GOAN GIRL PENNY REBELLO SOCCER UMPIRE IN KUWAIT.

Penny Rebello seen in action on the Lines. 

l ike father – like daughter.  Thus goes the saying. This daughter is none other than the young and youthful daughter of once India’s top football defender Anton Rebello from Curtorim, Salcette, Goa.  Her name is Penny Rebello who is employed in Kuwait at Don Bosco High School - Kuwait as a PT Teacher having done her graduation in Physical Education in Goa.  Inheriting all the sporting qualities of her once renowned footballer father who had great distinction of playing for Salgaocar Sports Club-Goa,  representing Goa in the Nationals and India XI as well a number of times in international outings, Penny as a  sportsperson in Goa at school, College and Goa level  created a name and fame for her.  She is not an ordinary sportsperson but very renowned one in Goa before taking up an employment in Kuwait.  She represented not only her School, College, University and Goa in different disciplines of the sports including soccer but above all she represented India in Volley ball and toured Portugal and Germany playing volley-ball for India with great distinction. 

Penny Rebello with her Papa Anton. 

 Last Friday on 1^st of this month during the one day soccer extravaganza for the veterans under Kuwait Indian Football Federation, she surprised everyone there by doing the job of the Linesman with courage and confidence.  I think she is the first female in Kuwait to do the Linesman job and that too so perfectly well.

Anton Rebello seen with a Memento presented to him in Kuwait a few years back for his excellence in soccer. 

As a member of Indian Football Referees Association in Kuwait Penny  is well versed in soccer laws and shortly she may surprise us all by umpiring  the games from the centre as being done in many parts of the world.

Penny Rebello seen extreme left before the start of the match.

It is a big honour for Goans in Kuwait to have among them such a high caliber athlete. She deserve our support and encouragement for her further promotion in this field.

A. Veronica Fernandes,

Kuwait.

A WELL PLANNED RAPE AND A COVER UP WITH PRECISION

 

By Aires Rodrigues

 

On 14th March it will be two months that the 7 year old girl was brutally raped in broad day light in the toilet of Deep Vihar School at Vasco run by the Mormugao Port trust. The rapist is not yet nabbed, the same being the case with the school staff headed by Headmistress Sharlet Furtado. No one has been nailed as yet.

The police were informed only three hours after the ghastly rape while the school staff washed away all the evidence. Led by Headmistress Sharlet Furtado, Class teacher Mrs. Deesha Kavathankar and head clerk Mrs. Brazina Godinho the school staff high-handedly destroyed all evidence by washing the victim’s clothes, giving her bath and cleaning the toilet after the sexual assault. Shockingly the victim received medical attention only eight hours after she was brutally raped while she received counseling only 15 days later.

The victim has now identified the alleged rapist from the photo as being Monty M. Sanchez who is the nephew of the headmistress. The alleged rapist had visited the school on a couple of occasions prior to the rape and offered the victim chocolates. The victim has also identified from the picture Ashville Furtado the son of the Headmistress as being the person who had accompanied the alleged rapist, with a guitar, when he visited the school earlier.

Interestingly the school has around five maids positioned outside the toilets to help the children. On that fateful day mysteriously none of them were around. The rapist was fully aware that the victim due to a leg injury was on those days not going out on the playground during recess and used to remain in the class room.

The authorities have intentionally and malafiedly taken the investigation totally off track. The entire exercise is to ensure a cover up for the accused who are politically very well connected. Hundreds of Vasco residents have been interrogated though the needle of suspicion is abundantly clear. All that the police have to do is to physically confront Monty and Ashville with the victim girl. While Monty has allegedly fled to Dubai, Ashville is now at M.V.J College of Engineering at Bangalore. The police needed to also probe whether they were part of a larger crime ring against children. The police would have swung into action only if the victim was the child of a politician, cash loaded businessman or perhaps the child of a police officer

A perusal of the manner in which the Crime has been committed it is obvious that it has not been the rapist’s first such crime, and if he is not nabbed, it may not be his last. It is abundantly clear that the Headmistress and the staff abetted in this gory crime. If the rapist was a stranger as falsely claimed by the Headmistress he should have when spotted been escorted out of the school premises and handed over the police in which case the child would have been saved of this trauma of rape. The Headmistress and the staff failed in their bounden duty to ensure the child a safe environment

The Mormugao Port Trust which runs the school have been equally guilty of the cover up by sending its officer Suresh Shirwadkar to the victim’s home with a draft of Rs five lakhs to try and hush up the case .

Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar has tried to play to the gallery, but till date has not cared to visit the victim and her family. Infact on the day of the Crime he was celebrating at the local MLA’s birthday in the neighborhood of the scene of offence. The Chief Minister has publicly and repeatedly proclaimed that the victim and the family will get justice but the cover up by the authorities is blatant. On 11th February when the victim’s father along with some other parents accompanied by the local MLA met the Chief Minister he expressed his deep anger and resentment that the victim’s father had engaged me a his lawyer. Was the Chief Minister looking for an advocate who would bend and play to the cover up tunes of the authorities?

The Goa Children’s Act is unique wherein the burden of proving that the crime has not been committed is on the Accused.

