1. Residents Dump 1.25-Tonne Garbage in BMC Bins Meant for Plastic Collection
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) plan to collect plastic from households through special bins seems to have flopped as residents have filled these bins with all sorts of garbage but plastic. In just one month, instead of plastic, the civic body has collected 1.25 tonnes of garbage from 25 bins placed at different locations. The civic body has appealed to Mumbaikars to start discarding all plastic bags stocked at their homes into the plastic collection boxes placed at various public places.
Nikhil Desai, a Matunga resident, said: “In the first week of April, the BMC placed one of these special bins at Matunga Market near the railway station. I saw that the bin was over flowing, it was filled up with garbage from the market. I reported about this to the solid waste management staff of F-south ward but nothing was done about it.”
Source: The Indian Express
2. Metro 2B Line: Digging Work Only for Soil Testing, MMRDA Tells Bombay HC
Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA) on Wednesday told the Bombay High Court that it was carrying out digging work only for the purpose of soil testing in the suburbs, along the Metro 2B line, from D N Nagar to Mankhurd. The court was hearing a petition filed by 14 cooperative housing societies at JVPD, Gulmohar Area Societies Welfare Group and Dr Balabhai Nanavati Hospital, seeking to revoke the implementation of the proposed Metro 2B line, and instead consider planning an underground line with a viable route.
Senior counsel Venkatesh Dhond, appearing for the petitioners had earlier told the court that the MMRDA has started barricading for carrying out soil testing for the Metro construction. The court then asked MMRDA that if it had powers to dig the road without permission from the municipal corporation.
Source: The Indian Express
3. National Film Awardees Revolt
The presentation of the National Film Awards today might well be a genteel affair, but the well-choreographed sequence and flow of the ceremony conceals a near revolt that took place on Wednesday during rehearsals for the event at Vigyan Bhavan, in New Delhi.
The awardees, who had congregated in the capital late in the afternoon on Wednesday, were in for a rude shock when they discovered that only 11 awards would be presented by President Ram Nath Kovind.
The rest of the awards, they learnt from a docket issued to them, would be handed over by Union Information & Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani, Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore, Minister of State, Information & Broadcasting, and Narendra Kumar Sinha, Secretary, Information & Broadcasting.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
4. 64 IES Schools to Introduce Six-Day Week From June
The Indian Education Society (IES), a trust which runs 64 schools in Mumbai, Thane and Raigad, including the historic Raja Shivaji Vidyalaya (erstwhile King George School), Dadar, has decided to implement a six-day week instead of the current five-day week from the next academic year which begins in June 2018.
The move to include Saturdays in the schools’ working calendar is set to impact nearly 40,000 students and comes in the wake of the government’s decision to increase the number of periods per week from 45 to 48, according to revised guidelines issued last year.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
5. Political Worker Seeking Bhide’s Arrest Attempts Suicide Outside Mantralaya
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A political worker, belonging to the Bharipa Bahujan Mahajan (BBM) unit from Ahmednagar, tried to commit suicide outside the Mantralaya on Wednesday demanding the arrest of Sambhaji Bhide, one of the alleged instigators behind the violence against Dalits at Bhima Koregaon.
Marine Drive police said cops posted outside the Mantralaya gate stopped the man, identified as Ganesh Dilip Pawar, from pouring kerosene on himself around 1:30 pm on Wednesday.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
6. Posh Sobo Not Spared Pavement Perils Either
The chances of getting injured after being hit by a vehicle on the road are lower than tripping on the ill-paved sidewalks and breaking a bone, say the well-heeled, affluent residents of SoBo.
Not without reasons though.
Broken, protruding or simply missing paver blocks on the footpaths right from Churchgate to Colaba give a hard time to pedestrians. In April last year, Pritti Kumar, a resident of Colaba, made headlines after having a nasty fall on a paver block sidewalk outside her building off Colaba Causeway. Pritti, who broke her both ankles in the mishap, was rendered immobile for six weeks.
Source: Mumbai Mirror
7. Polls on May 21: Shiv Sena, BJP Likely to Contest Polls for Six Maharashtra Legislative Council Seats Together
Despite Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray reiterating on multiple occasions that the party would contest all future elections on its own, the Shiv Sena and ally Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) appeared to have reached an informal understanding for the upcoming elections to six constituencies of the Maharashtra Legislative Council. Sources said the alliance partners will contest three seats each. The Election Commission of India has announced polls for Raigad-Ratnagiri-Sindhudurg, Nashik, Parbhani-Hingoli, Osmanabad-Latur-Beed, Amravati and Wardha-Chandrapur-Gadchiroli seats to the Maharashtra Legislative Council. The last date for filing nominations is May 3 and the polls will be held on May 21.
Source: The Indian Express
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