armstrongvazblogsfromgoa

http://www.oheraldo.in/news/Opinions/23-Feb-2010/33839.html Does ‘free love’ thrive in Goa? Crimes take place all over the world but is terming Goa as a rape capital of India shooting one’s mouth too far?, asks ARMSTRONG AUGUSTO VAZ India’s smallest state has been in the news for all the wrong reasons, a place where ‘free love’ thrives and ‘a brutal sexual attack on a 9-year-old girl resonates far beyond the beaches of Goa’, are some of the headlines which caught the eye-balls in the last few weeks. “For years Goa has coasted on its reputation as a free love, sun, sand and sea location, made famous in the late 1960s and 70s by hippies, who hung around its beaches, mostly nude. But since becoming a premier vacation destination, Goa has opened to all sorts of travellers, not all of them happy ones. Russian women, in particular, have found themselves to be targets of sexual harassment and rape,” writes New Delhi based journalist Sonay Fatah in the US-based newspaper Global Post under...

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=/data/opinion/2010/February/opinion_February133.xml&section=opinion Goa is No Rape Capital Armstrong Vaz (India) 23 February 2010, 7:28 PM India’s smallest state has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. The recent rape of a 9-year-old Russian girl in Goa’s Morjim village has resonated far beyond the beaches of this former Portuguese colony. Foreign journalists have picked up a quote here and there, and used the stray incident of rape to create an element of sensation for their story. It is not entirely their fault. They have to do their job. Controversy sells, and Goa tourism officials have certainly provided enough fodder for the news corps. Micky Pacheco, the provincial minister of tourism, went so far as to call Goa the “rape capital” of India. More damage was done by the deputy director of tourism, Pamela Mascarenhas, who told New Delhi’s Mail Today newspaper: “You can’t blame the locals [for acts of sexual vio...

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/worldview/100211/goa-rape The media has been too quick to vilify all of Goa for a few, isolated instances of sexual misconduct. Armstrong Vaz February 19, 2010 09:30 Updated May 30, 2010 13:20 GOA, India — India's smallest state has been in the news for all the wrong reasons. The recent  rape of a 9-year-old Russian girl in Goa's Morjim village has  resonated far beyond the beaches  of this former Portuguese colony. Foreign journalists have picked up a quote here and there, and used the stray incident of rape to create an element of sensation for their story. It is not entirely their fault. They have to do their job. Controversy sells, and Goa tourism officials have certainly provided enough fodder for the news corps. Micky Pacheco, the provincial minister of tourism, went so far as to call Goa the "rape capital" of India. More damage was done by the deputy director of tourism, Pamela Mascarenhas, who told New Delhi's Mail...