Everything you needed to understand one of post-Independence India's most empowering laws, and how to use it to solve your grievances and build a more transparent, efficient nation. This book contains an FAQ on the Right to Information Act, sample applications, success stories, details about the RTI movement, RTI and the media, the Act itself, appeals and more. It starts with the basic and leads you to knowing much what you'll need to seriously deploy this law to the citizen's benefit. This simple, no-nonsense guide is authored by two persons with both the knowledge and credentials in this field. Nandini Sahai is a former developmental journalist, and Director, Media Information and Communication Centre of India (MICCI). Vishnu Rajgadia is the State Chapter Head of MICCI Ranchi (Jharkhand) and also involved with rti.net.in and rtistory.blogspot.com

Five decades after the Portuguese language suddenly lost its prominence in Goa, a researcher-priest is to come out with a detailed study of the literature that influenced the minds and hearts of 19th and 20th century Goa. Dr. (Fr) Eufemiano de Jesus Miranda's 322-page book focuses on the "reality, fiction, history and imagination" of the writings from Goa's past. It looks at the work of prominent writers of the yesteryears -- Francisco Luis Gomes, Orlando da Costa, and themes such as the image of Mother India in the poetry of the Portuguese-speaking Goan, the figure of the dancing-girl in Goan Lusophone literature, and the works of "Gip" and Augustinho Fernandes. Dr Miranda looks at the creative output of other Goans writing in Portuguese -- Floriano Barreto, Nascimento Mendonca, Mariano Gracias, Adolfo Costa, Paulino Dias, Adeodato Barreto, Sanches Fernandes, Lino Abreu, Vimala Devi, Laxmanrao Sardessai and R.V. Pandit.Miranda did his PhD at the Goa University on 19th-20th century Indo-Portuguese Literature -- a study of major themes in the socio-historical background. In 1988, he won a Gulbenkian scholarship to work on the thesis under the guidance of the late vice-principal Fr. Ivo de Mascarenhas. He has continued to teach, and as a priest is involved actively in the pastoral ministry. He has a classical formation from the seminary from 1954 to 1960, having learnt Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, Marathi and Konkani. Music is his other passion; he founded the Music Lovers' Society and the Goa String Orchestra, and is also president of the Stuti Choral Ensemble.

Goa's heart beats in its charming villages. This book is on Saligao, one of Goa's many colourful and scenic villages. This book is authored by a priest from the village who has served in diverse parishes across Goa. Fr. Mascarenhas has an abiding passion for Goa's history -- specially Church history and has authored half-a-dozen books so far. The book's goal, says the author, is to provide "readers with an enlightening snapshot of the history, culture and traiditions of Saligao". "Saligao abounds in dustry lanes and naorrow pathways which will take you to quaint shrines and half-hidden gardens, old crumbling houses next to brightly painted modern structures or well maintained so-called 'Portuguese' houses," says a foreword to the book by Yvonne Vaz Ezdani. Offering a good amount of local history, the book keeps its style informal and catchy, and intersperses its text with attractive illustrations. It talks about unusual institutions and individuals that make up the village. For instance, the village-crier of the yesteryears was called the 'parpoti'. Way back in the 1920s, expat villages took the initiative to set up a local club that took care of the locals' entertainment and intellectual nourishment. Today, in distant regions -- Bombay, London and Toronto -- expat villagers keep their flag flying by organising events and cultural get-togethers, as do expats from some other villages of Goa. Saligao has had its traditional schools. Later on, its neighbourhood was also one of the first to play home to English-medium schools in Goa. This perhaps explains why so many of the people from around here migrated to the English-speaking world.

Lando is a ten-year-old Goan boy in Nairobi, and the book starts with him being scolded by his mother. Lando's pet dog, Simba, has been creating Matata for Mrs. Gelani. Matata is Swahili for trouble, and the dog has been chasing the neighbour's pyjamas on the clothesline! From the first para, you're likely to get hooked. The story is catchy, told in an easy style, and gives us a young boy's perspective of what it meant to be growing up in colonial Africa (and Goa) during the middle part of the last century. In the first few pages itself, we encounter life in Nairobi. From the Asian-only colonies to the clubs, the Dr. Ribeiro Goan School, Catholic religious life there, and more.

