List of people from Goa

This is a list of famous and notable people from Goa, India. This list aims to include persons who are known to a large number of people, and is not based on the extent of their popularity. Neither is the list viewed from the context of the present. Their fame could be brief, what matters is that they were well known during the peak of their popularity.

Sports personalities

• Seraphino Antao – represented Kenya in sprinting in the Commonwealth Games during the 1950s and early 60s; won two gold medals
• Swapnil Asnodkar, opening batsman for Goa and Rajasthan Royals; played a key role in helping his team win the inaugural edition of the Indian Premier League
• Bruno Coutinho, Indian footballer and Arjuna awardee
• Antao D'Souza – represented Pakistan cricket team in Tests in the 1950s and early 60s
• Brahmanand Sankhwalkar, soccer player and former Goa captain; one of Goa's best goalkeepers; an Arjuna awardee for his achievements in sports
• Dilip Sardesai, former cricketer

Olympians

• Jack Britto, field hockey, 1952, representing Pakistan
• J.M. Carvalho, field hockey, 1976, representing India
• Leo Pinto, field hockey, 1948, representing India

Freedom fighters

• Mohan Ranade, an Indian freedom fighter who actively participated in the Goa liberation movement. He was arrested by Portuguese police in 1955. Later he was incarcerated at the Fort of Cassias near Lisbon in Portugal. He was kept in the solitary confinement for six years. After the liberation of Goa by the Indian government Ranade was finally released in January 1969 after 14 years of imprisonment.

Musicians

• Anthony Gonsalves (1927 – 18 January 2012), violinist; taught R.D. Burman and Pyarelal Ramprasad Sharma (a member of the Laxmikant Pyarelal team) and worked with most of the legendary composers of the 1950s and 1960s
• António Fortunato de Figueiredo(1903–1981), conductor, violinist; founder-director of the Academia de Música (now Dept of Western Classical Music, Kala Academy); founder-director of the Orquestra Sinfónica de Goa (Goa Symphony Orchestra)
• Anjanibai Malpekar (1883 – 1974), Hindustani classical singer of Bhendibazaar gharana, Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellowship (1958)
• Chris Perry, the king of Goan music
• Hema Sardesai, playback singer
• Ian D'Sa, UK-born, of Goan descent; former guitarist of Canadian band Billy Talent
• Jitendra Abhisheki, Indian musician
• Kesarbai Kerkar (1892–1977)
• Khaprumama Parvatkar (1879–1953), ghumot and tabla player
• Lorna Cordeiro, Konkani language singer
• Remo Fernandes, musician and Bollywood playback singer
• Suresh Haldonkar, classical vocalist, actor
• Kishori Amonkar, classical vocalist
• Dinanath Mangeshkar, dramatist and classical vocalist
• Mogubai Kurdikar, classical vocalist
• Datta Naik, Hindi film music director
• Oliver Sean, singer/songwriter

Indologists and archeologists

• José Gerson da Cunha (1844–1900), historians and Orientalist. Besides Konkani and Portuguese, French, English and Sanskrit, he could handle Pehlevi, Italian, Persian and German, Marathi. He wrote the first book on history of Bombay, The Origin of Bombay (1900), published by the Bombay branch of the Royal Asiatic Society.^[1][2]
• Mahadevshastri Joshi
• Damodar Dharmananda Kosambi (1907–1966), Indologist
• Dharmananda Damodar Kosambi (1876–1947), studied Pali; Buddhist scholar
• Prakashchandra Pandurang Shirodkar

Political campaigners

• Dayanand Bandodkar, first Chief Minister of Goa
• Narana Coissoró, left his motherland of Goa to serve the Portuguese people and became a member of the Portuguese Parliament
• António Costa, Portuguese Prime Minister (since 26 November 2015) and former Mayor of Lisbon (2007-2015). Antonoa Costa was born in 1961 in Lisbon, the son of writers Orlando da Costa and Maria Antónia Palla. His father was of Goan, Portuguese, and French descent.
• Otelo Saraiva de Carvalho, formerly a Portuguese military officer, was the chief strategist of the 1974 Carnation Revolution in Lisbon; was born in Lourenço Marques (now Maputo); Mozambique of some Goan ancestry
• Luís de Menezes Bragança, journalist, writer and anti-colonial activist
• Erasmo de Sequeira, head of United Goans Party; former member of the Indian Parliament at New Delhi
• Dr. Jack de Sequeira, prominent campaigner for the opinion poll that retained Goa as an independent state
• Eduardo Faleiro, politician and former central minister
• Abbé Faria, priest, key participant in the Conspiracy Of The Pintos; became a famous hypnotist and revolutionary in France
• Shamrao Madkaikar
• Manohar Parrikar, Defence Minister of Union Of India and Ex-Chief Minister of Goa^[3]
• Pio Gama Pinto, Kenyan freedom fighters and politician; director of the Pan African Press
• Pratapsingh Raoji Rane, former Chief Minister of Goa
• Pandurang Purushottam Shirodkar, first speaker of the Goa Assembly^[4]

Judges and lawyers

• Luís da Cunha Gonçalves (1875–1956), wrote as many as 14 volumes on his studies of civil law^[5]
• Fitz R S de Souza, barrister-at-law and PhD from London; important figure in African politics; participated in Kenya's struggle for freedom

Professors and educationists

• Rui de Figueiredo, professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Mathematics, University of California, Irvine
• J. Anthony Gomes, MD, FACC, FAHA, Professor of Medicine (cardiology), The Mount Sinai Medical Center and The Icahn School of Medicine, New York, USA
• Armando Menezes, Head of the Department of English St Xavier's College Bombay; Principal of Karnataka College Dharwad; Under-Secretary Education, Government of Maharashtra

