Pen Pricks

LA-ND-TV

2008-10-29T16:36:00.028+05:30

Agar firdaus bar roo-e zameen ast,
Hameen ast-o hameen ast-o hameen ast

By Mayabhushan Nagvenkar
The two celebrated progenitors of the biggest and perhaps the most brazen surrogate branding exercise in recent times, are set to be neighbours in casino-heaven too.
While the undisputed prince of bitters, Dr Vijay Mallya already owns a bewildering monstrosity in the sands of Sinquerim, the more circumspect man of letters, Dr Prannoy Roy of NDTV is all set to follow suit in the neighboring village of Calangute.
There's no disputing the fact that NDTV's Dr Prannoy Roy loves Goa. That he does. The poor doctor loves the place so much, he's ended up buying the 27,000 sq mts plot (approx) at Tivai waddo, Calangute. A plot that includes two massive sand dunes, one of which has already been flattened down under truck loads of mud, local residents claim.
Documents obtained under the Right To Information Act (RTI) show that the sea-side plot which has sparked controversy (unreported for obvious reasons) is owned by Dr Prannoy Roy and his wife Ms Radhika Roy. Come to think of it, you don't even need documents to prove it. Dr Roy in response to a questionnaire sent by PP, admits to owning the land. The unedited questionnaire and Dr Roy's response to it, has been published below in verbatim.

THE BIG FIGHT
Compared to the bleary eyed, commercially ravaged chunks of Calangute, Tivai waddo appears to have gone off to sleep, when the tourism bus belched by. It continues to be a dozing ward with a spattering of homes belonging to local fishermen and others.
Even the narrow road which leads to Dr Roy's plot is just wide enough for one car to pass. The road ends near a house of tattoos which runs by the name Mike's tattoos. This is the point, from where the road to paradise is lost.
Red soil dumped night after night using dumper trucks over a period of time, has now become hard-packed and has virtually replaced one large sand dune. The dune which has disappeared from sight, however continues to show on the development plans which can be perused through at the Calangute village panchayat office.
This dune, where villagers claims the construction activity was taking place, is at a much lesser distance than the stipulated 200 mts, within which all construction is banned under the Coastal Regulatory Zone (CRZ) norms. "Trucks used to come in night after night and dump mud on the already excavated sand dune. The panchayat does not know how it happened? We used to play football here on these two dunes when we were kids," claims Augustino Silveira, who lives a few minutes from the site. Augustino is a member of the Calangute United, which has been protesting against Dr Prannoy Roy's construction.
"We raised the issue on July 29, 2007 at the village panchayat meeting. After much delay, the panchayat then ordered an inspection of the site and has temporarily stopped the construction there," say Anthony D'Couza secretary of Calangute United.
D'Souza claims, that Dr Roy had planned a lavish state-of-the-art studio at the site. "They were even constructing a swimming pool on the edge of the sand dune. After we protested the digging stopped. We only wonder for how long," he claimed. Bonnie, another local who has been involved in the protests against the construction, claimed that the owners had no right to either fence in or raise a compound wall around the sand dunes. "Once they raised the wall, stopping the construction work within, would have been impossible," he said, adding that a natural stream carrying rainwater into the sea had also been blocked during the construction.
Documents available with the panchayat show that a building licence for the construction of a beach resort in plot 159/3 had been issued to one Anthony Fonseca, who had started construction. The project was later sold to Dr Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy in 2007.
When contacted, Dr Roy claimed that he was concerned about environment and that there was 'no question of building on sand dunes'.
"Be assured, if we build anything it will be small, at the furthest point from the sea, totally within the regulations and totally within environmentally friendly norms," claims Dr Roy.
The truth is there for all to see.
All you need to do is drive to illuminated crossroad at Calangute, where the road ahead leads to the beach and the right heads for Baga. Turn left there and follow the road until a small tar tendril turns sharply towards your right. Follow the road until you see a house with Mike's tattoos etched on it. 159/3 is the plot right next to it.
And then, do write back.

WALK THE TALK
PP questionnaire
Dear Dr Roy
We run a media-critiquing blog that can be accessed at www.penpricks.blogspot.com. Although we largely critique the Goan media, we do post stories which are of national consequence once in a way. In fact your channel featured us when we broke our Nazi-gate story on the blog.
We are now running a story on the beach-side property you purchased at Calangute sometime back. We would be running the story about 48 hours from now. We would appreciate if you respond to our queries before Thursday night.
You were one of the few reasons why we aspired to become journalists.
It is disturbs us to hear that you have planned to construct a studio on the property purchased by you. Most part of the property is actually a sand dune. You must have strolled on it, when you came down to inspect the plot.
Here's the small list of questions, which we would be glad if you could respond to.
1) Have you purchased a beach-side property in Calangute
2) What do you propose to construct at the site?
3) Do you realise that a major part of the property is a sand dune. And law forbids you to construct on sand dunes
4) How do you justify purchase of this huge chunk of land, especially when your channel organised a debate on the issue of commercial over kill of land in Goa.
The anonymous nature of this blog, makes it unable for us bloggers to sign off using our real names.
Expecting your response
forever yours
The Pen Pricks

Dr Prannoy Roy's response
Dear P P
Thank you for checking with me. I am afraid the 'facts'/rumours are totally wrong. There is absolutely no studio being planned there. I have no idea where that thought came from. It hasn't crossed our mind.
We are as, if not more concerned about the environment and there is no question of building on the sand dunes. We wouldn't dream of it. I am surprised you should even think of such a project.
Be assured, if we build anything it will be small, at the furthest point from the sea, totally within the regulations and totally within environmentally friendly norms. We are as concerned about Goa's environment as anyone.
Thank you once again for at least checking all these spurious rumours with us. I expect that you should not believe and certainly not print such nonsense.
Thank you
Prannoy
(received from prannoy@ndtv.com)

P.S. The story took too long coming, thanks to the by-lined prick who took about a month to crawl from his home in Anjuna and haul ass to Calangute next door, to figure out the ground reality... PP will try and update a couple of times each week, a week from now. Pray we don't fall asleep again...

KUCH IS TARAH TAY KII HAI MANZILEIN HUMNEIN - GIRE, GIR KE UTHE, UTH KAR CHAL PADE

2008-10-28T15:59:00.002+05:30

Hi guys, we've been away for a while.
There've been reasons. We've been fighting a battle of a different sort ourselves.
Our utmost concern has been our inability to provide you the one story which we promised. Because we havent been able to keep our word twice on deadlines before this, we wont make any promises this time round. We are just going to go public the story without giving u a deadline.
As for the blog, no its not dead, but the guys behind it were in not very good shape. And yes, there have been attempts to hack it. We have a good clue who the bugger is, but we are waiting for him to make a mistake.
Thanks for logging on guys and keeping the comments section alive and kicking. Yes, a few swear words did slip through the moderator, we apologise for that.
Here's an anagram to engage you guys until our story hits the blog. Chew on it.

TLNAVD

And BTW hope you notice guys, we've gone black...
regards
PP

NIGHT OF THE LONG KNIVES: WHEN THE GOA EDITORS GUILD WENT 'PRICK' HUNTING

2008-09-29T12:23:00.008+05:30

We ran a post sometime back telling you guys, how the Goa Editor's Guild which met on July 11, 2008 at the Goa Marriott Resort, contemplated the extermination of Penpricks. Here's an invite issued by the GEG chairman and The Navhind Times editor Arun Sinha.
This scanned hard copy of the invite dispatched to the rest of the editors in Goa (barring the TOI resident editor, who did not attend the meeting, because he was made a last minute inclusion into this 'elite' club).
The point we are concerned about, is the second one on the agenda, where Arun Sinha wants the editors in the guild to "'discuss' the 'tirade' against guild members by blog spot Pen Pricks". Sinha wanted to fire at us, using the collective bulk of the guild-member's shoulders to steady his rifle. Read the last para. Sinha wanted have a 'collective decision on the above-mentioned issues'
Don't ask us how we got hold of the copy. We aren't gonna tell, but one thing's pretty clear guys. Over the last year and half, Penpricks does appear to have rattled these editor buggers a bit.
Our criticism of the media in Goa and the dysfunctional editorial leadership has begin hurting these guys. And we are not apologetic about it.
We will continue to hammer these guys down, when they err. Hammer them with a hope, that the next time they are on the verge of making that mistake again, they will remember the beating they got from this blog.
Like Arun Sinha... From what we hear, a major grudge he has against the Penpricks, was when we published his mobile number in his own newspaper, as a contact in one of those shady massage parlour ads, along with two other editors.
How dare they print these ads? And this guy Arun, has the gall to complain to the rest of the editors at the Guild meeting, that people still call him for a massage. Why did your newspaper publish an ad in the first place Arun?
Didn't your newspaper have any objection to the fact that the classified ad was peddling 'minor children'. Or is entertainment with 'minor children' is the 'done' thing when it comes to The Navhind Times journos?
The Goa Editor's Guild as point number three on the agenda states, needs a place to function from. We really have no issues against these annual editorial orgies behind close-doors, but to have the government sponsor a place for it, is not really in the right spirit. How much more are these guys going to beg anyway?
We also have a problem with these guys meeting at the Marriot's for these GEG meetings, especially when employees at the Herald publication Pvt Ltd are getting paid after the 20th of every month because the management claims they are short of funds.
No no, we understand that the editors did not foot the bill themselves. They must have latched on to some industrialist to foot the Marriot bill. Most of these Goan editor sorts are pretty resourceful that way. That's the only way they can survive, like maggots feasting on journalism's carcass.

P.S. The big story's still some days away

CHURCHILL ALEMAO PLANTS A NEW SAPLING

2008-09-28T23:06:00.003+05:30

Damn... damn... damn... some of you guys are right, we should have judged the time needed right. The story we promised will take a few days more guys. We've learned out lesson. Next time round, we'll be more punctual.
But there's something to tell you guys. Ever since we put the teaser out, there's been two attempts to hack the blog's password. We have strong suspicion that it must have been one of those journos from Sujay's harem. But that's alright... but we have a feeling very few of you actually know who we're talking about? Let's see if anyone can get the right answer...
In the meantime, we leave you with this filler. Valanka Alemao, the only flower to blossom in the thorny, coarse Alemao scrub. This photo featured in the Herald sometime back. Look at the women around her. Tanned by the sun. Faces which have weathered different seasons. And Valanka with a coconut sapling in her hands. Face bleached beyond belief, in sharp contrast to her earth coloured hands, which hold the stalk, that sprouts from the nut.

COMING UP SOON...

2008-09-19T22:43:00.004+05:30

Hi guys... The story's almost ready guys... Let's say, we've struck a purple patch... Call these posts, a build up if you like. There will be one more teaser, before we come out with the story about this editor, who's become a symbol for the nouveau breed of journalists-turned-businessmen. Editors like these are a symptom of a wheezing, retching, stifled profession called journalism, which is in desperate need for a nice long honest breath of fresh air.
Here's our prayer... Don't fall for these kind of guys, who lead people into believing that their love for feni, is actually their love for Goa.
That's a very shallow peg these guys are trying to peddle.

IN SLIGHTER VEIN: THE GOA STATE COMMISSION FOR WOMEN AND A COMPROMISING POSITION

2008-09-16T20:11:00.014+05:30

After being the first to bring the Herald sexual harassment issue to the fore, it's only fair that we inform the readers of this blog, about the decision taken at the Goa State Commission for Women vis a vis this case. The GSCW has told the media that a compromise/settlement has been worked out. That the Herald Publications Pvt Ltd general manager N Manjunath has apologized to the commission in writing and he is willing to take the victim back into employment in the same position she worked in earlier, provided the management agreed. The GSCW chairperson Pramod Salgaonkar has also claimed that she has received a favourable response from the Herald management on that front. We are thrilled. We are so damn excited. We told ourselves that we had to ‘thank’ all the players involved in this controversy individually. This post is an endeavor in that direction.

VOTE OF THANKS
N Manjunath: It is thanks to N Manjunath that we finally got to learn that Sexual Harassment At Work Place (SHAWP) actually exists. Damn…. all this while, we thought that like the mythical casting couch in Bollywood, SHAWP never occurred. But Manjunath mixed the script up. The poor chap virtually played martyr as the sexual aggressor, in order to expose this SHAWP evil to the rest of the media fraternity. Why, he has even admitted to doing it on record to the GSCW in the written apology he has submitted before them. He also told the Commission that he considered the victim his daughter. What!!! Does Manju actually have a daughter? If he does, then Child Rights Goa (CRG) should try and interview Manju’s family for a ‘sanity check’.
Should not be too difficult because Nishtha Dessai who runs CRG is Herald editor Ashwin Tombat’s wife. We’ll come to that later. So thank you Manju. But man… do make sure you do not shift the next receptionist you hire, back into your cabin. You’ve convinced us that SHAWP does exist, but don’t play martyr again please. One hand in your pockets, the other on the lips... Er... your lips.

Michael Pereira: Being Herald managing director Raul Fernandes’ PA is a tough job. But contrary to popular perception, Michael isn’t Raul right hand, instead he’s the MD left hand, which cleans up every conceivable mess for Raul. Why is Michael being featured in this Vote of Thanks?
Michael shared the scene of crime with the person who was accused of sexual harassment i.e. general manager N Manjunath. Michael shared the cabin where the instances of sexual harassment actually occurred. Michael was also the guy who informed the GSCW in capacity as Herald's ‘Operations manager’ about Manjunath's unavailability, even when Manjunath was in town but was avoiding the GSCW hearing. We thank Michael for his role in 'managing' this scandal. Thank you Michael for not joining your colleague in this sexual harassment saga, especially when it happened in your own shared cabin. But now we know something we always suspected Mikey… naughty you... Boy, you love to watch, don’t you?

Ashwin Tombat:
The once firebrand editor has metamorphosed into a stale, half smoked parrot chaap beedi, in his new avatar as Herald editor. But then in doing so, Ashwin lived up to the reputation, which Herald's editors have had, since the newspaper's inception. Great going Ashwin, you are really filling up a model Herald editor’s boots, pretty much quick. We have a small suggestion though. Ashwin should not rest on his past glory now. After publishing an authoritative book on menstrual cycles, Ashwin should also pen down his thoughts on selective amnesia. When the Arun Sinha allegedly molested his minor maid, one of those who made the most amount of hue and cry about it, was Ashwin’s wife Nishtha and now there’s absolute silence! Ashwin should certainly try and unravel the mysteries of selective amnesia in his next book.
Damn… damn… damn… we were completely off the point up there. The victim in this case was not a minor. She was couple of years above the cut off age, we think. Damn there’s no reason why Nishta or Ashwin should have been even interested in this case, now that the basic facts are clearer. Conviction to a cause, is secondary to nuances of age.

Raul Fernandes: Where would the Herald be, if it weren’t for its owner Raul Fernandes. While answering this one, some would have insisted in saying that the Herald would have been much better paper, better managed, better ethical standards, better leadership, etc… but we certainly don’t think so. You need a guy like Raul to ‘manage’ such controversies. See how he managed this one? Everything’s back to square one. And no one’s hurt… except for some kid who was fondled in the same cabin, which Raul himself used to occupy much earlier. And that kid too has been promised a job back again. That’s great isn’t it? Raul, my man… you are the one for the occasion. In fact so kicked are we about Raul that we want to propose his name for King Momo, this coming Carnival. Raul ought to be made the Goa equivalent of the King of Good Times. Someone tell his mother that…

Dr Pramod Salgaokar: The unfettered Pramod Salgaokar aptly proved why she is at the helm of affairs at the GSCW for such a long time. Her legendary ability to compromise, came to the fore not a moment too soon, in the Herald SHAWP incident. Wasn’t that a touch of class? In one stroke… the lady dispensed justice in one single god-damned stroke. Here was a girl who complained that she was SHAWP and there was the accused general manager N Manjunath who was consistently avoiding GSCW hearings. And what does Pramod do? She makes him sign an apology. And what is an apology? Admission of guilt! That means Manjunath has admitted before her that he ‘did’ sexually harass the victim in the workplace. And then, she even managed to ensure ‘positive feedback’ from the Herald management vis a vis getting the girl a job back. Damn are we kicked? You guys should open your eyes a bit before you read between the lines. Those of you who think that there was a deal done here, are so, so wrong.
What Pramod has done is simplify the process of justice dispensation. Say for example, tomorrow X rapes Y. The legal system would ensure that Y would get justice in a minimum of say, what 3 years. The amount of time you whittle from a judicial process using Pramod’s formula is not at all funny. Here’s a revised scenario. X rapes Y. Z steps in as a mediator. Z ensures that X apologises for raping Y. And apologise in writing, mind you. Z also makes X promise that he would give Y a monthly stipend and worse comes to worse, marry Y. You don’t need to involve the police or anyone. Compromise. Compromise Pramod… What a mantra you have taught us. Someone ought to tell Indira Jaisingh about this development, she’d come running down to Goa again to conduct a seminar all over again.

MEET THE TWO HOGS, WHO SIMPLY LOVE THIS BLOG

2008-09-14T00:28:00.005+05:30

Hi, don't think you guys know it, but this blog receives an average of 15 comments on a normal day. When we run stories, the number of comments run in multiples of the number. Unfortunately we can reproduce only some of these comments. We have to delete several of these comments, because they contain extremely creative slander and such fantastic claims which we are unable to either verify nor substantiate.
But we really intend to thank the guys who send these kind of comments to us. They are our readers too u know. They have every right to write back to us. We owe them a favour because they are a section of our readership, who keep this blog alive. But then we don't like keeping favours. What we've decided to do, is return these favours every now and then, from here on. Its so unfair that these potent glands which juice up such original and more often than not, fictional bullshit, should remain unsung.
We take this opportunity to thank one such prolific commentator on our blog, whose comments more often than not we cannot feature our blog because of the vulgar content and wild-goose-chase-leads they are indicative of. Thank you Peter.
Oh.... you guys don't know Peter is? He's the guy who 'pans' for psychedelic gold once the rave party season gets going. Peter's comments on the goings on in newspapers (he comments most on folks in Gomantak times... we really do not know why, do you guys know?) are as vulgar as they come. We tried to verify some of his comments, but there's not much you can pan through.
But more often than not Peter's comments on Derek, Ashley, Thapa the top-heavy tits of the Gomantak Times are so raunchy, that the writer should actually consider contributing some pages for the re-invented hardcore Mills and Boons series. Raunchiness apart, Peter has this obsession about how Derek's spouse has been illegally running a school. We are mentioning it here, so that we can also put it on record, that we have tried to verify the story, but there doesn't seem to be any truth in it.

Here's a latest sample of Peter's chicanery, a comment we received from him....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "COMING UP SOON...":
Is NESHWIN ALMEIDA related to DERRICK ALMEIDA? Looks like a family affair with the Almeida family being part of the Sakal Parivar. Mrs Almeida has a problem with her school and Derrick is blackmailing the education minister on his qualifications.

Wonder what's Peter's grouse against these hoity-toits in Goa's least selling English language newspaper. But then Peter has also been threatening to spill the beans about some babes called Alpana and Dominica too? Do you guys know them? We've no clue!!! But it does look like our friend Peter has too many beans to spill. He'd better sack them up for the coming winter.
Here's the comment he sent to us a while back.

Respected staff of GT,
Let me put it this way….. in GT, guys work for peanuts and wait for the big bosses of Sakaal in pune to give you guys some nuts during festival season. Let’s face it…. Many of you guys claimed that you got other offers but still stuck to the lowest circulated newspaper in Goa. Your scores “last grade”…. That’s where you stand. And when you speak about others…know something….. Talk according to your own grade and standards…. Yes, Preetu was approached by network 18 but she refused and so was ahwa by NDTV… and rumors are that Andrew will be moving with HT… Now compare the difference Ashley was jobless…. Derrick gave him a job….so he got to lick that a**e. open your eyes my friend…… see the light…poor thapa…he travels all the way from vasco and back…why??? GT is the worlds number one newspaper….how is the rains thapa….use some good rain coat may be you will not catch any cold…hedge that’s a free bug…. Pops up at most of the press conference to see what’s on offer…. Mmmm did I forget someone…. Derrick…god father of himself….. needs to put on more balls and stop riding on Sujoy’s back….Mr. Gupta changed the way how GT worked… now is all down the drain…. More to come about….Dominica and Alpana
please publish this.... thanks PP

But don't let us discourage you Peter, but you must try harder. You must keep sending more stuff to us. You never know, one day, you might just come up with an honest comment. And please, please for the sake of love do not write a comment and then respond to it yourself immediately, like you have been doing, so often. Give it some delay. The time counter in the comments section gives away the game away. Wait just wait a while, ok.
There's another reader we really wanna talk to you about.
Again, we don't know him. But we know this is him. Its this guy called Lionel. Not Rithcie, this is a very bitchy Lionel we are talking about... This guy seems to be the king of megalomania. In the last 3 to 4 months we've got at least 40 to 50 comments from one source which say this time and again, 'Great job Lionel!', 'What a blog Lionel', 'Great going Lionel'... The commentator obviously wants to ensure that the readers feel that this guy, Lionel or whoever he is, runs this blog.
This is a very Lionel modus operandi. The guy who's commenting is Lionel himself. We cant say for sure, but Lionel's probably some guy, who's sleepwalked most of his career and now wants to appropriate credit for this anonymously run blog.
Poor chap, mid career andropause does this to you. Does any one of you know this Lionel guy? If you know any cure for this kind of an andropause, do give this guy a call. Do that for us will you chaps?
There's several more jokers who love to have fun in the way these two do. But we love these two the most, because of the regularity with which these guys do it. We'll run this series on and off... In the meantime keep having fun you two.

COMING UP SOON...

2008-09-12T17:51:00.002+05:30

Hi guy... the story we'd promised you about this suave editor is just about ready. A week or two at the most.
Its about... hang on will you....

EVERY DOG HAS HIS DAY: HERALD'S FRANCIS RIBIERO ALIAS CHOPPY PUT TO GRAZE IN CANACONA

2008-09-11T01:56:00.009+05:30

Seems like all hell broke loose while we were away. We really shouldn't be making a habit out of it, but we are so damn sorry we couldn't upload a post for quite a bit. Some claim its job hunting that PP's doing, others have been claiming that we lost our drive, some others have claimed we pricks, have lost our balls. The concern has been simply over whelming. We appreciate that.
But seems like a lot has happened since we last pressed 'publish post'. To begin with the Francis Janim Xavier Ribiero alias Choppy has reportedly been put to graze by the Herald to the (brace yourself) Canacona bureau. Don't mistake Canacona for Cancun.
Canacona is to Herald staffers what Siberia was to out of favour Russians.
Ask current deputy news editor Ashley Do Rosario, who had fallen out of favour with the Herald management in his earlier stint here. Ashley is known to have compiled voluminous theses on a couple of fascinating topics during his posting at the Canacona bureau.
a) Nuances of bison-mating: Observations from atop a machan near a waterhole
b) Cohabiting with bisons: A survival guide on how to graze amongst bison herds
We suggest Choppy pick up a copy each from Ashley for free, before Rico publishes these documents into a couple of book and makes him pay for it.
We are not one's to rejoice at Choppy's 'transfer' to Canacona. But we are not too displeased with the fact that the Saligaokar wasn't transferred to Belgaum, the way Agnelo Periera and Robin Abreu were. Choppy would have found Belgaum's forever 'moisture in the air' weather tough, especially since he is a chronic asthama patient and is known to carry his pump about.
But frankly, it wasn't the asthama pump, which has made Choppy's life easy at the Herald all these years. In fact it was the way he used to 'pump up' Raul fernandes, which really held him in stead.
Choppy was one of Raul's best men in the Herald set up, besides Joel, Sergio, Savio, Walter, Bir, Manjunath, Pandu, late Tolotin, Jose and whats his name... yes Roque.
Come on who else would survive this routine? Work for a week, rest for a month. Then rest for two more months before working for two days. Then a spell of rest again for a month before coming out with a special issue for the Olympics fortnight. Then a broken leg and a two month recuperation window. Phew its been so tiring on the fellow.
But looks like Choppy's growling Rottweiller in the office and a cowering Shih Tzu before Raul routine finally, finally appears to have given way.
We always thought Choppy was like a cat with nine lives, but then a new dog in the Herald manger seems to have upset the equations.
Word going around is that Navhind Times part-timer-cum-full-timer-cum-secretary Indian Red Cross-cum former secretary Dempo Sports Club-cum-Master of Ceremonies cum (did we mention journalist yet?) is reported to be making the shift to Herald. The coin has been flipped, but we do not know which side it has landed yet.
The Jovito development has confounded the most seasoned media watchers in Goa. Suave, well networked, dapper he sure is, but Jovito's journalistic credentials have never been the object of envy. But surviving in TNT for so many years despite not being in good books of the editor Arun Sinha speaks volumes of either his tenacity as a commendable trait or frequent mouth to mouth resuscitating sessions at the Dempo towers on the quiet.
Either ways, the Jovito for Choppy debate is the current rage. Pick your candidate. It's Choppy in the red and Jovito in the blue corner.
And they need not even resort to blows, their stares would be good enough.

