Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray pays tribute to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj at Vidhan Sabha, on the occasion of Marathi Bhasha Diwas (Express photo by Ganesh Shirsekar, file)Mumbai News Live: The Maharashtra Legislative Assembly and Council on Thursday unanimously passed a bill that aims to establish special courts to ensure speedy trial of cases of crime against women and children under the Shakti Act. State Home Minister Dilip Walse Patil tabled the bill, titled ‘The Maharashtra Exclusive Special Courts (for certain offences against women and children under Shakti Law), 2020’, in both Houses of the legislature.
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly on Thursday unanimously passed a bill that aims to make the use of the Marathi language mandatory in official works of local authorities, including civic bodies and corporations formed by the state government. Minister Subhash Desai said the introduction of the bill was necessitated as the Maharashtra Official Language Act, 1964, did not make it mandatory for the local authorities to use Marathi in their official works.
In other news, Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole has filed a Rs 500 crore defamation suit in a civil court here against IPS officer and former state intelligence chief Rashmi Shukla and others for alleged illegal tapping of his phone. In the suit filed recently, Patole also sought a permanent injunction to stop the misuse of information collected through alleged illegal phone tapping. On Wednesday, civil judge V B Gore issued notices to Shukla and others, and asked them to file a reply before April 12.
Children swim in the Arabian Sea on a hot summer day at Badhwar Park on Monday. (PTI)
The proposed development of Dharavi, the country's biggest slum, is not making headway as railway land has not been handed over to the state government yet, Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray said in the state Assembly on Thursday.
The issue of land in Mumbai which is under the control of various central ministries must be taken up with the Union government, he said. Dharavi, located in central Mumbai, is spread over 2.1 sq km and is home to over six lakh people.
"Dharavi has to be developed. But its development cannot take place because, unfortunately, we are in talks with the Centre about the railway land. Around Rs 800 crore have been given, I have spoken to the railway minister two-three times. But that land has not been transferred to us yet,” Thackeray told the House. (PTI)
Maharashtra on Thursday reported 139 new coronavirus cases and three fresh fatalities linked to the disease, while 255 more patients were discharged following recovery, bringing the active tally below 1,000, the state health department said.
With this, the tally of Covid cases in the state rose to 78,72,956, while the death toll increased to 1,43, 772, a heath department bulletin said. On Wednesday, the state had logged 149 coronavirus cases and two fatalities.
The Kolhapur administrative circle, that includes Sindhudurg, Ratnagiri Sangli and Kolhapur districts did not report any new coronavirus infection. In all, 24 districts and 15 municipal corporations did not report any fresh cases of the coronavirus infection in the last 24 hours. (PTI)
City police has busted a prostitution racket by arresting four people and also rescued two girls, an official said on Thursday. Khushboo Sheikh (25), Salman Sheikh, Rizwan Qureshi (42) and Ebrahim Sheikh were arrested on Wednesday, he said.
The gang targeted minor girls from slums and pushed them into the flesh trade, the official said. Police got information about the racket after authorities at the Rajawadi Hospital in the city informed them about a minor girl patient who was five months pregnant.
The girl allegedly told police that Khushboo Sheikh lured her into prostitution. The accused were booked under relevant sections of the IPC as well as Prevention of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA), said senior inspector Arjun Rajane of Shivajinagar police station, adding that further probe was on. (PTI)
Sabahat Khan, a hijab-wearing woman who is from Aurangabad, has been elected president of the students’ union of Sheffield Hallam University in UK.
Khan, who is pursuing her post-graduation in public health, won with more than 2,500 votes out of a total of 6,900 votes.
“People saw me as a person and my potential to represent them as a student leader, not my attire. And that’s most important,” said Sabahat. Pallavi Smart writes
Sabahat Khan (Source: Facebook)
A witness who is a former army official turned hostile in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast trial here on Thursday. He was the 19th witness to be declared hostile in the case in which the BJP's Bhopal MP Pragya Singh Thakur is a prime accused.