Artists

• Antonio Piedade da Cruz, twentieth-century painter and sculptor^[6]
• Angelo da Fonseca, noted for presenting Christian themes in an Indian style
• Mario de Miranda (1926 – 2011), famous for his cartoons in The Illustrated Weekly of India; a Padma Vibushan awardee
• Vasudeo S. Gaitonde (1924–2001), was regarded as India's foremost abstract artist; received Padma Shri Award in 1971; born in Nagpur of Goan parents
• Kimi Katkar, film actress
• Subodh Kerkar, artist
• Kartika Rane, film and television actress
• Francis Newton Souza (1924–2003), artist
• Varsha Usgaonkar, film and television actress

Scientists

• Garcia de Orta (1523–1580), physician, druggist, and botanist; wrote and published the first major book on Indian drugs and remedies's a Portuguese/Spanish Jew who lived some time in Goa
• Froilano de Mello, Indo-Portuguese microbiologist, medical scientist, professor, author and independent MP in the Portuguese parliament
• Raghunath Mashelkar, eminent scientist and head of the prestigious Council of Scientific and Industrial Research

Religious leaders

• Joseph Cordeiro, Cardinal in Pakistan (Karachi/Goa)
• Matheus de Castro (c. 1594-1677), first Indian Bishop of the Catholic Church
• Moreno de Souza, translated the Bible into Konkani language
• Ivan Dias, Cardinal Prefect, Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, Rome (Mumbai/Goa)
• Filipe Neri Ferrão, from Aldona, current Archbishop of Goa and Damao
• Oswald Gracias, from Carmona, Archbishop of Mumbai
• Valerian Gracias, Cardinal in Bombay (Mumbai/Goa)
• Anthony Theodore Lobo, Bishop of Rawalpindi/Islamabad, Pakistan (Karachi/Goa)
• Evarist Pinto, from Aldona, Archbishop of Karachi, Pakistan
• Joseph Vaz, missionary in Sri Lanka (Ceylon); patron of Goan Archdiocese

Writers, editors, journalists

• Maria Aurora Couto, writer, academic and literary critic with books including Graham Greene: On the Frontier, Politics and Religion in the Novels, and Goa: A Daughter's Story
• Orlando da Costa (1929–2006), Communist Portuguese poet and writer of Goan descent, born in the capital of the former Portuguese colony of Mozambique, Maputo
• Sebastião Rodolfo Dalgado (1855–1922), of Assagao, linguist; knew Malayalam, Sinhala, Bengali, Kannada, Marathi, and Sanskrit; in 1892, he produced a Konkani-Portuguese dictionary and later a grammar
• Armand de Souza, born in 1877 in Assagao to the Camotim family, was the founding editor of the Morning Leader in Ceylon. An early freedom fighter, he was gaoled by the British colonial government for advocating democracy, but released following public protests at his incarceration. He was the author of Hundred days in Ceylon under martial law in 1915^[7] and father of Senator Doric de Souza (Professor of English) and the late editor of the Times of Ceylon, Tory de Souza. He died in 1922.
• Teotonio R. de Souza, historian, founder-director of Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa (1979–1994); Fellow of the Portuguese Academy of History; author of Medieval Goa (1979), Goa to Me (1994), and several other publications on Goan history and culture
• Francisco Luís Gomes (1829–1869), Indo-Portuguese physician, politician, writer, historian, and economist
• Ravindra Kelekar (born 1925), freedom fighter, writer and revivalist of the Konkani language
• Chandrakant Keni, retired as the editor of Marathi daily Rashtramat and Konkani daily Sunaparant, worked as a freelance journalist. He was associated with development of Konkani language. With a few books to his credit, Mr. Keni bagged the Sahitya Academy Award for his book Ashadh Pawali
• Lambert Mascarenhas, author of the classic novel Sorrowing Lies My Land (1955), which was reprinted thrice and has been translated into Marathi, Telugu and Konkani. Lambert was the editor of the Goan Tribune, the fortnightly paper dedicated to the cause of Goa's freedom from the Portuguese rule. He is also the founder editor of Goa Today, former editor of The Navhind Times, and was awarded the State Cultural award
• Dom Moraes (born 1938), has won the American Press Club Citation for Excellence in Reporting, for some 20 articles he wrote for the New York Times Sunday Magazine; also a poet; died earlier this decade
• Frank Moraes, editor of many prominent newspapers in post-independence India, including The Indian Express
• B. D. Satoskar, author, ex-editor of Gomantak daily
• Frank Simoes, passionate Goan advertising person; author of Glad Season in Goa

Governors

• Bernardo Peres da Silva, of Neurá; appointed Prefect of Estado da Índia Portuguesa in 1835, the only Goan to hold a post equivalent to a Governor-General

References

1. Chatterjee, Sudeshna (Aug 31, 2003). "Family Matters". The Times of India.
2. Vaz, J. Clement (1997). Profiles of eminent Goans, past and present. Concept Publishing Company. p. 118. ISBN 81-7022-619-8.
4. Past speakers of Goa
5. Martin, John Duncan (1978). Essays in Classical and Modern Hindu Law: Consequences of the intellectual exchange with the foreign powers. BRILL. p. 472. ISBN 90-04-04808-1.
6. J. Clement Vaz, "Profiles of Eminent Goans Past and Present", Concept Publishing Company, 1997, ISBN 9788170226192

External links

• Goans All Over the World are Doing Great Things
• Goans on the International Sporting Stage
• Great Men of Goa

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