culture and Konkani in the past. “If (Konkani pulp fiction is) reprinted today will it sell? I have my doubts. That readership is all but gone,” he says, sounding pessimistic. TV, DVDs and audio cassettes offer stiff competition to books too.

“Devanagari books thrive because of government support. It’s not a question of whether a hundred or a thousand books are published each year. My challenge is, the the government stop giving grants, and spend that money on welfare of the people… that will give us an indication of whether people really need Konkani,” says Naik.

This could be seen as a reflection of the Devanagari-versus-Romi script battle that has been going on in the Konkani world here. But, Naik agrees that the pressure of a reader-shortage is being felt in the Romi world too.

Yet, despite all the many problems, there are signs of change. Books are reaching the presses in growing numbers. One cannot overlook the role of books in generating ideas and knowledge. To ignore the low-returns field of book publishing in a small market would be a crucial error, and as things are moving — with many advantages in its favour — Goa has no alibi for not taking this sector seriously.

—-

Frederick Noronha, a journalist for 25 years, recently himself ventured into a small, alternative publishing venture Goa,1556 [http://goa1556.goa-india.org]

*********************************************************
BOX: The rat and the lion
*********************************************************

It takes an American anthropologist to underline the point
that publishing a Goa book in Goa itself makes good sense.

         Dr Robert S Newman, the Marblehead (Ma.) based
         anthropologist, says, “My experience in publishing
         my Goa related book was basically good. I published
         my book in Goa because I left academia and didn’t
         need to impress anyone with my ‘hotshot skills’ and
         ‘great intellect’. More simply put, I wasn’t
         gunning for a promotion.”

Above, Dr Robert ‘Bob’ S Newman. Photo FN

Newman, earlier at La Trobe University in Australia, says he
“just wanted people to read what I wrote.” The most important
people for him, he says, were Goans, since his work is on
this place.

Publishing a Goa book some distant, bigger centre would only
push up costs. “Also, interest in Goa in the wide world is
rather limited. Many publishers in the West would
automatically say, ‘This book is not going to sell.’ In Goa,
that would not be the case,” he notes.

In the late 1990s, when Newman published here, then as now,
there was a limited choice by way of publishers he could
approach.

Yet, he says: “I think the challenge does not lie in the lack
or plenitude of publishers. It is in the quantity or quality
of manuscripts available. Things have to be written in order
to get published.”

Newman, from distant North America, reminds us of the crucial
task of knowledge creation.

“If we look at Anthropology, where are the manuscripts?  Who
is encouraging (Dr Bernadette) Gomes to write the various
things she could write? Why did she receive so little
encouragement over the years?  Coffee table books probably
sell more, but they do not constitute “better books” in my
opinion. Who is pestering Alexander Henn, Alito Siqueira,
Manuel Magalhães, Jason Fernandes, Claudia Pereira, and a
few others to hurry up and produce a manuscript?  Nobody.
What about the writers of literature?”

         Looking back, Newman says: “When I came to Goa in
         2006, there was a lot of interest in the book and
         people had heard about my work.  That was
         fantastic. They heard of me in “Goa” circles in
         Portugal too.”

If he had written the “same kind of stuff” on Afghanistan or
Iraq, it might have brought better returns, Newman suggests.

He argues: “Books on India at large might sell more or be
more widely read. But I always felt glad that I studied Goa
and wrote on Goa because I opened the door — there really
wasn’t much anthropology on Goa before.”

“It was kind of a pioneering work and I’ve always hoped that
a bunch more would follow, building up on what I started.  I
wanted my book to be available in Goa and that’s what
happened. As they say in South America — mejor la cabeza de
raton que el culo de leon!  (Better the head of a rat than
the arse of a lion!)”
*********************************************************

PUBLISHED, IN A SLIGHTLY ADAPTED VERSION, FIRST IN Goa Today, August 2009.

Images from the release of the Medieval Goa book: http://www.flickr.com/photos/fn-goa/sets/72157621978256223/

153 photos | 728 views Above, the audience

Above, part of the panel of historians: Dr Fatima Gracias, Dr Charles Borges, Dr Ms Maria Aurora Couto and author Dr Teotonio R de Souza (partly visible)

The author and Dr Couto. Others partly seen are Sushila Sawant-Mendes (right) and Dr/Fr Charles Borges sj (left)

The author with Goa University VC Dr Dileep Deobagkar.

PS: Don’t believe all I have to say (or click) on this. Goa,1556 — which I am associated with — has co-published this book!

Medieval Goa Release

Originally uploaded by Joel’s Goa Pics.

Medieval Goa, released in Goa on August 21, 2009 at Panjim.

“What’s that for?” I asked.

“To cook…. yes, it’s to cook,” laughed Onno Widodo Purbo, who calls himself “an independent ICT writer who dreams to see a knowledge-based society in Indonesia.”

Dr. Purbo showed every sign of enjoying his joke tremendously.

But in a little while, things were up and running. It was about information, not steamed rice or sambal.

