The Maharashtra government will provide subsidised WiFi services at public data offices (PDOs), which will be set up at fair price shops (ration shops) in seven districts as part of the Prime Minister WiFi Access Network Interface (PM WANI) scheme. The seven districts are Pune, Satara, Sangli, Kolhapur, Solapur, Palghar and Sindhudurg. All residents within 100 to 200 metres of these fair price shops will be able to avail WiFi services on their devices on subsidised charges. The state Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs department on Friday issued a Government Resolution (GR) to this effect. “The government is giving its approval to convert fair price shops to public data offices (PDOs). Its aim is to help children from low income families, who can use the internet via WiFi centres at the fair price shops for their homework and studies. Children from such families will also be able to attend online classes easily due to internet connection from such WiFi centres,” the GR said.
Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) MLA Jitendra Awhad, who was arrested by the Thane police last week after an FIR was registered against him for forcibly shutting down the screening of the Marathi film Har Har Mahadev, announced Monday that he was resigning as a legislator. “Police have filed two fake cases against me in the last 72 hours and that too under Section 354 of the IPC. This is the murder of democracy. I will fight. I have decided to resign from my MLA post” Awhad tweeted early on Monday. Awhad and 11 others who were arrested by the Thane police Friday, were released on bail by the Thane Sessions Court Saturday. Among the conditions set by the court while granting bail was that Awhad should not try to influence witnesses and appear before the Vartak Nagar police station whenever he is summoned.
In other updates from the state: A 65-year-old homeless woman, sleeping on a cement platform near Dhobi ghat next to the Mahalaxmi railway station, died on Saturday after falling down three feet when two persons, including a 15-year-old boy, allegedly tried to snatch her bag in a robbery bid. The bag, however, got stuck in her neck, throwng her off the platform.
The police have arrested one of the accused and sent the juvenile to an observation home.
Also, a recent statewide health screening programme revealed that for every 100 women examined, one was detected with undiagnosed cervical cancer in Maharashtra. Despite this, the long-pending demand to include Human papillomavirus (HPV) — a vaccine for cervical cancer — in the national immunisation programme remains unfulfilled.
In the state, a total of 73,554 women above the age of 30 years were examined, of which 925 were detected with undiagnosed cervical cancer.
Cervical cancer is a common sexually transmitted infection. Long-lasting infection with certain types of HPV is the main cause of cervical cancer. Even after getting infected, the virus can sometimes take years before it causes any symptoms.
While Ajit Pawar is one of the politicians who made it a point to wear a mask strictly, Maharashtra Chief Secretary Manu Kumar Shrivastava is among the bureaucrats who never stopped wearing a mask even after the Covid-19 wave was over. It was in the last cabinet meeting when the senior bureaucrat was finally spotted without a mask. It seems the masks are finally off, for good.
IT Under Addl Charge
Maharashtra’s Information and Technology department is in the process to plan and execute few of the big projects. Despite its importance and expanding scope of work, the department does not have a full-time administrative head for almost a year now. Aseem Gupta, Principal Secretary, Relief and Rehabilitation, was handling the additional charge of the department. In the first week of November, Parrag Jain-Nainutia was appointed as Principal Secretary, Transport, and given the additional charge of IT.
Jitendra Awhad Live News: Protestors outside Mumbra police station. (Express photo)
From struggling to get one square meal as a child in a remote village in Maharashtra’s Gadchiroli, to becoming a senior scientist in the United States, Bhaskar Halami’s life is an example of what one can achieve with sheer hard work and determination.
Brought up in a tribal community at Chirchadi village in Kurkheda tehsil, Halami is now a senior scientist in the research and development section of Sirnaomics Inc, a biopharmaceutical company in Maryland, USA. Read More
NCP leader Ajit Pawar said, 'Booking elected representative of an opposition party (Jitendra Awhad) in a case of outraging modesty is an extremely cowardly act by the State government. The government must realise that days change and everyone gets a chance."
A fire has been reported in a tabela (cattle farm) at KK Marg, Byculla, at around 11:50 am on Monday. No casualty has been reported so far.
An official said that the was confined to six to seven hutments and the area was logged in thick smoke.
Fire fighting operations were on. Currently, eight fire engines and seven water tankers are involved in putting out the fire.
Cartoos Saab: A Soldier’s Story of Resilience in Adversity, a book that recounts Major General Ian Cardozo’s painstaking efforts as a war-disabled officer to command a battalion, brigade and division, was launched at St Paul’s Institute of Communication Education in Bandra West Sunday (November 13).
During the 1971 Indo-Pak war, Cardozo stepped on a land mine and sustained major injuries. As no medical assistance was available, Cardozo used his khurki (a type of machete used by the Gorkhas) to amputate his leg and save his life.
Many people had told Cardozo, 85, how they were moved by his story of resilience and that made him write his new book. “When you want to tell a story, it is better that you do it yourself. That is better than having a factually incorrect story printed. My book has a message for the youth, the army and the myriad citizens of the country,” he told The Indian Express. Read more.