CAUTION, MEN AT WORK - II: STORIES OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT, FROM DEMPO COLLEGE TO HERALD PUBLICATIONS

2008-08-26T19:46:00.009+05:30

This is the concluding part of Augusto Pinto's piece on the Herald sexual harassment case. We've put up those numbers again guys, at the bottom of the post. Just heard that Herald MD Raul Fernandes is back in Goa. If you guys want to ensure a fair trial, call any of these numbers up and remind these guys about their responsibility.
PenPricks

The Herald Sexual Harassment Case: Here Is The Connection In The Form Of A Few Comments, Predictions And Advice.

1] Like V.R.Naik, Manjunath will avoid appearing before the G.S.C.W. This puts all the burden of facing the tension of appearing before this Commission upon the victim and witnesses on her behalf.
2] If the victim is lucky, and has at least some deal of support from her colleagues, just as in the V.R.Naik case, the management may just capitulate and agree to setting up a Vishaka Committee. The idea will not be to settle the issue, but to further buy time that way.
3] The victim in he Herald case should be ever vigilant to ensure that she or those who will testify on her behalf, do not have anything to do with any in-house enquiry committee that may be appointed - again to obfuscate matters.
They should make sure that only a properly constituted Vishaka Commiittee does the enquiry. This is all the more imperative as there sems to be prima facie another case against one of the owners of Herald.
4] The victim has to face the additional tension of dealing with a defamation case. Just as in then V.R.Naik case. This helps to scare away witnesses who do not want to have to deal with law courts. There may also be the possibility for the accused to stall matters which are going on, by claiming that the matters are sub-juidice.
This might happen if the case is dealt with by a judge who is not sufficiently well-versed with the matter. Conclusion: The chances are great that the victim will be exhausted by all the burden she has to face and will settle out of court or even withdraw or worse still apologize.
Regards Augusto
P.S.: A couple of weeks before the Herald story broke, but almost certainly when the incidents of sexual harassment against the Herald victim had talready aken place, HCN aired a debate about, hold your breath - SEXUAL HARASSMENT - in a program called CROSSFIRE.
Pramod Salgaocar was on that programme, but so was - hold your breath - V.R.Naik. No mention was made that V.R. was indicted by the G.S.C.W. or the Dempo College Vishaka Committee.
The staff of Dempo College was incensed about this and went to protest at the Herald office. Nissar Dias was not in the office. We were put on the phone to the producer of the program, a glib talking chap called Junio D'Souza, whose defence was that he had no idea about the background of V.R.Naik!!.
This of course was nonsense, and we then went to Ashwin Tombat, who again tried to protest that he had no idea about what was happening at HCN and that he had no idea about the press note in his paper regarding the program!!
PATHETIC

(Ends)

Raul Fernandes 9822100188 (Herald MD and owner)
Oswald Fernandes 9823013308 (MD Raul's brother)
Manjunath 9822130034 (Herald GM)
Nissar 9422437029 (Editor HCN, that's where the victim was employed)
Michael 9822122304 (MD Raul's PA)
Ashwin Tombat 0832-2433373 (Herald Editor, direct line)
Ashwin Tombat 9421246332 (Herald Editor, mobile)
Herald board numbers 0091-832-2224202,2224460,2228083
Sunita 9881099260 (President Goa Union of Journalists)
Dr Pramod Salgaonkar 9822123050 (Chairperson, Goa Commission for Women)

CAUTION, 'MEN AT WORK': STORIES OF SEXUAL HARASSMENT, FROM DEMPO COLLEGE TO HERALD PUBLICATIONS

2008-08-25T21:19:00.016+05:30

Hey guys, we've received a well articulated piece on the Herald sexual harassment issue from Mr Augusto Pinto, who has seen a similar case involving Dempo college principal Dr Vaman Naik from close quarters. We are running his piece in two parts. This is the first one. Those who wish to comment on this piece will have have to either lend their names to their piece, or better still send us a response from their genuine email IDs, since the writer has stuck his neck out to state his point. Anonymous comments against the writer will not be approved.

Dears
History repeats itself. I wonder if Manjunath is getting lessons from V. R. Naik. To understand what I say, you will have to listen to a story which I have told before, but as it does not seem to register with people, I am ready to repeat it again and again and again

XxXxXxXxXxXxX

THE DEMPO COLLEGE SEXUAL HARASSMENT CASE
At the very start of the Dempo College case, V.R.Naik was asked to refrain from his acts of sexually harassing a young married college lecturer, not just by her but by many of her colleagues who could not bear to see what was going on.
He would not listen. And on the contrary, in an arrogant display of power, he went and terminated her services, and those of two other colleagues who supported her.
After finally gathering courage she agreed to face public scrutiny, [Remember - going public is the worst punishment for the victim in such cases. Society has the nasty habit of casting aspersions on the victim -"She must have done something to encourage him" - they say],
An Action Committee of prominent citizens came to her support, led by among others Adv. Avinash Bhosale, and Adv. Meera Merdhekar. They went to the press giving all the details of his foul deeds.
The Goa State Commission for Women held an enquiry, and indicted Vaman Naik, saying he was not fit to hold the post of a Principal. Although V.R. Naik responded to the Commission once, he then began to avoid them. Not a single staff member from the college said a word in his favour. The G.S.C.W. submitted a report which severely indicted V.R.Naik, saying he was not fit to hold the post of a Principal of a College. The problem is that the G.S.C.W. although it is a Statutory Body having much moral clout, is one which has only recommendatory authority.
The real authority which can prescribe punishment on a sexual harassment offender, the Supreme Court of India has ruled, is the Vishaka Committee. After a considerable amount of pressure was mounted on the management of the College, the Governing Body of Dempo Charities' Trust, to abide by the law of the land, a Vishaka Committee was finally appointed by the Acting Principal of the college, Dr. Deshpande of Dhempe College of Arts and Science, Miramar.
This Vishaka Committee again, and in no uncertain terms indicted V. R. Naik. V.R.Naik's fate should have been sealed at this point.
But no, the Governing Body of Dempo Charities' Trust which includes such worthies as the former Goa S.S.C.E. Board Chairman P.R. Nadkani, had in the meanwhile appointed a one - man inquiry officer, who in the face of all the evidence provided, without even examining the Accused, let him off without him even testifying and being cross-examined, in a Report, which quoted statements of witnesses who did not even appear before him!! The views of the Presenting Officer, which damned
V.R.Naik were not even given a mention.
Why did this happen? My guess is that the Management of D.C.T. - read Srinivas Dempo - one of, if not the richest man in Goa, will not tolerate anyone telling him who should be his managers - no matter if they are sexual harassers, no matter if they are rapists.So he allowed this farce.
The staff of the college went to the Directorate of Higher Education to question the legalities and proprieties of this in-house enquiry farce. When the D.H.E. questioned the Dempo Charities Trust about the matter, the D.C.T. panicked and threw the ball in the D.H.E.'s court asking their advice as to what was to be done. The D.H.E. after a great deal of persuation to give their opinion, put up a note saying the Vishaka Committee was final. But to delay matters further, they sent the note to the Law Dept. of the Govt. of Goa for approval. It is pending there now, for how many months...
In thee meanwhile V.R.Naik gets 50000 rupees a month as salary from the public exchequer. And to add insult to unjury, he has started a defamation case against the lecturers who stood as witnesses for the woman who was sexually harassed.
This is a long story. What has it got to do with the Herald and the Manjunath sexual harassment case?
(Part 2 later)

NO SEX PLEASE, WE ARE THE HERALD!!!

2008-08-25T00:17:00.007+05:30

Here's a small development in the Herald sexual harassment case guys...
Sources close to the Goa State Women's Commission claim that the victim has now been sent a Rs 1 crore defamation notice by Manjunath, through his lawyer.
Guys at the Herald tell us that the management is leaning in Manjunath's favour too... This isn't a fair thing happening guys.
The Herald management which operates the premises in which both the victim and the accused were working has to ensure that a fair environment exists for a enquiry.
What about the Vishakha committee now? When is Herald Publications Pvt Ltd going to constitute the committee as laid down by the Supreme Court? (As a reader Augusto Pinto raises a point in his comment, how many newspaper have a committee to probe incidents of sexual harassment at workplace? Shouldn't the Editor's Guild deliberate this? Shouldn't GUJ discuss this?)
Guys, the numbers we have listed below are the guys who to be told again and again that they must ensure a fair trial.
Pls call them... Keep calling them till they either tire of you or constitute the committee and ensure a fair enquiry.
It wont cost you much fellas, just a buck if you are in Goa. A bit more if you are abroad. But we are sure that calls like these would ensure that the Herald management is at least aware that people are watching their moves in this case. They need reminding guys...
We are also leaving behind numbers of those people who can make some sort of a difference in this case. You guys could call them too to buck them up.

Raul Fernandes 9822100188 (Herald MD and owner)
Oswald Fernandes 9823013308 (MD Raul's brother)
Manjunath 9822130034 (Herald GM)
Nissar 9422437029 (Editor HCN, that's where the victim was employed)
Michael 9822122304 (MD Raul's PA)
Ashwin Tombat 0832-2433373 (Herald Editor, direct line)
Ashwin Tombat 9421246332 (Herald Editor, mobile)
Herald board numbers 0091-832-2224202,2224460,2228083
Sunita 9881099260 (President Goa Union of Journalists)
Dr Pramod Salgaonkar 9822123050 (Chairperson, Goa Commission for Women)

WEEK 2 -- SEXUAL HARASSMENT AT THE HERALD: ACCUSED GM MANJUNATH CONTINUES TO GRIN

2008-08-21T01:23:00.005+05:30

Goan local newspapers went to town about the sexual harassment case at Goa Architecture College recently. But just how serious are our local newspapers in particular about sexual harassment in their own workspace.
Barring the Gomantak Times and the Goan Observer, no newspaper has as yet, reported the sexual harassment case registered at the state unit of the National Commission for Women, involving N Manjunath, the general manager of the Herald, one of Goa’s leading English dailies.
The Navhind Times is perhaps returning the favour to the Herald (from one institution to another) for the latter’s tepid (and most times almost non existent) coverage of TNT Editor Arun Sinha’s molestation case. (But one point we’d like to make here. The TNT did report a criminal complaint filed against Herald managing director Raul Fernandes’ brother Oswald vis a vis some property offence, sometime back).The Times of India… wonder what happened to it. Too many skirts on the Goa Times Page 3 may have impeded their grand editorial vision. Those of you guys, who expect ‘fair’ coverage from TOI, would do well to wait for the tourism season to hit before they make their call. For that would be the season of dubious convergence between editorial and advertising interest. Lets see how the paper fares then.
To be honest, we really haven’t focused much on the vernacular papers, so if any one these guys did report it, we would appreciate if the readers would let us know.
For your information, Manjunath did not attend the first two hearings at the NCW when he was summoned. In the first hearing, he was represented by Michael (remember Raul’s PA? Turns out, he is also Manager Operations. Hmmm fancy title) who informed the Commission that Manjunath was unavailable.
Oh really… Manjunath has been in and around Panjim all this while. His being unavailable is rather strange, unless he’s busy seeking certain passengers for a lift all the way down to Verna, in sporadic fits of unbridled philanthropy.
His second hearing was scheduled yesterday on Wednesday, which too he did not attend. In a letter, which he has submitted to the NCW instead, Manjunath claims that he was planning to file a complaint against the victim for “causing a lot of damage to his reputation and in his personal and public life.”
Guys can you beat this? Are you guys at the Herald and HCN going to take this shit lying down? Shame on you fellows! Stop thinking about yourselves as journalists or accountants and so and so forth. Don’t you guys think you have a basic duty to at least question the newspaper management as to what steps they are taking to see that justice is done?
Like we mentioned in our last post, we aren’t saying lynch Manjunath, but insist on forming a Vishakha committee and start an impartial enquiry for godsake.
We would really like to know what Herald Editor Ashwin Tombat would have to say about this? And Nisser Dias… What’s Nisser doing about this? The girl was a part of Nisser’s HCN staff… Are these two guys going to take it lying down? We are also concerned about MD Raul Fernandes’ PA Michael. Guys how can Michael absolve himself off any responsibility? Michael used to share a cabin with Manjunath.
In which office have you seen a set up like this, fellas? A general manager sharing a cabin with the managing director’s PA cum ‘operations manager’ and a receptionist behind close doors? Have you heard of anything like this before? We believe that Michael too should be questioned by the Commission for facilitating such an arrangement.
Back to the letter, Manjunath also states in his letter that if the woman had ‘any such grievance, then it should have been reported within the organisation and should not have been divulged in open. It should have been sorted out internally’.
What sort of an argument is this guys? Here you have a junior-most employee -- a production executive, who’s the victim, who claims that the general manager of her organization used to pat her face, brush her hair. So whom does she complain to? The accused is her top boss? Does she give him a written complaint at the time when he’s busy trying to caress her, as she alleges?
Manjunath, stop reading this blog and spend some time coming up with better excuses next time round. If its Michael you are relying on for this fluff, think again. Ask Joel or someone. He’s good at drumming them up. (BTW talking of fluff have you seen this small flickr memoryput together by some ex HCN employee, interesting pics)
Sources at the NCW claim that the next hearing could well have to wait till Ganesh Chaturthi… That’s a long way off…
We’ve seen government’s fall in a matter of days in Goa. This is just a nobody girl seeking action against what she claims is a case of sexual harassment against the general manager of a leading English opinion making daily N Manjunath, who seems to have the management backing him.
At times a week is long enough for hope to crumble.
P.S. BTW guys we've mailed the Herald editor on his ID and the general ID for a response on this issue on the way we ran this story, the first time round. We've received no response yet. We have also asked them if we could send them a questionnaire on this issue. No response on that one too.

UM'RAoJaAN'

2008-08-16T13:17:00.009+05:30

One fine day in the state of Goaput, a god-fearing
courtesan with a mole on her face looked at the mirror only to discover lines on it. She was aging. In hindsight all those years of years of petty pilfering from her clients wallets, really hadn’t amounted to much. Mortgage had eaten into most of it, she told herself. She didn’t even have her own home yet, she rationalised. She decided it was time to make the most of her clients, which included the who’s who of the city’s elite. The next day she stopped picking pockets on the sly. Instead she started reminding them about all about the services she had rendered to them. Night and day. Night and day.
She reminded them how she’d never tired. Everytime they visited her, she cribbed to them unceasingly. One day all her clients met and decided that they’d had enough of it. They were aware of their purses being pinched all these years, but they did not mind. Now this constant cribbing
got to them.
They decided to shut her up by pooling together some monies, to buy her silence. Some of the clients were builders who pooled in money for the cause. Then there was this baker, who blends batter in public, but mixes mortar in private. Then there was a clown, who prefers donning a suit to parades and a diarrhea prone ex-bureaucrat among others.
Being a public figure, the ruler of Goaput did not pitch in any money. It would be too obvious he thought. What would the people think, if they came to know of his association with a courtesan? Instead he informed the client brotherhood that he would throw in a few ads soliciting financial aid to the courtesan. The courtesan was thrilled. She had money enough to last a while now. So she stopped soliciting other customers for a while. In fact so secure was she, that she even stopped soliciting the Church. i.e. until the Church itself ended up at her door.
Note:
1) The story hasn't ended yet... it continues to unfold. You guys follow newspapers right?
2) UMRAO JAAN

HERALD GENERAL MANAGER MANJUNATH ACCUSED OF SEXUALLY HARASSING A WOMAN EMPLOYEE AT WORK

2008-08-09T18:12:00.007+05:30

Something disturbing has come up guys.
A woman employee at the Herald Cable Network (HCN), Panjim has filed a sexual harassment complaint against Herald general manager N Manjunath.
This is not the first instance, when a high-ranking Herald employee has been charged with sexual harassment. We had mentioned a case in an earlier PP post, but had stopped short of taking names because we didn’t have any evidence to substantiate our claims.
This time round, we have seen a copy of the complaint written by the victim, which has been submitted to the Herald. The copy has been marked to Herald MD Raul Fernandes, HCN Editor Nisser Dias and the National Commission for Women.
We are withholding the name of the complainant, but if any media organisation wishes to pursue the story, a copy of the complaint can be picked up from the NCW office.
The guy who’s grinning in the photograph above is N Manjunath, who’s been accused of sexual harassment at the workplace in the complaint.
Manjunath has been general manager at the Herald Publications Pvt Ltd for some years now. That virtually puts him charge of the daily operations of Goa’s second ‘largest circulated English daily’ and the Herald Cable Network.
Before his latest claim to glory as an alleged sexual aggressor, Manjunath has another claim to fame -- other than several of those, which involve him pandering to managing director Raul Fernandes’ Mohammad bin Tughlaq like whims.
Manjunath, along with MD’s personal assistant Michael were responsible for the elaborate OPERATION COAX AND BULL.
This was the dramatic exercise, which was launched by the Herald management to stop the exodus of Herald journos into the Times of India. The extent of the zeal with which Manjunath carried out this job can be judged from a text message he sent to a former Herald journo, who was Christian by faith.
While imploring his target not to quit the Herald, this is an excerpt from the evangelist-cum-marketing pitch Manjunath made to the journo. 'Dear ……. Herald is your paper. ‘Herald is a newspaper of the Christians, for the Christians, by the Christians’, so why are you quitting it for some other paper?
Abe Lincoln, roll not in your grave.
Coming back to this case… First of all Penpricks commends the victim for the rare nerve she has shown in bringing this issue out into the open. We hope that at least some of her colleagues will stand by her, in these difficult times.
The victim (we’ll call her X) who has simultaneously submitted her resignation, along with her complaint was employed as a production assistant at HCN since February 2008. After a few months she was suddenly transferred to the reception desk.
Inexplicable… how can a person hired for TV production duties be shifted to the reception? But stranger things have happened in the Herald…
The transfer order was issued in June 2008, by the Human Resource department under orders from Michael Pereira, the complaint states. She was told that the arrangement would exist only for 3 to 4 days, but carried on till day she put in her papers.
But there appears to be a design behind her transfer to the reception, because the reception desk is from where the sexual harassment trail starts.
The letter claims that soon after the transfer, the general manager Manjunath allegedly started making passes at her. He would make X leave her desk and sit in his cabin, from where she was made to line up all the calls.
“This led to him coming on to me, whenever Mr Michael was not present in the office. During the last few days I had a very bad feeling since Mr Manjunath started asking if the doors were locked whenever he summoned to his office,” the complaint states.
X claims that Manjunath then started insisting that he pick her up and drop her home to and from work.
But it was Manjunath alleged recent actions, which proved to be the proverbial last straw. “He started taking advantage of me by touching my face, caressing my hand and head, whenever I focused on something. I told him a couple of times to keep his hands off me and that I do not like being touched, but he persisted,” X claims in her complaint.
Something needs to be done about this guys.
The allegations made by the victim need to be probed. We are not saying ‘lynch Manjunath’ right away. But this issue needs an honest looking-into, because a similar incident involving a senior editorial staffer in the HCN was hushed up by the management.
Raul needs waking up guys… And it’s you guys who can do it. Do not rely on Herald staffers to do it.
Perhaps if the earlier sexual harassment instance had been adequately handled by the Herald management or even the journo community at large, a repeat could have been avoided.
Please call up Raul on this phone number and tell him to initiate an impartial enquiry into the incident. Please call him even if you don’t know him. Let him know that such incidents should not be hushed up.
There are times when Raul acts like a deaf bull in a hearing-aid store.
So guys please call him. Keep calling him whether you are in Goa or not... until he initiates and takes this complaint to its logical conclusion.
There are a few more numbers we are leaving behind here.
You guys could also call up Herald Editor Ashwin Tombat on his direct line and ask him to ensure a fair and impartial enquiry into the affair. Or you could call up the National Commission for Women and ask them to take the case seriously.
If any of you guys have Dr Pramod Salgaokar’s mobile number, we would appreciate if you could pass it on to us, so that we could pin it up on the blog.

Raul Fernandes, Herald managing director -- 9822100188
Ashwin Tombat, Editor Herald -- 0832-2433373 (direct line)
Dr Pramod Salgaonkar state president National Commission for women -- 0832-2421080(O) 0832-2257736(R)

COMING UP SOON... SEXUAL HARASSMENT AT THE HERALD

2008-08-09T00:48:00.008+05:30

OH... BY THE WAY GUYS... DO YOU KNOW THIS GRINNING GRINGO?

देखना है ज़ोर कितना बाजु-ऐ-कातिल में है... CRIMINAL ACTION AGAINST PENPRICKS? EXCHANGES ON GOA JOURNO

2008-07-22T10:19:00.009+05:30

THE GOA EDITORS GUIL'T'
A bunch of farts, locally known as the Goa Editor's Guild, a body of editors representing Goan newspapers with a combined daily circulation of about a lakh and more, sat down for dinner, drinks at the Panjim Marriot and also to discuss ways to shut down http://penpricks.blogspot.com/.
Looks like Nazi-Gate has really, really hurt these fellas.
Penpricks is incidentally read by say about only 500 readers everyday (this, on days when there's no piano-carrying Johann Bach, or a cash-for-editorials scam or a post about editors offering massage services or one of our penpricks investigative story on blog).
One of the means put forth (and later discussed) by The Navhind Times Editor Arun Sinha was to file a complaint with the DGP Goa Police against penpricks so that 'the tirade against the journalist community is halted' [sic])
We think they should do it. We really think they should.
Look, the reasonings simple.
In 2005, the same Arun Sinha was booked for allegedly molesting his minor maid who he had 'brought' over from his native village in Bihar. After a complaint was lodged, Arun Sinha went underground for a while and the maid 'went' back to Bihar.
Then suddenly these anonymous letters found their way to the mailboxes of several journos. The sleazy anonymous mails claimed how activists -- who had to fight the system and the might of the Dempo's to file the molestation complaint, were imoptent. The series of mails described the women journalists who reported the incident as 'sexually frustrated' and had a lot of lurid details slipped in.
Three years down the line, the criminal case continues. By the looks of it, the case will continue for some time. And Arun Sinha continues to be the editor of The Navhind Times.
Dont see much of a harm there.
But Sinha sahab, first of all, we are not going to go run away from law. And Arun, we wont go into hiding like you did while on the dodge, once the molestation FIR was filed against you. FYI we are also not going to indulge in the sleazy mail routine too. Rest assured.
Go ahead file your complaint. If the Goa Police needs us to, then the pricks will come out of the closet (corny as that may sound). We'll identify ourselves.
Go ahead Arun...
Just do it man...

