1. ‘Leaning Mansion’ Of Byculla Triggers Evacuation
A section of a 70-year-old building in Byculla developed cracks and started to tilt late on Wednesday night, prompting frantic evacuation of five families and shutting of businesses on the ground floor.
The housing and development authority MHADA on Thursday propped Habib Mansion from inside and ordered an urgent inspection to determine if extensive repairs can be conducted or the affected section needs to be pulled down.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
2. If You Can’t Dispose It, You Just Dump It
What happens to the solid waste (muck in railway parlance) collected by the Central Railway from the tracks? It’s simply dumped on the track sides in Vashi creek.
The Central Railway does this routinely when its special train, called Muck Special, collects tonnes of waste material from tracks in the city areas once in four or five days. And it claims that dumping the wastes strengthen the sides of the railway tracks passing through the creek.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
3. Mallya Kisses Racing Goodbye
Former liquor baron Vijay Mallya, easily the country’s most flamboyant racing horse owner and also Indian racing’s biggest benefactor in terms of sponsorships, has decided to call it quits.
Mallya’s United Racing & Bloodstock Breeders Limited (URBBL) has drastically cut its Operations in the past couple of years and is preparing to hand over its Kunigal Stud Farm back to the Karnataka government.
Mallya, at any given time, used to have at least a 100 horses in training with different trainers across the country. But the number in November 2016 was down to 85 and stands at only 35 now.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
4. MSRDC Boss Accused Of Graft Removed By CM
Bowing down to immense pressure from the Opposition, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis divested Radheshyam Mopalwar from his post of Vice Chairman and Managing Director of Maharashtra State Road Development Corporation (MSRDC). The decision will add another dent in Fadnavis’s Rs 46, 000 crore dream project – the Mumbai-Nagpur Expressway – as the IAS officer was also heading the project.
Fadnavis made the announcement in the state assembly on Thursday, two days after an audio CD surfaced in which the 1995 batch IAS officer was allegedly heard asking for Rs 2 crore bribe concerning a piece of land in suburban Borivali.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
5. Murder Accused Who Fled From Jail Held In Varanasi
An undertrial, who had escaped from the grasp of Taloja Jail staffers in February this year, was re-arrested from Varanasi on Thursday by Uttar Pradesh police after specific input from their Navi Mumbai counterparts. The cops, who had lost all trace of the accused, Hanumant alias Prem Patil, picked up on his trail in July after his name cropped up in a separate investigation into threat and extortion calls made to several businessmen and a few politicians.
Patil was first arrested in 2013 for allegedly murdering CIDCO clerk Atul Mhatre. However, he managed to escape captivity after allegedly bribing two policemen Rs 40,000.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
6. Note Ban Losses: State To Pay Toll Operators Rs 142 Crore
The state cabinet on Thursday cleared a proposal to pay Rs 142 crore to toll operators who suffered losses because of demonetisation last year.
“During the demonetisation period, we had asked toll operators to stop collecting toll as there was shortage of cash with public. We had also committed to compensate them for their losses, which we are now doing,” said state finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar. He added the money would be recovered from the public works department’s budgetary outlay.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
7. NCP’s ‘Invisible Hands’ Are Backing BJP: Sena
The Shiv Sena claimed on Thursday that “invisible hands” of the NCP were supporting its senior ruling ally, the BJP, protecting the Devendra Fadnavis administration in the assembly.
Sena leaders said there had been various instances during the ongoing session of the state legislature where the Sharad Pawar-led party had sided with the BJP.
After the presidential election, Fadnavis had said that “invisible hands” would back his government if there’s trouble, which was widely viewed as a reference to the NCP.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
8. Ex Varsity Official Booked For Molestation
A former employee of Dr Vilas Shinde has lodged an FIR against the ex-Controller of Examinations at the University of Mumbai. The FIR was lodged against him for outraging the modesty of a female staff when she was an employee working under him at an institute based in Thane. The FIR has been lodged in Thane.
A female employee who was a teacher in Kasarvadavli, Thane accused Shinde, who was the principal at the time of the incident, of outraging her modesty.
(Source: Mumbai Mirror)
9. Blue Whale Game Suicide: Teachers Remember Andheri Teen Who Took His Life
The tremors of Andheri teenager Manpreet Sahans's suicide, allegedly because of a controversial Internet game, the Blue Whale Challenge, were felt across the city, but more so in the Bombay Cambridge School, where the 14-year-old studied. For two days, the school didn't conduct any classes and just helped its students cope with the shock. Sahans's close friends were counselled and only on Wednesday did the school started easing students into regular studies again.
Even though there isn't any definitive proof yet that Sahans killed himself as part of the Challenge, after talking to his close friends, the school found out that he certainly was big on Internet games. Brilliant in studies and an active participant in the school's basketball and cricket teams, Sahans, they said, had shown no sign of depression. He had not even missed school for anyone to suspect there was something wrong.
(Source: Mid-day)
10. Mumbai's 66-million-year-old 'Secret' Fires Up The Internet
Tucked inside the concrete maze of Andheri West is Mumbai's -- nay India's -- best-kept 'secret': a 66-million-year-old volcanic structure that can be found at only two other locations in the world. And, a filmmaker from Delhi is outing it. Jaskunwar Kohli, 24, who studied filmmaking at St Xavier's College two years ago, has released a short film -- Nobody Knows -- on YouTube that throws light on 200-ft-high Gilbert Hill, a volcanic structure from the Mesozoic era believed to have been formed at the time of the mass extinction of dinosaurs due to an asteroid hit.
The short film, 4.57 minutes long, was uploaded on July 10 and became an instant hit. It has so far garnered 1,14,888 views.
The film begins on a note of suspense --"there is an ancient secret hidden in the heart of Mumbai, except that it is not really a secret" -- and explains the natural phenomenon through a photo walk held in June-end by a group of photography enthusiasts who call themselves the Klicktorians.
(Source: Mid-day)
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