Picture-Postcard Poverty: Unheard voices, forgotten issues from rural Goa

Goa is often subsumed in media-driven clichés of being a beach-sun-and-fun place. The dominant image we are left with is of a State on permanent holiday, urbanised and inhabited by a Westernised middle-class. This reality too does exist in pockets; but its dominant projection sidetracks a range of other issues. Social activist Kalanand Mani and journalist Frederick Noronha focus on concerns emerging from the farm and field, and tell the story of a Goa often overlooked. For this task, they lean on the work of the Madkai (Ponda)-based Peaceful Society, which completes a quarter century of encountering rural Goa. They track other work focussing on the concerns of the poor, in a way that seeks to build a closer understanding of Goa's heartland. Goa is a former Portuguese colony on the west coast of India. Cover design by Bina Nayak