P.S. And dear editors, we need a small clarification. I know this is a trifle irritating, but thats a part of our brief. Who footed the liqour bill for this Goa Editor's Guild meeting at the Marriot? Did the Department of Information and Publicity pay up? Did the exchequer pay for your booze bills? Since the DI Director Nikhil Desai was present, we are inclined to believe that. It would be great if you guys could clarify this.

(Excerpts from the notoriously yellow weekly Goan Observer posted on the goa journo mailing list)
AGITATION, IRRITATION
AND a few stray observations on the agitation and irritation and fury and rage of The Navhind Times editor, Arun Sinha, with the anonymous journalists who run the blog called Penpricks. Indeed, the principal item on the agenda for the meeting of the Editors' Guild convened by Arun Sinha last Friday was the Penpricks blog. Not just Arun Sinha, but editors of all newspapers in Goa are sore about being taken for a ride by Penpricks.
The blog, which is run by a group of disgruntled journalists, most of whom being former employees of Herald, issued a fabricated press note claiming that a notorious Nazi war criminal had taken sanctuary in Goa, who had then been arrested just across the Goa border in Karnataka.
The blog claimed that the Nazi had exposed his cover when he had sought to sell an expensive organ to some private party. The scam was planned meticulously with a neo-Nazi type symbol morphed into the letterhead, claimed to be issued by some German organization.
None of the local papers, or for that matter many of the national papers, bothered to check out the story with either the German embassy or the Karnataka and Goa Police, and carried it, some of them very prominently.
The editors were left red-faced when the blog Penpricks revealed that the whole story was a scam which it had fabricated to expose the incompetence of editors and senior editorial staff. The Nazi scam came on top of a succession of exposes; many of which were close to the truth over the working of the media in Goa.
In the past, the Penpricks blog had conducted a sting operation exposing how the former editor of the Herald, Robin Abreu, had expressed his willingness to sell not just editorial space but the Holy of Holies, the editorial itself to an advertiser. It also had partly established that the former editor of Herald, Robin Abreu, was in the habit of plagarizing from editorials from other newspapers.
RAJAN DEAD
Penpricks has been quite unfairly fair or fairly unfair in targetting all editors and publications though, relatively speaking.
The Navhind Times and Herald have been its principal targets. The Goan Observer has, of course, been one of the favourite whipping boys of Penpricks. To the extent of not only accusing me of being a yellow journalist but even declaring me dead. IN fact, some who saw only the heading declaring me dead and did not read further, really thought I was dead or at least seriously ill. I received several calls from close friends and several friends kept calling each other to find out if I was seriously ill and had been admitted to hospital.
Arun Sinha raved and ranted and was insistent that the Editors' Guild should file a criminal complaint against the Penpricks blog to the Director General of Police. I was present there entirely by accident, or maybe because Arun Sinha thought that as a victim of Penpricks I would endorse his campaign of vendetta against them.
I have nothing against the comments that the Penpricks blog makes, including the comments they keep making about me. I think they are revealing, sometimes a little irritating and very often hilarious. I must admit that they have tended to be very personal and malicious at times.
But unlike Arun Sinha, I have no objection whatsoever to media blogs that are critical of people in the media. But I do believe that those who wish to criticize others should have the courage to identify themselves. I believe that the cloak of anonymity with which they surround themselves is despicable. Those who run the Penpricks are behaving like whores -- a community who it has been famously said exercise power without responsibility. I fault the Penpricks for their cowardice and not for their comments, which in any case I treat with contempt.

(Comments on Goa journo)
>OF COLD FEET AND FROST BYTES: THE STORY OF THE GT INTERVIEW THAT WASN'T
>PUBLISHED
With the Editor's guild going after penpricks, it is just a matter of time before penpricks will be nailed.
Penprick's IP address can be easily revelead by the ISP. If authorities subponea the ISP, they are bound to reveal penprick's ISP.
The only way out for penpricks is to use a proxy to do whatever he does, and that too he should use a proxy which is hosted and belongs to a company which is in a country where the privacy laws are much stronger than in India.
regards,
Samir
(samir_kelekar@yahoo.com)
--
Samirbab,
Are you talking about Editors' Guidl at national level? Is there any registered body clled Goa editors' Guild? will anybody let us know?-
prakash
(prakashkamatgoa@gmail.com)
--
Dears,
Anonymity of the Newsdesk, Bureau or Wire Services is something journos use as a cover up their tracks from non-Journos. Penpricks is something that is getting back at the Journos and Editors with their own anonymity..... and they like it not!
The Nazi joke of Johann Bach revealed to what extent newspaper Editors [not just in Goa] are willing to do "Additions" to their "Editions" by way of "Sources" in the police, embassy or on the ground ...and how little they know about music, anagrams and honesty!
I have written to newspapers to expose the blatant lies they pass off as news in their pages, sometimes with malicious intent, sometimes out of ignorance ....... but often with lack of integrity. A case in point is a simple thing as the ACTUAL DATE on which Scarlet Keelings SECOND autopsy was done ....or since when the FERNANDINA mangoes are supposed to be EXTINCT. There have been no apologies or Corrigendum published to date that I know of ... and no acknowledgement of my emails, bearing my name, phone number and from my personal email ID.
So what are the newspaper Editors really worried about: the TRUTH that they have been shown to be supporting LIES being published as NEWS in their editions?
While I do not subscribe to anonymity, I cannot but salute Penpricks on their exposure!!
Mog asundi.
Miguel
(miguelbraganza@yahoo.co.in)
--
Can someone post this on goajourno also.
The point is what are the privacy laws in India. Today, ISPs routinely give IP addresses of people when police ask for them. I am not sure even if police follow any rules in what IP addresses to ask. Perhaps, an FIR is good enough.
Although I agree with Miguel about the good work of exposing media done by penpricks, the point is whether he has been violating any laws or not.
regards,
Samir
(samir_kelekar@yahoo.com)

OF COLD FEET AND FROST BYTES: THE STORY OF THE GT INTERVIEW THAT WASN'T PUBLISHED

2008-07-19T15:03:00.008+05:30

Hi guys... the silence of the Goan media on Nazi-gate really does not shock us. These guys have always behaved like ostriches, who are only keen on hiding both, their eggs and their balls (for those who have an issue with the word 'balls', you could interpret it as a set of dummy eggs). So we were pleasantly surprised when GT features contacted us for an email interview. This was way back on July 4, when GT correspondent Arti Das wrote to us...

Hi Mr Penpricks (I got to know your gender through Orkut! J),
First of all, let me introduce myself to you. I am Arti Das, a reporter with Gomantak Times.
I'm writing regarding the latest sting that is making waves -- wherein you took the media fraternity for a merry ride by creating aheadline-grabbing fake news item about the arrest of an 88-year-old Johann Bach an absconding high-ranking Waffen SS (Schutzstaffel)colonel in the Germany's former Nazi party in the Khanapur jungle of Karnataka.
There are some questions, which have cropped up in all our minds and I would like to ask you some questions in connection with the same. Hoping that you will be kind enough to answer my queries, which are as follows:

She sent us a set of 14 questions, which we responded to on July 6. When there was no sign of the interview till July 14, we asked her whether Gomantak Times was carrying the interview at all... On July 15 GT wrote back to us saying they would publish the interview ASAP and sent us two additional questions (the ones right at the bottom). On July 18 we got Arti again on the chat. This is the conversation that transpired...

me: ma'am sorry to badger you like this, but any sign of the interview date?
arati05: not yet
2:28 PM
me: then ma'am i suggest you drop it
arati05: why??????????????
me: no issues two weeks after an event makes for no news
arati05: hmm ok will c
me: and I will run it on the blog
2:29 PM
arati05: when?
me: tomorrow maybe
2:30 PM
arati05: wait i will let u know dont put it on blog
me: gimme a time then
arati05: i cant tell u until my editor tells me when to take
2:31 PM
me: ok cool
arati05: c i am just a reporter
me: sure then its my request pls withdraw it i am running it on the blog tks
arati05: why u want to put it on the blog?
2:32 PM
me: cause its taking too long doesnt make sense
arati05: ok will ask my editor
2:33 PM
me: sure unless i get something concrete I am posting it on d blog tomorrow ma'am thanks again
arati05: ok
2:34 PM
me: see ya
arati05: please wait 4 my confirmation please, before putting it me: will wait till tomorow morn
2:35 PM
arati05: ok will let u know by today eveningh
me: sure
arati05: ok then
me: bye
arati05: bye

Now we have absolutely no idea, what has gone wrong... Suddenly GT appears to have developed cold feet... We have no cure for that. But we have this interview which you guys could read up. We waited as promised till the morning of July 19 and there has been no response from GT yet. Why no one knows. If you guys bump into someone from GT, pls do ask em...

1) What was the purpose behind a fake story of this sort?
1) Fake story? We only followed the 'to catch a thief, set a thief' principle. Very often the media (region, medium, language, irrespective) converts gossip, slag, unconfirmed and unverified reports into gospel. We wanted to bring this to the fore. And what better way to do it, than by paying them back in the language they understand best. The purpose of this story was to establish it as a fact that a large section of the media in Goa and India does not bother verify news that is packaged in an attractive, neatly written manner. There are no fact-checking mechanisms in place. Neither in newsrooms in Goa, nor in most media houses across the country.
2) Why did you think of this particular topic? Is it because it is a rather vague topic and most of us are totally clueless about it?
2) Arti, you call Jew genocide-WWII-Nuremberg trials- a vague topic. Then we regretfully say it reflects badly on you. A journalist is expected to know these things. If he/she doesn't, they are expected to ask, verify. Almost every newspaper office has an internet connection now? How far are you from information nowadays? And about the cluelessness bit, whatever happened to the WWW&H principle. That's the ABCD of journalism.
3) Were you expecting this sort of response? Are you surprised by the manner in which the national media covered it?
3) We expected the national media to cover it. They are only as dumb or as smart as the media in Goa. Perhaps they are only a bit more bloated. But what we were surprised by the amazing response which the story received, once we made it known that it was a hoax. We are also not surprised by the fact that not too many newspapers have apologised for feeding their readers unverified news.
4) Is this one incident enough to prove the 'credibility' of the press?
4) We do not know about the credibility bit. But yes, this one incident is enough to prove how 'in'credible our press actually is. (Not a joke)
5) Do you think this 'blind coverage' is the outcome of the cutthroat competition among newspapers in Goa?
5) Come on girl, don't blame it on competition alone. Ignorance or 'cluelessness ' (as you put it) is a major factor. Journalists in Goa simply do not read anything other than newspapers. This refusal to verify information, also stems from a kind of pomposity which journalists today are suffering from. Also like we said earlier, there is no stress on fact-checking in our news-producing systems.
6) Do you think that this competition is killing real journalism, which is dying a slow death?
6) You got it wrong here. Journalism is dead. It's as dead as a haunch of fresh mutton you see on a butchers hook. But there are still a few muscles trembling now and then. Most journalism now is glorified 'churnalism', a blog rightly puts it. But those small media outfits, individuals, who are still slugging it out some against all odds, deserve a pat.
7) What is your frank opinion about the local media and the national media as a whole?
7) I think the last answer should cover the national media as a whole. But the woes of the Goan media stem from the fact there are not too many pioneers in the profession you can look up to. These so-called pioneers were all beautiful people, with beautiful faces, fancy names, long side-locks, twirling moustaches, melodious speech, with a string of awards stacked in their cabinets. But they were mostly bad journalists who wore pants which had unusually bulging pockets, must have been the style of the times. While speaking about Sonia Gandhi, when Churchill Alemao once made that 'pallbearer of democracy' faux pas, he may have actually thinking about the state of journalism in the Goa.
8) Why now? Did you plan to do it at this point in time, or was there no particular reason for the choice of timing?
8) We'd felt the outrage after reading/watching the media's posthumus rape of Aarushi Talwar and Scarlett Keeling in the manner they covered the two stories. The coverage was spurious. We only waited till the outrage really welled up, I guess.
9) How long did it take you to whip up this joke of a news item?
9) Precisely 25 hours.
10) Did you have any apprehensions while planning this prank?
10) We were a bit nervous, but that's alright, isn't it?
11) Obviously you were trying to prove a point. Do you feel there is a solution to the problem? If so what is it?
11) Read. Stop hiring dumb stenographers as journalists. Get fact-checking systems in place. And do not lie to your readers.
12) Why do you feel the media has reached the current state?
12) It's a very, very long story. And its question number 12. A bit too late in the day.
13) Have you done something like this before?
13) You must read the blog more often then. There were several stories that we've broken on the blog, which includes a Cash-for-Editorials scam in the Herald, a Goan English Daily. We debunked (with documents) a CNN-IBN special investigative story on the Russian 'invasion' of Goa. One of the other more entertaining, but necessary story was one posted on National Press Day. It's called 'How to take a Goan Editor to bed'. That was widely read too.
14) What are your plans for the future? Any more pranks that we should watch out for?
14) If the story works out, perhaps next month we'll break another big story. It's likely to expose a rather suave editor. We are investigating the story right now, so we would not like to disclose more. But trust me, it's not a prank.
(second batch of questions)
1) Why Penpricks chose to be anonymous? Is there any specific reason?
1) There is a specific reason. We have acid scars on our faces... Come on.. thats a dumb question. The media here cannot stand scrutiny. If they know who it is, that's picking these holes, they'd blast a bazooka through our bellies.
2) Don't you think that by being anonymous you are portraying a picture of power without accountability?
2) Just because newspapers carry a printline, does it make them accountable? How many newspapers have apologised to their readers for feeding them the fake Nazi story, without any verification? As far as we know only the Herald has published a clarification on this issue. Has the Gomantak Times apologised yet? So where is the accountability on your end?

SOME COMMENTS ON NAZI-GATE

2008-07-19T14:27:00.005+05:30

Hi... Here's a few links for some blogs and media sites which have critiqued Nazi-gate. You guys could run through some of these links if you wish to... The post after this one in all likelihood would be the last post on Nazi-gate, unless there's some significant development on that front... What would qualify as significant... Hmmm say if Telegraph files a story tomorrow claiming that one of its journos have actually trapped Johan Bach somewhere in the Sunderbans...
Until something else turns up guys, its back to the grind...

Indian media fall prey to Nazi war criminal hoax -- International Business Times
Baroque Nazi war criminal hoax — an update -- Reuters
Cutting Edge Lazy Journalism -- Tehelka
Asian (con)Fusion: Nazi war criminal found in Goa. Really? -- Independent
Goa: The 'Super Prank' story that wasn't -- NDTV
Stories that are too good to check -- Hindu
For Indian journos, April 1 comes 9 months early -- sans serif
गोव्यात नाज्ही-गेट व वृत्त पत्रांचे वस्त्रहरण -- Batmidar
With ‘Nazi news’, blog played super prank on media -- Thaindian
Goa Nazi hoax -- Indiamike
Indian media fall foul of Nazi war criminal hoax -- DPA
Bach’s piano & other stories -- Noosemedia
Stupid! -- presstalk

SANJAY DHAVALIKAR'S 'SWORD'PLAY: WHEN A MESSENGER STABS A MESSENGER...

2008-07-12T17:29:00.011+05:30

It all tumbled out in Nazi-Gate, you saw that... right guys?
But we’ve reserved the best for the last.
You know there are times when newspapers ‘sex’ up news, but there are other rare occasions when editors, reporters, news editors all gang up and literally ‘sodomise’ news.

Hey, while sodomy per se qualifies for punishment in the Indian Penal Code, 'sodomizing news' does not attract any penalty.
The case in point is Dainik Gomantak editor Sanjay Dhavalikar’s treatment of the Nazi-Gate story.
Since you guys are aware of the Nazi-gate story, instead of going from head to toe, we’ll just run it through ass-up.
The day after the story broke, Gomantak ran a report, which was nothing but a bunch of lies. The report was credited to the staff reporter in the dateline.

And the story quoted sources. Repeat, the story quoted sources.

It informed the reader that ‘sources’ had informed Gomantak about Johann Bach’s hideout in Calangute. Now they did not need sources to inform them about this. Two reasons.

Reason 1: The whole goddamn incident was fake.

Reason 2: It was already mentioned in the press note.

But then what does the reader know. The story went on again about this source (you guys can read it yourself, check out the small scanned strip) who apparently told them that the identity of a fictitious ‘Bach’ (who does not goddamn exist) was being verified till late in the night. The ‘source’ also told Gomantak that ‘Bach’ was being interrogated all day. Phew. Lies. Lies. More Lies.
Now all this could have been featured in the prick award posts which have preceeded this one.

Why we wanted this post as a separate whammy was this article written by Dainik Gomantak editor Sanjay Dhavalikar. Don’t be so surprised fellas, in between all the photo-shoots that he and Unit manager Subhash Naik collectively pose for (If one does a headcount Sanjay and Subhash combined could beat the tally of photos of say the Paris Hilton and Britney Spears duo when it comes to their photos published in their own newspapers. And know what the raunch ratio of Paris's cleavage and Britney's butt, is far lesser than Sanjay's grin and Subhash's Sadhna-cut kinda hairdo) the former does write some.
In his article in the newspaper’s Sunday supplement Shabdsohla Sanjay hints that NAZI-GATE should be brought within the ambit of the IT law. Sanjay also claims that we pricks have committed illegal acts in 'forging' docyments and 'signatures' in executing this story. Thats fine with us guys. Thats really fine. After all its Sanjay and his team who've kissed rat's ass... Once you've done that, you're bound to have an opinion.

It was on the basis of the Dainik Gomantak's confirmation of the story, that the mother edition Pune Sakaal carried an eight column story on the poor-ole nobody 'Johann Bach'.

Our argument is this.

How can this guy call us 'forgers' when his newspaper fabircated photographs during the Margao fiasco some days ago. While the real swords were seized and sealed by the cops, Gomantak carried a fabricated photo which had drama prop swords right on the front page, instead of the real ones.

This is a grave grave issue.

Pics like these could have inflamed passions in Margao and other areas. An already on-the-edge populace could have tripped into violence after seeing these fabricated 'sword' photos on the front page of Gomantak.

Has Sanjay penalised the photographer who sent these pictures/ What action has he taken? Should the cops book Gomantak for incensing passion? Has Sanjay apologised to his readers for this very very grave misdemeaour? Why is he quiet on this one?

Has Sanjay apologised to his readers about feeding them a fake Johann bach story?

Sure he has talked on length about how journalists face deadlines, about how journalists are pressed for time. But that is no excuse for making mistakes on two successive days. And literally fibbing to its readers that the information was provided by 'sources', who probably are as fictitious as our Johann Bach.

But Sanjay, we must say does at great job pointing fingers. But what he must try and do now, is hold it stiff and shove it in. (first draft)

... कहीं ऐसा न हो यां भी वही काफिर सनम निकले*

2008-07-12T16:56:00.002+05:30

Oh my my.... After a long long spell we get you a Joseph Deva special. This was a lead story on the Herald about the Sanguem double murder, where the husband suspecting infidelity had murdered his wife and ended up killing his sister in law's hubby by accident, before killing himself.
While the newspapers as a whole covered this tragic story poorly, Joseph did try to inject some excitement into the coverage. Now Joseph is a very devout Christian. And we really did expect him to know the difference between both 'infidel' and 'infidelity'. While infidel means a non believer (now how do we explain this... Hmm let me try and put this in a way guys at the Herald would understand. See, you guys work in the Herald right. How many times has the owner Raul Fernandes promised you guys things like an air conditioner, good infra structure, a bonus etc etc etc and not delivered. Arent you guys all non-believers in Raul now right), infidelity would mean lack of faith towards a partner.
We trust Joseph will peer into his dictionary now.
We know it.
We have faith in him...
That would make us 'fidels' na? hehehe

* Just in case

NAZI-GATE -- THE GOAN JOURNO PRICKS

2008-07-08T17:44:00.004+05:30

Herald -- The Humble Pricks
3 pricks out of 10
It was Herald which caught the bait hoot, line and s't'inker. They put this story on the front page, with a nice read duo-decked header and they put old gramps Bach pic on it… Was he grinning... hehe
And we were kicked.
That’s the paper we subscribe to at home.
But one thing you’ve got to give these guys. These guys did not stray out of line. They behaved as admirably as a conservative Laxmibai Rudranath Tokre would when faced with an opportunity for promiscuity.
But frankly we did not really expect them to run the story.
Reason… Editor Ashwin Tombat.
Now, although Ashwin has authored a book on the nuances of menstrual cycles, we do consider him somewhat well read… We thought he’d know something about the country which birthed Communist icons Marx and Engels in the first place. We really, really thought he’d find something amiss with the story…
But he did not.
But what we can share with you guys, is this funny email conversation we shared with Ashwin on this issue. We begin with the first response sent to the perus.narkp@berlin.com by Ashwin after he published the story…

Dear Mr Smit,
We have carried the item in our newspaper today.
Pl see: http://oheraldo.in/pagedetails.asp?nid=6200&cid=2
Tombat
Editor

To which we responded
Dear Sir
Thank you for your prominent coverage.
It was well reported. I wish to inform you however, that the press conference may be delayed by a few days due to visa issues for the German press team. The date is more likely to be Wednesday/Thursday. Hope to see you there.
The accused may also be paraded before the press teams from Goa, India.
regards
Smit

Then came this reply… Ashwin by this time was perhaps a touch edgy. Can you feel it in this mail?

Dear Smit,
I look forward to seeing you. Are you likely to be in Goa soon? Where can I contact you? Ashwin

By this time, we were just about to put a teaser on the blog. So we thought why not let Ashwin know that this was a hoax, so we sent him a one line mail saying, if he wants to get in ‘touch’ he should write to penpricks@gmail.com
Poor chap… this must have been the second time in history that Ze Germans let the Communists down.
Hey BTW, they are also the only chaps to have categorically told their readers that the story they carried was prank.

Gomantak Times – The Page 2 pricks
3 pricks out of 10
We are confounded. Look, we don’t like this 'shades of gray' business. We love things in black or white. Either these guys should have carried the story on Page 1 or they should not have carried it at all.
They insulted our artistry by carrying this masterpiece on page 2. Whatever happened to the acute artistry of the editor Derek or the wizened dexterity of Ashley. They must have been back from a rather late lunch break at Ritz around 7 pm, were they. Just about the time when the stories are readied.
But what we really missed was a Thapa touch to this story. We can actually fantasize the header he would have chiseled out for this one… hmmm ‘BACH TO SQUARE ONE’ or ‘SAB 'BACH'WAS’… 'BACH' KE REHNA' and so on.
We aren’t so good at this. But this story in Thapa’s hands would have really made our day. Instead the story got carried on page two with the requisite ‘says a press note’ tags, appropriately slipped in and credited to the GT NEWS ROOM.

GOA DOOT – THE DYSFUNCTIONAL PRICKS
8 pricks out of 10
These pricks rose late, but what a whammy they carried. Trust Parrikar’s paper to go hammer and tongs on such an issue. If a fake naxal issue can cause Parrikar a few dozen hemorrhages, then this was a full fledged Nazi. The story filed by these guys had all the requisites of a fraud. The usual intelligence inputs, sources bullshit.

PUDHARI, SUNAPARANT, NAVHIND TIMES, TARUN BHARAT
Guys, you must credit these fellas for not falling for this hoax. But we would still think twice before attributing this to rigor, chances are it must have been their lucky day.

