Panaji, Jan 8 (courtesy-PTI) … South Indian filmstar Chiranjeevi will inaugurate the five day long Carnival festivities in Goa on February 9, state tourism minister Dilip Parulekar said.

The festivities will have float parades being organized across five cities during the each day. “Chiranjeevi will inaugurate the float parade in Panaji on the first day of the festivities,” Parulekar told PTI.

The carnival parades have been an annual feature for the traditional Carnival festivities. Parulekar said that the parades would be held in the cities of Panaji, Mapusa, Margao, Vasco and one more town, which is yet to be decided.

Thousands of locals and tourists witness these parades which are spearheaded by a float of King Momo, a mythological figure who rules the state for three days.

The Carnival celebrations were brought in Goa by erstwhile Portuguese rulers, which has now been an integral part of Goa’s festivity calendar.

The minister also said that a `Sea Food festival’ would be held at the outskirts of Panaji in the run up for Carnival celebrations. The festival will start on February 8.

“We have invited various states like Maharashtra, Karnataka, Kerala and Gujarat to participate in the event along with the host state of Goa,” Parulekar added.

Panaji, Jan 8 (Courtesy-PTI) …. Even as Goa chief minister Manohar Parrikar has directed austerity measures to avoid unnecessary spending in the wake of current economic situation, a delegation led by deputy chief minister Fransic D’Souza and tourism minister Dilip Parulekar is planned for multi country `study tour’.

Parulekar told reporters here that he along with the deputy chief minister D’Souza would be heading for Israel and other countries in the second week of February “to study the village tourism.”

“There is this concept of village tourism in Israel. We will be visiting there to study it so that it can be replicated in Goa,” the minister said, adding “even Chief Minister might join us, but he is not sure.”

Responding to a question on why does ministers require to tour countries to study the tourism concepts, Parulekar shot back “why are we elected then? Bureacrats will be there but we will also be going to the tour.”

The state’s economy is currently fearing recession due to stopping of mining industry, which was the highest revenue earner for the state. Parrikar in recent past has asked the ministers and officials to have austerity measures.

State’s main political opposition, Congress party, has taken strong objection to this proposed tour at the expense of state’s exchequer.

“There is no money with the state government to pay wages of the teachers who are recently recruited in services. How can they spend money lavishly for such a tour?,” Congress’ Goa spokesman Sudip Tamankar said.

“The state should give proper attention to the existing beach tourism. Village tourism can be encouraged but not by visiting other countries. We should work on strengthening our own plus points,” Tamankar said.

He alleged that Parrikar-led government has left state’s finances into doldrums.

8-jan-2013 …. The state bharatiya janata party on Tuesday announced its state executive committee which along with its present vinayak tendulkar would have six vice presidents, two general secretary, six secretaries, four spokesperson and a organization general secretary …

The committee would also have 60 members along with 21 permanent invitees which includes chief minister Manohar Parrikar, north goa mp shripad naik, bjp minister’s, mla’s  and fourteen members as special invitees …

Addressing media briefing at the party head office in Panjim on Tuesday afternoon bjp president vinay tendulkar gave more details of the state executive committee names listed for the next three year term…

 the state executive committee has six vice presidents  such as dattaprasad, prabhakar kholkar, govind parvatkar, anil hoble, neena naik, sanjay harmalkar, nilesh cabral, along with two general secretaries- sadanand tanawade, narendra sawaikar, six secretaries- shilpa naik, sheikh jina, satyavijay naik, siddhi shetye, bhamtu velip, josehpine d’cruz, one treasurer- sanjeev desai, four spokesperson- vishnu wagh, dr wilfred mesquita, damu naik, dr pramod sawant along with a general secretary organisation satish dhond

7-jan-2013 … Women in the society are vulnerable to various forms of crime including sexual assault, eve teasing and domestic violence. Every women victim deserves not only a patient hearing at the Police Station by the Reporting Officer, but also a quick response and follow up on her complaint, so that her trust and confidence in law enforcement agency does not get lost.  In order to fine tune the response of police officers at the police station level and increase the accessibility and health of women victims certain concrete measures have been adopted for the existing mechanism of Women Parasailing in Goa Helpline to ensure that women victims of crime get quick justice.

1091 an exclusive Women Help Line Number of Goa Police will be functional round the clock in Central Police Control Room, Panaji.

The dedicated Help line number (1091) can be dialed by any women victim of crime in the Central Police Control Room.