As participants at the PANALL2009 camp finished lunch, the diminitive former academic turned tech-campaigner mounted the stairs and began his strange demo.

By the time he finished, everyone was astounded by the simplicity of the technology he used. And it’s power.

In short, what he was doing was to take a wok — the versatile round-bottomed cooking vessel originating in China — added on a wifi pen drive, and manage to create rough-and-ready and cheap tool to extend the wireless capacity of your computer. In this way, one could link up dozens of others while sharing a single fat pipe to the Net.

This makes Net access a whole new ball game, specially in resource-poor, talent-rich countries where most can’t afford the luxury of the internet.

Purbo, a PhD, counts among his current priorities “spreading knowledge — through many workshops, demos, seminars in Indonesia — on low cost Internet access using wokbolic, neighbourhood network, open source software, internet telephony etc.”

To know more about his work, search for the terms “wokbolic” or “wajanbolic” (the “wajan” is the Indonesian term for the “wok”). The second part of the name, of course, refers to the parabolic reflector, which is what it is, even if of an unusual kind.

Some of the papers he has written are in Indonesian, but there’s enough images to guide one around.

See this Bahasa Indonesia note which gives a detailed design and step-by-step guide on how to create a “wokbolic and bazooka” antenna for 3G.

Caution: PVC tubing and aluminium tape is to be used to create this low-cost weapon against information-poverty.

Measurements have to be precise too, explains Dr Purbo, as he talks in fractions… so as to get the exact size and shape to reflect the wireless link and connect computers, almost magically it would seem.

By using this ingenuity, Purbo makes a USB wifi stick — which could link computers a few metres away — to connect over hundreds of metres. Someone was asking about using such a tool “in series” — as kind of repeater stations.

Yes, that’s possible too! This author of a thousand articles, and over 40 books, should know!

An http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-45872-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html earlier article on Dr Purbo.

Tags: wifi, low-cost, technologies, indonesia, wokbolic, wajanbolic

Second Life? What’s that?

I too plead guilty of only having heard vaguely of this space-in-cyberspace, till before the PANALL2009 event. In hindsight, we found that it was indeed useful, and even before the meet got together, it actually got some of the discussions going.

“HatHead’s” “photo” of a Second Life meet-up underway, before we actually got down to Penang.

I made it for two such events. It was useful to virtually meet Arun Mehta and tune into his ideas once again, though I’ve known for quite some time. It was also an opportunity to encounter Jeremy Malcolm (whom I know virtually) from Consumer International before we meet up in real-life.

Unfortunately, GNU/Linux might not work too well with Second Life (or the other way around). Meaning, it was not possible to view the slides being shown as the speakers made their presentations.

“Online lectures can otherwise tend to get boring. So having avatars and the like does make the event more colourful,” Arun Mehta said, as we spoke when we met up. In hindsight, it’s a fairly useful tool which can be meet-before-you-actually-meet; before encountering it, I though this space didn’t have anything useful in it! This article on The Wikipedia points to criticism and controversy over Second Life.

But tools are what you make of them!

(Phet Sayo, before one Second Life meetup, showed how one could get an avatar to dance. Interesting! Just that I couldn’t get — on time — the instructions on how to stop it from doing so. A hard reboot later, I lost the audio channel, and couldn’t hear what was going on. But all it took was a restart into Second Life.

So do you believe in cyber-reincarnation?

Tags: SecondLife, panall2009, pre-events

Goodbye to a teacher, friend and guide

Ivan Rocha, a popular teacher from North Goa’s Mapusa town’s St Britto’s died at 61, and here are some scenes from his funeral at the village of Parra.

Indian head massage… for a five-year-old

Says wikiHow: “Massages can be given to aid the process of injury healing, relieve psychological stress, manage pain and improve circulation. The effectiveness of Indian head massage, also known as Champissage (champi is an Indian word for head), is based on alternative medicine principles, specifically those surrounding energy flow, or chakras. It’s an ancient technique that Ayurvedic healers have been using for thousands of years, and it’s becoming more and more popular in the Western world.” http://www.wikihow.com/Do-an-Indian-H…

A Goan slumdog millionaire? Nothing so glamourous

An attempt by volunteers (with official support) to help students in government run primary schools (mostly attended by the poor) to pick up English language skills in Goa, a former Portuguese colony.

Aren and Maths … and a gazillion distractions

A four-and-half year old from Goa talks about Math, numbers and other issues from life.

Video + school = videoshala

When video starts being educational in parts of Gujarat (western India), it gets called videoshala. Shala is the world for school. Deepika explains the concept behind VideoShala.

Patrice Riemens from the Netherlands has his own understanding of issues of technology and society… Here he talks about the role the Dutch have played in cyberspace (and why), and his research in India on multinationals coming out of here even a quarter of a century ago!

Sandra Sudhoff… on mapping

Sandra Sudhoff is from CartONG. This organisation delivers “assistance for information management and mapping in the field”. Its main partner is the UNHCR. Says she, “We have worked on the Google Outreach project and created a Google layer in collaboration with UNHCR to present some of their humanitarian projects in a pilot phase. Next phase is scheduled to kick off in 2009.

