WENDELL RODRIGUES

Wendell Rodrigues is a world-renowned fashion designer from Colvale, Goa. Wendell's clothes have made him the first Indian designer to be show-pieced at the world's largest ready-to-wear fair at Germany's IGEDO. Thats not all, he also is a columnist and a visiting faculty at a famous university.

Wendell believes in understatement. His approach is minimalistic to both fabric and style. Besides having clad Goldie Hawn, he also dresses fellow-Goans in his exquisite designs.

He was born in Mumbai and later went on to pursue fashion studies at Los Angeles and thereafter Paris.

TRISTAO DE BRAGANZA CUNHA

A nationalist in the true sense of the word, Tristao de Braganza Cunha, was born on April 2nd, 1891. He was unmarried and fought for just one cause - the freedom of Goa. After obtaining his degree from Pondicherry, he went to Paris for higher studies at the Sorbonne University. He did justice to the saying, 'The pen is mightier than the sword' and strongly propogated the "Freedom of Goa Movement". Today, he is regarded as the 'Father of Goan Nationalism'.

After a long sojourn in France, he returned to India in 1926, and carried on his noble mission of rousing the political consciousness of the people and mobilising them for the struggle against Portuguese oppression. Once back in India, he founded the Goa Congress Committee in the year 1928, the object of which was to fight for the liberation of Goa, Daman and Diu. The Goa Congress was affiliated to the Indian National Congress.

His booklet, 'Four Hundred Years of Foreign Rule', and his pamphlet, 'Denationalisation of Goa', were eye-openers to the Goans themselves to the painful oppression that had been forced upon them.

After five years of swordsmanship with his powerful pen, he died on September 28th, 1958 - three years before the liberation of Goa. The World Peace Council at Stockholm in 1959 posthumously awarded T. B. Cunha a gold medal for his contribution to the cause of "Peace and Friendship among People."