Relief for PIOs, to be allotted extendable visas only’

29 Sep: Goa 365 Persons of Indian origin (PIO) visiting India will now be issued only long-term extendable visas and not tourist visas, Goa’s Non-Resident Indian (NRI) commissioner Eduardo Faleiro (photo) said Wednesday. He said that PIOs will henceforth be issued only long-term ‘X’ visas (extendable visas)
www. goanvoice.org.uk

Hi, I am getting quite confused with the PIO issue. As I understand it a PIO card holder has always been able to purchase property, a PIO card is valid for 15 years, it might be 10 now. A PIO requires no visa only their PIO. It sems in effect their are no changes at all. If some one is elligable for PIO status, why would thay ask for a visa instead? They still have to prove they are of PIO status as they would do to get a PIO card. It seems to me that yet again the old system is being presented as a new system.

Earlier this year the Indian Govt. said that the two month rule had been modified when in practice is was not. Alice in Wonderland springs to mind.

Anyone with PIO status has always been able to buy property, so what is the difference now.

A perplexed and confused r

When you pay peanuts . . . Commonwealth Games organisers employ monkeys as security guards in New Delhi

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...#ixzz10yTiv8ic

Hilarious article. You gotta give it to them - Indians are a very inventive and improvising bunch !!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kpaLmIIzJC8

Mobility scooter man carries huge carpet

and I thought we had seen it all in Goa

Citizens' protests stall Goa's real estate bonanza


30 Sep: LiveMint. The citizens of Goa are challenging large developments ... DLF Ltd had planned its first project in Goa, called River Valley (photo) - a 19-acre expanse with nearly 700 homes ... They have sold 350 homes but the project's on hold after Edwin Mascarenhas and Goa Foundation moved a petition in the Goa high court earlier this year questioning the approvals ... Other developers who have bought land in Goa to build complexes include K Raheja, Parsvnath and Gera ... Goa is witnessing a silent revolution by its citizens who are challenging large developments in a bid to protect their environment... Property prices have dropped by about 20% as a result



http://www.livemint.com/2010/09/2918....html?atype=tp

www.goanvoice.org.uk

From what i can gather it now means that all PIOs are able to invest without being in possession of an actual pio card and can do so now on an x visa, which they will now be issued with instead of a tourist visa. I reckon this will most likely be granted on proof of PIO status via photocopy of birth certificate, parents indian passport etc.

A majority of pios travel to India on tourist visas......so i guess its to encourage them to pump money into India without the red tape and cost of PIO Card/OCI application.

Kinda defeats the whole purpose of PIO Card and OCI status though.

PS. Found this article.
http://www.navhindtimes.in/goa-news/...ios-dependents

You are absolutely right, it will be about the Gov. wanting PIO money!! Just as it was when they promised dual citizenship, and what happened to that promise??

From cow dung to ITM, Goa changes for chartered tourists

30 Sep: Financial Express. In 80's, when first chartered flight touched Goa airport carrying German passengers, they were greeted with cow dung and sloganeering asking them to go back... Now Goa is to host the International Tourism Mart (ITM), inviting people to see the fascinating destination ... Goa gets maximum Russian tourists followed by Britons and Germans...This time, Russians won't be able to spend much time in Goa as they are being issued only one month visa ... they used to spend their entire winter in Goa ...

www.goanvoice.org.uk

"Mr P Chidambaram who directed that the Visa Manual be revised accordingly to provide for grant of long-term visas to PIOs. "

which still makes no sense - PIO's (particularly in the States) have been complaining for months that they are being forced to have (expensive) 5-yr X visas (or PIO cards presumably) instead of T visas - the US 10-yr T is very good value. They are also being made to pay to revoke their Indian passports.

AndyD 8-)#

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/...100437875.html

Maximum tourists from Britiain to visit Goa this year.

http://ibnlive.in.com/generalnewsfee...oa/369248.html

British woman alleges molestation by Indian in Goa
1 Oct: PTI. A 27-year-old British woman today alleged molestation by an Indian tourist in Goa''s Arambol beach today, police said. The accused Ravindra Gawde, a tourist from nearby Sawantwadi town of Maharashtra, has been arrested,

‘Garbage threatens to ruin Goa’s tourism party’

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/...100437847.html
www.goanvoice.org.uk


Visa issues dampening tourism prospects in Goa: TTAG
from IBN Live
PTI | 01:10 AM,Oct 02,2010
Panaji, Oct 1 (PTI) Complex visa issues seem to be working as a dampener for the tourism industry in Goa, which is expecting to get over the three-year-long slump during this tourist season. Travel and Tourism Association of Goa (TTAG) spokesman Ralf De Souza said that many foreigners find it 'problematic' to get visas to India. "Government gives short term visas which are discouraging. Many travellers have been knocked out from their Goa trip due to this rule," he said. De Souza said that the visa validity for three months has reduced the number of visitors, who were eager to stay in Goa for a longer period. "There are people who used to spend their entire winter in Goa but now they have to go back after visa expires and return after a two month cooling period," he said. TTAG, representing state's tourism industry, has said that several petitions to the Union and State government have yielded no response. The tourism industry feels that Chartered flight arrivals this year will help tourism boom by at least 15 per cent and help the sector get over the three-year-old slump, which was a result of the global financial meltdown. "The arrivals could have gone up by almost 10 per cent more than what we are predicting, if long term visas were given," De Souza said. (More) PTI RPS VKV

NICE POSTING , Noni.