A small bookshop from Baga

Last week, I ran into Jay-Jay’s, a second-hand bookshop run by Nairobi-born Bosco and his wife. “We started it a few years back, with a little bit of reject stock from the Mandovi (hotel bookshop). It was something the foreigners looked forward to. We grew from then,” says Bosco. “The bookshop has been our pride,” says Bosco, who also runs a restaurant too. What makes it special, he believes, is the type of books: books which
are popular among Europeans. “We have quite a few books that you don’t get in Goa,” he says of his 2000-title strong collection. “We don’t want to overstock because people get confused, so we mostly select (popular books from) the top bracket.” Their books include non-fiction (guide, biographies and autobiographies, true-stories), French, German, Swedish books. Says he: “We are dealing with tourists.” Their model is interesting. They buy second-hand books, from the tourist, and sell them also to the tourists. When you buy the book, you’re free to return it back, and you get half the price.Virtually a library, without the danger of losing books.

An interview with Germany-returned musician who has inspired local talent to go further.

Francis Rodrigues, lawyer based in Toronto, talks about a book project he launched recently. It’s an introduction to Goan music, in an unusual way. It focuses on music of the past fifty years, and attempts to take it across to those wanting to understand and play this music… music is transcribed (for solo instruments, flute, bands, guitars), lyrics got written down (and set to English verse) and even translated. “Most of the people were (most) interested in the translations,” says he. “What we’ve also done, as a header to each song, there’s a story to each song… the composer’s intentions are there, and the history behind this song.”

Retired bank officer Isidore Dantas of Pune/Mumbai reluctantly agreed to be captured on tape, after showing his work on a book related to Konkani films. Dantas, who traces his roots to Saligao, had his family
based in the Curchorem area, where his grandfather was a regidor (village official). He has also volunteered translations in the past, for an attempt to build up a Konkani wikipedia…. Email: Keywords: konkani, roman script, film, writing, sayings, konkani sayings, dictionary, konkani dictionary

Good going. After a telephonic talk with Derek Cordeiro, I just managed to reinstall Flock. It makes blogging really very easy and fast…

Dr Timothy Walker has been studying the role medicinal plants played in the colonial economy. Check this out…

Sitting in dusty archives rooms in Goa, Dr Timothy Walker has unearthed an amazing story of what the Portuguese learnt from Indian and South Asian traditions of plant-based medicines in the early colonial phase (around the 16th century). After a recent (Thursday, Jan 15, 2009) talk at the Fundacao Oriente, he spoke to FN and explained what his research was all about.

Keywords: medicinal plants, goa, india, portugal, 16th century, old goa, colonialism

On Thursday, Jan 15, 2009 at 6 pm, Timothy’s talk was titled, Supplying medicinal plants for the royal hospital: an
Indo-Portuguese medicinal garden in Goa 1680-1830.

As he put it:

Three hundred years ago, the practice of medicine in Goa’s colonial health institutions relied heavily on medicinal plants from India and even Africa, South America and China. It had become thoroughly hybridized. To ensure a ready supply of common local and imported healing herbs, the Royal Military Hospital in Goa maintained on its premises a medicinal garden, supervised directly by the Chief Pyshician of the Portuguese Asian Empire.

Professor Walker’s talk focussed on this garden as a multicultural space, wherein European and non-European concepts about healing blended. He described the physical space of the garden, its Indo-Portuguese caretakers and their unique medicinal cosmology. He described various medicinal plants cultivated in Indo-Portuguese hospital gardens, their applications and effects, as well as the social context in which the medicinal practitioners who employed these plants operated.

Timothy Walker is assistant professor of history at the University of Massachussets, Dartmouth, USA, and a visiting professor at the University Alberta in Lisbon, Portuguese. His teaching and research fields include Early Modern Europe, the Atlantic World, the Portuguese and their empire, maritime history and European global colonial expansion.

From an earlier report:

In 2005, Dr Timothy Walker (University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and Universidade Aberta de Lisboa) spoke on ‘The Early Modern Globalization of Ayurveda: Portuguese Dissemination of Drugs and Healing Techniques from South Asia on Four Continents, 1670-1830.

This work discussed the methods and effect of the dissemination through the Portuguese maritime colonial network of Ayurvedic medicinal substances and healing techniques originating in India. Portuguese colonial agents (missionaries, colonial officials, marine commanders and state-licensed medical practitioners) accomplished this dissemination in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, when Indian medicine played a significant role in the state-sponsored health care institutions of the Portuguese colonies.

Walker’s work has focussed particular analysis on consignments of typical Ayurvedic medicines shipped from Goa, the administrative capital of the Estado da India, to such destinations as Macau, Timor, Mozambique, Brazil and Continental Portugal. Colonial officials generally sent such consignments to stock official colonial medical facilities.

He has also devoted attention to official reports about Indian medicines produced by colonial medical authorities in India at the request of the Portuguese Overseas Council in Lisbon, the royal body responsible for colonial administration.

