Goa Diary

Smokers bewareThe statutory warning on cigarette packs warns that the weed is injurious to health, but it took a former model for Winston...

Smokers beware

The statutory warning on cigarette packs warns that the weed is injurious to health, but it took a former model for Winston Cigarettes to tell it like it is. Alan Landers who sold the brand decades ago and contracted lung cancer actually smoking the stuff, is now a leading campaigner against tobacco. In Goa last week to campaign against smoking, Landers informed school children about poisons released by a single cigarette.

After nearly a decade of educating himself about the dangers of smoking, Landers who successfully sued his former employers, told listeners that a smoker inhales poison like fuel used in torches, ammonia, motor fuel, carbon monoxide, gas chamber poisons like cyanide, swamp gas and rocket fuel.

Landers further accused cigarette companies of roping in 10,000 new smokers around the world everyday with their high pressure advertising and marketing tactics.

Now that Landers has spoken to school children, someone should let him loose on our bureaucrats, who in thename of liberalisation are opening our doors to purveyors of poisons from the West.

Deflated Cops

Last week, the Goa police were on a high after sending a team to distant Orissa to nab some criminals. The men rose to the occasion, of course. They trekked day and night in inhospitable terrain in the interiors of that state to nab their quarry. But the kudos for the cops were short-lived. All it took was a mere auto-thief to cock a snook at the members of the Goa police.

Striking one night at the Margao residential quarters of some police officials, he made off with several parts of six motorcycles parked outside. What is worse, the thief or thieves took their own time to dismantle the bikes, while the men in uniform blithely slept on!

Silicon Valley 2

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After Bangalore and Hyderabad, it is the turn of Taleigao, a tiny suburb of Panaji to house another Silicon Valley. The Chief Minister recently told reporters that an Information Technology habitat will be set up next to the GoaUniversity. To begin with, the Government also set aside Rs 8.5 crore to computerise all Government departments in the State.

So far so good, but will the Chief Minister do a Chandrababu Naidu and tour the world to attract investment for his pet project? He will, provided Congress MLAs don8217;t threaten to revolt everyday, forcing their boss to restrict his sights to Delhi8217;s 10 Janpath!

Shiv Kumar