Garbage problems - visa restrictions - what will they come up with next to hammer home the final nail in Goa's tourism coffin?

Now they're wooing Iran - visions of bearded mullahs in skimpy thongs cavorting on Candolim Beach.......

I need a strong caffeine infusion to get over that thought

Interesting Article I received today via "GOANET READER"

Pious Outrage over Commonwealth Games Shame
Case of National Pride or Bruised Vanity?

By Madhu Purnima Kishwar
[email protected]

It is hard to comprehend why our national media is displaying
so much shock and outrage with banner headlines like
"Commonwealth Games, India's Shame", as if something
extraordinary has happened in India. Is it because they had
earlier swallowed the pompous claims made by the Government
that the city would host the most spectacular games ever,
that the CWG preparations would transform Delhi into a world
class city and showcase India as an emerging global power, a
top notch tourist destination? The media played along till
such time as it became obvious that despite having spent
thousands of crores, we have a disaster on our hand.

Till a few weeks ago, many in the media made common cause
with Sports Minister, M.S Gill and Sheila Dixit both of whom
tirelessly sermonized us that all of us must put in their bit
to make the Commonwealth games a success and celebrate it as
a big festival, since making the event work well was a matter
of "national honour and pride". The Art of Living guru was
roped in to make a huge song and dance about mobilizing
citizens to pick up garbage in their respective neighborhoods
and clean up the stinking filth choking banks of Yamuna --
with the slogan "Meri Dilli, Meri Shaan" (My Delhi, My pride).

History is replete with examples of how the most venal and
corrupt among politicians tend to wrap themselves in the
national flag in order to cover their misdeeds.

None of us ordinary citizens are surprised or shocked
collapsing bridges, roofs falling off, leaking stadia, filthy
toilets, stagnant water pools for breeding mosquitoes around
the Games Village because we knew that our Government would
deliver its "best performance".

We also know that "best" does not come out
overnight. It comes from routine practice. What are
the arts our politicians and bureaucrats perfected?
Corruption, mismanagement, working at cross
purposes to mess up whatever they undertake,
shameless delays, callousness, and the ability to
remain unruffled even when people are angry enough
to want to publicly lynch them!

Why this phoney outrage at Lalit Bhanot brazenly admitting on
TV that our sense of hygiene and sanitation is different from
that of 1st world or even 2nd world countries? It is evident
anywhere you look. Even those of us who buy expensive
properties in elite neighborhoods live surrounded by garbage
piles, filthy and open sewage drains flowing in the middle of
our colonies, broken down or nonexistent footpaths and sewage
water routinely getting mixed with drinking water supply
because of rusty, leaky pipes.

Our tolerance level for filth, squalor and disease is so
magnanimous that, far from matching First World standards,
even in comparison to Third World countries, India qualifies
as the dirtiest and filthiest in terms of its public hygiene.

Why are we ashamed at leaking roofs shoddy construction and
squalor around the Games village? All our ministerial
buildings, government offices, government built housing
complexes are witness to the sarkari genius of creating
slummy conditions even after spending crores. Think of the
wretched flats we all queue up to buy from the Delhi
Development Authority (DDA). Why should DDA feel obliged to
very differently for a two-week tamasha?

Why are we so touchy about the real face of India and the
story of its malgovernance being revealed in full glory to
the world?

Uniqueness of Corruption in India

Corruption is not unique to India. Even China which has
become our new benchmark of success is notorious for corrupt
practices and kickback culture. However, there are unique
features to the many splendored saga of Indian corruption.

In other countries; corruption may involve a 10-20%
leakage but people don't lose focus of the work for
which the money has been sanctioned. In India, the
work is either incidental or inconsequential. Many
of our roads exist on paper; development projects
are recognizable only by the foundation stones.
Bridges collapse before they are constructed. No
one starts any work till they have figured out who
will pocket how much and the ways and means through
which the money is to be siphoned off.

If we were to do an honest cost benefit analysis and audit,
we will discover that for our politicians and bureaucrats
every infrastructure project, every poverty alleviation
program, every hydro electric project, every mining lease is
mainly about loot of public resources. That is why no power
project, no development or welfare program delivers a
fraction of what it promises.