Such reports were an important conduit of information, not only to crown officials in the metropole, but also to medical officials in other parts of the empire. These reports provide a telling gauge of the state of contemporary knowledge about certain medicinal substances from South Asia, and about what techniques were thought to be efficacious.

Dr Walker says he intends “to demonstrate that Indian medicinal preparations and healing techniques became widely known in Portuguese-controlled enclaves in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, far from their indigenous roots, and were fully incorporated into the lexicon of tropical medicine in the Lusophone colonies”.

Timothy D Walker (B.A, Hiram College, 1986; M.A., Ph.D., Boston University, 2001) is assistant professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, and a visiting professor at the Universidade Aberta in Lisbon, Portugal. Teaching fields include Early Modern Europe, the Atlantic World, the Portuguese and their empire, maritime history and European global colonial expansion.

Current research topics focus on the 17th and 18th centuries, and include the adoption of colonial indigenous medicines by European science during the Enlightenment, slave trading in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans, as well as commercial and cultural links between the Portuguese overseas colonies in Asia, Africa and the Americas.

Email contact: Timothy Walker tdwalker2001 at yahoo.com

Marie Trigona

A writer, radio producer, and film maker, her work focuses on labour struggles, social movements and human rights in Latin America.

Her writing has appeared in publications including Z Magazine and ZNet, NACLA, Monthly Review, Canadian Dimension, The Buenos Aires Herald, Left Turn, Americas Program, Clamor, Venezuela Analysis, Upsidedown World, Dollars and Sense and many other publications.

She also blogs at [http://mujereslibres.blogspot.com/]

FN: We’ve seen the media move over almost en bloc to support the entertainment industry, or itself entertain the fancies of the affluent. This has happened globally. At times like these, what is your own motivating fuel as a journalist? What are the values you search for in work and in life?

What an interesting paradigm: the entertainment and media industries cater to the affluent, yet they really aim to make us into mindless drones. So either the affluent want to make us stupid, or they have a very-low cultural and intellectual appetite. I am forever surprised by the lack of intellectual and cultural content in the mass media.

For me as a writer, radio producer and video maker I try to produce intelligible yet accessible analysis.

As a journalist, I really enjoy challenging myself to tell stories that aren’t being told in other places. I also try to focus on stories that I am a part of.

I believe that my own subjectivity as a person fighting for social change helps and enriches my work. I hold a lot of values dear — so it’s hard to narrow them down. Yet:

* Freedom (in my personal, professional and political life). Freedom to decide what I write, how it is presented, and of course fighting for freedom from exploitation and oppression.
* Revolutionary perspectives and gender balance. (You’d be surprised, a lot of people believe revolution is necessary and possible).
* Self-managing parts of my own life and researching self-management (in a utopia, all media and aspects of life would hopefully have elements of self-management).

FN: Do journalists as a community recognise the power of info-activism?

I don’t know if all journalists even consider activism or social change when reporting. From what I read, hear and see on the news I would say no. However, there are some journalists even in mass media reporting on interesting stories, but I would say they are the minority.

There is a large community of journalists and media makers developing alternative media. They certainly see that media can be used as a political and organizing tool for social change.

Even the anarchists from the beginning of the 19th century used info-activism with their own newspapers, theatre performances and literature.

FN: Can there be information without activism? What’s your view? I mean, can information be “without value” or “wholly neutral”?

Marie Trigona

To me, the most honest media and information come from a subjective perspective, someone telling their personal story and experience.

Luckily, I never went to journalism school, so I missed out on the objectivity lesson.

FN: Of all the diverse media you worked in, what do you see as the most powerful? Why?

Definitely video has been the most effective and far reaching.

I participate in a video collective Grupo Alavío– we create materials that are artistically, journalistically and cinematically adept yet at the same time produce a new working class subjectivity.

One myth that surrounds alternative media is that even though videos are distributed in informal circuits with small budgets, they can’t reach a massive audience.

In Grupo Alavío’s experience this has been the case, tens of thousands of people, if not more have viewed our materials. After screenings it is common for political debates and organizing efforts to take place.

FN: What’s your advice to activists wanting to get a sympathetic hearing from the (mainstream) media? Is it possible? Does it happen often? A remote chance? Just luck?

Of course if you have an issue or struggle you are trying to win, you have to rely on the mass media. That’s why we need to produce savvy press releases and do actions to catch the media’s attention.

But we can’t always count on the mainstream media to paint a sympathetic picture. This is why people need to create their own media — so we can express our own popular culture, set our own media agendas and give voice to those who wouldn’t have a voice otherwise.

FN: In bullet-points, what do you see the state of the alternative media in Latin America today as being? Is it better due to the recent upsurge of people’s movements, and ascendence of less-regressive governments?

Alternative media is alive and well all over Latin America.

I would say that there are several reasons for the growth of alternative media.

* Mainstream-media in Latin America is filled with a lot of junk, and many news programs don’t give social problems any focus.
* The upsurge of social movements throughout Latin America.
* Some governments (like in Venezuela and Bolivia) have supported alternative media initiatives.

