Prutha Goa

Soaring Spirit is Valmiki Faleiro’s second individual venture in writing a book. His collaborative works have been many. One of them is In Black and White . Here he contributed two stories to a collection of insider experiences penned by various other journalists. But his much praised pièce de résistance remains Patriotism in Action , the first book authored by him. A well-known former working journalist, Valmiki Faleiro was employed by the defunct West Coast Times and was the Goa correspondent for national newspapers such as the Indian Express . He has contributed as a freelance journalist to The Navhind Times , Goa Today and other publications too. Feeling disillusioned by prevailing conditions in the field of journalism, he started a successful business of real estate, and from 1985 to 1987 was the municipal president of Margão. He returned to writing in 2005, with his Sunday column 'All n Sundry' in   oHeraldo . In 2009, he decided to take up full-time writing. To unde

Smitha Bhandare Kamat comes across as an unassuming person, and indeed, she does prefer the solace of home and hearth and bonding with family and pets to the constant spotlight. Her cartoons, many of which have featured in prominent magazines and won her awards, seep into your sensibility, packing a punch with humour. Her style is her own, evolving from years of doodling in numerous school notebooks. The messages Smitha communicates through her cartoons emerge from a psyche moulded by a strong and steadfast upbringing by her parents. Her father, Govindas Bhandare, was a self-made man who did not shy away from hard work and encouraged in Smitha an interest in political issues. An amateur cartoonist himself, his drawings were limited to his family for an audience. Fortunately, it is a talent he passed on to his daughter together with his values. ‘I was particularly close to my father, late Shri Govindas Bhandare. He was a very determined man with a rag to riches story to his credit. He w