NOTE: We are putting this small note out. We have reserved a special post for Dainik Gomantak on this issue. They way they have reacted to this story is really really disgusting. Now what we are going to do is whip these guys into shape in the next post.
Do look out for it.
Watch how we tear apart their story and Editor Sanjay Dhavalikar’s article published on Sunday on this issue sinew by sinew. Consistently Dainik Gomantak has been behaving quite like the Taliban in this liberal age.
Its time we tie them to their own stakes and…

NAZI-GATE -- HONOURING THE REAL PRICKS IN THE MEDIA -- PART 2

2008-07-08T17:32:00.004+05:30

INDIAN EXPRESS – A PRICK CALLED COURAGE
2 pricks out of 10
If there was ever a police officer who had to eat crow in Nazi-gate it was the additional Director General of Police (Intelligence) Karnataka Police Shankar Bidari. The Indian Express claims that it confirmed the story because of the nod given by Bidari.
It may have been unintentional, but this story has also amply proved how inept our intelligence agencies really are.
These are the same guys, which are responsible for tackling anti-social elements, which are far more roguish than ant 88-year-old SS colonel. These are the same guys on whose intelligence inputs the security of a state or a nation hinges. All these cops were doing in this case was regurgitate media reports.
When IE contacted Bidari again, the bloody chap had the gall to blame his field agents and dismissed queries about his ineptitude. “It was an oral report that we received. The case did not happen within Karnataka’s jurisdiction, so we did not follow it. Lots of things happen on the Internet and we cannot authenticate everything,” Bidari said.
Even if we accept that Bidari merely rephrased the press note for IE’S T A Johnson. Bidari literally invented stuff like the Berlin airlift. Since he has spoken to the media about this, we can safely presume that Bidari also lied to his superiors about this. That’s serious business guys. There ought to be a departmental enquiry against the fella.
The IE did try guys… They tried calling more people than all the other papers put together…

REDIFF.COM -- THE SLICK PRICK AWARD
9 pricks out of 10
Rediff.com’s Vicky Nanjappa has a great career in fiction before him. We, Penpricks are largely indebted to both Vicky and Anil Lulla of Telegraph for taking our humble Nazi-Gate story to a completely new imaginative level.
These guys have more of Leon Uris than Bob Woodward in them.
Vicky’s ‘Intelligence Bureau’ sources apparently told him that the fictitious Bach was flown to Berlin and that the latter was ‘tracked by Israeli agencies involved in finding war criminals’. He did not quote anyone.
Hmm… did the Perus Narkp press note state this? NO…
Vicky also lies when he says that ‘German Intelligence’ claims that ‘Bach’ was tracked down ‘after he had placed an advertisement in the local newspaper regarding the sale of an antique piano.’
Did the Perus Narkp press note state this? NO...
Vicky’s lies continue as the story goes on.
Vicky now claims that even the Interpol had sounded an alert against Bach and that the German Intelligence had Bach on their most wanted list?
Where did Vicky source all this information from? How did Vicky confirm the Interpol alert? He simply lied. Lied to his bosses. Lied to the readers of rediff.com

NAZI-GATE -- HONOURING THE REAL PRICKS IN THE MEDIA

2008-07-03T21:54:00.005+05:30

Hi guys, we thank all of you for dropping by and taking time to comment...
We've been running this blog as an underground forum for critiquing the media in Goa for more than a year now. Your comments will keep the fire going...
Starting now, we're running the first of the three part series on how the media manipulates news. How the media houses manipulated the information we had furnished in the Perus Narkp pressnote we provided, to pass it off as their own, attributing it to 'sources'.
This is a malaise in most investigations conducted by the media. While in a lot of cases hiding a source is necessary, this licence is often abused by the media to peddle spurious reports.
If you guys can, just think back, re-read/watch the media coverage of the Scarlett Keeling or Arushi murder over the last few weeks. Analyse what the media has said in the light of 'Nazi-gate'... Think back how the media regularly covers these police encounters stories or those 'terrorists apprehended on the eve of independence or republic day' stories. We've been there guys.
It never happens like the cops tell it.
Siddharth Vardharajan rightly calls it poppy cock. Over the next three parts we have decided to dish our pricks awards to the media houses which fell for this Johann Bach con. The harder they bit, the more prick points they get... So, here goes fellas...

DECCAN HERALD -- THE-HONEST-BUT-DUMB PRICK AWARD
3 pricks out of 10
To their credit, the Deccan Herald stuck to the press note. It did not deviate from the ‘facts’ mentioned in it. Looks like they approached this story the old school way... The kind of way journalism that used to be done in the times when the internet was non existent and phones were a luxury. There was no effort on part of the DH to even contact the local authorities to verify the details mentioned in the press note. This, inspite of the fact that DH is a paper headquartered in Karnataka, the state where ‘Bach’ was apprehended according to our Perus Narkp press note. The distance between Khanapur and Bangalore is not much. And yet no efforts were made by them to check up facts on this story. The newspaper is a household name in Karnataka did real bad no that front.

CALCUTTA TELEGRAPH – THE COCKY, RIBBED, CROOKED PRICK AWARD
9 pricks out of 10
The Calcutta Telegraph appeared to go schizophrenic once we made the prank public. The newspaper almost bungee-jumped into the story with a striking graphic charting Bach’s journey across the globe, before he landed in Goa. This is the newspaper, which has lied the most. They added such fibs to the already fake press note, its not funny. Allow us to present a few examples.
1) The press note we had sent, never did mention that Bach escaped from Bardez, Goa to Khanapur, Karnataka in a taxi. Telegraph made this up.
2) We never said that the German Chancellor’s Core (the damn thing does not exist) had contacted the Intelligence Bureau saying that it wanted to trace an Argentinian passport holder. Telegraph made up this fact too.
3) Our press note did not mention that Bach -- an old German, had told an Israeli tourist couple at a rave party to having liquidated Jews. Telegraph made up this fact too.
4) Telegraph also claims that Bach was arrested at Anmod ghat, a fact not mentioned in the note we had circulated.They created this fact.
5) The world map graphic mentioned nations like Canada, Argentina, Bulgaria and Yemen as some of the places which Bach traveled in after his escape from Berlin. That’s fine, cause that’s we said in our Perus Narkp press note. Now alongside Yemen, Telegraph guys have put in the word ‘unconfirmed’ in brackets, to convey the impression to the readers that ‘phew… man we’ve confirmed Bach’s presence in all other countries except, Yemen… hope you guys don’t mind his yet-to-be-confirmed Yemen’s stint. We tried, but could not ascertain it'.
The bloody liars. Telegraph has without a doubt fibbed its readers the most. These guys have actually attributed this story to sources, another blatant lie. How can these sources explain a sequence of events with such graphic details, when the event itself hasn’t happened?
This isn’t a news story fellas, this reads like a ‘lulla’by filed by Telegraph’s Anil Budur Lulla. Kya Lulla bhai, itna imagination hai to script writer bano yaar, journalist nahin.
We have another bone to pick with the Telegraph over its follow-up.
After promising to apologise to its readers, if they got the facts in the case wrong, the newspapers follow up is very misleading. The follow up is another pack of lies. In a hasty cover-up, Telegraph lies through its teeth when it says that the press note carries a group photo of Johann Bach with other young SS officers. Guys, you’ve seen the copy of the press note in the last post right?
You’ve seen the picture we’ve sent. The one with the old gramp…
So what pic are these guys talking about? Telegraph claims that it had received information from sources in the Intelligence Bureau about the Bach operation, before they filed the story? So where were the quotes? Where were the details? They have blamed the Intelligence guys for not providing them with the right information.
But what’s important is that these guys have not admitted that it was a mistake. They have not apolologised to their readers for furnishing them with rubbish to read. Instead what Telegraph has done is source a long barreled gun and fire it all the way from Calcutta from the shoulders of one R Auradkar (Inspector General, Northern Range) who says this. “Auradkar, however, said he would not like to dismiss the news stories as the result of a rumour or a prank, as suggested in certain blogspots.”
The dumbasses at Telegraph.
Although they’ve been caught with their pants down, all they seem to be doing is covering their rear, when it’s their exposed nuts and bolt that they should be worried out. To be noted guys... although the newspaper maintains a ‘could-be-hoax-maybe-true’ line, they have deleted the page, which carried the original story from their archives. What’s that police investigation dictum guys, ‘A criminal always returns to the crime scene’. Telegraph did just that and tried to wipe out their prints off the cookie jar.

DAILY TIMES KARACHI AND SRI LANKAN GUARDIAN – THE RAW PRICK AWARD
5 pricks out of 10
The two papers have carried this story on pretty identical lines and have attributed the information to 'sources'. In fact the writer Iftikhar Gilani has pre supposed that the German intelligence agencies had tied up with the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW). In the press note we had only stated that it was the Ministry of Home Affairs folks from the Government of India, who were on the case. Guess it’s quite likely, that a Pakistani newspaperman would shout ‘RAW’, even when he scoops up a spoonful of uncooked rajma-chawal from a food stall behind the Raisini Road Press Club of India office. Another fake detail, which the writer Gilani mentions in his story, is that the ‘Bach’ would be flown to Mumbai, before being taken to Germany. We never said, but seems like his sources did ;)

NEW INDIAN EXPRESS – THE MOST RI’DICK’ULOUS PRICK AWARD
7 pricks out of 10
The editorials staffers in this newspaper need a good thorough spanking. When their bluff was called by penpricks. These guys at the New Indian Express called us ‘mischief mongers’. But we’ve been called a lot of things, by a lot of people and institutions, we glad accept this brickbat, as a compliment to our expose. The NIE in its initial story claimed that after it received the information about ‘Bach’, it cross checked and verified the information from their sources. They also claim that us pricks had also sent the same press note to the authorities at the same time. We would like to clarify here that we had sent the press note only to journalists and media houses. There is no truth the comment made by NIE that we had also tipped off the cops about the ‘Bach’ capture. But heart of hearts, maybe NIE had wished we had done that. Now we have one question to ask the NIE chaps here. If these guys had taken to pains to verify and cross check facts. Why did they not quote anyone on this story. Not single guy has been quoted, who’s admitted to the incident. The only chappie they’ve quoted is Superintendent of Police Hemant Nimbalkar who categorically says, he does not know about any such incident. There are more questions to be asked about the NIE coverage? Where did they source the information about Bach being in the German government’s 'most wanted list'? Has this been said on the basis of an official document? Where is it? If some authority has told them this, then why haven’t they quoted the authority? What’s the need for being so secretive about a ‘most wanted list’? Aren’t such lists public information? India’s Central Bureau of Information has its most wanted list available online for all to see? So where did NIE source this information from? Tell us guys? Looks like its the NIE which is mischief mongering in this case… It is these guys who have virtually manufactured facts to suit their ends. Ok now for another loophole in the NIE story? How can these guys claim that ‘Bach’ announced his intentions to sell his piano through an AD? Its not in mentioned the press note? So where did this ad part come from? An ad in an English daily? Fertile boy… as fertile as the black soil of Khanapur. Another point to be made. These fibbers at NIE also claimed that their sources told them that Perus Narkp had passed on the Bach lead to the Interpol which in turn passed on the information to the MHA, government of India? Oh really? Sources again… NIE sources are like Frederick Forsythe, Colin Forbes, Leon Uris, Jack Higgins all rolled into one. Rich very, very rich imagination.

THE TIMES OF INDIA -- THE SOBER PRICK AWARD
2 pricks out of 10
Frankly we expected worse from Times of India. But looks like they came off pretty well. Initially they must have been shell-shocked when they realized that they missed the story. Thankfully there was an element of restraint in the way they reported the affair, quoting the release consistently. These guys also got Karnataka home minister on record, who claimed he did not know about the incident.

THE ASIAN AGE -- THE TWIN PRICK AWARD
5 and a half pricks out of 10
For The Asian Age, it took two bylines to churn out three paragraphs of pure fiction. And we have a problem with Messrs Bhaskar Hegde and Naushad Bijapur. Come on guys, you could have atleast credited our Perus Narkp press note. All these two chaps appear to have done is glean info from the press note and credit it to their sources in the intelligence... Damn you guys… Jis thali se khaoge usi mein chedd…. Apart from creating a chase drama, there’s another interesting element in the copy. Like the Calcutta Telegraph, The Asian Age too mentions that Bach was arrested at Anmod… Where the f…. does this Anmod come in from guys? Sure its on the way to Belgaum from Goa, but its not mentioned in the press note… Why are they obsessed with Anmod then?
(Coming up next, a close look at the coverage by Indian Express, rediff.com and other national media followed the stories which appeared in Goan newspapers)

NAZI-GATE: GUYS, IT’S TIME WE ‘KILLED’ JOHANN BACH

2008-07-01T15:15:00.008+05:30

WHEN THE MEDIA WENT ‘BACH’ING UP THE WRONG TREE
We begin with this post with a premise, so that some of those readers who have any seditionist, trans-nation conspiracy notions about this blog, shed these ideas before we move forward.

Nowadays the charge of sedition is as commonplace as a tavern on a Goan street.
As journalists, we are ashamed at the way the Indian media reported the two most sensational murders in recent times. These tragedies virtually grabbed the attention of Western and Northern regions of India. Its the murders of Scarlett Keeling at Anjuna, Goa and Arushi Talwar in NOIDA, near Delhi we are talking about.
While initially, the media did play a role in bringing police incompetency to the fore in these two cases, they completely went hell-for-leather subsequently.

The media behaved like this stallion, which ran for almost two weeks till it collapsed dead… Why? Cause it had overheard that the stud farm owner tell the stable boy, “the moment those nuts bounce back into the barn, snip em off.”
Sure no one wants to be a gelding… But is being called an ass, any better?
Every tidbit, every rumour, every sliver of gossip, unconfirmed stories reported by the TV media and the print media on the Arushi-Scarlett murder, were projected as if they telling the viewer the gospel truth.

Dodgy, fishy theories floated by the police were often lassoed and then branded by the media as their own ‘investigative’ work.
Bob Dylan would have probably explained the credibility crisis in the media with a verse like this…

No confirming facts
No editorial rigor
No editorial tact
Just point a gun, jerk the trigger

Not only were these salacious, mischievous make-belief morsels just reported, they were amplified, till your ears ran shrill and you felt like scalping a journo or two yourself.
Perfectly respectable broadsheets had turned into yellow dossiers of journalistic verbiage. The media became an unfortunate catalyst which converted gossip to gospel.
We, Penpricks, saw a story in this.

NAZI-GATE is our effort to highlight the glaring deficiencies in the media, in a language the media knows best... NAZI-GATE is an attempt by Penpricks to pay the media back in its own unworthy coin.

We believe, this expose says it all about present day journalism. An age where FANTASTIC has an edge over whatever’s REAL.
Ask the editors of Deccan Herald, Asian Age, Deccan Chronicle, Daily Times, Indian Express, Times of India, Telegraph (Calcutta), New Indian Express, Gomantak Times, Dainik Gomantak, Herald, Goa Doot… By now they should acknowledge it… and in case they should disagree just whisper Perus Narkp in their ears… These are just some of the guys who carried the story.
These are the guys who actually went about ‘Bach’ing up the wrong tree… ;)

So what the f… is PERUS NARKP
The Anagrams
PERUS NARKP: It’s an anagram for SUPER PRANK. Hartosh, Siddharth Vardharajan, Jonathan Allen, Rajesh Ramchandran, Krishna Prasad… you guys got this one right…
MARSHA TIKASH WAHNAAB: Its not Akshit, nor is it Bhawana Sharma… It’s scrambled for Shrama Shakti Bhawaan. It’s the name of the building complex in Panaji, Goa which houses the offices of the Goa Union of Journalists. Take our word on this, with Suhasini Prabhugaunkar as the union president, its no short of a concentration camp ;)
MALAK DULAB: Just one guy managed to crack this one… We’d said Malak Abdul heads the Perus Narkp, the intelligence wing of the German Chancellor’s Core. It’s scrambed for former president ABDUL KALAM. Since neither Perus Narkp nor German Chancellor's Core doesnt exist, the question of Malak Dulab's existence doesnt arise either.
EHT REA ENP CABK SKRIPC: That was a twirl of text fringing the Perus Narkp logo on the press note. We felt this should have been a give away, if there was any… But it fooled these ???? dumbkoffs ???? again for quite a while… Unscramble this and you get THE PEN PRICKS ARE BACK

HOW DID WE GO ABOUT IT
We love Bach… We simple love Bach's music.

And such is our faith in him that we knew he’d see us through this story.

Next we scanned the internet for a suitable photograph of an old gramp from somewhere o

ut side India with obvious European features. We found one pic that suited our purpose. And attached it with the pressnote… Sorry gramps, whoever you are, wherever you are.

Then we picked up a predictable looking German logo with an Eagle on it, using google images. And then used Micrsoft Word Art to adorn it with our logo.

The address on the press note is a slight variation of the official address of Berlin

police. We then used Yahoo Babel software to slip a few German words in, to make the press note sound official. The phone numbers mentioned do not lead to the Berlin police.

The signature we picked up from google images again.
Now the tricky part. The story.

The Goan media loves an easy feed. Give them an 800 word press note about a minister inaugurating a public toilet and chances are it should appear the next day, not a word changed. With the Indian media, we needed something idiotic and exotic.

The Bach story suited our bill.

In fabricating the story, we slipped in a lot of these anagrams PERUS NARKP, MALAK DULAB etc… (There’s nothing that conveys a message quicker and effectively than the fact

that you’ve been not only proven wrong, but stupid too)

Then a thought crossed our minds… Since we had included Bach in the story, why don’t we throw in a piano for good effect too? So we included a 18th century piano, the same century Bach was born in.

Then we turned the heat on a bit more.
We also stated in the press note that this fictitious SS Colonel Johann Bach too loved music and was a talented musician… And that our fictitious character was sired to Ambrosius Bach

in Eisenach. These were the real birth details of the 18th century Bach too. Check it up on wiki.

We mailed this press note to several newspaper houses in Goa. We called three newspapers too introducing ourselves as Hamman Smit, a press official working for the Perus Narkp. The thick German accent seemed to have passed muster. In fact Suhas Belekar who works for a Marathi publication in Goa, Dainik Gomantak appeared happy and grateful to have even spoken to a person of German origin on the other end of phone. Maybe its the Aryan thing...

Once the story was picked up by the local media, the national newspaper swooped in quite literally like vultures eager to pick prey.

The story seems to have really spread quickly over the weekend. That's fine, but we sincerely hope lessons have been learnt. Hope newspaper desks anywhere in India spend a bit more time fact-checking and running checks, before letting stories through. Sure mistakes can happen, but lets not manufacture facts, shall we guys like the way Deccan Herald, Telegraph or rediff.com have done.

Over the next few days, we'll run two other parts to this story. The first part will scrutinise how this story was covered by the national press. We'll also rank the newspapers by the quality of their fibbing on this story.

The slag they have added, the issues they have tweaked. The second will look at the role of the local Goan media in allowing NAZI-GATE to happen...

Till then...

Odog Culk (DAMN... thats good luck)

P.S. Here's a copy of the ATTN PRESS NOTE --...PERUS NARKP press note that started it all...

NAZI-GATE: HOW THE MEDIA TURNS A LEGENDARY GERMAN COMPOSER INTO A JEW-SLAYING NAZI VARMINT

2008-06-30T15:38:00.008+05:30

THE TRUTH BEHIND 'PERUS NARKP'
TOMORROW, http://www.penpricks.blogspot.com WILL UNVEIL ONE OF THE MOST TELLING STORIES ON THE GOAN AS WELL AS THE INDIAN MEDIA...
HANG ON TILL THEN FELLAS...

PEN PRICKS

COST-CUTTING IN THE HERALD-- MICHAEL LEARNS TO RIDE A CYCLE

2008-06-29T13:23:00.005+05:30

Hi fellas, been away for sometime... ya... But we are going to break a big, Big, BIg, BIG story within on the media within the week... Hope that makes up for our prolonged absence... You guys do try and look it up, ok...But in the meantime guys, if you see this man anywhere please try and drive some sense in him. This chap is Michael, Herald managing director Raul Fernandes's PA, who calls the shots at the Herald now. Why this guy has featured on PP is, cause in his cost cutting drive in the Herald, one of his first crackdowns was on a milk-packets. The Herald buys one litre of milk for its afternoon tea for a staff of nearly 70 and more. Michael has cut down the supply of milk virtually by half. So instead of the usual one litre milk, Herald staffers have to now make do with half a litre, which makes the chai look like mining slush.
And in case anyone decides to invite Michael home for a cup of tea, don't add any sugar, tell him you are cutting costs. He'll understand.

RAJAN NARAYAN IS DEAD... LONG LIVE SUJOY GUPTA -- MAY THE AGE OF JOURNALISTIC PIMPING NEVER CEDE

2008-06-20T14:00:00.005+05:30

In many ways, it resembled the passing of a baton.
Rajan Narayan's journalism had yellowed so much, that it could not rot any further. Even putrification has its limits, you see.
Once you are over and done with vanity journalism, blackmail, extortion, you cannot go much further. You then end up refining your techniques. For example, where earlier you would have bulldozed some dumb fart of a politician into getting you a flat surreptitiously, now you coax the builder lobby and the government to gift you one publicly.
So Rajan had reached a somewhat of a stagnation point.
But a metamorphosis was around the corner.
Sujoy Gupta walked into the Gomantak Times.
Sujoy turned around the GT, much in the same way Rajan handled Herald in his early days. An energetic layout and smart writing really made the edition look smarter than the rest of the pack.
But unlike Rajan, Sujoy's spots started showing much sooner. We'll come to that later. We'll first talk about what this particular post is about.
As you guys will have known Sujoy has joined Prudent media as a consulting editor. What you guys may not know that Sujoy, the man who claims to 'bleed for Goa' has been handling a very strange brief the last few days.
Our assessment is that Sujoy is the mining lobby's henchman in Goa. He has usurped and combined the roles played in the past by the editors of Navhind Times, Sunaparant, Rashtramat, Gomantak all rolled into one.
For some days now Sujoy has been peddling mischievous stories to newspapers across the board. Instance one... Remember the Advalpal anti-mining agitation story? We know Sujoy has been passing the word around that the mining lobby had bought off some of the agitators heading the agitation and made them file affidavits which show that the agitators have mellowed their stance, effectively choking off the agitation.
The line he has been asking journos whom he has known is to pitch the story, is to show agitation's back has been broken.
For someone who knows how to make people read 10 bucks on a five rupee note, how could Sujoy miss out on the slant, that it is the mining firms who have actually bought over the activists. Isn't that the real story?
The last straw (we are sure there are pretty more to come though) is this Naxal story Sujoy has been trying to peddle.
Let us show you the drawnigboard first guys.
We'll try and explain to you, why we think this 'Naxalism' story which is out in the newspapers today needs to be looked at very carefully.
The opposition leader advises the government about a law and order issue. Parrikar tells the police at the ad hoc committee hearing, that naxals are active in anti-mining agitations. He asks them to act. The government admits there is a problem and promises to look into it.
There is no scope for dissent or questions here, here is there. This is the way, a system colludes to squelch dissent. Suddenly anti-mining agitations have been given a naxal colour by the same system (police politicians and a section of the media) which feeds off mine-owners.
The only bunch who can spot this con and put it out in the public domain are journos... This is where Sujoy comes in. Sujoy Gupta's brief here as consulting editor Prudent Media (another miner owned entity, the Timblo's in this case. There are several indicators, which show that the outfit is very very very very very pro Digambar at the moment) appears to be modulating media opinion in the present scenario, to suit the mining lobby.
Sujoy has been going about convincing journos that the Goan in question, Sebastian Roderigues is a Naxal. Most importantly he is doing it from the sidelines. And Sujoy does not want to be quoted on this. He is passing around the info, but refuses to lend his name to it.
Probably to ensure that the activist friends which he has cultivated in Goa, thanks to his overt anti-government posturing in the earlier avataar, do not figure him out yet. The monsoon's still here and there's a lot of 'planting' to be done.
There a lot more about this guy and his coverage of the River Princess controvery and some other 'stellar' stories which came out under his regime. But Sujoy is going to be around and so are we...
We'll clear the bull-shit he's scattering around... one lump at a time.