Video activism is moving in full speed; many people are producing wonderful documentaries. Radio stations and television stations are also blossoming.

However, in many parts of Latin America community radio stations and television stations have no way of broadcasting legally. And, in some cases, alternative media outlets have been persecuted and journalists threatened.

In Argentina, for example, only three media groups own most of the country’s media. To top it all, all the legislation written during the military dictatorship in the 1980s bar all community association from accessing a broadcast license — creating a virtual monopoly on TV.

FN: As a journalist, what do you see as the three biggest challenges before info-activism today?

* Access to technologies and funding (especially for people in the Third World)
* Social movements really understanding the importance of creating their own media
* Training and information exchange.

FN: Is this your first visit to India, and if so, what are your expectations?

I never thought I’d ever have the opportunity to visit India, so this is a special experience. What a great way to begin 2009.

I’m looking forward to getting out of the city and enjoying nature. I am also very excited about trying new foods from India — here in Argentina Indian food is hard to come by. And most importantly, connecting with activists from the region.
My collective also told me that I need to track down activist videos from India with Spanish subtitles

CONTACTS: Marie Trigona

Info-activism? What’s that?

If you’re curious, check out my blog posts at http://www.informationactivism.org/blog

Interviews with a number of persons… from across the globe. And I hope to be doing more…

Vidura, the journal of the Press Institute of India, is just out with its January-March 2009 issue. Some themes I found interesting:

Language media in the electronic age
Business and religion in the Gujarat media
Print media in Kashmir, post-1989

… and, of course, a number of smaller informative snippets.

Vidura’s annual subscription is Rs 200 for four issues, and Rs 500 for 12 issues spread across three years. Email pii@gmail.com

Discussing… and music-book to be (and other gossip)

Francis Rodrigues, Goanetter based in Canada, was down recently. Some unofficial shots from a discussion at the much-hyped (but modest) Cafe Prakash in Panjim. Get a whiff of the coffee (and the kind of discussions that go on there everyday). And you thought the creative (and critical) process was dead in Goa?

Of Konkani, writing, cartooning… and reviewing

Quepem-based Walter Menezes has been working to promote the tiny Konkani language for a long time now. Some of his experiences.

Vavraddeancho Ixtt, the only Konkani weekly THAT HAS BEEN IN CONTINUOUS PUBLICATION since 1933, CONCLUDES its platinum jubilee
celebrations with a special closing ceremony function ON COMING MONDAY.

In 1933 Vauraddeancho Ixtt, a Konknni weekly was started by Fr. Arsencio   Fernandes and Fr.Graciano Moraes. It is still run by the Pilar Society till date.  Today Vauraddeancho Ixtt is the only weekly of its kind published in this script and language.

AT A FUNCTION TO BE HELD on December 22, 2008 at Pilar Seminary Annexe at 4 pm, GOA’S REVENUE Minister Jose Philip D’Souza will be the chief guest for the function while editor of Renovocao and Diocesan Centre for Social Communications Media, Fr Francisco Caldeira will be the guest of honour. The Superior General of the Society of Pilar, Fr Tony Lopes will preside.

On the occasion, V Ixtt awards will be distributed to several Konkani writers and those who have contributed towards the Konkani language and Goan culture. Besides, young Konkani writers and social activists, who have been closely associated with the Konkani weekly and Goa, will also be felicitated.

Prizes will be distributed to the winners of various competitions conducted during the V Ixtt platinum jubilee celebrations.

The highlights of the programme will include the release of the special issue, almanac and the launch of the new ‘V Ixtt‘ supplement. The cultural programme will comprise of platinum jubilee song, violin instrumental with piano accompaniment, raag, comedy skit, dance and a mando.

The programme is open for the general public.

Started in 1933 as the Church attempted to retain its links with the workers in a world fast turning secularised and politicised, the weekly was to reach out the working class and people at the grassroots to educate, inform and educate them on issues like “Communism vis-a-vis religion”.

However, over the years, and as it gained wider popularity, the scope extended to the coverage of social, political, cultural and religious themes. V Ixtt can boast of a glorious past as one weekly that provided news and views that satisfied the reading appetite of a large readership in Goa   and Mumbai.

Having run by priests and the Society of Pilar, its credibility  and respect always remained consistent. In recent years, its editors have been young priests of the Society of Pilar, like Fr Peter Raposo and Fr Feroz Fernandes, who managed the publication while in their 20s and 30s.

Ixtt’s contribution to the freedom movement of Goa is worth the mention.

Ixtt under the aegis of the Society of Pilar followed a line of thought  closer to the aspiration of the freedom movement of our Motherland India and Goa. It was on the Vespers of the independence of India that V Ixtt began to publish from the precincts of the old Monastery of Pilar, where its editorial office and press was housed.

The weekly enjoyed quite good freedom to express itself without rigorous Portuguese censorship upto the early 50’s. However, the picture started  changing after the Liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and the freedom struggle movement to liberate Goa from the clutches of the Portuguese.