The calls received centrally by Central Police Control Room (CPCR) will be immediately transferred to the nearest Police Control Room vans as well as respective jurisdictional police stations for further necessary action.

The PCR calls related to victims who are resident of Panaji Town and Margao Town will be handled exclusively by the Women Police Stations situated in Panaji as well as Margao.

All such calls related to both these towns will be referred to the concerned Women Police Stations by Central Police Control Room (CPCR).

However, all other calls will be referred to by the Central Police Control Room (CPCR) to respective police stations and will be handled by the respective Police Stations only.

Redistribution of Women Police:

Ø   Every Police Station will have 2-3 LPC and 2-3 LHC.

Ø   Women PS will have 1 PI, 2 WPSI and adequate number of LPCs/LHCs.

Reaching out to people on regular basis:

Regular communication by local Police with people to understand their problems related to various aspects of policing is very important.  It is in this backdrop Goa Police has recently launched “Saad – Sanvaad” community policing scheme where regular interaction by District SsP has started in their respective jurisdiction.

To make senior officers available for redressal of public grievances, the District SsP in South and North and all SDPOs will be available for members of public on working days at their respective district Headquarters between 4.30 pm to 5.30 pm.  Residents can meet them with their problems.

All PIs of PS will also be available for hearing public grievances in their respective Police Stations between 4.30 pm to 5.30 pm daily.

Any complainant who is not satisfied with local PI, and has also exhausted other proper channels of grievance redressal can meet Director General of Police, Goa on working day between 11 a.m. to 12 p.m

7-jan-2013 … Members of the goa people’s mining front on Monday met the state chief minister Manohar Parrikar and sought to know about the state government progress over the schemes meted out for the mining affected people especially for the truck owners association ….

The members of the truck owners association sought to know from the chief minister as why the state government had not kept their say in the supreme court till date over the mining issue and also insisted on getting the trucks under the edc department for loan repayment to various banks and also has asked for a sum of rs fifty thousand for each truck owner and twelve thousand for each goan driver under the mining affected package scheme ….

Speaking to media reporter a member of south goa truck owner’s association Prasad phaldesai said that they has questioned the state chief minister Manohar Parrikar as why his government had not put their say in the court till date on which chief minister Parrikar had said that the state government would put their say in the supreme court on 17^th of this month when the hearing would come up in the court …

Prasad also said that the members had also asked the chief minister to forfeit their trucks yearly road tax payment..

Meanwhile another member of the association Mahesh angle said that at the moment they were not interested in any package as such but were asking the government to impress upon rbi to stop sending them the letters of repayments of loans taken for purchase of trucks ..

Panaji, January 04, 2012 … Chief Minister Shri Manohar Parrikar today said that his Government has fullfilled almost all the assurances given to the people of the state during election. He appealed to the people to support the Government in the process of development and maintain conducive and positive atmosphere in the state to enable the government work for the interest of the state and its people.

Launching the unique Griha Aadhar scheme by distributing sanction letters to 360 beneficiaries from Tiswadi taluka under Griha Aadhar scheme to be implemented under  the Directorate of  Women and Child Development in the city today the Chief Minister said under the Griha Aadhar scheme as many as 7703 sanction letters were given to the beneficiaries in the state today.

He said the benefit of the schemes be it Griha Aadhar, Ladli Laxmi, Dayanand Social Security scheme is being extended to the people irrespective of caste, creed and religion. However, to implement the welfare schemes effectively what is required is positive and not negative atmosphere  he asserted.

Shri Vishnu Wagh, MLA, and Chairman of Kala Academy, Smt Vaidehi Naik, Mayor CCP Panaji, and Shri P. Krishnamurthy, Secretary Women and Child Development were present on the occasion.

The Griha Adhar Scheme envisages an amount of Rs 1000/- per month for house wife.

The Chief Minister reiterated that his Government is committed for the welfare of needy and poor people and in the same breath said that efforts are being made to fulfill  all the assurances given to the people in next two years. He also listed various schemes of the Government including  recently launched KTC Monthly Bus Pass facility. He disclosed that electronic Ration card system will be started in Goa in next two months.

Shri Vishnu Wagh MLA and Smt Vaidehi Naik complimented the Chief Minister for having conceived the idea of launching Griha Aadhar scheme which they pointed out will ease the financial burden of house wives to sustain livelihood.

Earlier Smt Varsha S. Naik, CDPO, ICDS Tiswadi taluka who welcomed the gathering urged the women to focus on education for their empowerment.