The witness testified before special NIA judge P R Sitre who is conducting the trial on a daily basis. He only recognized Lt Col Prasad Purohit, one of the accused who was present in court, the witness said.
He did not know any of the other accused, had never met them, and he never attended any meeting of the right-wing group `Abhinav Bharat', the witness said. (PTI)
A 26-year-old man was arrested by the Government Railway Police (GRP) here on Thursday for allegedly injuring a woman while trying to snatch her gold chain on a moving local train.
Dipendra Kumar alias Rajkumar Adalat Yadav, the accused, is resident of a slum in suburban Bandra, said a GRP official The incident had taken place near Charni Road station late at night on March 11 when the 24-year-old woman was on her way to Churchgate in south Mumbai.
Churchgate GRP officials along with Mumbai Police scanned the footage of dozens of CCTV cameras and nabbed Yadav, the official said. (PTI)
Maharashtra's former home minister Anil Deshmukh has approached the Bombay High Court seeking bail in connection with a money laundering case being investigated by the Enforcement Directorate (ED).
Deshmukh was arrested by the ED on November 2, 2021, and is currently in jail under judicial custody. The 71-year-old NCP leader filed a petition in the HC after a special court rejected his bail plea earlier this month.
Deshmukh, in his bail plea filed in the HC through advocates Aniket Nikam and Inderpal Singh on Tuesday, has said he was implicated by the ED in a "false and frivolous" case and that the central agency was misusing its authority. (PTI)
The Mumbai Police have geared up to ensure full security for the Indian Premier League (IPL) which will kick off this weekend, an official release said here on Thursday.
There have been no intelligence inputs about any terror threat to the cricket extravaganza that will begin at the Wankhede stadium in South Mumbai from March 26, it added.
Adequate security arrangements will be made at the two stadiums in the city (Wankhede and Brabourne) where matches will be played as well as the hotels where the players and support staff will be staying, police said. (PTI)
The Maharashtra government will make available 300 flats in suburban Goregaon for MLAs from rural areas, Housing Development Minister Jitendra Awhad announced on Thursday.
Speaking in the state Assembly during the ongoing Budget session, he said the legislators who do not have a house in Mumbai, do not represent any constituency in the city and who hail from outside the Mumbai Metropolitan Region will be eligible for this scheme.
“Several MLAs come to Mumbai from rural areas. They all are MLAs. It does not matter which party they belong to. But we (the state government) are responsible for them,” he said. (PTI)
A 38-year-old man died after a heavy piece of granite fell on his head from a building in Mumbai when he stepped out of his house to meet a friend, a police official said on Thursday.
The incident took place on Wednesday afternoon at Mahalaxmi building in Ori Pada locality of Dahisar area, he said.
The victim, Kalyan Giri, had stepped out of his house and was chatting with his friend when a piece of granite from the building broke and fell on his head, the official said. The incident was captured in the CCTV cameras installed in the building. (PTI)
Fulfilling a long-pending demand, Maharashtra Minister Eknath Shinde on Thursday announced re-inclusion of 14 villages from Thane district in the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) jurisdiction, saying local residents cannot be deprived of basic amenities anymore.
Urban Development Minister Shinde made the announcement while replying to a calling attention motion in this regard in the Assembly and instructed authorities concerned to check legal aspects and initiate further action.
He said the move will pave the way for development of the villages. The minister's announcement followed some MLAs from the Mumbai Metropolitan Region pitching in unison for merging the villages again in the NMMC-administered area. (PTI)
While rejecting Kangana Ranaut’s plea for permanent exemption from appearing in the defamation case filed by lyricist Javed Akhtar against her, the metropolitan magistrate’s court in Mumbai’s Andheri has said the actor has not appeared before it so far with an intent to cooperate in the trial.
The court rejected Ranaut’s plea seeking permanent exemption from appearing in the case on Tuesday. The detailed order of the court was made available on Thursday.