“During this period, the Press buckled under the pressures of rigorous  Portuguese censorship. Nothing could be published in Goa without getting it censored by the Portuguese Police with the rubber-stamp of approval that read ‘Visado pela censura’ (Seen by the Censor),” says former editor Fr Peter Raposo, in an essay tracing the history of Romi Konkani journalism in Goa.

Ixtt, under the editorship first of Fr. Conceicao Rodrigues (1944-54) and later of Fr. Jeronimo Pereira (1954-69), had to face insurmountable pressures to toe the Portuguese line. In order to survive most of the times, Ixtt maintained silence towards the policies of Salazar the Portuguese dictator without however openly
criticizing the Portuguese Government, which would be suicidal.

But this silence itself was construed as opposition to the Portuguese Sovereignty in Goa.

On August 12, 1961, three months before the liberation of Goa, the Governor Vassalo da Silva, by his decree, suspended the publication of Ixtt for 90   days as a punishment for not being patriotic towards Portugal and showing  pro-India tendencies. Thus Ixtt was the only paper of Goa which remained   firm and suffered for its nationalistic aspirations.

Today Ixtt still continues to be popular.  At present Ixtt has almost 7000 regular subscribers and in fact this number is increasing. Ixtt was online since 1999 sharing a link on Goacom.com, today it has its own website (http://www.v-ixtt.com).

Tags: Ixtt, Konkani, newspapers, Goa

Via the South Asian Journalists Association network

FROM : Salil Tripathi

Dear Raja,

Thanks. This reporter did not speak truth to power; he acted as an activist, a combatant, using physical force against an individual. He brought shame to the profession of journalism, even though he may have acted all right from an activist/protester standpoint.

Reporting on a war means reporting on a war. You report what you see, hear and can verify; if you are restricted from seeing, or hearing, disclose that to your readers/viewers. You don’t interpret data unless you are a commentator; you get others to corroborate the story you think is getting advanced. Reporting on a war does not mean taking up weapons and fighting for a side. You are welcome to do that, but then don’t disguise yourself as a reporter.

Embedded journalism is bad, but no journalism is worse. If readers/viewers are told that what they’re seeing is controlled, then the reporter has done his/her duty. Iraq’s
pre-occupation government was frequently interviewed by the media. That press officer who was later known as Comical Ali as a regular part of the broadcasts. What you call Iraq’s resistance movement is seen by many Iraqis as a bunch of fundamentalist militants, many of them not Iraqis, whose target is hardly the “occupation force” but ordinary Iraqi civilians.

Journalists are not supposed to throw shoes at anybody. They are supposed to ask tough questions. The one who hurls a projectile in a press conference has usually lost the verbal argument.

I agree that the reporter’s protest will go down history as an act of protest – but please, don’t besmirch the memory of non-violent actions like the Boston Tea Party and the Salt Satyagraha, by equating this violent action with what Gandhi and the New Englanders did. Yes, it may be in line with the way Shiv Sainiks among Hindus and intifadaists among Palestinians might act. But this act was by no way Gandhian. Please. — Salil/London

On Tue, Dec 16, 2008 at 4:25 AM, raja swamy wrote:

Does loyalty to the profession absolve a journalist of the responsibility to speak truth to power? The comments on this forum seem to suggest exactly that. However, I would like to know what exactly “profession” means when it comes to reporting on war and occupation (and I reject the fantastic views of the professional soldier (and happy pro-occupation denier of occupation, that all is hunky dory in occupied Iraq)). Is embedded journalism “professional?” Is reporting word for word the pronouncements of the aggressor country’s administration WITHOUT once getting the views of the Iraqi government (pre-occupation), the resistance movement (post-occupation), the critiques from
around the planet about this disastrous and genocidal war of neocolonial occupation, professional?

What I am confounded by is the cavalier attitude of some like Bhaskar Dasgupta towards the life of Muntadar al Zaidi. Is this how a journalism list engages with the question of imminent physical harm to a journalist who did no more than throw shoes at an aggressor who launched missiles, bombs and what not murdering more than a million people and maiming scores? Shouldn’t SAJA be leading the
call to defend the Al Zaidi’s life? Instead we get the blinkered view that the occupation has made such acts possible and as such there is nothing to worry about except perhaps the damage done to something these geniuses determine to be the “profession.”

It this sycophantic practice of siding with the powerful and making excuses for genocide that is being propounded as the “profession” by some SAJA’ers. As a South Asian, I am ashamed by these comments and would like to reiterate that Al Zaidi’s action represents a genuine response by a
genuine journalist – who hasn’t forgotten that the most fundamental obligation of a journalist is to stand up to the powerful, and that he did. This incident will go down in history books as one of the greatest acts of protest, alongside the Boston tea party, the Salt satyagraha, and the Palestinian Intifada.

Bravo Muntadar al Zaidi! Wish there are millions of journalists like you!

raja..