THE NAVHIND CRIMES -- THE DEVASHRI TRAGEDY -- LETTER TO PALLAVI DEMPO

2008-06-11T13:30:00.011+05:30

Dear Pallavi Dempo,
As one of the directors of M/s Navhind Publications Pvt Ltd we thought we should tell you that the five labourers died after a compound wall of Devashri constructions (you ought to know by now that the firm is run by your husband Shri Srinivas Dempo who also runs the Navhind Group) Porvorim, fell on them as they slept.
And they died ma’am. Its not as if five of your eye lashes got weighed down under an unusually heavy streak of mascara and fell off. Five wage earners died.
Now the logic may be wasted on you. The death in a daily wage labourers’ home varies from a death of a patriarch in a conglomerate. There is no celebration of death. There is no will. The only heirlooms passed in most likelihood will be a mud-streaked vest, a pair of street-side underwear, a pouch of gutka, a few children and a few thousand rupees, if they are lucky. With the husband gone, the wife and kids are rarely staked out in whatever small landing holding they may have back home by her in-laws.
You did wrong by editing the name of Devashri out of the reports published in The Navhind Times. You did wrong by slipping these four deaths under a silly Page 1 lead story about computerization of ration cards (with that weird crocodile logo). A story which other newspapers had reported months ago.
People have died ma’am on your hands (your conglomerate) ma’am. While Devashri constructions gave them a hasty grave and The Navhind Times carved them a very poor tombstone.
Did you notice ma’am, that your newspaper did not even mention that it was the Devashri wall that did the labourers in. Your paper did not name the company? It surely wasn’t because they did not know which firm it was that did the poor sods in? It wasn’t carried precisely because they knew.
Jog your memory to a few weeks ago ma’am.
Remember that lead story your newspaper had carried about nudity in a newspaper (like Devashri you did not name the newspaper, but unlike Devashri, you did leave several clues to let your readers know that its Times of India, you were talking about) and you mentioned about how carrying such pictures was not moral? How moral is your hiding facts in this case? Your newspaper has suppressed critical information about the company because of whose carelessness five people have died.
As a media critiquing blog, the occasions when we get ourselves to thanks The Times of India are rare. This is one time when we will. Its good to have someone who can match up to the clout your newspaper and others Goan newspapers have been using as a condom to cap the news that isn’t of your interest.
We are glad now that there exists an organization as powerful as the one you own that names you when you do wrong. We also hope that you will return the compliment later. It felt nice to see that in this case, Herald and the Gomantak Times had enough pluck to state what happened. We need to navel-gaze ma’am. The media in Goa really needs to navel-gaze. There is too much dirty linen in the Goan media (not surprising since a lot of newspapers are money laundering units) that needs to be washed in public.
Readers ma’am, really do not want to know if your daughter received a consolation prize in some competition, but if someone has died, they’d surely want to know how.
PENPRICKS

GALTI HO GAYI BHAI!!!

2008-06-08T16:59:00.002+05:30

Hi guys,
here's something we learnt to day, thanks to Caje...
The 6 o'clock tear is a reference to the location of the rupture and not the time... This was pointed out to us by Caje, a regular visitor to our blog. We checked the net ourselves to reconfirm this... Turns out Caje is right...
The reason we have put this post up this fast is to ensure that we beat Prakash to it...
Phew... Prakash hasn't responded yet, but our apologies to him, in case he logs on to goajourno or goanet or our blog
regards
PP

SCARLETT'S POST MORTEM REPORT AND THE 6 O'CLOCK FACTOR

2008-06-08T11:46:00.004+05:30

Quick on Preetu's heels, here's Prakash Kamat's story in the Hindu which has this bizzare quote from cop Bosco George. This must rank as one of the five most bizarre stories ever to have been filed in this issue. Bosco is one of the more competent cops in the Goa Police, but then this quote from him is so bizzare... How can you ascertain the exact time when the hymen tore? In this case 6 o'clock? The ever vigilant Kamat swallowed this story? We are talking about a post mortem of a dead body here here and not discussing the benefits of Brahma mahurat!!!

Scarlette case remains unchanged: Goa police
Special Correspondent
PANAJI: The Goa police on Wednesday said their case that the 15-year-old British teenager Scarlette Keeling was “poisoned, raped and murdered” would remain unchanged despite the fact that the swab tests of the samples taken from her body were found to be negative.
Scarlette’s semi-nude body was found on the Anjuna beach on February 18.
Test reports
Confirming that the reports of tests of the swab samples taken from her mouth and vagina recently received from the Hyderabad-based Central Forensic Science Laboratory were negative, North Goa Superintendent of Police Bosco George, who is heading the investigation, told The Hindu: “That means nothing, because the body, which was found on beach, had been washed off.”
He said their case would remain unchanged as there was so much evidence against the two accused, including the evidence provided by the police surgeon (who conducted autopsy).
Mr. Bosco said: “There was sexual intercourse and tear in the hymen at 6 o’clock” as confirmed by the postmortem report.
The police had filed a charge sheet before the Goa Children’s Court against Samson D’Souza and Placido Carvalho on Saturday.

A STUDY IN SCARLET't' -- FROM SKIN ON PAGE 3, TO FORENSIC PORN

2008-06-07T01:38:00.004+05:30

We've shrugged our shoulders... We can't take a call here... Do tell us if this report makes for a slightly awkward read. The way the report's written it looks like classically scripted forensic porn... Thankfully the author corrected the mistake she made in her earlier copy where semen was mistakenly called sperm... Anyway no point going further, we'll leave the porn to these word-artists... Read on... look out for the highlighted parts... And do write back with your call

No male DNA found in Scarlett swab
5 Jun 2008, 0314 hrs IST,Preetu Nair,TNN
PANAJI: The Goa police request to subject Samson D'Souza, the main accused in the Scarlett Keeling rape and murder case, to narco analysis, brain signature profiling and psychological evaluation tests, including polygraph, has been rejected by the children's court.
The court questioned the constitutional validity of such scientific tests to which an accused has not consented and turned down the police request as they had failed to disclose reasons for the tests.
The police had requested the tests almost a month after Samson's arrest on March 9, 2008.
"Even to allow the police to take an accused for such tests, there should at least be a whisper in the application that the accused, who had been in police custody for 15 days, had not co-operated with the investigations and without the said scientific tests the prosecution is left without any clue," the Children's Court president Desmond D'Costa said.
Meanwhile, more evidence has come to light about the report submitted by Central Forensic Science Laboratory, Hyderabad. TOI had reported on Wednesday that swab samples taken from Scarlett's mouth and vagina had tested negative for the presence of semen.
It is now learnt that the police had not only sent samples of Scarlett's vaginal, buccal and anal swabs and smear slides, pubic hair and her clothes, but also the urethral swabs and smear slides and pubic hair of both the accused, Samson and Placido Carvalho aka Shana Boy. Besides, samples of sand, sea water and pieces of Scarlett's liver and lungs were sent for examination to Hyderabad on March 19, 2008.
"The report has revealed that neither semen nor blood could be detected in Scarlett's vaginal, buccal or anal swabs or smear slides. Semen was not detected in the samples of her pubic hair," said a top police official, on conditions of anonymity.
The official also said that according to the report, there was no trace of male DNA in Scarlett's vaginal, buccal or anal swabs.

THE NAHVIND CRIMES -- WHEN SHIT USED TO SELL

2008-06-07T01:31:00.004+05:30

We picked this post from another media blog... The post passes on Juan Antonio Giner's 'surefire recipe to kill a newspaper' which he revealed at the World Association of Newspapers summit. Read it carefully guys and give it a thought... doesn't it remind you about The Navhind Times... Every ingredient points out to the same kind of shit that the TNT was dishing out to its readers until the TOI came in...
Here are the elements, the recipe is made up of...

1. be dull and boring
2. change slowly
3. print yesterday’s news
4. don’t take risks
5. expect different results by doing things the same way
6. insult your readers
7. lie to advertisers
8. please politicians
9. cover buildings not people
10. don’t interact with audience
11. print badly
12. print poor colour
13. write long
14. don’t care about design
15. don’t care about talent
16. don’t sack bad managers
17. pay badly
18. don’t innovate
19. milk the cash cow
20. expect miracles

SEVERAL VERNACULAR JOURNOS ORPHANED, AS PALE MLA GURUDAS GAWAS DIES

2008-06-05T14:21:00.003+05:30

The vernacular journalistic troika of Sanjiv Verenkar,
Sadguru Patil, Mahadev Khandekar and some other
sidekicks have lost a benefactor with the demise of Pale
MLA Gurudas Gawas. As journalists who knew him from head to toe and were
familiar with his billet and even the colour of his wallet,
they will really miss him. Gawas died at Breach Candy hospital from a long suffering heart ailement. His rise as a young MLA in
Goa's politics, coincided with the rise of the fortunes of a few in the vernacular media, essentially the Marathi section. Known for his amiability and a forever-there smile, Gawas was always there for his vercaular journo friends whenever their palms itched. Following his election win, Gawas treated a few journos to a trip to Delhi and shopping sprees on the house. Pale is a constituency where vernacular newspapers rule the roost and his pet vernacular journos had been carrying out an image building exercise on behalf of the deceased MLA for the several years now. His death will come as a rude shock to some of these vernaular journos, for the immense loss it has caused them and the sudden realisation of unpaid motor-vehicle installments.

HOW GOAN NEWSPAPERS SUCK UP TO THE CASINO LOBBY

2008-06-01T17:17:00.007+05:30

Sunder Advani and gang are at it...
The casino man who has singlehandedly made way for the setting up of the Casino industry in Goa in face of whimsical political posturing and public ire...
And in planting pro-casino's stories in newspapers like the TNT and now Herald, Sunder seems to be spending his money well...
After the Navhind Times carried a plant filed by Dinesh Patel as a Page 1 flier, Herald hasn't been too far behind...
Yesterday's Herald carried a press release which had Sunder Advani expounding on how well Caravela treats their staffers (if one considered the salaries we used to get in Goa, a deck hand at the Caravela would have got a bigger pay packet than us journos. A deckhand's salary starts at Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000) well and how the floating casino people 'harbour' noble intentions of building community halls in exchange for a berth in the waters at Verem.
The Herald note claims that Sunder said this in an interview? AN INTERVIEW? If this piece of shit was an interview, than we are ready to bet that the guy who conducted this interview was either out of his senses or was on his knees blowing Advani's trumpet (i.e. metaphoric for singing Advani's paeans... don't go looking for other meanings please... someone's already called us evil-incarnate ;)
This press note itself may not have roused us to this extent... But there is a background to this, which is disturbing...
One day before this report appeared in the Herald, Juino, -- the guy who conducts this
debate on Herald Cable News channel, had a long meeting with the Herald managing director Raul Fernandes. In this context, it should not be forgotten that Raul also has an interest in the casino industry. The guy has applied for a licence with the state government and is keen to start his own casino...Remember the story, we'd done about this?
Now the sum of the debate on casino's on HCN was published as a press release in the Herald with the unabashed endorsement of casinos by South Goa MP and GPCC president Francisco Sardinha who goes on to say things like 'Casinos are for rich people. Poor people need not go there', 'We should educate people... that those who don't have money should not go there',
'Shindri podovonn pai sod', among other inane statements.
This oaf of an MP, who's known for his wide grin and a stiff groin, famously gets away with whatever bullshit he says, remember his comments on er... bull-fights?
Sardinha's comments account for the bulk of the story. The story then quotes Mario Cabral, a veteran journalist, who was amongst the first to master and then propound the art of vanity journalism in Goa. He's a pioneer in the Goan media for adapting the classic manoeuvre 'first oppose, then propose' to journalism... (remember the Konkan railway agitation...)
In a 26-line story (on the web edition) the comments of the only two panelists who opposed casinos have been allotted four lines...
Ample indication to betray which way the editorial drift is taking you...

MONKEY MENACE AT THE HERALD... HEY AND THEY'VE GOT SWORDS IN THEIR HANDS

2008-05-26T01:10:00.006+05:30

Hi guys, the Herald's really taking the fight to the Times of India. It's trying every which way to stave off the challenge. Here's an excellent strategy adopted by them to throw TOI off track. To start off they have failed to renew their web domain and since May 24, the website is not available online (we last saw it when were uploading this post). This is what the home page says. This domain name expired on May 24, 2008. Click here to renew it.
We are pretty sure, the TOI guys are rattled by this. Amazing strategy by the Herald isn't it? What do you call it.. Guerrilla warfare? Or should we call it monkey meddling?
Hey did you guys hear this? The Herald management has yanked off the internet connection from some more computer terminals. Reason? They've got a bill of close to Rs 1 lakh for internet usage? Man how much stuff are these fellas downloading from YOUTUBE?
There's another tidbit this GM fellow who's been strutting about like a peacock before the monsoon showers has a small confrontation with the edior Ashwin sometime back. The GM wanted the issue to be put to bed at 12 midnight and was being pretty fussy bout it. Thing is in the Herald 12 is the time when reporters and deskies roll up their sleeves and really start working... No no we are just funnying. Ashwin is reported to have told him to lay off in no nonsense terms... Hope this happens more often. The GM along with Raul's PA Michael have been interfering a bit too much in the newspaper's editorial affairs in recent times.

SOMETIMES 'GRASS' DOES THIS TO YOU

2008-05-24T11:40:00.006+05:30

If one were to believe this report in The Navhind Times, carnivores in Goa's Bondla zoo are actually made to eat grass? How many of you fellas believe this guys? Roque may have been trying to make a point about food shortage, but leopards eating grass?!?!? Roque otherwise is a very industrious bugger, but this is really bizzare stuff from him...

Steady decline of animals at Bondla zoo
by Roque Dias
Ponda, March 5 The Bondla zoo that once boasted of having many species of animals is steadily losing its charm, with eyebrows being raised over the steady decrease of animals at the zoo.
Six animals, including a fox, a peahen, a jackal, and a leopard, have died in the last few months, according to zoo sources.
Visitors and sources alleged that most of the animals were not properly fed; though the range forest officer, Mr Pradeep Vernekar disputed this.
To make matters worse for the animals, there is only a lone visiting doctor who examines the animals, once a week.
A source from the zoo who did not wish to be named said, “A permanent doctor is needed here. A peahen died few days back, while few weeks back a fox lost its life.”
Apart from this a couple of bears also died allegedly due to the apathy of the zoo officials. “If everything was well, why would these animals die,” he queried.
The source further alleged that food meant for the animals does not reach them and added that the animals even carnivorous ones are fed grass, grass and more grass.
The source further claimed that a tiger was allegedly released in the Anmod Ghat allegedly to avoid feeding it.
It must be noted here that the veterinary hospital at the zoo which was opened in 2005 lacks a permanent doctor since the Pune-based doctor who was appointed left the place after her contract expired
The forest department never bothered to fill up the vacant post which would reduce the work load. There are a total of 99 other staff posted at the zoo.
A visit to the zoo revealed that the lone bear was housed in a small congested room despite there being an huge open space that has been marked for the bear by cutting huge trees and shrubs.Apart from this most of the cages were either corroded or broken and just fixed together.
Forest officer in-charge of Bondla, Mr Verenkar on his part said that all the animals are treated well and fed properly as per their specific dietary habits.
On the poor living conditions of the bear, the officer said that the bear would be shifted to the open space soon. On the death of the peahen, the officer pinned his hopes on the post mortem reports for the cause of the death.
“The Central Zoo Authorities ( CZA), had considered Bondla and we are drawing a bigger plan for more animals,” he said adding that health conditions are “perfectly maintained” and there was no question of shortage of feed.
The deputy conservator of forest (wild life and eco-tourism) could not be contacted despite constant attempts.

CHOR BAZAAR JOURNALISM

2008-05-22T23:15:00.007+05:30

First it was Herald's mysterious Mumbai correspondent... whose stories are without a doubt 'lifts' from Mumbai based newspapers. But now it looks as if these guys have sowed wild oats all over the country... Just the other day there was this story in the Herald with a Srinagar dateline... the story -- which we have reproduced below -- has been lifted from JK newspaper called Greater Kashmir. The story which has been published in the newspaper's SPOTLIGHT section has been written by Arif Wani. Wani claims that the piece on Goa chief minister Digambar Kamat is the result of an exclusive interview? So is Wani Herald's correspondent in Kashmir? If he is, then why has this story been touched up such a way to appear different?
We have highlighted the portions which have been lifted by the Herald. You could check the original Greater Kashmir story by following this link. Make your own conclusion...

Kamat on holiday in Kashmir

HERALD CORRESPONDENT
SRINAGAR, MAY 20 — Chief Minister Digambar V Kamat yesterday had a close look at Kashmir’s snow-capped mountains and lush green meadows when he took a ride in the world’s highest cable car, Gondola, in the famous ski resort of Gulmarg, to top of the area’s highest peak, Apharwath. Earlier, he had a shikara ride in Dal Lake and stood by the gushing streams of Pahalgam, on his maiden visit to the Kashmir Valley along with his family.
“I am mesmerized by Kashmir’s natural beauty. It is really out of the world... I feel like I am in paradise,” an elated Kamat told reporters. Till now, the CM had seen Kashmir only in Hindi films. He had wanted to honeymoon in the Valley in 1979, “But some untoward incident happened in Kashmir and I went to Mount Abu,” he said
Kamat told the Kashmir Tourism officials to organise cultural exchange programmes like a Kashmir festival in Goa, which is thronged by tourists of various countries. “We have been organising such events in other states, and it has helped us to attract tourists,” he said.

THE BROTHERHOOD OF PRICKS

2008-05-22T21:53:00.002+05:30

Hey guys a couple of media blogs picked up our plagiarism story bout Sakaal Times... here are the links, if you wanna go through them...
PRESSTALK
WEARETHEBEST

MOTTLED DAWN -- TWO WEEKS INTO LAUNCH, SAKAAL TIMES PLAGIARISES EDITORIAL

2008-05-19T23:14:00.008+05:30

Launched less than a fortnight ago, Sakaal Times has already started plagiarising content for their editorials.
The piece published on page 6 'PERSPECTIVE' of the Sakal Time's May 19 edition has lifted a huge chunk (a little less than half the piece) from an article published on www.cehat.org which has been subsequently published on various websites.
Here's the original piece and the link to it. The bold text is the portion that's blatantly lifted by Sakaal Times.
This is not the first time that we have exposed plagiarism in the Sakaal Times. In earlier posts we have cited two instances where editorials in Sakal's Goa edition Gomantak Times were plagiarised.

REVIEW OF HEALTHCARE IN INDIA
Editors: Leena V. Gangolli, Ravi Duggal and Abhya Shukla
India pledged along with other WHO member Nations, 'Health for All by the Year 2000' at Alma-Ata in 1978; and in the same year signed the International Covenant for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights – Article 12, in which the State is obliged to achieve the highest attainable standard of health. However the health scenario in India is abysmal.
In India, annually 22 lakh infants and children die from preventable illnesses; 1 lakh mothers die during child birth, 5 lakh people die of Tuberculosis. Diarrhoea and Malaria continue to be killers while 5 million people are suffering from HIV/AIDS.
In context of poverty, access to public health systems is critical. However, since 1990s, the public health system has been collapsing and the private health sector has flourished at the cost of the public health sector.
Health policy in India has shifted its focus from being a comprehensive universal healthcare system as defined by the Bhore Committee (1946) to a selective and targeted programme based healthcare policy with the public domain being confined to family planning, immunization, selected disease surveillance and medical education and research.
The larger outpatient care is almost a private health sector monopoly and the hospital sector is increasingly being surrendered to the market. The decline of public investments and expenditures in the health sector since 1992 has further weakened the public health sector thus adversely affecting the poor and other vulnerable sections of society. Introduction of user fees for public health services in many states has further reduced their access to health services.
The time has come to reclaim public health and make a paradigm shift from a policy-based entitlement for healthcare to a rights based entitlement. For this healthcare has to become a political agenda.

If you guys are convinced with what we have written here, call these numbers and remind these guys, that they cannot get away with this shameful practice forever.
Sandeep Bamzai (Editor) -- 020-24405500
Dhananjay Sardeshpande (Resident Editor) -- 020-24405500
Derek Almeida (Editor -- Sakal's Goa edition) -- 0832-2422701-05
editor@esakal.com

SANDESH WRITES BACK... CONFIRMS SWITCH TO PRUDENT

2008-05-19T19:23:00.004+05:30

Hi guys, we finally got the reply we'd sought from Sandesh, before we wrote this post on his reported switch to Prudent from Sunaparant. Here's what he wrote back to us. We got this mail on May 19. Its nice that he has put his position on record. Anonymous comments to this post will be deleted if they are slanderous to Sandesh, who has lent his name to this input. Or else, send in your name with a genuine email ID along with the comment.
Here's what we had mailed Sandesh...

Dear Sandesh,

Is there truth to the reports that you are switching from Sunaparant to Prudent media? If yes, could you state the date of switch and the designation you would be taking up there?

We are running a small post on the issue. your reply could be of assistance

regards

And this is Sandesh's response

Dear PP,
Extremely sorry for the delay. I was away from the office for over a week (in my village Mashem in Canacona), hence could not open the mail. Secondly, I was also busy with our annual new look for the daily issue on 13th May, our anniversary.
Yes, I have resigned from Sunaparant. I am joining Prudent Media as the Editor-in-Chief to start 24-hour News & Infotainment tv channel. Satellite is the ultimate target, but we will go step by step.
Unfortunately, none of us, including myself, have any experience of running such a 365-day channel. It’s much different from running a one-hour capsule a day. We thus need time to launch it, before we build necessary infrastructure and get all of us properly trained. Then will begin the dry run and soft launch, before the actual launch.
Before I leave, I need to make alternate arrangements here. The date of joining Prudent thus cannot be specified at this stage.
I have been speaking publicly about this concept for the last three years, especially at Konkani Parishad etc and was even invited in Mangalore and Kochi to explain the concept. My organization was fully aware about this and I am leaving my Sunaparant responsibility only after consulting them.
Hope we succeed in this venture with the help and co-operation of all my colleagues in the fraternity.
Thanks and sorry for the delay.
Sandesh Prabhudesai

0 % NEWS, 100 % PLUG

2008-05-17T14:02:00.003+05:30

The Navhind Times seems to have run out of steam. After a week and more of fancy layouts and byline stories that did give Herald and GT a scare, they have finally run out of ideas. We will come to this (the pic above) sham of a story later, but let's run through a couple of stories which were played up by these fools earlier.

First they carry a story on May 15 Goans throng beaches for healing bath, which -- like the header suggests, reads that Goans are thronging to the beaches for their annual sea-bath. The story is credited to the NT team and claims that this ritual was verified by its team of reporters who went to various beaches in the state to cover the story. Phew... Thanks guys...

The very next day they run a story which says Goans turning away from beaches . How silly is that fellas. The very next day? So what did the team of reporters do when they visited the beaches before they filed the first story? Ogle?

Now we come to the plug which was published on May 17. As journalists who work in Goa, we know that when Dinesh Patel's byline's appears in a newspaper, the story is generally a plug, with absolutely no journalistic intent. The Dinesh kind of articles are either compensated with money, ads or at least a free meal. But when Dinesh's stuff flies high on page 1, just below the masthead we have to admit guys that it's not very healthy. How can this story be featured as a page 1 lead? How can it be even taken seriously? For a moment, just for a moment lets forget the fact that Dinesh filed this story. The story does not quote anyone? It does not credit the figures stated to any source or published material. Crediting a story like this rough estimates and running it as a page 1 lead? Its simply bizarre. Its worse that the TOI's pay for newspace stuff.

Not done... Not done at all. Whats the trade off Sinha?

Why are you guys suddenly sucking up to the casino lobby? Are the Dempo's applying for a casino licence too?

TOMCAT TAKES A DIP

2008-05-16T13:05:00.002+05:30

Hey guys, this is the pic we had mentioned sometime back. Editors taking a dip in their own pages... That's Ashwin on the right... Someone ask him to haul Raul off the Caravela Deck and teach him how to swim too please...

FROM FATORDA GROUND TO WEMBLEY

2008-05-16T12:34:00.004+05:30

Its pretty clear that Herald misses Marcus Mergulhao.