Bombay opened up a new world to the Goan, both Christian and Hindu. They rode high on the crest of the wave of priviledge, grabbed opportunity, worked hard at whatever they took up -- not baulking at menial service, so long as it improved their standing. Thus they were able to set up their own educational institutions, their own press. Other Goans strove to rectify their society, to actively promote education at the highest level, and organise reform movements. This book focuses primarily on the nineteenth century. Bombay's Beginnings Finding Their Way Early Professions The Rich and Famous Intellectual Stalwarts Eminent Physicians Some Notables Goan Press and Literature Marathi Press and Literature Early Churches, Priests Welfare Services Sports and Entertainment Bibliography: Books, Journals, Articles, Unpublished Theses About the Author

Shades within Shadows is the story of Jaki, Zuan, Joao, Foka and Paulu, Konngi, Karminn and Katrin, Natal and Bastiao, and of others, during the turbulent months of Tipu's seige of Mangalore fort and its horrendous aftermath. 'The Captivity' occurred in 1784. Tradition has it that the deportation of Kanara's Christians, immigrants from Goa over the previous 200 years, to Srirangapatna by Tipu Sultan took place on Ash Wednesday. Males of a suitable age were circumcised and inducted into his military slave battalions and younger females were absorbed in his service. The following fifteen years of his reign saw large numbers of these captives dead or converted to Islam. Less than a third returned, impoverished and deprived, most of them have lost their families and property. An estimated Christian population in Kanara of 40,000 in 1784 was reduced to 10,000 by 1800.

The International Catholic Goan Community transcends geographical boundaries, and has emerged over the last hundred years or so. Its origins lie in the social construction of a Local Catholic Goan Community in Goa from the 16th century, as a result of Portuguese colonial policies and practices. This book demonstrates how in the ICGC, multiple radial and lateral links emanate from and to Goa, the fountainhead, and reach out to the satellite communities, as well as between them, creating a veritable spider's web. The author holds a PhD in Social Anthropology. She has undertaken research on the Goan diaspora which involved ethnographic fieldwork in Goa, other parts of India, UK, Portugal, Dubai and Brazil. Insightful, exhaustive and helps the reader to understand Goan migration. -- Eduardo Faleiro, former NRI Commissioner, Goa and Union minister of the Government of India.

Fifty years later, a frank and personal appraisal of the people and events that went into Goa's anti-colonial struggle against the Portuguese struggle Goa-born Suresh Kanekar spent his childhood in Panaji and mapusa. He was doing his M.A. in Pune at the age of twenty when he read about Pundalik Gaitonde's arrest in February 1954, which spurred him into joining the freedom movement. He says now, "My decision to join the Goa freedom movement was a matter of escapism at worst and romanticism at best, with hardly any idealism or patriotism involved. Conceivably, in my case, patriotism was the *first* refuge of the scoundrel. I became seriously committed to the freedom movement only after I was arrested and put behind bars." He was arrested in 1954 and sentenced to five years of imprisonment. He was released in 1959 and then arrested again in 1960, when he was kept in police custody for twenty-nine days. After the 1961 Liberation, he was briefly a member of the executive committee of the National Congress (Goa) -- which had been converted from an anti-colonial campaigning group into a regular political party -- along with better known stalwarts like Pundalik Gaitonde, Peter Alvares, Gopal Kamat, and Pandurang Mulgaonkar. This memoir includes a view of Goa during his childhood in the 1930s and 1940s, his experiences in the freedom struggle, and his departure from Goa after Liberation for a life i academics in India and the US. It is notable for a fascinating account of his long stay in the military prison of Aguada, and an equally riveting description of the formal Portuguese surrender to the Indian army in 1961, of which he was one of the few witnesses. His post-Liberation experiences as a citizen of free India are perhaps less dramatic but no less thought-provoking.

The Golden Gate and other stories is a set of delightful tales for everyone. Dr. Belinda Viegas is a practising psychiatrist based in Goa. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, she recalls a wonderful childhood there -- filled with picnics, fishing and trips into the wild-life sanctuaries. She completed her schooling in Belgaum and joined St. John's Medical College in Bangalore for her M.B.B.S. She did her M.D. in Psychiatry from NIMHANS, the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences, at Bangalore. While there, she got introduced to rock-climbing and trekking. She re-joined St. John s Medical College as a lecturer in Psychiatry and continued to organise treks for the students and staff. While doing the Mt. Everest Base Camp trek in Nepal she met her husband Richard. Marriage took her to Germany, where her children were born and where she also started writing. Their young family returned to Goa, and she began practice in Varca. They had a brief stint in Australia, to bring back happy memories, such as their first experience of scuba-diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Now its back to practicing psychiatry, child-rearing and -- to break the monotony -- cycling, sailing and occasional trekking trips.

This easy, step-by-step guide does not restrict itself to Goan cusine alone. It includes Pan Asian, Continental and a few Indian recipes too. The author is the daughter-in-law of famed chef of Goan origin, Masci (or, Miguel Arcanjo Mascarenhas) who cooked for kings and emperors of another era. He grew from being a humble Goan kitchen boy to one of the most celebrated chefs of his time, way back in the colonial 1920s. This is Mascarenhas' third book on food. Apart from her earlier tribute (also titled Masci), she has penned another food-related title called A Culinary Escapade of Goa. This title could attract attention, not only because Odette and her husband Joe, both who carry the ex-Taj tag, understand the food and restaurant scene in Goa. The more immediately apparent reason for this book's appeal is the way it has been dressed up in some of the more impressive Goa food photographs one has seen. Asavari Kulkarni, the young Goa Art College alumna behind the food images, is known to take her photography very seriously.

