Prutha Goa

It is a rare breed of humans who look for more than establishing their own worth and engaging in the pursuit of ambition. Indian-American Lara Saldanha is one of that rare breed. 14 January 2018 saw her playing a benefit concert for Goa’s own Child’s Play (India) Foundation, which was founded by Dr Luis Dias to bring the skill of reproducing Western Classical to underprivileged children on the lines of El Sistema. The 25-year-old pianist entertained the audience with a programme that included works by Bach, Haydn, Clara Schumann, and Messiaen. Lara Saldanha has a Bachelor of Music in Piano Performance and studied under the acclaimed pianist Alan Chow. She has an additional bachelor’s degree in economics from Northwestern University, USA and is at present in the process of attaining a Master of Music at The New School’s Mannes School of Music in New York City, being mentored by Vladimir Valjarević. An accomplished pianist in her own right, Lara has won prizes at competitions such as Gen

By Richard Lees, MD of Volunteering Goa LTD and International Consultant for Prutha Goa Any observer of the media today, be it newspapers, radio, TV or online media, could be forgiven for thinking that we are living in a very terrible time for humanity. We are fed with endless stories of war, corruption, natural disasters, terrorism, suicides and more. Even our modern obsession with celebrities seems more often than not to focus on their falling from popular favour, be it sporting heroes who are found to be taking drugs or politicians, singers, actors, etc who are caught having affairs. We even enjoy our stories of bad luck – the millionaire who lost everything in a stock market collapse seems to be a popular news story too. Is it true that the world is just getting worse and worse? Surprisingly, actual data does not support this view at all. Max Roser is an economist at the Institute for New Economic Thinking at Oxford University. He makes his data available freely through the website