From: Tejinder Singh

Very appropriate Chinki. The reporter did not go in there as a freeman but as a accreditated journalist which most commenting here are forgetting. An accreditated journalist gets rights to ask
but also has duties. Those of us who sit on Councils to negotiate with govt institutions to decide terms and conditions of such procedures, know what harm those Shoes have done to the profession. Some of us are so close to leaders, we can punch or slap them so is that what our duty is?

Tejinder Singh
Brussels, Belgium
Sent via BlackBerry offered by Proximus
Tejinder Singh +32 473 677 985 Editor-in-Chief, New Europe, the European Weekly, Brussels
www.neurope.eu
—-
EU Correspondent, APM News (Formerly part of Reuters), Paris www.apmhealtheurope.com
—–
Member, Council, Association de la Presse Internationale/ International Press Association, Brussels
http://www.api-ipa.eu/
—-
Life Member, South Asian Journalists Association,NYC www.saja.org

From: “Chinki Sinha”

of course it mars the trip because it is not about “liberators” as John uses it here but about the deep
anguish and hurt and disappointment of iraq’s people who first suffered under saddam and now suffer the loss of dignity under the current occupation. it is not about the freedom of expression because the reporter, who hurled the shoes at Bush during the press conference, was arrested on
unspecified charges. You also have to look at the specifics of the conference which was celebrating the US occupation of Iraq as one of the most successful in the history of United States military efforts. Freedom is not about hurling shoes at others. It is about peace and human rights and not fearing about getting killed ever moment …Chinki Sinha, Principal Correspondent, Indian Express, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi,
9717654063, chinkis@gmail.com http://chinkisinha.blogspot.com/

On Mon, Dec 15, 2008 at 7:49 PM, John Laxmi :

In a blatant case of bias, the Associated Press says the incident in Baghdad “mars” Bush’s farewell tour, instead of celebrating it! Could a reporter (or anyone else for that matter) have expressed his dissent in this manner (or any other) during Saddam Hussein’s regime? Shouldn’t we applaud both the reporter for his free expression and the Liberators who made it possible? — Regards, John Laxmi, NJ http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2008/12/15/world/AP-Bush.html?_r=1

Bush’s Iraq-Afghan Farewell Tour Marred by Dissent
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 15, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — President George W. Bush wrapped up a whirlwind trip to two war zones Monday that in many ways was a victory lap without a clear victory. A signature event occurred when an Iraqi reporter hurled two shoes at Bush, an incident the president called ”a bizarre moment.”

Bush visited the Iraqi capital just 37 days before he hands the war off to his successor, Barack Obama, who has pledged to end it. The president wanted to highlight a drop in violence and to celebrate a recent U.S.-Iraq security agreement, which calls for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq by the end of 2011.

”The war is not over,” Bush said, but ”it is decisively on its way to being won.”

Bush then traveled to Afghanistan where he spoke to U.S. soldiers and Marines at a hangar on the tarmac at Bagram Air Base. The rally for over a thousand military personnel took place in the dark, cold pre-dawn hours. Bush was greeted by loud cheers from the troops.

”Afghanistan is a dramatically different country than it was eight years ago,” he said. ”We are making hopeful gains.”

But the president’s message on progress in the region was having trouble competing with the videotaped image of the angry Iraqi who hurled his shoes at Bush in a near-miss, shouting in Arabic, ”This is your farewell kiss, you dog!” The reporter was later identified as Muntadar
al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt.

In Iraqi culture, throwing shoes at someone is a sign of contempt. Iraqis whacked a statue of Saddam with their shoes after U.S. Marines toppled it to the ground following the 2003 invasion.

Bush told reporters later that he didn’t think ”you can take one guy throwing shoes and say this represents a broad movement in Iraq. You can try to do that if you want but I don’t think that would be accurate.”

Reaction in Iraq was swift but mixed, with some condemning the act and others applauding it. Television news stations throughout Iraq repeatedly showed footage of the incident, and newspapers carried headline stories.

In Baghdad’s Shiite slum of Sadr City, supporters of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called for protests against Bush and demanded the release of the reporter. Thousands took to the streets Monday, chanting, ”Bush, Bush, listen well: Two shoes on your head.”

Talking to a small group of reporters after the incident, Bush said, ”I didn’t know what the guy said, but I saw his sole.” He told the reporters that ”you were more concerned than I was. I was watching your faces.”

”I’m pretty good at ducking, as most of you know,” Bush joked, adding quickly that ”I’m talking about ducking your questions.”

On a more serious note, he said, ”I mean, it was just a bizarre moment, but I’ve had other bizarre moments in the presidency. I remember when Hu Jintao was here. Remember? We had the big event? He’s speaking, and all of a sudden I hear this noise — had no earthly idea what was taking
place, but it was the Falun Gong woman screaming at the top of her lungs (near the ceremony on the White House lawn). It was kind of an odd moment.”

The Iraqi government condemned the act and demanded an on-air apology from Al-Baghdadia television, the Iraqi-owned station that employs Muntadar al-Zeidi.

