20 years of
existence. Today Vauraddeancho Ixtt (Worker's Friend)
is the only weekly that has survived (since 1933) and
is thriving to meet the present day challenges of the
fast moving media. Started in 1933 in the backdrop of
the spread of Communism, the weekly was to reach out
the working class and people at the grassroots to
educate, inform and educate them on Communism vis-a-vis
religion. However, over the years, and as it gained
wider popularity, the scope extended to the coverage of
social, political, cultural and religious themes. Ixtt
can boast of a glorious past as one weekly that
provided news and views that satisfied the reading
appetite of a large readership in Goa and Mumbai.
Having run by priests and the Society of Pilar, its
credibility and respect always remained consistent.

Ixtt's contribution to the freedom movement of Goa is
worth the mention. Ixtt under the aegis of the Society
of Pilar followed a line of thought closer to the
aspiration of the freedom movement of our Motherland
India and Goa. It was on the Vespers of the
independence of India that Ixtt began to publish from
the precincts of the old Monastery of Pilar, where its
editorial office and press was housed.

The weekly enjoyed quite good freedom to express itself
without rigorous Portuguese censorship upto the early
50's. However, the picture started changing after the
Liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and the freedom
struggle movement to liberate Goa from the clutches of
the Portuguese. During this period, the Press buckled
under the pressures of rigorous Portuguese censorship.
Nothing could be published in Goa without getting it
censored by the Portuguese Police with the rubber-stamp
of approval that read 'Visado pela censura' (Seen by
the Censor).

Ixtt, under the editorship first of Fr. Conceicao
Rodrigues (1944-54) and later of Fr. Jeronimo Pereira
(1954-69), had to face insurmountable pressures to toe
the Portuguese line. In order to survive most of the
times, Ixtt maintained silence towards the policies of
Salazar the Portuguese dictator without however openly
criticizing the Portuguese Government, which would be
suicidal. But this silence was construed as opposition
to the Portuguese Sovereignty in Goa.

On August 12, 1961, three months before the liberation
of Goa, the Governor Vassalo da Silva, by his decree,
suspended the publication of Ixtt for 90 days as a
punishment for not being patriotic towards Portugal a