The main purpose of CWG has been served. Money has reached
safely in the accounts of those it was meant to. The rest was
incidental. Those in charge of organizing know very well:
Games ho gayein to thheek, nahin to na sahi! (If the Games
take place fine, if not, so be it.).

Let us have no illusions, no heads are likely to
roll because the loot has been shared from top to
bottom of the bureaucratic and political
establishment -- with Congress at the helm of
affairs in the state government and BJP
contributing its due share in the scam on account
of heading the Municipal Corporation of Delhi.

Our politicians have developed the fine art of making people
forget the most horrendous scams by unleashing a new spate of
scam to make people forget the previous ones. They know the
media will soon look for newer excitement so all they have to
do is to wait for the issue to lose its sex appeal and TRP
ratings. In any case, they have reduced people's expectations
to such a bottom pit that even if the Games are 20%
successful, they will appear as a great achievement.

Hurt National Pride or Bruised Vanity?

The corruption and mismanagement of CWG has only recently and
temporarily become a cause célèbre with the media and
section of the urban elite because they have developed
delusions of grandeur and learnt to mistake their own growing
prosperity, wealth and clout with "national progress."
They feel let down because they feel their new found and
fragile "national pride" is being given a massive
drubbing in front of foreigners, the only ones they wish to
impress, but don't really know how to.

Their "national pride" was not wounded when the
jhuggis of lakhs of urban self-employed poor -- who
provide us valuable services as masons, carpenters,
rickshaw pullers, mechanics, road side barbers,
cooks, maalis, cleaners, garbage pickers, tailors
and a host of poorly paid craftsmen -- were
demolished with vengeance in order to "beautify"
Delhi for the Games. We dare not show the world the
subhuman conditions in which the hard working poor
of India are condemned to live. So better remove
them from sight. This could happen only because the
urban elite applaud every time slums are demolished
and urban poor face clearance operations.

Their "national pride" was not wounded when lakhs of poor
street vendors from whom we buy our vegetables, fruits and
other daily necessities were hounded out of Delhi through
brute police action just so that Delhi could look "world
class".

This despite the fact that the National Policy for Street
vendors adopted by the Central Cabinet way back in 2004
mandates that street vendors should not be evicted under the
guise of beautification. Instead, hawking zones should be
included in the city's rejuvenation plans.

The modest gains made by Manushi in the last 15 years seeking
policy reform for street vendors, including legalizing their
status, went down the drain as we witnessed lakhs of vendors
forced out of Delhi and their stalls razed to the ground,
their goods confiscated through the most illegal means. The
MCD and Delhi Police did not spare even those who had valid
licenses.

Their "national pride" was not hurt to see the
miserable conditions under which men, women and
children who were brought in from impoverished
villages to work for constructing the CWG
infrastructure were forced to work and live. They
too will be seen as unwanted nuisance and in all
probability beaten out of Delhi once their purpose
is served.

Their "national pride" was not hit when we see the city
government install view cutters walls to hide from view large
parts of Delhi, including middle and lower middle class
neighborhoods, lest the delegates witness the dilapidated
civic infrastructure and piles of garbage that characterize
Indian cities, including the national capital.

This insensitivity is not unique to Delhi. Even in
the rest of India, the "national pride" of our
elite is not hurt when thousands of poor people and
their children die every year from a host of easily
preventable diseases like malaria, diarrhea and
jaundice -- all due to the appalling insanitary
conditions prevailing in the country. We invoke
national pride only when dengue threatens to mar
the games because mosquitoes cannot tell the
difference between Indians and foreigners. We
squirm only when foreign governments issue
advisories to their citizens warning them against
health hazards in Delhi and recommend that they
keep their mouths tightly sealed when taking a
shower lest they swallow a couple of drops of
polluted, disease ridden water supplied by our
municipal agencies.

Their "national pride" remains intact despite our rivers,
including those like Ganga and Yamuna believed to be sacred
symbols of our ancient culture and civilization, are
converted into filthy disgusting sewers -- with
municipalities pouring all our domestic and industrial sewage
into them. Our pride is hurt only when we realize belatedly
that foreign participants will witness the filth laden river,
its banks overflowing with garbage providing a happy breeding
ground for mosquitoes and other disease bugs.

Their 'national pride' has survived the frequent deaths of
our municipal sweepers who are made to descend into filthy
sewers and remove blockages with their bare bodies and hands
without any protective gear or masks given to protect
themselves from noxious gases that many die inhaling. They
themselves in sub human conditions and treated as
untouchables. Do their working and living conditions not
prove that our hygiene standards are indeed different?

A few months ago, when the Sports Minister saw how
much foul smell emanated from Yamuna and how
wretched it looked, he had suggested in all
seriousness that the government should considering
covering up the river in order to hide it from
public view!