Had this guy been around, mistakes like these could be checked. We are sure its not Gilu's fault too... He says it himself... that the information 'came' from Churchill Alemao's office.
Guys, the FA Cup final this year is between Portsmouth and Cardiff city...
Its really funny the way both the words have been spelt. Check the words in bold below.
'Port Mouths' for Portsmouth still has a classic Churchill's 'pallbearer' stamp on it, but Derban for Cardiff city? Bizarre

Churchill to address British House
MARGAO, MAY 15 – PWD Minister, Churchill Alemao will celebrate his 59th birthday in London on Friday.
According to information available from Alemao’s office, British Labour MP Keith Vaz has invited Churchill for lunch in the House of Commons, which will be attended by British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown and other Cabinet Ministers.
Information sent by Alemao’s office says that the PWD Minister will deliver a speech on the occasion.
Back home, there’s no major public programme chalked out for the day, but Alemao’s Varca residence is bracing up to celebrate the birthday, expecting the normal flow of visitors, friends and well wishers to extend birthday wishes.
Alemao along with MP Keith Vaz will witness the Finals of the Federation Cup at the Wembley stadium, between Port Mouths and Derban, before returning back to Goa.

ETHICS AND OTHER CRIMES OF INDIA

2008-05-16T01:15:00.003+05:30

One of our readers Caje sent us this link guys... Makes sense to us in Goa doesn't it? First with the Herald and now with the entry of the high-heeled call girl from Mumbai?

SHIV'S THIRD EYE...

2008-05-16T00:59:00.002+05:30

Hi fellas, Shiv Kumar from Bombay had written to goajourno about an article in The Navhind Times, which he felt didn't do justice to the subject it addressed. We invited him to conduct a post-mortem on the same article. It was published a couple of days ago. Here it is, interspersed with comments by Shiv... A note here again guys, if you have any comments please lend your name to it and send a genuine email ID along (for confirmation), since Shiv has stuck out his neck to make these observations. Anonymous comments will be entertained on this post, only if they make sense and contain no slander against the writer...

Undersea ecology changing along Goa's coast
by RAMNATH PAI RAIKAR
Principal Correspondent
PANAJI: Fish production in the state has dropped by 10 per cent after recording successive growth for the past seven years, fuelling the suspicion that sea ecology along the Goan coast might have changed, after a tsunami hitting the Indian Ocean on December 26, 2004.
Just who said fish production has fallen after recording successive growth for seven years? the ramponkars have been crying for years that fish production is declining. now their leader Matanhy is crying for entirely different reasons... did the reporter ever ask nio, why fish production fell ten per cent if it really did.
Actually, fish production should have been treated as a separate story altogether. just how much of fish is farmed off the goan coast? For all you know, trawlers may be moving into the deep seas off Karnataka and bringing in the catch. for instance, pomfrets available in Mumbai.
Come from the Gujarat coast. And the joke is the link to the tsunami which happened four years ago! For three years after the tsunami, fish production had been rising!
The former chairperson of the Mandovi Fishermen Marketing Co-op Society Ltd, Mr Victor Gonsalves told â€˜The Navhind Timesâ€™ that the ecological conditions along the Goan coast changed after the tsunami, with an increase in the intensity of the water currents along the coastline.
Since when did small-time politicians become experts on climate change? Why was this quote not verified with NIO
No more stable netting can be achieved in the sea along the state for the nets are being pulled by strong currents,â€ Mr Gonsalves informed, observing that the sea bed might have been disturbed and raised a bit. â€œThe waters too are murkier, which affects fish
production as well as fish haul,â€ he pointed out.
This quote actually points to something serious that could be happening. But a nice opportunity to build on the story has been wasted.
The National Institute of Oceanography sources informed that investigations undertaken by the NIO on board ORV Sagar Kanya in 2005, about hydrophysical manifestations of the tsunami on the Indian coastal environments revealed changes in sea surface temperature and
variation in salinity as well as mixed layer depth. This may have caused changes in ecology, water currents and fishing habits, it was informed.
It seems this is how scientists whisper sweet nothings to their wives as well! One needs to actually sit besides a scientist and ask him or her to explain things. usually, the real story comes at the end of an hour-long session when one needs to extend the meeting
As if endorsing these observations, the department of fisheries is now contemplating handing over the investigative study, into 10 per cent drop in the fish production as witnessed by the state during the year 2007, to the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute, Kochi, in
Kerala.
Std calls are cheap these days, always helps to call some scientist in kochi and discuss things over the phone followed by a detailed interaction by email. One needs to work on good stories for two-three days instead of rehashing some gibberish which doesn't make sense. It also says a lot about editors who are willing put any cheap local story in print only because a pair of jumbos from next door have moved into the drawing room to munch up the chow. Such stories also need to be supported with strong visuals. I can imaging what the situation is in Goa: till recently even photographers were not provided with cameras.....

चिठ्ठी ना कोई 'संदेश'... कहाँ वो चले गये!!!

2008-05-14T12:57:00.008+05:30

Hey... heard this some days ago... do tell us if you have any more dope on this.
Sandesh Prabhudessai is parting ways with Sunaparant and is likely to join the Timblo run Prudent media. Does anyone know why? Was it just a professional move? Or were there any issues. We did write Sandesh a mail asking him to confirm this bit of news a couple of days ago, but there has been no response from him.
One thing must be granted to the bugger... Sunaparant did look good under Sandesh than under any other editor before him, whether it was Raju Nayak or the highly over-rated Uday Bhembre... The layouts were cool and some of the stories pretty much out of the box. In short, Sandesh had managed to push out that atmosphere of monotony, which vernacular newspaper are generally associated with.
But there are some things which we think he should not have indulged in. For example allowing a lot of his friends to roll on his pages in the manner Phantom and Diana used to roll on the half gold and half sand beaches of Keela-Wee beach (you guys don't know this? check this link)... With Sandesh joining Prudent you are no longer going to read about the exploits of guys like Satish Sonak, Dharmanand and the other slick tongued species, you are going to see them henceforth. Hey, you may even see live footage of Ashwin Tombat swimming the Mandovi next time round on Prudent, i.e. if HCN forgets to cover it.
We heard another tidbit guys vis a vis an editor guys, and this comes not from the horse's mouth, but from the mouth of the groom who cares for this testosterone charged stallion. Some months ago, an editor of an English language newspaper was about to be sacked by the management for a nefarious act, the editor was accused of having committed. The editor apparently went on leave and guess what, a few days later the owners of this newspaper received a call from a Central minister dealing in mines, asking these guys to 'review' their decision. No surprises as to what happened next.

SPEAKER SIR... WATCH THAT FINGER

2008-05-13T21:03:00.004+05:30

If one of us pricks were the Robert Langdon sorts, we would have certainly done more than just upload this post. Surely that's some kind of a sign isn't it? You guys see... Speaker Pratapsing Rane's forefinger pointing at something right...? What's he saying... what's he trying to tell? Wonder wonder wonder!!! (A DI photo)

THE LEANING TOWER OF BENAULIM!

2008-05-13T20:58:00.002+05:30

HMMM... IS IT CHURCHILL OR THE ELECTRICITY POLE? (pic courtesy Department of Information, Goa)

'काला और गोरा' AND WHATEVER ELSE LIES BETWEEN

2008-05-13T11:49:00.004+05:30

Hi guys... Rico sent us this mailer yesterday... It's a bunch of articles he'd earlier put together as an e-book. He's managed to bring it out in print now... Got a lot of dope on the Goan media as seen through the eyes of these journos... Hope you stumble on it sometime and you have some spare cash in your pockets then. Here's Rico's note

Dear PP,
Given your close involvement with media issues, blogs and theprofession, may I introduce you to a new book on the region?
In Black and White: Insiders' Stories about the Press in Goa May 2008. Pp 216 (including index). Rs 195. Published by Goa1556 and Broadway Book Centre.
Available with Broadway Book Centre, 18th June Road, Near Pharmacy College/Raga and Rock, Panjim 403001 Ph 6647037 or 9822488564. If you would like to media literacy and debate about press issues in Goa, please consider buying a copy you can gift someone!
Frederick FN Noronha

SEX AND THE SHITTY

2008-05-10T18:27:00.005+05:30

So this is the pitch The Navhind Times wishes to fight the TOI on. MORALITY!
Have you seen the header today? Its a seven column banner that says 'GOANS SAY NO TO NUDITY IN MEDIA'.
Hmm... strange that nudity should raise the hackles of these fellows at TNT especially with the newspaper's editor Arun Sinha facing grave charges of molesting a minor at his residence.
Hey, but did you see this ad on the TNT front page today? The one on the right here... Fosters?
You could not get a more graphic illustration of blatantly dodgy (surrogate or whatever) advertising. How moral is this ad then... It clearly offers you a free Hollywood movie VCD with "SIX LARGE ONES"... On large bottles of water? Its beer what else... Someone read out the law on advertising alcoholic products please.
And guys remember the story we did on massage parlour ads which regularly appear in the TNT, Herald and Gomantak? Pick up any edition, you'll still see these ads in TNT and Herald which explicitly solicit paid sex.
Today's leader has made it pretty clear now that both the biggies TNT and Herald will use morality as a pitch to fight TOI. (remember that silly story in the Herald about marketing guys wearing red traipsing around town?)
Don't be surprised to see Arun Sinha step into office tomorrow dressed in a nine yard saree, pallu over his head and not an inch of skin visible...
The newspaper doesn't like skin you see, except when its underage.

TOI... THREE DAYS ON, CRACKS BEGIN TO SHOW...

2008-05-10T00:11:00.006+05:30

This is exactly how fallible these buggers are.
Getting a story on mangoes so messed up!!! Look out for the crime stories in TOI guys... Look like a right pretty coconut on the outside, but it has a hollow sound of a vaz (is that how you spell it? A dud coconut? The one we used to tie to our waist, while learning to swim?) from within...
Lack of quality shows fellas
Miguel Braganza had mailed this to goajourno... Read on...

Dear Editor,
It is rather disconcerting to read half-truths that are more than full lies in the pages of the 3-day old "Goa Edition" of the TIMES OF INDIA. I have earlier pointed out to inaccuracies in Goa related news about Scarlett's autopsies in the Mumbai edition and have had one of your Principal Correspondents accuse me of being vindictive towards her. I am not. I would just like to see truth in print. There are readers who may just believe that everything in the TOI is verified and, hence, truthfull. It is not the case with Raju Nayak's report entitled "Requeim for the Goan mango" with the plug "THE SEED OF WORRY" [TOI Goa Edition of Friday 09 May, 2008 page 2]. Truth is a casualty in an otherwise interesting and thought provoking write-up that could well be a piece of "creative" writing by a pro.
First the visuals that will grab any reader's attention. The caption for the photographs, PULP FICTION, is accurate: it is fiction about about the pulpy mango varieties. The "Colaco" [Culas, Kulas], the "Fernandina" [Fernandin] and the "Furtado" [Furtad] mango varieties are far from extinct. There trees of the Colaco variety and its variant, Santo Antonio, at many places including the Duler Farm in Mapusa. Fernandina mango trees are available in large numbers all over Goa, including the road corner near the Goa Archbishop's residence at Santerxeth in Aldona. Only Furtado variety may be under threat, but it is definitely not extinct as yet.
May be one can see the fresh, ripe fruits of at least one EXTINCT variety, Fernandina, at the Konkan Fruit Fest [KFF] this year. TOI reporters welcome to see the fruits from 16 to 18 May, 2008. It is a bit late in the season for the Colaco and Furtado varieties, but I am sure that the Directorate of Agriculture and the ICAR-Goa would help find a few fruits though they may not be of exhibition quality.
That brings us to the second point: I am NOT the current President of the Botanical Society of Goa or BSG. Dr. K.G.Hiremath, Head of Botany Department in Dhempe College-Panaji, was elected on 30 March and assumed office of BSG President on 01 April, 2008, for a three year period. We are organising the KFF under his leadership this year. The ICAR-Goa is an integral part of the KFF right from the start in 2003. Read more about it in my column in the GT also published today[Friday 9/5/08]
The words attributed to me , QUOTE But Braganza underlined the basic difficulty, "Singh doesn't have any fruit with which to take forward his research." UNQUOTE are malafide and malicious. Further, the one who is supposed to have told the reporter QUOTE "Some 10 years ago, ICAR created a variety called Cardozo-Mancurad, but it was a fruitless experiment." UNQUOTE needs to re-confirm that statment. The "chance seedling" that was christened "Cardozo" in the tradition of Goan mango names is still there in the compound of Dr. Armando Batista Cardoz [since deceased and survived, among others, by his children Ivo and Maria de Ceu Cardoz] on the road to St. Britto HS at Dattawadi-Mapusa. Grafts made therefrom by Mathew have been planted elsewhere in Goa.
A photo of the "Cardoz Mankurad-A seedling selection" fruit can be seen at Fig. 68 opposite page 53 of the book "MANGOES OF GOAN ORIGIN" Technical Bulletin No.1 of ICAR-Goa published in 1997 and which has been read by the people who put together the TOI report as the text has uncanny similarities with what P.A. Mathew wrote in the book after 12 years of research in Goa. Manga Hilario or Mangilar is similarly a "chance seedling" mango named after the father of former Education Minister, Raul Fernandes, from Fernandes vaddo of Siolim now famous because of Remo. I had explained this to Nicole Suares when she phoned me for information to write her piece [Goa Times page 3 08 May, 2008]. She has done her article faithfully. One wonders why my inputs given to her had to be used unauthorisedly and in such a perverse manner by someone else thereafter. Even thieves have some ethics that we journalists in Goa would do well to emulate.
One wonders if the words atrributed to him were truly said Mr. Purshottam M. Colvalcar, former Joint Director of Agriculture who had the good fortune to retire while officiating as the Director, a post he richly deserved but age was not on his side. He has been infirm for some time now ...... and the last KFF was held in 2006 as the Panchayat and Assembly elections last year put paid to our efforts to hold it in May, 2007. I do not know if he did any research on mango but can vouch for the fact that he does not do any professional photography. I will leave it to his contemporary and computer savvy, Mr. Fernando do Rego, to comment on that. Mr. Rego has publication on mango in English and Portuguese to his credit. It is Mr. Rego and my former superior, Mr. K.A.Kazi, who listed the 77 Mango varieties known in Goa in 1979 and is the basis of Mr. P.A. Mathew's research.
The Bispo [Bhism, or Bishop] is a huge, generally insipid mango as I explained to Nicole. It is far from extinct. Infact, the Goa Archbishop's neighbour, Carlos Figueiredo, has a bearing tree of this variety. For those who are really interested in preserving mango varieties of Goa, may I suggest an investment of Rs.50/- to buy the book form ICAR-Goa, a visit to one of the agriculure offices to get the phone number [listed in the Agri Diary 2008] or email ID of one of persons on the acknowledgement page thereof and a free call from any Rs.99/- scheme BSNL telephone. For the doomsday sayers let me quote the Good News according to John: "I have come so that they may have life, life in abundance." [John 10.10] For those who believe, these mango varieties will never die. The KFF is doing its bit to fulfill this prophesy. One may accuse me of quoting the Bible out of context. I plead guilty. However, at least the quote is correct. That is not something I can concede to Raju Nayak in the TOI of 09 May, 2008, unless he believes that mango varieties like Fernandina, Colaco, Bispo can also be resurrected from extinction! Hallelujah!!

TOI GOA, FIRST EDITION -- READER'S REVIEW

2008-05-08T12:08:00.005+05:30

Hi guys, here's a brilliantly crafted piece sent to us by one of our readers. There's a take by Caje on TOI Goa below it. If PP readers have more to say, send your stuff to penpricks@gmail.com

Too Good to be in Goa.
For starters, TOI's Goa edition which's been hovering along for a long time made an unimpressive landing. For a paper with national credentials to boot,its frontpage fare in terms of content left much to be expected.Except for a taboo subject story, the TOI dished out aperitif that was rather drab. There was nothing besides, that could be termed exclusive or investigative for a paper of calibre. The broadsheet seemed to be starving of local coverage which constitutes it main course since it calls itself the Goa edition. The inside pages had pay parking and mega projects reports which were rehashed pieces sprinkled with a few routine droppings that any journalist could cover. The only refreshments after a bad aftertaste were Joaquim Fernandes' piece on power consumer bills and Paul Fernandes'take on fallow lands.There a dearth of hard-hitting stuff, the kind that has tongues wagging and the gossip mills churning.You call features great stories Mr Cajetan Vaz? I think you have your eyes on the ground. Moreover, like the Navhind Times and Herald, TOI Goa seems to be following the same trend of relying on political patronage to stay afloat. Digambar Kamat has been comfortably ensconced in a sofa ostensbily browsing a Times copy (as if the bloke will dare read the GT when in the Miramar office) and spewing his usual political rhetoric to Alexandre Barbosa on how he really cares for the common man and the development of the State. How come Raju Nayak, the metro editor didn't give his former political rival some laxative to defecate his concerned for the aam admi rot and corner him on a host of issues? For all of Rajib Borah's terms of endearment about owing Goans a debt of gratitude, the paper, missed a local editorial.So much for Goa "not being too far from our consciousness" Maybe it was too good to be in GOa. That good, the essentials were forgotten. Nevertheless Borah's writing compared to Arun Sinha's lamentations is a much superior appeal and appease literary effort. Just as an aside,how could the Times Property show organisers allow Borah to write stuff like "This robust vigilantism is also at evidence in the grassroots movement to protect the rich red earth from the mindless bulldozer."And hey! did you notice the world's largest English newspaper even has its own cheerleaders. Eight of them displaying Goa Times on their bare backs in its Goa Times supplement? Gosh! I am sick of this Goa is beautiful rhetoric. As a Goan, I need not be reminded with monotonous cliches like these. Isn't the Times of India Goa edition to be read predominantly by Goans or is the converse true--that Goa is being projected to the outsiders as a hop and stop destination? Which Goan isn't aware of overcrowded buses and tourists ogling scantily clad firangi girls a la Marcellus Baptista? Ill sure need to take an afternoon siesta if the Goa Times carries on its Goa is Paradise, it's a good place for a tan rant. Sure, its a good place to burn your butt too if your not aware of what's going on. It's a newspaper job to wipe the dirt behind the gloss not indulge in sycophancy,official or unofficial even in its magazine sections.Although the Goa edition premiere has gone slightly off pitch. considering the hype about a national daily making its debut , be assured the paper is worth a buy. I would recommend that every Goan household subscribe to it. Not just for its advertisements and its eye-catching graphics but for much more. For the way it analyses issues while other newspapers don't go beyond mere narrative. However it's a gross misconception to treat the Times like a cynosure and ignore the other local newspapers. Each newspaper despite its drawbacks covers territory that the others don't or cannot. For instance editions that are saddled with advertisements upto page 3 are bound to trim their regional ware. So you could miss out on something really exclusive. It may have been a staccato start but it need not be jerky run. The running's just begun and more national dailies will be chipping in. The more, the merrier the competition.One last thing, for your own sake please don't heed NT editor Arun Sinha's advice to "Feel a Goan." You could be arrested for molestation .

CAJE'S TAKE
My subscriber copy is yet to reach me despite informing my newsagent. The subscriber helpline of TOI could not be accessed. But I read the e-paper. And TOI goa edition has my vote as a superior offering. Great stories, except in the business section and sport (need more local fare). Missed a local editorial too. The advt for TOI goa edition displays poor copy with errors and typos. NT today looked smart but was a far second. Good attempt though. Herald has its nose in the ground. GT was average. TOI's classifieds hold promise. Hope they will maintain the standard they've set on day one! Cajetan Vaz

CAJE'S RANT
I wish to bring to your notice that Mr P. Naik, newsagent in my area (Porvorim, behind Holy Family School) delivered my first copy of TOI Goa edition today and demanded that I pay Rs 50/- (Rupees Fifty only) per month as his delivery charges.
This is unacceptable and I request you to please sort the matter to ensure that I get my subscriber copy from a newsagent who you have commissioned at no extra cost beyond the subscription fee already paid.
Don't the newsagents already get a commission?
My Order No. is GAB0020025
Paid on 28/02008 RRE
Name: Prathamesh NaikRRE Code: CR 0131
Mr Cajetan J. VazA8, Devashri Bhavan, Behind Holy Family School, Porvorim Goa 403501Mobile: 9822131277

CHANGING TIMES

2008-05-07T17:24:00.004+05:30

Hey fellas... one good thing may have come out of TOI's entry here.
Raul Fernandes has finally stepped into the real world by shutting down his 'Furniture World', his furniture store at Campal. Hope he can devote more time to the newspaper now.
BTW the changes in TNT are good to see. Ramu's byline story on the film fest was a refreshingly fresh drift when compared to the sludge they pass off as news. Was also good to see that the newspaper which used to literally dry-gulch bylines now even mentions the reporters designation (check out the web edition)... But then they should stay away from copies like this one below filed by Shyam Zambaulikar.
Hey you guys know Sanjay Banerjee's been transferred to Margao right. We can say this with a straight face, that the master of eloquence with that misleading suffix will be following Shyam Zambaulikar's footsteps in Margao. Shyam has had the honour of being TOI's south Goa correspondent when they tried to peddle the Bangalore edition to Goa, a concept which was rejected by the readers. TOI then had had this lousy team comprising of Shyam, Vidyut Kumar Ta, Rupesh Merchant, R V Prabhugaonkar and Cyril D'Cunha. Looks like its HR team has failed miserably again. Let's see they've managed to get one malkurad, one maangilaar, a couple of pairis, the rest of the guys TOI's recruited are quite the mango mongrels.
And GT how have they reacted? Let us see... they've surely cut their engines, pulled down their sails and brought out the oars. They've paddling their boat now... Oars alternating between Derek, Ashley and Thapa. The rest of their crew grabbed their lifejackets and jumped off a long time back.

HMMM... THIS BABY'S HORNY AT BIRTH!!!

2008-05-07T14:56:00.002+05:30

Hi guys... So the TOI has launched on the auspicious occasion of Akshay tritiya. You guys have anything to say about the first issue? Do write back...
This here is a mail on goajourno by Miguel Braganza in his inimitable style.
PP

Dears,

It has delivered. Bennett, Coleman and family has a new addition. The baby is appropriately named the "GoaGoa, it's good to be here." Over the days and weeks and years, we hope we can say the same about the Times of India! Edition". The front page Edit reads "Good morning

It is good to see the familiar bylines in yet another newspaper: Sanjay Bannerjee,Paul Fernandes,Joaquim Fernandes, Preetu Nair, Andrew Pereira, and others. Caju feni loving Goans like Cecil Pinto now can have the company of Govind Kamat Maad.

It has SEX in Goan schools on the front page in an article that begins provocatively with "Go for sex..." and, like any Government scheme, ends up rather uninterestingly with ".... education in schools, say parents." Right next to it is the story of the "CBI probe in Scarlett case".

My surname is on the TOI agenda, but in the other gender. The story about "Sr Braganza" tells one not of Senhor Braganza [as my friend Floriano would insist] but of Sister Karuna Mary Braganza. Nothing pro-Goan or anti-Goan about her. I do not know if she is even a Goan with a name like Karuna [meaning compassion] and a Padma Shree to boot!

Good morning. It is nice to have TOI here.

Mog asundi.

