Dust in the wind…

A tragic death, a blame game and a family left to count the cost as the state looks away. This and more in this week's edition.

Jun 06, 2026

Hi folks,

I’m back home and back to writing this newsletter, which, I’m glad to report, has been dearly missed (at least by some).

And as most fellow journalists who read this will attest, it is exactly when you decide to take a bit of a breather, that the interesting things start to happen in the beats that you cover.

A fair few things have happened while I was away -- topics that I was itching to (but not while on holiday) write about. For one Ponda bypoll Congress candidate Ketan Bhatikar passed away on account of a snakebite he suffered in somewhat befuddling circumstances, (you will have seen the rumours circulating on WhatsApp and I have been told that there is quite a bit of truth to them), the Revolutionary Goans Party has seemingly imploded and a planned public meeting by the ‘Enough is Enough’ movement to protest ongoing large-scale land conversion in the state was forced to be held online after the local authorities came up with a lame excuse to deny permission, and in a move which some, in hindsight, have claimed they saw coming, the state Congress has now got a new president.

But there’s some things that are still the same. The protest against permissions issued for Goa’s version of the massive Jared Kushner-style high-end resort at Carapur in Goa has now entered its ninth-week even as the rampant land conversion of lands to settlement continues unabashedly.

This week, on Friday to be specific, we were told that the monsoons had officially arrived in Goa. Now I don’t know about you guys, but where I live, no sooner I received the notification I looked up to the shining sun wondering: Really? Do these IMD guys have some deadlines and targets to meet? What else could explain the urgency to declare that the monsoon has been making up ground after a delayed onset upon Kerala. I heard of the census guys being asked to fudge data to paint a rosier picture than actually is, but now the IMD guys too? And if the monsoon, indeed is here, it certainly doesn’t feel that way.

P.S. I think I’ve inadvertently taunted nature. So, if the coming week goes underwater, blame it on me!

Hello and welcome to yet another edition of Gerard’s Gazette, a weekly newsletter in which I attempt to break down the events of the week gone by and offer a bit of context, as well as a dose of news you may have missed and news behind the news.

If this is your first time here, thank you for signing up, and I hope you stick around! And, as always, if you like what you are reading, make sure you pass it around.

Dust in the wind…

grayscaled photography of person's hand spreading sand — Photo by Kunj Parekh on Unsplash

On Friday morning Goa woke up to the sad and troubling news that a 22-year old college student died by suicide a day after a video featuring him (with his face blurred) being confronted by another local for allegedly dumping household waste by the roadside was shared by local media channels via social media.

As a consequence, the lad had a case registered against him under the Goa Non-biodegradable Garbage Control Act and was kept at the police station for the better part of half a day.

Now, this is obviously a sensitive matter, but that hasn’t stopped the blame game. One politician said it was the failure of the ‘system’ another said it was a failure of the state’s garbage collection mechanism.

My take is a little different. It is easy to blame an unnamed ‘system’. Doing so ensures no one takes accountability and by calling problems systemic the unstated undertone is that they are too difficult to solve and cannot be tackled very easily. Neither of this is true.

The way I see it, this is a problem of enforcement (or lack thereof).

Pressure is mounting on the guy who confronted the now-deceased college student, but the truth is he wouldn’t have to be doing it if the government, more particularly the Mapusa municipality was doing its job.

Now, I get that confronting an alleged violator is one thing. Filming him and then submitting it to the news channels represents an escalation that could have been avoided, unless the alleged offender was being obstinate or otherwise contemptuous.

But then again, he did that, because unfortunately, today that’s the only way to get the government to act. Citizens being left to enforce the law is otherwise known as vigilantism and shouldn’t ideally be encouraged because of the risks, including that of bodily harm, that it poses not just for the one who confronts the alleged offender (who could react with violence) as well as for the offender, as we have now seen. There’s a reason why enforcement should only be done by the state via officers who are specifically trained for the job.

But then again, I get why the one filming the violation did what he did.

You see, the only way to get the authorities to act is to film the incident, share it with the media or social media and get the police?

There have been people who have dumped truckloads of nonbiodegradable waste dumped along the highway that runs through Camarkhazan-Gaunsavaddo of Mapusa. Entire structures have come up with construction rubble as the foundation, but the only FIR that has been lodged is against someone because he was filmed in the act.

Someone’s driving on the wrong side of the road? Someone’s driving his SUV over the divider? Someone’s parking on the road leading to traffic jams? The police are almost always missing. Instead they are posted on the Zuari flyover looking for those overspeeding.

In fact, more than half the cases of road rage would not even exist if enforcement is done right. Instead, when the law is being violated with impunity, the cops are nowhere to be seen, leaving the citizens to fend for themselves, which often ends up with situations like the one we have seen play out in Mapusa with fatal consequences.

Neither the police, nor the local bodies nor the state pollution control board, none of them take enforcement seriously. All they are interested in is handing out contracts!

Congress goes back to the future

The Congress party in Goa has a new president. Actually, not a new president, since he’s the old president, who’s come back a little more than four years after he resigned saying he didn’t see it fit to continue being the president of the party that performed quite poorly under his leadership, not just in the 2022 assembly elections but also the local zilla parishad elections that preceded it.