Their "national pride" remains dormant when our police
harasses, tyrannizes and fleeces ordinary citizens as their
primary routine so that our cops are left with hardly any
time or energy to book criminals and terrorists. But their
"national pride" gets charged when foreign players start
withdrawing from the Games citing security concern.

Their "national pride" was not touched when large tracts of
the Yamuna flood plains were illegally taken over by the
powerful political mafia of Delhi to build the Games Village,
in clear violation of environmental laws. Delhi High Court
had ruled that the construction of the Games Village on the
flood plains of Yamuna was ecologically unsound and violated
all possible environmental laws of the country. However, the
kingpins behind the CWG bonanza bulldozed their way through
and got a pliable Supreme Court bench to give a go ahead.

The hoopla of "national pride" and the jingoism surrounding
the Games gave them a grand opportunity for a massive land
grab operation by converting the flood plains of Yamuna into
prime real estate, even if it meant flouting every law of the
land. They don't care if the Games Village is ready in time
for the sports person for whom it was ostensibly built. They
are just waiting for end of October so that these flats can
be sold for several crores each or gifted to their patrons.

Malgovernance: Biggest threat to Our Safety and Well Being

The Australian discus champion said it all when she said she
has decided to withdraw her participation because the CWG
represents a potential threat to her safety, health and well
being. The bald truth is our ruling establishment and
governance machinery represent the most lethal threat to the
collective well being, safety and health of all Indians. No
wonder people are today seriously proposing that we outsource
governance.

It is time we asked ourselves:

* Can a country become tourism friendly if it is hostile
to its own citizens?
* Can a country become a global power if its ruling elite
and its governance machinery are at constant war with
its own people?
* Can a country provide safety to foreign tourists if its
own police have become the biggest threat to safety and
well being of its own people?
* Can a country become world class if its government
awakens to the need for basic civic amenities like
usable motorable roads, footpaths and street lights
only for impressing foreign visitors and that too only
in those parts of the city which lead to select stadia?
* Can a country provide a safe and healthy environment
for tourists if it does not do so for its own citizens?
* Can the municipal sweepers deliver world class
cleanliness and hygiene at the Games Village if they
have never been properly trained nor given the
requisite equipment for routine cleaning of the City?
* Can a country be attractive to tourists if the
Government needs to hide the living conditions of the
vast majority of its people from international gaze?
* Can a country be tourism worthy, if its rivers are so
foul that they deserve to be hidden from public view?

These Games were destined to be a disaster because its
organizers invited upon themselves the curses of the lakhs of
uprooted people who were hounded out of the city. The
vengeance with which the rain god, Indra Dev, exposed the
corruption and fraud in the CWG infrastructure indicates that
the curses of the hapless victims of these Games have been
heard by the powers above.

Instead of indulging in pious harangues against the publicly
visible faces of this scam, the all important lesson to be
learnt from the CWG Disaster is that health, wellbeing and
safety are indivisible. Those who think they can create
islands of prosperity and safety for themselves or for
videshi tourists better realize that mosquitoes and disease
bugs cannot be kept out of our lives by building gated
communities. Those who believe the "image" of India can
change without a marked improvement in the lived "reality" of
its impoverished and brutalized citizens make us a laughing
stock of the world.

Let us not confuse pride with vanity. Let us learn to be
proud of the right things. That will happen only when we have
the courage to be ashamed of the callousness with which our
government treats its own people and the imperial
indifference of the social elites to the wretched plight of
most Indians.

------------------

The author is Professor, Centre for the Study of Developing
Societies and Founder MANUSHI -- a human rights/ women's
rights organization. She can be reached at
[email protected]
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

I got so sidetracked at the thought of cavorting mullahs, that I failed to notice in Noni's posting headline

Goa now targets tourists from Iran, Turkey

that Turkey is being wooed by Goa to boost its dwindling tourists.

As some of you may know, I'm spending my two months "out" in Turkey - first visit for over 20 years - and am absolutely amazed and delighted at how clean the country is - it really is the first thing you notice after a long spell in Goa. The towns, cities and road sides are spotless. On my first day driving here I was at first bemused to see large (full) black plastic bags at neat intervals along the highways - then came the groups of men (usually 2 on each side of the highway) putting rubbish - paper / plastic bottles - into said bags, and placing them at intervals just off the hard shoulder, then along comes a truck to pick up the bags.

I reckon if any Turkish tourists decided to come to Goa, they would hot-foot it back home P.D.Q. when they saw the garbage conditions that exist.

Cheers
Iain
(basking in cleanliness)

Blimey Iain, better have a sit down and recover from that lot!

Very interesting though and well written, but prepare for an onslaught by the "Defenders of the Faith", even though it was painfully accurate and written by a caring Indian academic......


.