Several people descended on the man immediately after, wrestling him to the ground, and it took a minute or two for security agents to clear the crowd and start hauling him out. As they dragged him off, he was moaning and screaming as if in pain. Later, a large blood trail could be seen on the carpet where he was dragged out of the room.

He was taken into custody and reportedly was being held for questioning by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s guards and is being tested for alcohol and drugs.

Other Arab journalists and commentators, fed up with U.S. policy in the Middle East and Bush’s decision to invade Iraq in 2003 to topple Saddam, echoed al-Zeidi’s sentiments Monday. Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the influential London-based newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, wrote on the newspaper’s Web site that the incident was ”a proper goodbye for a war criminal.”

After a meeting with Hamid Karzai in the capital of Kabul, Bush said he told the president of Afghanistan: ”You can count on the United States. Just like you’ve been able to count on this administration, you’ll be able to count on the next administration as well.”

The mixed reactions to Bush in both countries emphasized the uncertain situations Bush is leaving behind in the region.

In Iraq, nearly 150,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, protecting the fragile democracy. More than 4,209 members of the U.S. military have died and $576 billion has been spent since the war began five years and nine months ago.

In Afghanistan, there are about 31,000 U.S. troops and commanders have called for up to 20,000 more. The fight is especially difficult in southern Afghanistan, a stronghold of the Taliban where violence has risen sharply this year.

——

Associated Press writer Qassim Abdul Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.

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40 Inspirational Speeches in 2 Minutes
http://ca.video.yahoo.com/watch/4091988/11042227

This is an interesting debate… Just goes to show how ludicrous this copyright-performing rights-control on knowledge and information and art debate is going! From the Community Radio – India mailing list.

Sajan Venniyoor wrote:

On 12/16/08, Arti Jaiman wrote:
> Since we work with children, some of them wanted to go on
> air on their CR singing their favourite Hindi movie songs. Where
> do we stand on the copyright front there? Is this acceptable to air?

This is an IPRS issue (as in Indian Performing Rights, not Intellectual Property Rights), and according to the Society, your children have the right to sing their favourite movie songs without payment only if the lyricist has been dead for 60 years, otherwise “you must first obtain permission from him or from whoever owns the copyright in the composition.”

I am pretty sure your kids don’t have any 60 year old favourite songs.

It is widely believed that IPRS rights extend only to music performances in public places (auditoria, restaurants etc), and not to broadcasting. Many broadcasters (including AIR, I’m told) don’t recognize the right of IPRS to extort money — ostensibly on behalf of composers and lyricists — and the India Today group in fact took IPRS to court and obtained a stay.

The ignorance on this subject, especially in government circles, is vast. And it isn’t helped by the fact that music royalties and related copyright issues are administered by the Department of Secondary and Higher Education.

Earlier TRF Radio project manager Arti Jaiman wrote:

I have a question relating to the lyrics and sound rights you have mentioned. Since we work with children, some of them wanted to go on air on their CR singing their favourite Hindi movie songs. Where do we stand on the copyright front there? Is this acceptable to air?

The background is this post about the FM radio, music industry and royalty

FM radio, music industry out of tune on royalty
Ashish Sinha / New Delhi December 16, 2008, 0:00 IST
Matter to come before copyright board on January 28.

The battle between music companies and FM radio channels over royalty payments has come out in the open with last-minute mediation by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B) failing to break the deadlock.

Music companies, already fighting rampant piracy, are demanding a doubling of music royalty fees (from the current Rs 660 per hour of music played) that FM radio firms pay.

They have also demanded that radio channels treat sound recording rights and rights in musical lyrical works (tunes are copied by radio) as two separate sets of rights and playing them without a licence would amount to copyright infringement.

India’s 250-plus FM radio stations across 90 towns, represented by the Association of Radio Operators in India (AROI), pay royalty to the Phonographic Performance Ltd (PPL), which represents 160 music companies like Saregama India, Sony BMG Music, Universal Music, Tips Industries, Venus Records & Tapes and others.

AROI said the current formula means that FM radio operators end up paying 15 to 50 per cent of their annual revenue as music royalty fees, significantly above global benchmarks of 2 to 3 per cent.

Overall, the industry earns annual revenues of Rs 550 crore of which about Rs 100 crore is paid as music royalty. Sources said AROI may propose possible solutions like the royalty fee payment based on population of a city, genre of music played by the stations and fees based on 2 to 4 per cent of the annual revenue the stations generate.

“The I&B ministry wanted both sides to talk and reach some sort of an understanding on music royalty fees. But that did not happen,” said Apurva Purohit, president, AROI, and CEO, Radio City 91.1 FM.

“Now the matter will be heard by the Copyright Board on January 28 where individual radio companies will present their case,” she added.

The Rs 750-crore music industry is also demanding action against about 100 FM stations, saying they have gone on air without taking licences from the music societies or from the individual copyright owners, violating music copyrights. “The music industry firmly believes that the government should not support such violators of copyrights and must take action to support the music industry survive in these difficult days,” says a senior executive of Indian Music Industry (IMI).

Tags: media, India, orissa, RSF