Miguel

JOURNALISTS AND THEIR PSYCHEDELIC HALOS

2008-05-04T15:41:00.016+05:30

Sure this post took eight years coming. Too bad the book, whose excerpts we have quoted from, was only published in the year 2007 or something.
In a way, this story is a logical extension of the series of posts which we put up following Preetu Nair's startling observation. Here's what Preetu had stated in her response to Miguel Braganza.
"Fortunately, readers are quick to realize that much of what goes on in the tourist paradise of Goa goes unreported because a few local journos and their editors play host to the corrupt system."
We wonder now if Arun Saldanha's book Psychedelic White -- Goa Trance and the Viscosity of Race puts Preetu's comment in perspective.
So what does Arun Saldanha say...
Saldanha draws a line between "the abrupt demolition of Goa2000 by an army of cops and thugs was great news for Dolce Vita, Bamboo Forest and Hilltop."
The author states that Dolce Vita was run by Roy Fernandes. (Roy, some of you guys may know, is former minister Fatima De Sa's PA, who was sentenced to life by a lower court on a murder charge... dunno the status of that case now. Roy, incidentally is a wonderfully resourceful chap along the coast in North Goa. You'd be amazed. He can get you exotic varieties of 'mushrooms' in middle of winter, get you nice scented sort of dry grass even in the middle of monsoons. If you want some of those deliciously intoxicating cookies or a non liquified form of Cola, Roy's one of those guys who can get it for you)
Next, the author also tells the reader that Roy is in fact a cousin to journo Peter D'Souza of Gomantak Times, who had started a 'crusade' against Jeh Wadia's Goa2000 mega rave, which was set to corner the rave and its allied notorious businesses, which Roy had set his sights on, during that heady season of 2000.
While Saldanha has diligently added Peter's denial of the 'purported favor', he does not deny the surge in the economics of Roy's various businesses, which followed his cousin Peter's 'crusade' against Goa2000 on grounds of environment and morality.
We wonder if this is the kind of thing Preetu was referring to, when she alleged that media-persons play host to a corrupt system?
Hmmmm you tell us guys comeon... Preetu also claims that "readers are quick to realise". Maybe she knows best. After all, she's shared bylines with Peter De Souza on several award-winning stories... Hope you're quick to realise that too fellas.

COMING UP SOON...

2008-05-02T12:40:00.002+05:30

We'll take a day's break fellas... but coming up soon... A fascinating media angle to the 10 day rave which was planned by Jeh Wadia at Anjuna in the year 2000. We will reproduce excerpts from a book written by an Indian author, which sheds light on reasons, other than 'patriotism' and 'environment', that led to the Wadia bash being eventually banned. We too were glad that the mega bash was stopped by the authorities. But the rave story just did not end there. Soon...

THE RISE AND FALL OF GOA'S FIRST 24 HOUR NEWS CHANNEL -- PART II

2008-05-02T00:33:00.005+05:30

This is the concluding part of the interview. We have one request here. Responses to this interview (and other such interviews in the future) would be approved only if they are accompanied by a name and a legit email ID. We will upload the post only after confirming the identity of the chap who has made that comment.
Look guys, whether Ajay Thakur is right or not, whether he is a good guy or a bad guy, it is to his credit that he has lent his name to the story shared on the blog, unlike us cowardly pricks who use the shield of anonymity. Doing what Ajay has done, takes courage. So if you are gonna pass a remark on this issue, we would request you to lend your name too.
We are glad that we could get something of what transpired at STV GOA NEWS on record. There was too much info flying about to make sense of.
So if you have any comments to share please do tell us who you are and leave behind your legit email ID.

Q) There were several reports of a regional rift between Goans and non Goan employed there. Can you confirm and elaborate on this continuous sense of discord?
A) I remember reading that on your blog and was amused. The man who is said to have led the Goan Camp, who talked only in Hindi, could not correct a Konkani script being a Goan, spoke Marathi properly being a president of a Marathi state journo body, who made calls from a colleagues phone to tell journos in a Press Conference. This fact is the truth of the matter. There was no Goan and non-Goan divide. Yes, initially the ‘experienced’ technical staff from Delhi hauled onto us by the Management did ride rough shod over the staff which was hired locally. It actually could be a Metro versus non-Metro divide. But then with time, guys recruited here outshone them and the guys from Delhi started resorting to cheap tactics to save face. But that was it. No regional rift. Except of course when the management showed the door to the former executive editor. Newspaper which were friendly to him reported some stuff. Can an out-of-state entrepreneur survive in an alien area without the involvement of locals? No.

Q) STV GOA NEWS boasted about a professional set up with prior experience in other states, and yet, the news output only appeared to be PR driven. As someone who was up there in channel's editorial hierarchy, could you tell us why?
A) PR driven? Are you talking about the news per se or the lone chat show that we had, since we had not much in terms of programming? No, I don’t agree that we were PR driven. In fact, all that drove us was ‘US’. When the news coverage came in, our job was to put on air what had happened or was covered, uncut and quickly. Some guys were shown more (some guys were covered more than the others) and I don’t deny that. Familiarity at times breeds PR. It can happen, but then it was never consciously done? In democracy, the party in power always gets more footage (coverage) than the opposition normally. Till, the party in power fumbles, then the equation of coverage changes but I remember this SMS I received, which said “You look like a BJP Channel!” My reply was “Ya, last week we were NCP, next week Congress and the week later, a Save Goa Channel”. The guy sheepishly said “You are right”. For an aggressive channel, I know most guys want us to shout from the rooftops or maybe even do a sting with no sense of purpose, but even for that you need the right team, one television man does not make a channel. A few good journos and proper technology backup can change the content and quality of news. What you guys saw was what we could manage with the limited resource and sans management support.

Q) Was there a stated editorial policy you were asked to pursue? Are you in a position to tell us about 'holy cows' in the editorial policy, if there were any?
A) How many channels and newspapers in India have a written editorial policy? None. It is more like the Vedas, passed on by word-of-mouth down generations. There were arguments with the management but generally there was no interference in reporting on the usual suspects – mining, health, infrastructure etc, etc. But then the Holy Cows were there. Real Estate, for obvious reasons and coverage of opposition leaders again for the channel Management’s had a history of playing partisan elsewhere too. There was no diktat. But then yes, specific instances… Stories were held back in order to not upset local business interests. But the amusing part is that often when they would see others covering it, they would quickly change their stance.

Q) There has been a lot of criticism about the way STV GOA NEWS ended its operations abruptly, leaving several of your colleagues in a lurch. You even say that the police were called to ensure all the employees left the office on March 1. Can you tell us what exactly happened?
A) The Police would have been called ‘cos of an earlier incident where the former executive editor’s driver tried to force his way in and his kin locked herself up to cook a case of wrongful confinement, which fell through. The management clearly wanted no trouble there. But one is baffled by the speed and secrecy. I, as the Editor, didn’t know what the Management or its Administrator had on their minds. At 1 pm, we were able to buy time to shift out of the premises after a specific period from the Housing Board; everything was hunky dory until at 3 pm a notice told us that the Channel is going off air tonight at 12 pm. Period. Nobody was traceable from the management’s side and the administrator was telling us to quietly take our dues and that’s it. There were meetings, and surprisingly our ex-executive editor along-with his bunch of cronies surfaced out of nowhere to take charge. But there were too many chinks in the employees armour. More than 75% were working without a Contract Letter (they never demanded one!). Moreover they had signed on a voucher before the Adminstrator which read “Full and Final Settlement”. Everyone became a leader and reason went out of the window. What happened was sad and bad. But then Goa News was never one big family, it was a bunch of ghettos and the internal fabric of the company looked very disturbing. So what happened to my colleagues is something like “what we gave is what got”.

Q) STV GOA NEWS had been in the news for the wrong reasons. To begin with the set up was established in a residential area, which is a gross illegality. STV GOA NEWS' hasty exit has only reinforced speculation that the outfit was in Goa not for news alone.... Your observation
A) Yes, the High Court and the Housing Board made us realize that too ;-) But then, the promoters who would wave a ‘letter to operate’ from the panchayat on my face everytime I cried foul against these decisions. This happened much before I was a part of the organisation. The deal had been struck earlier. I have read on your blog about a part of the Herald being illegal, but does that stop those amazing reporters from turning up at the workplace day in and day out. But yes, your observation that the outfit was in Goa not for news alone may have some merits. Goa News is shut down, but cars and vans carrying screaming stickers still shuttle around. Lots of non-journos carrying PRESS tags still move amongst us. Reporting from a certain section of the Coastal belt which was usually out of our bounds is witnessing major developmental projects. Questions still remain unanswered but then it takes a journalist to do so. Goa News might have been shut but the journalists are still out there. At least one of them is. Truth will have to be dug out and told.

THE RISE AND FALL OF GOA'S FIRST 24 HOUR NEWS CHANNEL -- OF BAD EGGS IN NIRVANA'S NEST

2008-05-01T15:13:00.007+05:30

When reports of a 24 hour news channel in Goa first started filtering in, there were varied reactions. Some scoffed. Some said Goa wasn't big enough. Some called it a fly-by-night operation. Some said oh... finally some relief from these numerous one-hour-news-bulletin rackets.
Less than a year has lapsed. The 24 hour news channel we are talking about STV GOA NEWS has already shut shop in a very very suspiscious manner. For a few days before its closure, all that was bombarded on the channel were ads for Nirvana's Nest, a residential complex which the promoters of STV GOA NEWS had a stake in.
A few days ago we interviewed former input editor (designated) Ajay Thakur over email about the functioning of this 24 hour media-mushroom, which showed up and disappeared as quickly as that. Here's the first part of that interview. The second part will be uploaded tomorrow. It has a very, very interesting disclosure about STV GOA NEWS' holy cows in the channel's editorial policy. Do look out for it.
If you guys have any counter questions, mail them to us. We'll see if we can get some responses from Ajay.

Q) In what capacity were you associated with GOA NEWS?
A) I was interviewed as a News Editor with a total editorial command. In charge of both Input (news identification, collection, gathering & updates) as well as Output (news production, processing, bulletins, news packaging, the form & content). But when I joined in I was handed a contract saying that I was to be the Input Editor only reporting to an Executive Editor. Later, after the unceremonious exit of my senior, Executive Editor in last August, I was handling the entire Editorial Operations till the last Bulletin was aired on February 28th, 2008. You could call me the Editor but then (a) I was given no written orders stating to the effect, I just ‘took’ over & (b) according to the Law of the Land, to be an Editor my name should have been submitted when we applied for the license. I dunno if they did that.

Q) What were the levels of investment, technology, manpower used by STV GOA NEWS?
A) I think the overall investment would not have been more than Rs 1.5 crore. Analog (read dated) technology was used. Machines were sourced from their Delhi stable. Skilled manpower was brought in mainly from Delhi. They were paid peanuts by Goa yardstick forget the Industry Standards. The Channel was supposedly losing 25 lakhs a month! On what, I ask myself sometimes. Reporters used cameras that lasted for not more than 10 minutes & conked-off periodically. Producers were freshers out of college, but with attitudes of industry veterans. Equipment was dated almost archaic. Softwares were pirated (quite paradoxical to the profession that upholds truth). There were no vehicles to ferry reporters. Telephones & cellphones would be discontinued without notice.

Q) In retrospect Ajay, do you believe that Goa has enough fodder for a 24 hour news channel?
A) Yes, I strongly believe so. Back in journalism school I had learnt the definition of news and we stuck to that. Report everything that happens in your neighbourhood. Bad News and Good News too. Yes, Goa News didn’t look all that forceful, but then in an audio-visual medium you need graphic tools & animation to supplement a story. The management hadn’t invested in it. But then, check remote & unrepresented news areas like Sanguem, Pernem, Bicholim, Satteri and even Salcette. We were a force to reckon with. People wanted us to tell their story. I still marvel at the fact that people would call Goa News before they would call the administration or the police. Goa has enough for a 24 hour Community Television Station more on the lines of NY1 or CSB, etc. Please don’t expect a BBC, CNN, NDTV or CNN-IBN over here. In fact, I was amazed to see that the news that we reported would appear in the leading dailies in the State even after a week. Hey, we used to file in and show 45+ stories a day (that was besides what our Maharashtra based reporters sent). Someone needs the proof, I still have the registers on my iBook and the rundowns that we have to mandatorily store for three months for I&B Ministry, daily, to prove the point.

Q) As a senior editorial hand, whom did you perceive as competition on the news gathering front. a) HCN? b) The numerous one-hour bulletins? c) The channel's management? Tell us why.
A) Competition in news gathering? I don’t think so. A section of the Herald & GUJ did try to run a campaign against us. Our reporters and cameramen were threatened but that was initially. People powered us and they reported to us. The leaders followed suit. The people (refers to the one hour news-bulletins) that you mention above didn’t compete with us from news-gathering point of view. The problem between us and these people was to do more with distribution. It is like this. You switch off the TV and who will watch you. Television business has this one big elephant that you have to rear, its called Distribution. The bigger channels give carrier fees to the Cable Operators to broadcast them. That is where they make their money and not from providing cable connection to your house or mine. Everywhere we were asked for these fees ‘cos we were a satellite Channel. We paid everywhere including Panaji and Porvorim. From newspaper legends to cable operators to fellow journalists, everyone said that we muscled them off different regions in the State. That is incorrect, we had to pay carrier fees and in the bargain if the cable guy wanted to do what he felt like, he could. HCN and the one hour bulletins, all have people as well as Government patronage. “How could we and also, why should we bump them off” was what went misinterpreted. The channel’s management actually came down on its knees when the question of visibility in the Capital came up. I don’t think there was ever a problem on news gathering front.

Q) Spell out the reasons, why GOA NEWS failed.
A) Direction, People, Money…just about everything was questionable. And Yes, it was a beautiful idea but something that was not well placed. 1) IF IT WAS WELL BEGUN…The Editorial Face of the Channel was a certain gentleman who has a string of NBWs for cheating & forgery against him. The management included people who travelled in PRESS sticker-ed cars to sell real estate, the majority of people working were political recommendations or the Executive Editor’s kin. 2) PAY PEANUTS GET MONKEYS…Barring me and three journalists with some experience, there were no journalists in the set-up. If there were some, they had their own political agenda (showcasing certain people but that was restricted to Konkani Bulletins). We simply could not attract and retain senior journalists or good people. HCN did take a gamble and weaned away quite a few of our colleagues, but then if You have a Satellite Channel you have to pay them. Most importantly, it also works the other way. If You get, freshers from the College who are more interested in hanging on to their mobile phones or celebrating birthdays, than getting a solid angle to a story, how frustrating can life get. 3) SHOW ME THE MONEY…We never invested in a good marketing team to sell slots, gestures like wishing a certain Minister on his Birthday by a certain section of staff got us more brickbats than bouquets. We were running losses not because we were not delivering but because the Management was not willing to get GOOD people to sell the slots. I was shocked when my Reporters were asked to sell slots. We unitedly put our foot down. But the fact remains that no money was coming in. 4) DROP THE DEAD DONKEY…in this case, it was technology. We were a Satellite Channel showing news by a 30 minute delay. We had not used (invested) in an OB Van. Where was the live news? Plus, every time we needed a vehicle to cover the vicious cycle from where is the money to why we can’t cover an event ran hundreds of time everyday. No cameras, no transport, no technology (Broadband, NRCS, Digital Newsroom, etc), A Hindi expression explains this situation well… Bhagwan hi malik tha. 5) WRONG HIERARCHY…wrong managers manning operations and crucial decisions like transport, salaries, staffing. There was no Chain of Command, anybody could say anything to anybody. There was no understanding of why someone was positioned above another. Check this…a wannabe MBA suddenly surfaces as an Administrator but is more interested in the News Operations. So while there is no transport, no phones working, the said person is holding meetings on how news should be covered somewhere. A 9th Class pass chappie is suddenly hauled in as Head of Administration with powers to stop coverage of news, knock off anchors from a bulletin. And hold your breath… even stop bulletins from being aired!!! 6) FOCUS…Dear Penpricks, this is the moral of the story. Any Channel can succeed anywhere. If you have your focus right, your homework right, your effort (not just attempt!) right. GOA NEWS failed on all those counts, other issues are related and just explanations of this.
(to be continuted)

TO THE VICTOR BELONG THE 'SPOILED'

2008-05-01T01:17:00.003+05:30

Herald's dumb-asses are at it again.
Can't they even file a decent victory copy? Sure they could have been dripping in champagne around the time this guy filed the copy. But that still doesn't explain mistakes like the one's that have happened here.
'Herald steal'
'Three times defending'
Now look at this. If they 'easily outsmarted' (first line) Navhind Publications, then how was it a 'thrilling and keenly fought match' (second para, first line)? And if it was a 'thrilling and keenly fought match' then how could Herald have 'dominated the proceeding right from the word go'?
Another huge error in the copy guys... Managed to spot it yet? Lets see if you can get it. If you can't scroll to the bottom of this post. :)

Herald steal limelight for 4th time
HERALD SPORTS DESK
PANJIM, APRIL 12 -- Three times defending champions Herald Publications easily outsmarted Navhind Publications 3-1 to lay their hands on the Inter-Media football tournament title for the fourth consecutive year.
In a thrilling and keenly fought final match played at Don Bosco ground, here, Herald dominated the proceeding right from the word go.
Heraldâ€™s star player Minguel Carvalho, who scored a brace was to be watched as he showed some profound footballing skills.
Pradeep Vengurlekar, who scored the winner was also at his best.
Gonsal Rebello was the lone scorer for Navhind Publication.
Navhind Goalkeeper Anirudh Raul effected a good save off a penalty kick by Pradeep Vengurlekar.
Individual winners of the championship are: Man of the Final â€“ Minguel Carvalho (Herald), Highest Scorer â€” Minguel Carvalho (Herald) 8 goals, Man of the Tournament â€” Pradeep Vengurlekar (Herald), Best Goalkeeper â€” Anirudh Raul (Navhind), Best Defender â€” Gonsal Rebello (Navhind), Best Midfielder â€” Paul Fernandes (Times of India), Best Forward â€“ Kishore Kamat (Navhind), Fair Play Trophy â€“ Times of India.
Dr Susana Dâ€™Souza, Director, Directorate of Sports and Youth Affairs was the chief guest and gave away the prizes in the presence of Herald Editor Ashwin Tombat.
Earlier, President of SJAG Sharadchandra Naik welcomed the guests.
General Secretary of SJAG Manguesh Borkar compered and proposed the vote of thanks.
The tournament was organised by Sports Journalists Association of Goa in association with the Directorate of Sports and Youth Affairs.

Note: Didn't spot it yet? No problem. Check out the para which talks about the winners. Check the last line.... Still cannot figure it out? It's a huge error maan... the story says Times of India won the 'fair play trophy'. 'Fair play' and the Times of India!!! When did that happen? hehehe

THE RISE AND FALL OF GOA'S FIRST 24 HOUR NEWS CHANNEL -- AN INSIDE STORY

2008-05-01T00:38:00.006+05:30

Hi guys, on May 1 and May 2, we will run a two part interview featuring Ajay Thakur, former Star News correspondent in Goa and the guy who was input editor at STV Goa News.
Although, this is the first time we are conducting a full fledged interview, it is not a shift in direction vis a vis the blog. Our rantings will continue as usual.
Ajay's interview which was carried out by email contains interesting/fascinating revelations about a slice of history in the Goan media, which was created surreptitiously and whose sudden end was shrouded in mystery. The interview puts on record (through inputs of a senior ranking employee) one side of the Goa News story and the issues/controversies surrounding Goa's first '24 hour' news channel.
Looking forward to your response on this, once we run the interview.
PP

HERE'S A PUZZLE GUYS.... LET'S SEE IF YOU CAN NAME THESE TWO JOURNOS?

2008-04-29T21:06:00.003+05:30

Let's see, how well you guys know your own colleagues... Lets see if you can name these two guys taking a power nap at the Reliance outlet at Campal.

NICE PIC, AIN'T IT?

2008-04-29T20:52:00.005+05:30

The Goan print media has perhaps just two good news photographers... Nandesh Kambli from the Navhind Times and Rajtilak Naik who has now shifted to TOI. Here's a fantastic shot by Nandesh published in the TNT recently. Its a couple of eagles (not eagles... kites... thanks for the correction bud) swooping on their prey.

A PICTURE* IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS I

2008-04-29T00:54:00.001+05:30

* Photo courtesy Department of Information Government of Goa

A PICTURE* IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS II

2008-04-29T00:37:00.005+05:30

'Shankaracharyaji, yes that's the agreement for the latest plot of land I've bought. You've heard of Meridian estates right? Wait a minute... is that your face on it? Did I muscle you out of that piece of land?' Oh... so sorry, you can have it back. And BTW thanks for curing my piles? No doctor at the GMC could get it treated right. I've always been a prickly asshole, ask my pop'

* Photo courtesy Department of Information Government of Goa

GOAN MEDIA'S FIRST GIGOLO, NOW CRIES COMPETITION

2008-04-28T12:58:00.007+05:30

We don't need to write a
word more!

MORE ON THE GOMANTAK TIMES FATWA ON BYLINES

2008-04-27T13:45:00.005+05:30

Here's some of the comments received in response to the last post. We've left out a few which were so cryptic that we couldn't decipher them and a couple which spoke about our proximity to GT. You can read them in the comments section in the last post. If you have more to say, send it in...

Anonymous said...
GT is now having sex with condoms after TOI has already impregnated it. A case of too little too late.
Anonymous said...
Read the latest issue of Goan OBserver? Another hypocrite is facing TOI heat. Until yesterday, Rajan Narayan was pontificating through his Stray Thoughts about the pressing need of Goan journos to make the best of TOI offer and accepting it without further delay. He wanted Goan journos to direct their newspaper establishments to match the offers made to them by TOI. However, one attack of TOI on their reporter Gauri Malkarnekar has delivered a stinging slap on Rajan's face and has made him take a U-turn on his SERMON. Read Rajan's outpourings against TOI in his Stray Thoughts in the latest issue of Goan Observer to get a hang of the vitriol and hatred that has been the hallmark of his brand of journalism all these years. Gosh, he calls TOI a prostitute and wants Goans to boycott it. Talibanism of the worst variety aka GT?
Incidentally, TOI didn't poach on Gauri Malkarnekar. She herself was keen on quitting 'Weekly' Goan Observer and joining a 'Daily', a fact conveniently ignored by Rajan Narayan in his column.
Anonymous said...
Excellent post.Apart from exposing the sheer insecurity of the top brass at GT, the job of erasing bylines of GT reporters(or whatever that is left there) smacks of the DOG IN THE MANGER ATTITUDE currently prevailing at GT. Guys GT is s**t scared and is trying to save whatever it can from the TOI onslaught. Good luck to them. And yes finally good sense has prevailed on this post who have stopped treating GT as a holy cow. Need I say Talibans are BARBARIANS and GT is following in its footsteps?
Caje said...
Hey penpricks!
Keep up the buzz... and if you really believe that bylines should be attributed, let's start by you signing your real name/s too:-)
I've started by abstaining from an anonymous identity to signing this.
Cajetan Vaz
Anonymous said
It is apparent that all penpricks are from GT. GT and to some extent Herald were the only papers that allowed a reporters by-line. TNT has always withheld the identities of its reporters and used the " By a NT Staff Reporter". I do not see why this should be a problem or be considered as "curtailment of freedom". You are all working for your respective organizations as a team (cohesive i'm assuming) and not to showcase your individual skills. And so, a great piece provides your consumer (the reader) with a delight/thrill thereby satisfying his needs and in turn scores a point for the publication that you work for. A badly written piece on the other hand only ends up scoring a demerit and exposes the lack of teamwork in making the same readable.
As a team, you can all contribute to making up for each others deficiencies by pitching in and let everyone grow professionally or have pitched battles and score points against each other and all lose as the overall quality of the publication degrades.
Again, i must insist that the overall quality of the publication depends upon the team work that is put into making it better.
Anonymous said...
Hamam mein hum sab nange hai including GT.
(Loose translation: All are birds of same feather including GT)
Anonymous said...
We Goans should be proud of Derrick Almeida and should support him in his endevour of being the only Goan editor of a newspaper. Times of India will never approach Derrick Almeida as he has done wonderful work in turning around Gomantak Times into a paper which carries intellectual content.
Anonymous said...
so let penpricks name the journalist behind a good/bad/ugly story.....