After the December rape case in Delhi, candle light vigils and protests were held in Goa. But sadly when our very own little 7 year old innocent was brutally raped, Goa did not rise to the occasion. We have depicted our strange trait of rising only when it personally pinches us.

The School, the Police and the Government have miserably let down the chubby little victim and her grief stricken family. On 9th March this government will complete a year in office. Amongst its many misdeeds of the year, this hush up of the Vasco rape case will figure prominently. Now the Judiciary stands as the only hope for the victim and her family. May justice prevail.

The 7 year old little girl has her whole life ahead. She is too tender to realize what has been inflicted on her. We need to keep her in our thoughts and prayers that the Almighty may be her guiding light through this gruesome crime committed on her. I am reminded of the words of Carlos Santana “Look in the mirror and say to yourself, I am innocent and I am beautiful and I am pure. And I am not what happened to me.”

MARATHI AS OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF GOA WILL BE AT THE COST OF LIFE.

By NisserDias.                                                                                                                    
28th Feb 2013.

 

With the BJP in power for almost a year now Marathi protagonists have started asserting themselves and this was very much evident last week when a group of Marathiwadis demanded that Marathi be made the official language of the state. This might just be a call but the seed to destroy Konkani language gradually has been sown.

Maharashtrawadi Gomant party’s (MGP) primary ideology was to merge Goa with Maharashtra no matter how. Even after losing the historical Opinion Poll their desire still continues and the moment they get an opportunity they push their agenda. BJP too also harbours similar aspiration because most of the MGP protagonists have now become BJP workers. This is what chief minister Manohar Parrikar was saying just prior to the general assembly election last year that both the parties are natural allies because they have similar manifestos and plans for the state of Goa but the ultimate goal is to merge Goa with Maharashtra.

Way back in 1967 MGP did not use tact but wanted to bulldoze against the wishes of the people and merge Goa into its larger neighbour. Now it seems they are using dexterity and devious ways to achieve their goal. Their recent demand from the government is to give official status to Marathi language in Goa besides Konkani. They are not happy with equal status but want official status, this to my mind is totally unreasonable and illogical, how a Konkan region accept Marathi as official language? In the future Maharashtra inclined Goans or rather Maharashtra deity Sashikala Kakodkar and others may demand that since Konkani does not have much literary works as Marathi it should be sole official language and our mother tongue should be given the kitchen status. These riff-raffs should understand that the issue has to be decided by the people of the state and not by handful of political supported vagabonds, who are at the moment are sounding the bugle of the government.

I wish to remind my readers that Manohar Parrikar as the Opposition Leader had stated in the assembly that he loves to speak Konkani but we should not forget he was educated with Marathi as his first language so also he educated his sons through Marathi medium in the primary level and not Konkani. Thus our chief minister thinks and calculates in Marathi but propagates his love for Konkani in public. It is always said that people get the government they deserve. And in the case of Goans it is very much right as we have made a virtue of electing all the wrong people.

A year back we did not want Congress led government of which MGP was an ally because of full scale corruption so we elected BJP to power without realising that BJP also harbours MGP ideology and more. During the lean years of the MGP after the Opinion Poll, most of their members joined the BJP. Hence when Parrikar said that his party and MGP were natural allies he was not far from the mark as both these political parties seems to yearn for the merger of Goa into Maharashtra.

Similarly airport at Mopa will benefit Maharashtra more than Goa, it might spell the death knell for tourism in the state but chief minister Manohar Parrikar is hell-bent on the airport at Mopa and has even put the process in fast forward mode.

Then the Maharashtra strong man and Union Agriculture minister Sharad Pawar flies down to Goa under the guise of attending party affairs and promises to the take up the mining issue in the state with the prime minister and in few he facilities the meeting between representatives of mining affected people and Dr. Manmohan Singh. Mining issue is in no way related to agriculture, it pertains to environment, forest hence he has no business to poke his nose. It seems that either our state government is impotent or chief minister feels that he does not need Prime minister’s assistance to solve the problem. Thus those people affected by stoppage of mining activity in the state will be grateful to the Maharashtrian irrespective of the outcome of the case in the Supreme Court.

Coming back to the demand of elevating Marathi language as the official language of Goa, some of the Konkani protagonists are also to be blamed for this. While some want ‘Devanagari’ others want ‘Romi’ script. Marathi lovers have seen the ever growing divide between Konkani lovers and are now seeking to exploit it. While most of the individuals backing ‘Devanagari’ script have done their elementary schooling in Marathi, most of the individuals supporting ‘Romi’ script have completed their schooling with English as medium of instruction and hence find it difficult to read and write in Devanagari script.

At the same time while majority of Hindu brethren prefer Marathi because Bhagavad Gita is in that language. The Holy Bible is written in Romi script of Konkani but nobody seems to find the parallel between both these aspects. While Marathi is given preference and also equal status, Romi Konkani is not even receiving equal funds as the Devanagari script. This is our nemesis.

We as Goans have to think about these issues and for once and all put an end to it. And the first thing to do to achieve this goal is wipe out Maharashtrawadi Gomant Party (MGP) from Goa. They should not be representing Goans in the Assembly but representing Marathi Manos in Mumbai. Finally if the government tries to concede to the demand of making Marathi as the official language there is all probability of discontentment and bloodshed.

Send your comments/reactions to nisserdias@gmail.com Or SMS 9422437029).