Gerard de Souza

Within each net are hundreds of eggs laid by the reclusive Olive Ridley turtles over the past few weeks, but with the nesting nearing its end and the hatchlings yet to emerge from the 49 protected nests that still remain, Tandel has begun to worry for them. Tandel, now in his mid-30s, grew up watching the waves crash upon the shore as the tides ebbed and flowed, ran out to sea with the ramponn (fishing net) at a moment’s notice every time he or a member of his fishing community noticed a shoal

Men, women, children and their paraphernalia disembark, and for a little while, the pace becomes hurried. The turnaround must be quick. As people leave the stout, flat bottomed ferry, the design of which has not changed in six decades, there are more residents and their vehicles waiting to get on, impatiently waiting to get to the mainland. There is no workaround; no other mode of transport available. For the river island of Divar, with its 12,000 residents, there is no other connection to the r

Panaji It’s three in the morning and eerily quiet in the village of Socorro not far from Goa’s capital, Panaji. And, while the world sleeps, inside a stuffy, shuttered room, Nitish Kumar Sha clanks the metal peel against the sides of a wood-fired oven scooping out freshly baked poi (or poee) — a uniquely Goan leavened whole wheat bread dusted with rice bran from the oven into a waiting wicker basket. It is the final lot of a shift that began at 7pm the previous evening when he and a group of wo

Before the first rays of the sun can tint the pale blue sky, the man coaxes Surya into the back of a waiting pickup truck. With an embrace and an encouraging pat on the rump, he and three others set off. The vehicle gingerly navigates the 30km distance from the man’s village of St André to Curtorim, looking closely for police barricades. Forty-five minutes later, the truck reaches a grass field beside what was once a leprosy hospital — the arena for what will be a gargantuan battle. Weighing up

In February, 56-year-old systems analyst Vincent D’Souza, who works and lives in Delhi, received a phone call from his family in Goa’s Badem village. A panicked cousin was on the other end. The cousin had received a worrying call from the local panchayat representative saying that an application, filed by an unfamiliar name, was seeking permission to fence the family’s ancestral property. D’Souza rushed home, and to his shock found that the property was now “owned” by Branca Cassiana Diniz, her

Nearly half of the men in Goa engage in some form of gambling and are current gamblers, a first-of-its-kind comprehensive study on the prevalence of gambling conducted in the coastal state has revealed. The study was conducted by non-government organisation Sangath and 1514 men responded to the survey questionnaire. The population-based sample was selected based on electoral rolls, and participants were selected at random from eligible households. It was published in the Asian Journal of Psych

Traces of mercury, a neuro-toxic heavy metal, from coal particles have found their way into the Mandovi and the edible oysters harvested from the river, a study by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, and the Goa-based National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) has found. The study suspects that the river gets the mercury most likely from coal handling at Goa’s Mormugao Port though the mercury content in oysters was found to be within permissible limits. Explaining the findings,

It was meant to help Goa’s beaches get worldwide recognition and draw more tourists to the shores. However, the Centre’s ambitious plan to have at least 100 beaches in the country ‘Blue Flag’ certified has hit a roadblock in Goa with opposition rising to the government’s move. Goa’s Miramar beach located in the capital was selected by the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests to be among the first beaches in the country to meet the stringent environmental criteria. But more than a year late

A pair of orange slippers that the accused left behind as he hurriedly abandoned British teenager Scarlett Keeling on a Goa beach proved to be a crucial piece of the missing puzzle, in an 11-year-old case largely based on circumstantial evidence. The High Court of Bombay at Goa had last week sentenced Samson D’Souza to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment and fined him Rs. 2.6 lakh for the death of Scarlett Keeling, whom he drugged and sexually assaulted before leaving her to die on the Anjuna beach

Manohar Gopalkrishna Prabhu Parrikar, 63, from a business family in Parra village (from which his family derives its name), not only dominated state politics for two decades but was also a rare national leader from Goa. From the moment he became the state’s first Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief minister in October 2000 - after causing a split in the ruling Congress, which won a full majority 11 months earlier - Parrikar became the mainstay of Goa politics. A half-sleeved untucked shirt and