First look of Lalbaugcha Raja unveiled on Monday evening. (Express Photo by Pradip Das)Mumbai Maharashtra News Updates, September 1, 2022: The ten-day Ganesh Chaturthi festival started entered the second day on Thursday, with the coronavirus pandemic no longer casting its shadow on the celebrations. The idols of Lord Ganesh, the god of prosperity and wisdom and a slayer of obstacles (`vighna-harta’), will be installed in homes with pomp and gaiety, while larger-than-life celebrations will be observed at pandals across the city.
Ganesh Chaturthi: Traffic curbs in Mumbai for five days, beware of old and dangerous bridges
Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has made 188 control rooms at the 24 administrative wards operational in case of emergencies during the celebrations. Approximately 10,000 civic employees have also been directed to be alert during the festival. The festival will end on September 9. Immersions will take place on September 1, September 4, September 6, and September 9.
Meanwhile, a gradual and robust property buying in Mumbai city after the Coronavirus-induced slowdown has given a fillip to the revenue of Maharashtra. The city that comes under the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) area witnessed a 20 per cent jump in property sales registration in August 2022 against the corresponding period last year.
Devotees carry an idol of Lord Ganesh during a procession ahead of the Ganesh Chaturthi festival, in Navi Mumbai. (PTI)
More than 6,000 Ganesh idols were immersed across Mumbai on the second day of the Ganesh festival on Thursday, civic officials said. While the festival goes on for ten days, many households bid adieu to the elephant-headed lord after one-and-a-half days.
As of 6 pm, 6,034 idols including 5,936 household Ganapati idols and 36 of community (`Sarvajanik') ones had been immersed in the city, said the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in a release.
A senior BMC official said that 2,076 household idols and 16 community ones were immersed in artificial ponds created specially for the purpose. The idols of 28 Hartalika were also immersed in artificial ponds, the official said. The civic body has set up 188 control rooms across the city for the festival and deputed 786 lifeguards at the beaches and other immersion points. (PTI)
The Nagpada police in Mumbai Thursday registered an FIR against a member of Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) for allegedly assaulting a 57-year-old woman who stopped the party workers from putting up a party banner welcoming Ganpati outside her shop that was closed. The police said more accused are wanted in the case.
The accused, identified as Vinod Argile, has been detained and is being questioned at the police station, officers said. (Read more)
Maharashtra on Thursday recorded 781 fresh coronavirus cases, 638 of them in Mumbai alone and a steep drop from a day ago, while four more patients succumbed to the infection in the state, the health department said. With these additions, the state's overall Covid-19 tally reached 81,01,119, while the death toll increased to 1,48,251, the department said in a bulletin.
On Wednesday, the state had recorded 1,600 cases and five fatalities due to the viral infection. Mumbai logged 638 fresh cases -- around 90 per cent of the statewide cases -- and registered all the four deaths in Maharashtra linked to coronavirus in the last 24 hours, said the bulletin. (PTI)
The Bombay High Court recently granted interim relief to petitioner slum dwellers of Siddharth Nagar, Chembur and restrained authorities from taking coercive action against them till September 24 in view of Ganesh Chaturthi celebrations in Mumbai.
A single-judge bench of Justice Sandeep K Shinde on August 26 heard the plea by Deepak Vithal Jadhav and others of Siddharth Nagar, Chembur, challenging the notices issued by the Slum Rehabilitation Authority for demolition of the hutments and challenged the legality of the said direction and notices. (Read more)
A social activist spearheading a campaign for the enactment of a law to ban discriminatory practices related to widows appealed to gram panchayats in Maharashtra on Thursday to publicise their acts of prohibiting such practices. Pramod Zinjade, in his appeal, said some 7,000 villages have passed such resolutions through their gram sabhas, and asked these areas to declare themselves as "villages that have freed themselves from evil practices related to widows".
He said these villages must display slogans on the issue in at least five public places to create awareness and further promote the cause. Zilla Parishad chief executive officers must take the lead and give necessary directions to gram panchayats for this move towards awareness, he added. (PTI)
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde bowing down to Lord Ganesh's idol in Thackeray's house. (Express photo by Vallabh Ozarkar)
The Rashtriya Samaj Paksha (RSP), an alliance partner of the BJP in Maharashtra, has demanded a Cabinet berth in the government led by Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis.
“The RSP is an alliance partner of BJP, it should get one Cabinet berth. However, a final decision will be taken by Fadnavis. Let us see what they do,” RSP president Mahadev Jankar said.
Amidst talks of a Cabinet expansion in September, smaller parties supporting the BJP have started pitching their demand for a Cabinet berth. The other alliance partners who supported the BJP after the 2019 Assembly elections are Republican Party of India (A), Shiv Sangram and Ryat Kranti Paksha. (Read more)
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Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday met industrialist Mukesh Ambani at his residence Antilia for Ganesh Darshan.
