Hilaro Siquera used to own a 243-hectare farm in Divar, about 6 km from Goa's capital, Panaji. His land isn't cultivable any more

goa town planning minister resigns: Embroiled in a controversy over the Goa State Regional Plan 2011, the state's town and country planning minister, Atanasio Monserrate, resigned from the cabinet on January 3, 2006. In less than a week, the Goa chief minister, Pratapsinh Rane, sworn in BJP legisator Manohar Azgaokar in his place. Rane described the resignation as a decision "taken in haste'. But Monserrate blamed his party colleagues for his resignation, as they did not back him in the controversy surrounding the regional plan.

groundwater contamination in Goa's Pilerne industrial estate has led to a drinking water crisis in its surrounding villages. By now, more than 300 residents from Orda and Saipem villages have been

six mine labourers died in a recent landslide in Tollem iron ore mine in Goa's Sanguem taluka. Only two bodies have been recovered; the rest remain buried under a heap of mining waste, estimated

on november 26, 2006, nearly 1,000 villagers of Chicalim, a village on the banks of the Zuari river in Goa, gathered for an unprecedented third gram sabha to vote against the Bharati Shipyard

After a delay of over six years, Goa has a 400-page blueprint for development. But the Goa Final Regional Plan 2011 has environmental groups, urban planners and the public up in arms. They want it to