Unsurprisingly, the abrupt change in the local structure has evoked a mixed response. While I can understand the need to replace Amit Patkar (there were sections in the party who were demanding it), why bring back Chodankar, who you can argue is hardly an inspiring choice.

Chodankar, who succeeded the aging Luisinho Faleiro, who resigned after the party failed to form the government despite electing 17 MLAs at the 2017 assembly elections, as president oversaw four elections: the 2017 Panaji bypoll that he himself contested after Manohar Parrikar returned from Delhi to be Goa’s Chief Minister, which Parrikar won comfortably; the 2019 Lok Sabha elections which again Chodankar contested as the party’s north Goa candidate, which he lost to Shripad Naik, though Francisco Sardinha was able to wrest back the south Goa seat from the BJP’s Narendra Sawaikar; bye-elections to four legislative assembly seats also held in 2019 to re-elect Dayanand Sopte, Subhash Shirodkar who had resigned from their seats to join the BJP (they were elected as Congress MLAs two years earlier) and to fill the vacancies necessitated by the deaths of Francisco D’Souza (Mapusa) and Manohar Parrikar (Panjim), of which the ‘Congress’ was able to win only one -- that of Atanasio “Babush” Monserrate who wrested the seat back for the Congress before himself joining the BJP (along with nine others a few months later) and of course the 2022 assembly elections.

After each defeat Girish ‘resigned’ claiming responsibility for the loss until his resignation was finally accepted after the 2022 defeat. Makes one wonder, if he was sincere about those resignations, how come he’s ready and willing to take up the post once more?

Leaving the 2022 general assembly elections aside, that’s a paltry two wins out of seven. By elections are of course, no barometer since voters invariably vote for the party already in power. It’s in the 2022 assembly elections where the Congress won 11, of which three could be attributed to the influence of Michael Lobo (who Chodankar said he has regretted inducting) then the picture is even starker.

Then there’s the fact that Chodankar alienated several Congress MLAs during his tenure, notable among them was Curtorim MLA Reginaldo Lourenço and of course his long running cold war with Vijai Sardesai that dates back to their fight for the Fatorda fiefdom when Sardesai was still a political aspirant.

But considering that his return means many of the old issues come back to the fore then is it really worth it?

One argument is that he was brought back as a reward for having helped the Congress stitch together an alliance with the TVK in Tamil Nadu and become part of the present government. Another is that the Congress doesn’t really have anyone else, which isn’t really a confidence inspiring thing to say.

All in all, now that he’s here and seemingly has the backing of the party’s central leadership, everyone else is just going to have to live with it -- for better or for worse.

Lobo’s undefeated hotel

If you were following the news cycle this week, you will have heard about how Michael Lobo’s hotel -- Nazri Resort was demolished by the authorities in compliance with orders from the Court - including the Supreme Court which upheld the GCZMA’s order that it was illegal and violative of CRZ regulations and should be demolished in two weeks.

The GCZMA’s order was passed in 2018. The NGT upheld the order in January 2024. The Supreme Court rejected the appeal against the NGT order back in April 2024. Legally speaking, it should have been demolished within two weeks from the date of the Supreme Court order.

For two years, nothing was done by the GCZMA and it wasn’t until the original complainant Desmond Alvares approached the High Court with a contempt petition, that Lobo assured the court that he would demolish the structure himself by May 31 this year. Following which the petition was disposed of.

In keeping with his sworn statement, Lobo was to have the violations demolished by May 31 on his own. I understand that the ‘demolition’ that allegedly started on June 1 was not conducted by any authority, but instead was Lobo keeping the word he had given the High Court (or showing that he was).

Today is June 7 and my information is that not only is that demolition that allegedly began on June 1, is yet to be completed, worse, that work has come to a standstill.

Visuals shown by local media showed an excavator parked in the hotel’s courtyard while some workers were dismantling grills, removing ACs etc.

To add to that, his wife Delilah Lobo has now said that they will rebuild the hotel -- apparently the law has changed to allow them to do that.

Sure, but can we have this one demolished first and the land restored to its original condition as per the order that was upheld by the Supreme Court?

Har Ghar Xpulse Yojana

No, the headline is not a product placement (although I half wish it was). Instead. This is how one Instagram user referred to Goa’s roads last monsoon. The Hero Xpluse 210, as you know is a motorcycle made by Hero offering long travel suspension that makes it ideally suited for Goa’s pothole ridden roads. As such it is the cheapest motorcycle with long travel suspension that money can buy, making it a popular choice among those looking to ride roughshod over the uneven terrain, without as much breaking a sweat.

It turns out that all indications suggest that the roads this monsoon are going to be no different. This time, even the ministers are complaining about it. Deputy Speaker Joshua de Souza, Tourism Minister Rohan Khaunte, were among those who complained that the failure to complete works ahead of the monsoon meant that this would be yet another bumpy ride this season.

The Chief Minister addressed the issue this week, claiming that the ongoing war that US and Israel have launched against Iran has caused a shortage of asphalt thereby delaying work. The shortage, if any, doesn’t seem to have affected the hotmixing of roads in Margao though.

GERARD’s Gazette

Discussion about this post

Ready for more?