1. Garbage Scam: Seven Of Nine Tainted Firms In For New Contracts
Garbage transport contracts continue to raise a stink in the BMC. Close to six months after BMC filed police complaints against nine firms for mixing debris with garbage, the BMC has decided to blacklist only two of them while the others have been let off with meagre fines. To add insult to injury, those let off are likely to bag fresh tenders worth Rs 1,800 crore.
In September last year, unscrupulous garbage contractors had pulled a fast one on the BMC by transporting construction debris instead of solid waste. After realizing that it had been duped, the BMC registered police complaints against nine garbage contractors, and issued show cause notices. But six months later, the BMC has decided to blacklist only two of them.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
2. FIR Against Juhu High-rise For Misusing Composting Pit
The civic administration has lodged a police complaint against a posh apartment tower in Juhu for converting a vermicomposting pit into car parking.
This is the first time that the BMC has taken such a step against a housing society for not complying with waste management rules. Earlier, officials only went to the extent of not sending garbage vans to societies that refused to segregate their trash or create composting pits.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
3. School Girl Claims She Didn’t Slip, But Jumped After Teachers’ Rebuke
A student of an Ambarnath school, who had earlier said that she slipped and fell down from the second floor of the school’s building on January 17, has now done a volte face and claimed that she jumped after being “harassed” by three teachers over her friendship with a senior boy.
On the day of the incident, the Class VI student, who suffered pelvis dislocation and lumbar spine fracture in the fall, had told the police in the hospital’s ICU that she was sitting on the window of the school hall and lost her balance. She repeated the same thing to the school’s counsellor.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
4. ‘Training Abroad Doesn’t Mean He’s A Terrorist’
In a blow to the Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), a special court on Wednesday acquitted three men of all charges of terrorism while observing that just because an accused says he went abroad for terror training (without giving details) does not make him a terrorist.
The court, however, convicted two of them of possessing counterfeit notes and sentenced them to six years in prison in connection with a fake currency case of 2011.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
5. Marathas Don’t Blame CM, But Babus
With the deadline given by them to the state government to meet their demands coming to an end on February 10, the Marathas are now gearing up a second round of protests after taking out 58 morchas, including the massive silent rally in Mumbai in August 2017, across Maharashtra last year.
Interestingly enough, the community is not blaming Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis for the delay in meeting all their demands and implementation of welfare schemes. Instead, they claim that it is bureaucratic red tape that is stopping the measures from becoming a reality.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
6. MSRTC To Withhold Reimbursement If Employees' Official Phones Found Switched Off
Starting this month, employees of Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC), one of the biggest bus transport corporations in the country with a fleet of 17,000 buses, might just dread days when they don’t have their mobile phone chargers on them, all thanks to a new diktat issued by the company. The order to key MSRTC staff states that if official mobile phones are found to be switched off at any given point in time, employees will have to forfeit their entire month’s mobile reimbursement.
Source: Mid-day
7. Thane: 10-Year-Old Boy On His Way To Cricket Practice Run Over By Woman Driver
The Tarapur Police have registered an FIR in the death of child who was hit by a car on his way to his cricket coaching class.
On Monday evening, around 4.30, the child, Nitanshu Jitendra Bhoir, 10, was on his bicycle inside Taps Colony, on his way to cricket practice. Just before he could step out of the colony, a car driven by Shubhra Virendra Mishra, 38, hit him from behind. Mishra, whose husband is a scientist, was in her jeep and was leaving for some work.
Source: Mid-day
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