In view of day one of Ganpati Viserjan, the Mumbai traffic police issued notification on the traffic regulations. As of 3.20 pm, heavy traffic was observed at Mankhurd on the eastern express highway, NESCO and Hub mall on the western express highway near Goregaon (east). (ENS)
In 2015, the Mumbai police arrested a suspect from a gang of kidnappers through a clue gleaned from a conversation overheard by the victim.
The man, 21, was snatched on March 11, 2015, and the next day, the victim’s father received a call from the abductors seeking a ransom. The case remained unsolved even though the father paid Rs 2 crore to the kidnappers, which was collected by the accused from the Sanjay Gandhi National Park as the police kept a close watch. Officials said they did not arrest the accused who collected the ransom money as they did not want to put the abducted man’s life at risk. The victim was released by the accused soon after.
The 21-year-old was kept confined for over a month by the kidnappers. During their ransom calls, the abductors changed the venue for the delivery of the money multiple times to ensure they were not nabbed. As the man was chained and given sedatives, he was unable to give clues about his whereabouts and the perpetrators immediately after his release. He, however, remembered a conversation among his kidnappers discussing that Manish’s wife had delivered a baby boy. (Read more)
Maharashtra CM Eknath Shinde is scheduled to visit MNS chief Raj Thackeray's residence for Ganesh darshan on Thursday at around 4.30 pm.
BJP leaders have kept their doors wide open for a pre-poll alliance with the MNS ahead of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) elections as they believe Raj Thackeray’s outfit, along with the Shinde faction, can erode the Sena’s Marathi vote bank.
Mumbai Police's Crime Branch seized banned tobacco worth Rs 88 lakh and a truck from Goregaon. Two accused, who had arrived from Karnataka and were scheduled to supply the tobacco to different places in Mumbai, have been arrested.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be on a one-day tour to Mumbai to visit the Lalbaugcha Raja Ganesh pandal on September 5.
After reaching Mumbai on September 4, he will visit Lalbaugcha Raja Ganesh Mandal the next morning. He will then will visit the official residence of Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis. This will be followed by a visit to Varsha, the official residence of Chief Minister Eknath Shinde.
Shah will also inauguate a Nayak Charitable Trust school at L&T campus in Powai area of Mumbai after which he will leave for Delhi.
Kalyan Shiv Sena leader Vijay Salvi has approached the Bombay High Court after the police seized Ganesh festival decoration at Vijay Tarun Mandal at Kalyan's Rambaug area.
The decoration was based on the recent political developments in the state where it was shown that the Shiv Sena, despite having lost so many leaders, will remain strong as an age-old tree.
Salvi told The Indian Express that over 100 police personnel came after midnight before Ganesh Chaturthi and seized everything. "Why is the state government so scared of such decoration? Don't we have the freedom to criticise anyone? How can this damage law and order?" he said. Salvi said that he has filed a writ petition in the court and it is expected that the matter will be heard today.
The National Investigation Agency has announced a cash reward of Rs 25 lakh for any information leading to the arrest of fugitive underworld don Dawood Ibrahim, a key accused in the 1993 Mumbai serial blasts, an official said on Thursday.
The probe agency has also announced a cash reward of Rs 20 lakh on Ibrahim's close aide Shakeel Shaikh alias Chhota Shakeel, and Rs 15 lakh each on associates Haji Anees alias Anees Ibrahim Shaikh, Javed Patel alias Javed Chikna and Ibrahim Mushtaq Abdul Razzak Memon alias Tiger Memon, he said. All of them are wanted accused in the case of 1993 Mumbai serial bomb blasts.
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Four labourers sleeping near a canteen at a bus stand here were injured when a car ran over them, police said on Thursday.
The incident took place around 2.30 am on Wednesday at the state transport bus stand in Kalyan town of Maharashtra's Thane district and no arrest has been made so far, they said. The four labourers, in the age group of 30 to 60 years, were sleeping on a pavement near the canteen when the speeding car ran over them, an official from Mahatma Phule police station in Kalyan said.
Following the incident, some others sleeping there woke up and rushed the injured persons to a nearby hospital where they are currently undergoing treatment, he said. (PTI)
The Mumbai Traffic police would be imposing traffic restrictions across the city on the five days when the ‘Visarjan’ (immersion) procession of Lord Ganesh idols will take place as part of the 10-day Ganesh Chathurthi festival or Ganeshotsav.
The traffic curbs from noon till 6 am will be in place on September 1 (one-and-a-half-day Ganpati idol immersion), September 4 (fifth-day immersion), September 5 (Gauri Ganpati immersion), September 6 (seventh-day immersion), and September 9 (Anant Chaturdashi).
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