Goa, Dec. 4 -- The twin scrapyard fires in Sancoale within barely a week-both reduced to ashes, both operating in plain sight, both well known to residents long before officials pretended to discover them-are not isolated accidents. They are the loudest reminders yet of a system that has normalised illegality as an acceptable cost of governance. When a village panchayat is compelled to issue mass notices to all scrapyards only after two spectacular infernos light up the skyline, it tells you everything about how regulation in Goa works: always after the fire, never before it. Let us begin with the most uncomfortable question, the one the government repeatedly sidesteps-how does an illegal scrapyard begin operations at all? A scrapyard can...