A Goan scholar based in Portugal takes a close look at India and comes up with optimistic predictions of the situation here. For him, it is far from the stereotyped land of abject poverty, snake charmers, holy cows or half-clad sadhus lost in meditation. He sees India as a land of learning, of knowledge applied to life. He sees the intellectual capacity and performance of the Indian people as producing quick results. Monteiro unravels what he calls the economic miracle in a country of entrepreneurs. Particularly interesting are his studies on Indian telecom, the Tata and Bharti sector, AMUL and the Gujarat Milk Co-operative, private university education in the shape of Manipal University, healthcare in India offered through the private hospitals network. He finds it worth taking a close look at Dr Devi Shetty and the revolution in healthcare as also the amazing Aravind Eye Hospital experiment in taking top class eye care to the poor of rural India at very affordable rates. Says the foreword by Prof. Jose Luis Lucas Tomas This amazing transformation is analysed in this book by Eugenio Viassa Monteiro, an Indian with long years of residence in Europe in fact he lived longer in this continent than in his own country and his pages are an invitation to embark with him on a voyage of rediscovery of the New India. In order not to be crushed or stunned by so distant a reality, so complex and so different, it is always helpful to depend on a guide like Eugenio, who will understand our Western mentality and will select what we can absorb.

Folklore -- comprising of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, riddles, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs -- continues to be an important branch of local literature. This book, by a scholar who retains close touch with the grassroots, looks at a Goa that is still waiting to be adequately understood. It is based on original field work and studies of various aspects of folklore. It touches on folk songs, songs to Mother Earth, local musical instruments, local festivals, ritual hunts, temple music, the Sixth Night, firewalking, local mendicants, folk cures, witch-craft, ethnography issues in Goa, ethnomusical traditions, the potter's wheel, sculpting images of the gods, ancestors and spirits, Kunbi song and ritual, appeasing via sacrifice, snakes and beliefs, Goa's endangered folk-plays, beast patrons of the clans, Kunbi creation beliefs, Kunbi worship, good and bad omens, sea rituals, local riddles, worshipping Ganapati, asuras, Shakti workship in Goa, wedding symbols, rituals from the field and more.

Undra Muja Mama: Scores, lyrics and translation of one of Goa's most popular song-form, the Dulpods that follow the Mando on the dance-floor. Set in six-eight time, of quick rhythm, dulpods are typically descriptive of life in traditional Goa, especially the life of the Christians. Charming music from Goa.

A Goan scholar based in Portugal takes a close look at India and comes up with optimistic predictions of the situation here. For him, it is far from the stereotyped land of abject poverty, snake charmers, holy cows or half-clad sadhus lost in meditation. He sees India as a land of learning, of knowledge applied to life. He sees the intellectual capacity and performance of the Indian people as producing quick results. Monteiro unravels what he calls the economic miracle in a country of entrepreneurs. Particularly interesting are his studies on Indian telecom, the Tata and Bharti sector, AMUL and the Gujarat Milk Co-operative, private university education in the shape of Manipal University, healthcare in India offered through the private hospitals network. He finds it worth taking a close look at Dr Devi Shetty and the revolution in healthcare as also the amazing Aravind Eye Hospital experiment in taking top class eye care to the poor of rural India at very affordable rates. Says the foreword by Prof. Jose Luis Lucas Tomas This amazing transformation is analysed in this book by Eugenio Viassa Monteiro, an Indian with long years of residence in Europe in fact he lived longer in this continent than in his own country and his pages are an invitation to embark with him on a voyage of rediscovery of the New India. In order not to be crushed or stunned by so distant a reality, so complex and so different, it is always helpful to depend on a guide like Eugenio, who will understand our Western mentality and will select what we can absorb.

Stories from Goa, presented by Edila Gaitonde -- who encountered this region as a young Catholic Portuguese girl experiencing life in an Orthodox Goan Hindu household. Stories of inter-caste love, a dominant feature in Goan storytelling, set against the backdrop of the Liberation of Goa. This collection of stories presented by Edila Gaitonde is told from a point of view that shouldn't be ignored; that of a young Catholic Portuguese girl who experiences life in a Goan Hindu household. An innate sense of survival makes her assimilate into this environment as quickly as possible and get an insider's view on its nuances, its contradictions and its struggles with modernity. There are stories of inter-faith love, one set against the backdrop of what Edila knows best, the Liberation of Goa. There are other stories of inter-racial love, of parents trying to cope in a world changing faster than them; stories of betrayal and disappointment, of fate and battling fatalism. There is a sensitive understanding of the human condition; its fragility and its heroic resilience.