Panaji, July 26 : Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar on Thursday appealed to the Congress high command, as well as to the opposition party leaders in Goa to back an amendment to a central act, which will help restart mining in Goa, which has been banned since February this year.

 

"We can go for a request provided everyone supports and the Congress in Delhi supports. After that I will go to Delhi and talk to the person concerned," the Chief Minister said while replying to a debate on the mining issue.

 

Parrikar said that the state government would request the ruling National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government at the Centre to amend the Goa, Daman and Diu (Abolition of Concession and Declaration as Mining Leases) Act, 1987, passed by Parliament to bypass the Supreme Court's order and extend the validity of Goa's mining leases.

 

"It is the only lasting solution," Parrikar said.

 

The Chief Minister also said that both ruling and opposition parties should come together to amend the central legislation "in the interest of Goa and Goans".

 

The mining issue has been hanging fire in Goa every since the apex court banned extraction and transportation of iron ore from 88 mining leases from March while also directing the state to re-issue mining leases.

 

This is second time in less than a decade that all mining activity in the state has come to a standstill.

 

The 2012 ban was later lifted by the apex court in 2014, but the court was forced to impose fresh restrictions while slighting the state government for messing up with the lease renewal process.

 

Before Goa was liberated by the Indian armed forces in 1961, mining leases in the state were permanent concessions granted by the Portuguese colonists for exploration and exploitation.

 

Once India took over the new colony, the Central government via the Goa Daman and Diu (Abolition of Concession and Declaration as Mining Leases) act, 1987, converted the same concessions into mining leases under the Mines and Minerals Development Act, 1954, making them valid for a fixed tenure, which lapsed in 2007.

 

Though passed by the Parliament in 1987, in case of Goa, a late entrant into the Indian Union, the law was retrospectively brought into effect from 1961, the year Goa was liberated from Portuguese yoke.

 

The Supreme Court in its February 2018 order has now held that any mining activity carried out since 2007 was illegal.

 

In his speech in the state assembly on Thursday, Parrikar proposed an amendment to Section 2 of the Act, which is aimed at altering the retrospective date of conversion of concessions to leases from 1961 to 1987, the year when the law was actually passed in Parliament. The amendment, he said, would extend the validity of leases from 2007 to 2045.

 

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London, Aug 5 (PTI): An Indian-origin taxi driver based in Ireland for over 23 years has become the latest to be targeted in an unprovoked attack in the capital Dublin, with local police (Gardai) launching an investigation into the violent assault.

Lakhvir Singh, in his 40s, told local media that he picked up two young men in their 20s on Friday night and dropped them at Poppintree, in the Ballymun suburb of Dublin.

Upon arriving at the destination, the men are said to have opened the vehicle door and struck him twice on the head with a bottle. As the suspects fled, they reportedly shouted: "Go back to your own country".

"In 10 years I've never seen anything like this happen," Singh told ‘Dublin Live’.

"I'm really scared now and I'm off the road at the moment. It will be very hard to go back. My children are really scared," he said.

A Dublin police spokesperson said Singh was taken to the city's Beaumont Hospital with injuries determined as not life-threatening.

"Gardaí are investigating an assault reported to have occurred in Poppintree, Ballymun, Dublin 11 at approximately 11:45 pm on Friday, 1st August 2025. A man, aged in his 40s, was brought to Beaumont Hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injury. Investigations are ongoing," the spokesperson said.

The incident followed an Indian Embassy advisory, also issued on Friday, expressing safety concerns following recent attacks in and around the capital Dublin and urging Indian citizens to take safety precautions.

"There has been an increase in the instances of physical attacks reported against Indian citizens in Ireland recently,” states the advisory.

“The embassy is in touch with the authorities concerned in Ireland in this regard. At the same time, all Indian citizens in Ireland are advised to take reasonable precautions for their personal security and avoid deserted areas, especially at odd hours," the statement reads, adding emergency embassy contact details as 0899423734 and cons.dublin@mea.gov.in.

It came in the wake of a brutal attack on a 40-year-old Indian man at Parkhill Road in the Tallaght suburb of Dublin on July 19, described as “mindless, racist violence” by locals.

The Gardai had opened an investigation into the case and Indian Ambassador to Ireland Akhilesh Mishra was among those who took to social media to express shock over the attack.

“Regarding the recent incident of physical attack on an Indian national that happened in Tallaght, Dublin, the embassy is in touch with the victim and his family. All the requisite assistance is being offered. The embassy is also in touch with the relevant Irish authorities in this regard,” the embassy said in a social media post days after the incident.

A Stand Against Racism protest was also held by the local community in condemnation of what was described as a "vicious racist attack" and to express solidarity with migrants.

Last week, Dr Santosh Yadav took to LinkedIn to post details of a “brutal, unprovoked racist attack”.

The entrepreneur and AI expert stressed that it was not an isolated incident and called for “concrete measures” from the governments of Ireland and India to ensure Indians feel safe to walk the streets of Dublin.

His post revealed that a group of six teenagers attacked him from behind as he walked to his apartment in Dublin.

“This is not an isolated incident. Racist attacks on Indian men and other minorities are surging across Dublin — on buses, in housing estates, and on public streets. Yet, the government is silent. There is no action being taken against these perpetrators. They run free and are emboldened to attack again,” reads Yadav's post.

Fine Gael party Councillor for Tallaght South, Baby Pereppadan, was among those who expressed concern following last month’s attack.

“People need to understand that many Indian people moving to Ireland are here on work permits, to study and work in the healthcare sector or in IT and so on, providing critical skills,” he said.