In the spirit of Goans International, we at The Goan Forum celebrate World Goa Day 2005, and salute its driving force Mr. Rene Baretto along with the various Goan Communities celebrating this very auspicious day
for ALL Goans.

We recognise that the Goa Day idea was born within the Goan Welfare Society in Kuwait in 1994 and worked on initially by Albert da Cruz of Australia, and that Rene Baretto (based on a suggestion by Filomena Giese and the initial set-up support by Goa Sudharop) worked extremely hard to take it to its presently recognizable level.

Thank You Mr. Rene Baretto, & Well Done!


We also wish to thank:

1. The Gulf Goans for their continued support for Goa and Konkani

2. GoaWorld, Goa Can, Goa Desc, Goa Com, SuperGoa & GoaMog for the
information they make available

3. Alfredo de Mello, Ben Antao, Nandkumar Kamat, Jose Oscar Noronha,
Livia de Abreu Noronha, Florian Lobo, Jorge de Abreu Noronha, Basilo Magno, Lino Leitao, Rene Baretto, Sandeep Heble, Gabriel de Figueiredo, Francisco Monteiro,  Fernando do Rego, Vivian D'Souza, Samir Kelekar, Gaspar Almeida, Rammurti Raut Desai, Tony Correia-Afonso, Alfred de Tavares, Nash Lobo, Cecil Pinto, Paulo Colaço-Dias,  Santosh Helekar, Ethel da Costa, Ema Souza Colaço  and Aloysius D'Souza ( and many others) for making The Goan Forum at http://www.colaco.net possible.

4. Floriano Lobo & Goa Suraj, Muriel & Mario Mascarenhas, Norma & Claude Alvares, Tony Correia-Afonso, Arvind Bhaticar and Francisco Colaço for their struggle for Justice in the face of rampant corruption and political high handedness in Goa

5. Rajan Narayan & The Goan Observer for having given the opponents of
Corruption in Goa, an avenue of expression, hitherto denied. Their exposure of the hypocrisy of the Goa politicians is notable. Important to note that Rajan Narayan & The Goan Observer stood up and out at a time when the alleged Goa Journos were "sleeping" with the politicians.

6. Ethel da Costa - the one woman roadblock to political arrogance & bureaucratic nonsense in Goa.

7. Fred Noronha & Joel D'Souza for keeping Goans all over the world informed of the happenings in Goa.

8. Casa de Goa (Lisboa), Goa Musical Society (UK), Goa Welfare Society (Kuwait), Gavana, Surya, Remo Fernandes, Wendell Rodricks and other Goan cultural groups around the world for keeping alive Goan Art.

9. George Pinto, Darryl Martyris & Goa Sudharop for their unflinching effort towards the betterment of life for the disadvantaged in Goa, and Santosh Helekar & the Goa Prize group for their work against the corrupt.

10. GoaNet, Goa-Goans, GoaLink, Gulf-Goans, GoenchimXapotam and Goans International for bringing us to this point where we are in  excellent communication with each other.

Where there was darkness, there now is light

Where there was despair, there now is hope

 

TODAY is also our 5th Anniversary. We launched this website on August 20, 2000.

We reaffirm our commitment towards REVERSING the Horrible Revision that has been taking place vis a vis Goa & the Portuguese influence on Goa, and the (since 1961) attempt by politicians and their operatives at creating  Hindu-Catholic disharmony in Goa. We strongly believe that religion (or a choice of atheism) is a  private matter. We are opposed to the exploitation of religion by  politicians who rule by division.

We see NO difference between Goans of whatever nationality, sex, religious persuasion (or not), occupation and place of residence.

This year on Goa Day, we commit ourselves to helping the Konkani language to achieve its rightful place in Goa, and for Romi to achieve its goal of recognition. To that end, TSSK and Godfrey Gonsalves, you have our unflinching support.

This year, we also add another commitment: To support Goa Sudharop and Goa SuRaj in any which way we can.

TGF
August 20, 2005