The court also said with the charges in the case yet to be framed, her plea for permanent exemption is premature while assuring her that it can be entertained again at a relevant stage. It also said that if she is permanently exempted from appearing in court at this stage, the complainant Akhtar, a senior citizen, will be ‘seriously prejudiced’ and there will be no progress in the trial. Read more
Scores of citizens took to the streets and staged a protest against the hike in fuel prices, in Mumbai on Thursday.
(PTI photo)
Thane police have arrested a financial company's director for allegedly duping over 100 investors to the tune of Rs 18 crore by luring them with lucrative returns on investments, an official said on Thursday.
A man, Sunil Sarode, and his wife Manisha Sunil Sarode floated a company with the promise of high returns to investors. But, after people invested in the firm, they neither got the promised returns nor their invested amount, inspector Siddharth Gade of the police's economic offences wing said.
Later, some people approached the Kolsewadi police, who registered a case against the couple under relevant provisions of the Indian Penal Code and the Maharashtra Protection of Interest of Depositors (in Financial Establishments) Act, he said. (PTI)
Maharashtra Energy Minister Nitin Raut on Thursday announced immediate suspension of a senior MSEDCL official and a high-level probe against him over corruption and other allegations levelled against the latter.
Raut made the announcement in the state Assembly after Shiv Sena MLA Dnyanraj Chaugule and others charged Maharashtra State Electricity Distribution Company Limited's (MSEDCL) deputy director (security and enforcement) Sumit Kumar with corruption and moral degradation.
The MLAs accused Kumar of demanding money illegally from a meter reading agency in the MSEDCL, "taking advantage of his post" and threatening other officials. (PTI)
The Maharashtra Legislative Assembly and Council on Thursday unanimously passed a bill that aims to establish special courts to ensure speedy trial of cases of crime against women and children under the Shakti Act.
State Home Minister Dilip Walse Patil tabled the bill, titled 'The Maharashtra Exclusive Special Courts (for certain offences against women and children under Shakti Law), 2020', in both Houses of the legislature.
“The bill has been introduced with an aim to conduct trials without delay in cases of certain offences against women and children…As per the bill, exclusive special courts can be set up for hearing the cases or existing courts can be given that rank depending upon the situation,” Patil said in the Assembly. (PTI)
Maharashtra Congress president Nana Patole has filed a Rs 500 crore defamation suit in a civil court here against IPS officer and former state intelligence chief Rashmi Shukla and others for alleged illegal tapping of his phone.
In the suit filed recently, Patole also sought a permanent injunction to stop the misuse of information collected through alleged illegal phone tapping. On Wednesday, civil judge V B Gore issued notices to Shukla and others, and asked them to file a reply before April 12.
Shukla is presently on central deputation and posted as additional director general of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) in Hyderabad Apart from Shukla, notices have been served to police inspector (technical analysis department) at Pune crime branch Vaishali Chandgude, state home department's additional chief secretary, and police commissioners of Pune and Nagpur. (PTI)
The Maharashtra Assembly unanimously passed a bill that aims to make use of Marathi language mandatory in official works of local authorities, including civic bodies and corporations formed by the state government.
State minister Subhash Desai said the introduction of the bill was necessitated as the Maharashtra Official Language Act, 1964 did not make it mandatory for the local authorities to use Marathi in their official works.
He also cited examples of the authorities taking "advantage" of the lack of the provision in the Act. "It is our effort to do away with that mistake," Desai said. (PTI)
The Maharashtra BJP hit out at the ruling Shiv Sena over an incident where some women were allegedly asked to remove their saffron stoles before entering a cinema hall in Nashik to watch Hindi film "The Kashmir Files".
The opposition BJP sought to know from state Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray if this was his form of Hindutva.
Some women at the cinema hall in neighbouring Nashik were on Wednesday allegedly asked to remove their saffron stoles before going inside the theatre to watch the Vivek Agnihotri-directed film. (PTI)