MR NO NAME NO FACE: HENCEFORTH, THAT'S WHAT WE'LL CALL GT REPORTERS*

2008-04-25T20:40:00.012+05:30

Some breaking news fellas...
Monday onwards, the Gomantak Times is likely to pluck the name of the editor and publisher Derek Almeida off the print line to avoid the possibility of him being poached by The Times of India... And from Sunday both the news editor Thapa and the deputy news editor Ashley have been asked to report to duty with one eraser each to ensure that reporters' bylines are scrubbed off the page before it's released.
Of course we are funnin' guys. But the issue we comment on below, isn't exactly funny, its dumb and worthy of ridicule.
From the bit of thread that we've picked (after being alerted by a couple of remarks in the comments section, thanks to our ever vigilant readers) the Gomantak Times has stopped dishing out bylines for fear of the author being poached by the TOI.
WHAT?!?!? Exactly what are we saying here...
Was sanity the last person to quit the GT for TOI? What on earth is this policy?
Figure out this for a minute.
Say X files a good story in the GT and its published minus the byline. Does the management really feel that no one in the TOI would realise who has filed it? Especially with the number of GT folks already crammed in the TOI?
A writing style is a signature and colleagues/former colleagues will spot it.
This Taliban like ban needs to be criticised in the strictest words. Cause if such silly whims are allowed to prevail, journos would be reduced to mute, naked pawns in the games that these big newspapers play with each other.
Whether you like us or hate us. Please do make it a point to write back about what you have to say about this issue guys. We'll pile the comments as a separate post.

* http://penpricks.blogspot.com/2007/12/penpricks-impact-voice-drifts-into.html

सब गंदा है पर धंदा है ये!!!

2008-04-23T00:01:00.006+05:30

Call us fools. Dumb-asses. (Some of you do that anyway, but say it once more pls). For one whole year now, we missed a story, that was staring at us right in the face.
It was only a few days ago when we were reading up one of Mayuresh Pawar's 100 % non adulterated article that it finally hit us.
All this while we were under the impression that when Herald owner Raul Fernandes (pic) had applied for a casino licence (the BJP was in power then) the formalities had been carried out either in his name or some other company he had floated.
But we were stumped when Mayuresh's story on April 14 and The Navhind Time story on March 28 read that in fact it was the Raul-owned Herald Publications Pvt Ltd which had applied for a casino licence.
Now this is really shocking.
Say, tomorrow if Herald Publications Pvt Ltd (the company which owns the Herald newspaper) is issued the licence, the company would end up running both a newspaper and a casino simultaenously? (Can you imagine a floating news desk?) You heard of anything more bizzare? But damn... we've had mine owners running newspapers!!! ;)
Anyway there are a couple of points we were trying to make.
We have been a bit late in picking up this lead, so have any readers noticed how Herald has treated casino-related stories? Stories, edits? Anyone knows... do write back your comments.
This paradox brings to our mind an anecdote involving Sunaparant editor Sandesh Prabhudessai and Churchill Alemao at the latter's cabin.
Churchill was... we think the Industries minister then (not very sure about this) and was lobbying hard for casinos. There's one thing about Sandesh and you've got to grant him this. When he starts talking, you can only listen, cause you can't do much else. You are literally spellbound.
So where were we... hmm ok we journos were munching batatawadas ordered from Tato and Churchill was bulldozing his argument. "Casino... will give jobs. Employment zatole re." (the casino lobby had put him on the job already) Around then Sandesh rallied around with an amazing spell of sustained sarcasm.
"Sure, casinos will create all sorts of jobs in Goa. So all the unemployed Goan women would have a great avenue to become prostitutes and hey, all unemployed Goan menfolk can start about pimping them to the rich casino clients." This is a small bit from that conversation which could recollect. But trust us, Churchill could not say much in response. At the end, he just mumbled something to the effect of, "Jobs zatele re... Kidde oloyta re tu!"
Phew... back to the present.
Now that conversation creates a pretty queer pitch for Sandesh in today's clime. Guys, V M Salgaoncar and Bro Pvt Ltd have also applied for a casino licence. These are the big boys who own Sunaparant. Wonder if it would present the same kind of predicament to Sandesh now, as it did when he confronted Churchill on the casino issue. Hope he puts across his anti-casino point-of-view to the dapper Dattaraj, with the same kind of zeal he had confronted Churchill with.
Come to think of it guys, life really does hold you by the collar and place you at these strange crossroads. Look at this now two of the most visible and voluble journos (Sandesh and Herald editor Ashwin Tombat) who are known known to wear the Left ideology on their sleeves, now edit newspapers run by bosses who are hell bent on starting casinos in Goa.
Weird man.. weird... So life's not much different than a roulette then, is it?

CAN U HELP US FIND ASHWIN?

2008-04-19T00:54:00.003+05:30

A very disoriented Penpricks is desperately looking for one Ashwin Tombat, a journalist we once knew.
In fact this post is about this journo who once made a newspaper in the ruins look up, during his first stint at The Gomantak Times. Maybe it was the recent journey some miles up road to a very capitalist Bombay where a few PR write ups for firms like the TATAs among others, that probably washed him out?
The only problem is that he is supposed to be editing a newspaper in Goa, but we still haven't found him all this time. And the paper he is rumoured to be editing not only smells like carcass, but also reads like one.
The Tomcat signature is certainly missing. But what is very very obvious is the clumsy footprint of furniture storekeeper, who runs the newspaper like a badly managed stud farm. You know the sort where thoroughbreds are put to plough and crowbaits mistaken for seed stallions.
And that's why we have contacted you readers to see if you guys could help us find this journalist long lost. Ashwin should be in his late 40s or early 50s now.
From what we knew of him, he was tall, broad chested, dark, with an unruly shock of hair (although Ashwin leaned towards the left in his early, his hair wasn't weighed down by any one particular ideology...)
Hey we even have a photograph (courtesy harinair's blog) for you guys to help narrow the search down.
If any reader recognises Ashwin in the photograph and/or knows anything about him contact any of us pricks at penpricks@gmail.com
Good old journalism wants to renew ties with Ashwin again.

British author in search of Goan classmate

BY ASHWIN TOMBAT
PANJIM, APRIL 12 — British author Annette Allen is looking for her classmates from her schooldays in Ethiopia. In fact, the search is the subject of her first non-fiction memoir: ‘An Ethiopian Odyssey’, that is helping to raise funds for WaterAid Ethiopia. It details her 25,000 mile journey to find nine former classmates from Nazareth School for Girls, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she studied from 1962 to 1964. Among the girls Annette hopes to find – and write a second book about their lives – is a Goan, Celina Fernandes. She would be around 56 now, says Annette, and had a sister Elizabeth and brother David. She would like, if possible, to include Celina’s story and what happened to her in the intervening years in the book (but only if Celina agrees). Half of the royalties from the new book will go to peace projects across the world. The only problem is, she hasn’t found Celina as yet. That’s why she contacted Herald, to see if we could help her find a long-lost classmate. Celina is mentioned in her first book as well; she remembers Celina fondly as “a tall, graceful Indo-Portuguese girl from Goa”. “Celina Fernandes,” she continues, “was the tallest among us. I imagined that she must have taken after her father in height. She often appeared anxious, her brows knitted in bewilderment. She had a lilting accent, so typical of the Goan people and, unlike Sumitra Goyal — another classmate she’s in search of — she always let her long hair fall free like a curtain, with just a bow at the back.” An Ethiopian classmate, Fanaye Saifou, told Annette while she was on her Ethiopian odyssey that out of the class of 38 in that Annette left in 1964, only 10 graduated in 1969; one of whom was Celina. Fanaye said she has preserved the graduation photo. Annette heard during her travels that Celina had returned to Goa. Now she’s determined to find her if she can. Annette was inspired to take up this mission by a dream she had in April 2000 – that she had returned to Addis Ababa to help provide water for the very poor. She was then asked to give a talk about the quest at the United Nations last year, to talk about this journey of deep faith. There is now a major international publisher interested. She has set up a company to channel half of the royalties from every book to help the poor. She says that she believes in hands-up, not hand-outs, and her journey has helped her discover that dreams still touch hearts across the world. She is now looking for her remaining classmates, and hopes to include their lives in her second book. Annette is half-English, half-Norwegian and spent much of her childhood living out of suitcases, as the family travelled from city to city, country to country, following her father’s aeronautical career. Most of her childhood was in Africa: Ethiopia and South Africa. When she witnessed the endemic poverty in these countries, she developed a strong sense of justice for these people, who had so little, and yet were often happier than Europeans, even though the latter had so many material possessions. Her simple, Christian faith grew from such encounters. After returning to Britain in 1972, she moved into corporate communications, working for major international companies. She won awards for some of her work, but as she approached 40, life began to seem increasingly meaningless, despite a BMW in the driveway, the birth of her son James in 1989, and a lovely house. Everything changed after her mother’s death in 1993. She stopped work for a while to care for her and began to question what life was really all about. In particular, she was puzzled by the still, clear dreams she had, messages which had no connection whatsoever to the previous day’s events. She began to wonder if these could, perhaps, foretell her future. She set off on her journey to find her former classmates in March 2004, guided by dreams and the old black and white school photo, with just their Christian names on the reverse. Little did she anticipate that she would cross three continents to track them down, helped by men and women around the world. The dream spread everywhere, on the internet, radio programmes and TV news and ended at St Paul’s Chapel in New York, a little church next to Ground Zero. The city is home to two of her former classmates. The book has received many accolades. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has written: “I very much admire your determination and commitment to the cause of poverty reduction. I hope... that others are inspired by reading about your experiences.” Cape Town Archbishop Emeritus Desmon Tutu said: “Thank you for sharing your dream with me. I read about it with great interest.” President of Ethiopia Girma Wolde-Giorgis wrote: “I am happy to know that you were in Nazareth School with my daughter, Hiruth. I am sure your book will be a success.” If any reader recognises Celina in the photograph and/or knows anything about her, please contact me at Herald (Tel: 2433373, 6658502, 2224202, 2224460, 2228083). A school friend wants to renew ties with her.

A SMALL NOTE FOR FRANKY

2008-04-17T21:42:00.002+05:30

Franky baby... tell us one thing man...
Exactly how is a pimp 'hotly' chased by the Crime Branch? ;) And Franky how big a stake, is a stake in a fledgling activity?

Uzbek women released
BY HERALD REPORTER
PANJIM, APRIL 16 – The four Uzbekistan women arrested for prostitution were let off by the Judicial Magistrate First Class, here, on Wednesday. The four were remanded to 14 days judicial custody yesterday.
The four have been asked not to leave Goa without permission of the court and to report to the Crime Branch daily for the next two weeks between 10 am to 1 pm.
The women were employed by Gulnora Zuraeva, who is being hotly chased by the Crime Branch. A look-out circular has been issued to all immigration check posts at airports and sea ports so that the pimp doesn’t leave the country.
Crime Branch sleuths maintained that the woman’s partner, Rohit Trivedi, who has a big stake in the fledgling activity going on for some time in Goa and some neighbouring states, is also being hunted.

CHITTHI AAYI HAI!!!

2008-04-16T00:10:00.007+05:30

We got this mail from Rajan P. Parrikar, rather it was mailed to the Gomantak Times and copied to the penpricks ID.
Rajan P. Parrikar claims that the Gomantak Times picked his photo from the web and used it "without his permission" or "without crediting him". He has sought an explanation from the GT Editor Derek. Well, we do sincerely hope Rajan gets his answer, cause we still haven't gotten ours on that plagiarised editorial bit.
Here's Rajan's mail

From: "Rajan P. Parrikar"
To: editor@gomantaktimes.com, derekalmeida@rediffmail.com, gteditor@gmail.com
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:45:46 -0700 (PDT)
Subject: Using my photograph without permission and without credit
Derek,
The Gomantak Times has used my photograph (Anthony D'Silva)
on page A2 today (Tues, April 15, 2008) without my permission
and without crediting me. This is unacceptable. Please explain.
I had posted the photograph to Goanet. See here -
http://www.parrikar.org/images/samples/anthonydsilva-1.jpg

COMING UP SOON... RAUL FERNANDES' LAST 'GAMBLE'

INTRODUCING.... THE WILD FLOWER OF CEBU

2008-04-12T13:22:00.003+05:30

Hey, do these fellas in the Herald know that they have a celebrity in their midst? Angela Calina, who a part of the latest lot of Filipino's to hit Herald is something of a celeb back in her own country. Angela, was one of the reasons why Herald owner Raul was attracted to the Philippines in the first place and then got stuck around there for the last few years. (BTW Raul's back a couple of days ago).
Angela was a part of a Pinoy Big Brother show (remember we had our own indigenous variety in India?) and has quite a fan following. She is also an anchor and some sort of a singer out there. Unfortunately Angela was the first celeb to exit from the Big Brother show. In fact, her fans call her the 'Wild flower of Cebu'. Cebu's the town she hails from. Read more about it here.
Hey there's more.
Turns out that things are not working well for Raul's Filipino lot. Unconfirmed reports have it that Raul is pissed off with them due to personal reasons. Chances are that they may be heading back to their country by the end of April.

A BIG BIG 'MEGA'ZINE RELEASED!!!

2008-04-07T22:27:00.005+05:30

This is vinatge stuff from the Herald. No wonder the Times of India guys will laugh their way up the circulation ladder.
This bit is from that same batch of scans we talked about some time back.
If this header is a scream, the text is even worse... Read on, especially if you've had a rough day...

FOUR REASONS WHY BABA AMTE LIES UNDER MALLIKA SHERAWAT!

2008-04-05T01:11:00.006+05:30

There's one thing deskies in our newspapers must be made to do regularly...
Read newspapers.
Poor chaps are so burdened expanding photos with grinning politicians or cropping over-sized celebrity busts to ensure that they stay within the regular three column slot, that they rarely ever read newspaper, barring the pages they slog through. But to be fair to em, lets not blame deskies alone. A lot of editors (both vernacular and otherwise) in Goa spend a lot of time, picking up celebrity photos and articles from the web for the leisure /entertainment page every day.
Tires them out, we guess.
This particular page we have reproduced is the end product of rank ignorance.
How can any newspaper desk worth its salt, allow a three column pic of Mallika Sherawat hoisted over a hstory on Baba Amte's demise?
We tried hard to come up with a few reasons why the desk could have taken a call to bury Amte under Mallika, on the day the former died...

REASON I
-- Mallika oooohh!
-- Amte who?

REASON II
-- Mallika heaving is a much prettier sight. Boy... look at her cheeks glow...
-- Say, how good can a shrunken, dying man look anyway

REASON III
-- Hey its Mallika with clothes on, How often do you get to see that? Its unusual, its news!!!
-- Amte and that two bit khadi jacket of his. Couldn't he ever think of anything else?

REASON IV
-- Mallika has assets
-- Who asked Amte to give his away?

Ashley wake up boy... or should we ask Margaret Mascarenhas to get you to smell a cup of coffee or something?

OF PET DOGS AND MUTTS

2008-04-02T12:46:00.006+05:30

The Man had a lot of wealth. His father too. And so did his grandfather. The trick was, they knew how to keep it. Right from the days of the grandfather, they had been known to own dogs. The Man only followed this tradition. He tied the dog by a chain to the gate in the wall, that surrounded his house. The chain was long enough to keep others at a considerable distance from the compound wall, but short enough to ensure that the dog stopped a few feet short of the steps leading into his house. Like the sacred thread worn by the Man, this chain was the dog's sacred thread.
The only difference was that while the thread was a sign of limitless power to the Man, to the dog it was a sign of restraint.
The dog was also pretty hairy in some places, so it was difficult to know whether he had been castrated or not. But the dog was loyal. He kept a lot of unwanted elements out. And ensured that secrets never strayed out of the Man's house. So loyal was he that he even kept a daily ledger of the bones the Man threw to him everyday.
But not for nothing was the Man of the house, the MAN OF THE HOUSE. After some time, the man brought home another puppy which he reared inside the house, showering a lot of love on it. Everyday for a week, he would cuddle the puppy in his arms and walk by the dog. The dog would whimper and squeal seeking the Man's affection. But the Man ignored the dog. This routine continued exactly for a week, until one day the Man came out rushing and ordered the dog to rush a straggler and kill him. The dog did as ordered without any hesitation. The puppy was at the back of his mind. Chances were that the puppy would upstage him, if he did not listen to the Man. He killed the straggler without any mercy.
Later, in the day, a servant walked out of the house, a limp furry bundle in his hands. He laid it some distance from the dog and started digging a hole. He threw the limp body in it and covered the hole. It was the pup. Its neck had been wrung. The pup had served its utility. The dog whined, but it did not cry. Had it not been the pup, it would have been him.
The next morning, the Man stepped out of the house, face glowing. The Man offered the dog a prize. A hundred bones and a platter with his name inscribed on it and a warm quilt to lie on. He patted the dog's head and walked over the pup's grave on his way back home.

Vidyadhiraj Award for CM
NT Staff Reporter

Panaji, April 1 The president of Shree Samsthan Gokarn Partagalli Jeevottam Mutt committee, Mr Shrinivas V Dempo today announced the coveted Shree Vidyadhiraj Award for the year 2007, will be presented to the Chief Minister, Mr Digambar Kamat.Mr Dempo said that the name of Mr Kamat was under the consideration of the mutt committee for quiet sometime and the award is being given on the recommendation of the committee and the approval of Swamiji.The annual award is given to an individual in recognition of his meritorious services to the society in any field. The Shree Vidyadhiraj Award will be presented to Mr Kamat on April 8 during a special function to be held at the Shree Samsthan Gokarn Partagalli Jeevottam Mutt. Shree Vidyadhiraj Teerth Shreepad Vader Swamiji will present this award to Mr Kamat.The award includes a citation, shawl, Rs 25,000 and a replica of the thousand-year old banyan tree, which is situated in the vicinity of the mutt.The award was instituted to commemorate the 534th anniversary of the foundation of the mutt, which marked the process of unification of the fragmented Saraswat community. This day also happens to be the 35th anniversary of Shree Guru Peetharohan of Shree Vidyadhiraj Teerth Shreepad Vader Swamiji.

POACHER ALMOST POACHED?

2008-04-02T00:05:00.003+05:30

Hi fellas, heard this some time back?
Apparently, Navhind Publications manager Pramod Revankar was approached by the Herald sometime back. The offer apparently didn't work out. Anybody have some dope on this? Its one helluva flux isn't it? Revankar was one of the major headhunters for TNT in this scenario. A hunter who came back home, head drooped, with no hunks of deer meat over his shoulder. Last we heard his bosses weren't too happy with his powers of retention. No no his bladder's fine... Just that they were displeased with the fact that too many fellas quit the paper for TOI. TNT just could not retain them.The list runs is pretty long. We've given you the link, but sure there are additions to it now. There's something else guys... While everyone focusses on the losses to TNT, Navprabha is also in crisis mode, with hard-working chaps like Ganesh Javdekar and Kishor Kubal switching to Gomantak. Gurudas Sawal retired earlier this year. The editor Suresh Walve is serving on an extension. The only other mainstay Sanjiv Verenkar hates Walve. Things are pretty sick out there.

CATHCHING PLAGIARISM IS SO EASY NOW, 'THANKS TO THE POWER OF THE INTERNET' -- DON'T BELIEVE US? READ THIS GUYS

2008-03-31T17:31:00.007+05:30

Hey, you guys, read the 'quote of the day' under the header REFLECTIONS?
Got it? It says, "Good things happen to those who hustle"
And we must congratulate the Gomantak Times for trying so so so hard to live up to its preachings. Good things really must happen to the fellas who 'hustle' in GT.... Like this guy responsible for plagiarising this editorial... wonder what good came to him?
Here's more plagiarism from the Sakal stable. Looks like these guys make a habit of it.
This editorial has been completely plagiarised from an article written by Janna Anderson in the 'News and Observer' dated November 11, 2007.
This scan we have reproduced is from GT's November edition. November 13 to be exact. Only a couple of days after the plagiarised editorial we caught. A bit dated, yes but still worth a post cause we really do not know if Sakal penalised the guy responsible for the earlier plagiarised editorial.
We did write to Gomantak Times editor Derek on January 17, 2008, on whether he could inform us of any developments after we exposed plagiarism in the newspaper's editorials.
Derek had stated that he had referred the matter to the Sakal headquarters in Pune, but there has been no response from him since. So here's what you can do, if you are convinced with what we've written.
Call these numbers and register your protest. You can also get the other side of the story from them if you wish to.
020-24405500 Pune Head office
editor@esakal.com
0832-2422701-05
Editor Goa edition: Derek Almeida 9850209604

'ROBBING PETER TO PAY PAUL' -- HMM... THINK THE HEADER'S ALL MESSED UP

2008-03-28T12:37:00.005+05:30

It's one of Republican candidate John McCain's fav jokes, but we'll just tweak it a bit to our advantage...
QUESTION: What's the difference between a cat-fish and journo?
ANSWER: One is a low-life, bottom-feeding scum-sucker; the other's a fish."

We did tell you a few days ago that we'd do another post illustrating concerns expressed by Preetu Nair on how a "few local journos and their editors play host to a corrupt system". We've managed to fish out more for you this time.
Its about this journo called hmm... Mr P, who's just hopped jobs from a newspaper with small circulation to a newspaper, that's just about set to munch them all.
We think we've mentioned Mr P sometime back on the blog too... Just that Preetu's recent observation has made us put some information available with us into proper context.
This Mr P hails from the coast in Bardez. Oh its a great place to be in. Cops love the coast for the moolah they can rake in. They love a posting here... Raking in the pennies and the pounds plus, few awards here and there, for all the 'meritorious' work put in during the tourist season. Some of us journos follow the same path of success... Mr P has been doing the same all this while.
So what was this Coastal Regulatroy Zone (CRZ) blackmail racket, we talked about... No no you thought wrong, Claude has nothing to do with it... Its about this same Mr P...
See, sometime back a particular English language newspaper decided to run a series on CRZ violations along the coast. Mr P thought it a great opportunity to cruise along.
The strategy he adopted was simple enough. A real win-win strategy.
You narrow down on a genuine CRZ violation. You then approach the owner of the property and offer him a deal. The deal is two pronged.
1) My newspaper is doing this story on CRZ violations. The CRZ violations you have committed is a story enough for me. Gimme an X amount of money and I will drop the story. or
2) If you don't gimme the money, I'll run the story anyway. And maybe line up for an award somewhere down the line.
We know of two instances where Mr P has approached guys who have violated the CRZ norms in Bardez. They were offered the same proposition we have stated above with some variations. In one instance, Mr P actually asked for a residential flat instead of money for dropping a story, while in the other case Mr P asked for an X amount of money and a car.
Its really Preetu's timely observation, that gave us an opportunity to contextualise this input, else folks would have interpreted this as some kind of a witch-hunt.
One more thing, we dunno if you noticed this guys... ever since we put up the notice, that we are coming with up with this 'CRZ and the art of blackmail' post, we've received a hell of lot abuse. More than the usual. We suspect, that it was Mr P himself trying to psyche us out of this post. Its there for you to see, a lot of a Fs & Bs which we did not approve, but there's still a truckload of brickbats we've received since that post...
Hey thats fine with us... while bouquets make us blush, brickbats only make us tougher. So keep em coming.
As an after-thought... We think despite all the whetting by the HR dept, Derrick the TOI Goa editor doesn't know what he's got on his plate. Barring Paul Fernandes (one nice guy we know for sure. There might be a few others too. Very few), a messy lot has slipped into their reporting team, including a very very dicey trinity. And imagine a reporter's desk led by a guy like Raju Nayak. Phew... You could actually play a few mixed doubles tennis teams with the number of raqueteers TOI has unfortunately roped in...

ANOTHER READER WRITES IN

2008-03-28T12:30:00.002+05:30

Looks like the mother-lawyer are working on a big scam. Fiona has already got free tickets from Virgin's Richard Branson and from the way things are working out, she could be at a fund raising for the trial, quite on the lines of the Madelaine MacCann case in Portugal (MacCan received a fat purse from Branson to pursue the case). Are Fiona and Vikram Varma following the same footprints.