A delegation of women leaders from Congress, NCP, Shiv Sena (UBT), Samajwadi Party RS MP Jaya Bachchan met Maharashtra governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari to address the growing atrocities against women.
NCP leader Fauzia Khan said that we condemn statements against women leaders like Supriya Sule by state minister.
Priyanka Chaturvedi of Sena said that we as women stand against the insult to women and expect Koshyariji to direct actions agaist these statements. Jaya Bachchan said that it is time that women will no longer hear abuses from men.
The Mumbra police on Sunday night registered a molestation case against NCP's Jitendra Awhad for allegedly manhandling a BJP woman activist.
A houbara bustard bred in the United Arab Emirates has been rescued from the coastal Sindhudurg district in Maharashtra, officials said.
The bird is in good health and it would be released in the desert area of Rajasthan or Gujarat, the winter habitat of these birds, they said.
Local Range Forest Officer Rajendra Ghunakikar on Saturday said, "A farmer at Mundage village in Devgad tehsil spotted an exotic-looking bird with a ring on its leg on Thursday evening and alerted forest officials. We went there and took it in our custody." The bird is currently kept in a facility at Kankavali in the district and is in fine health, he added.
Sujit Narawade, assistant director and coordinator at the Bombay Natural History Society, said some institutes in the UAE breed these birds in captivity and release them in large numbers as part of conservation efforts.
"These birds generally migrate to the Thar and Kutch deserts every winter from the Middle-East. Sometimes a bird or two stray from the flock and fly to the coastal region of Konkan," said Narawade, who is also the project coordinator Conservation of Great Indian Bustard and Lesser Florican.
"The houbara bustard found in Sindhudurg had a ring and colour band which provided information about its origin. When we contacted the National Avian Resource Centre in Abu Dhabi, they confirmed that the bird was from a flock released by them," he said.
They also advised that it should be released in the desert region of Gujarat or Rajasthan, he added.
Deputy Conservator of Forests S Navakishore Reddy told PTI that they were in talks with forest officials in the two states and will soon decide where it should be released. PTI
More from Cities
Marathi television actress Kalyani Kurale Jadhav, 32, was killed in a road accident Saturday night. A tractor knocked her down from her two-wheeler near Kolhapur city on the Sangli-Kolhapur Road, said the police.
As per the information given by officials from the Shiroli MIDC police station in Kolhapur district jurisdiction, the accident took place around 11 pm at Halondi village located around 20 kilometres from Kolhapur city and around 230 kilometres from Pune city.
Police officials said that Jadhav, a resident of the Rajarampuri area in Kolhapur City, had recently started a restaurant at Halondi. “According to the information received, Jadhav was riding home after closing the restaurant for the day when the accident took place. Her two-wheeler was knocked down by a tractor. She sustained fatal injuries due to the impact. A first information report (FIR) has been registered against the driver of the tractor and he has been detained,” said assistant inspector Sagar Patil, incharge of the Shiroli police station. Read more.
Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde on Sunday said his government was committed to resolving the traffic problems in Thane city.
Shinde, who represents Kopri-Pachpakhadi Assembly constituency in Thane district - his home turf - was speaking while dedicating to people the third bridge on the Kalwa creek here.
He also said that in order to eliminate traffic congestion in the city, various projects, including a bypass and extension of Eastern Freeway, have been undertaken.
The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and the Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC) are working with this goal, he said.
At the function, Thane Municipal Commissioner Abhijit Bangar made a presentation about the ongoing projects in the city.
The first bridge on the Kalwa creek was built in 1863 and was shut for traffic movement in 2016. The second bridge there was constructed in 1995-96. The latest bridge has been constructed at a cost a Rs 183.66 crore, officials said. PTI
A 30-year-old man was killed and four others injured after a clash broke out between two rival groups in Navi Mumbai, police said on Sunday.
The incident took place around 7.30 pm on Saturday at Ghansoli, they said.
"Members of the the two groups attacked each other with sticks, iron roads and other weapons over previous enmity," senior inspector Ajay Bhosale of Koparkhairne police station said.
"One person, identified as Nazir Shaikh, was killed and two each from both the sides were injured. They were hospitalised. Both the groups lodged complaints against each other, based on which the police registered cases against them for rioting, murder, attempt to murder and others," he said.
Police have arrested one person each from both the groups, Bhosale said, adding that investigation into the case is on. PTI
Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Maharashtra unit president Chandrashekhar Bawankule on Sunday took a dig at former chief minister Uddhav Thackeray, saying that if the MLAs of his own party can abandon him, then why industrial projects cannot move out of the state.
Bawankule, who was on a tour of Sangli district where he met party office-bearers and local leaders, was speaking to reporters.
His remarks come in the wake of the Eknath Shinde-led state government coming under the Opposition's fire for losing big-ticket projects to BJP-ruled Gujarat, including Rs 1.5 lakh crore Foxconn-Vedanta semiconductor manufacturing project and Rs 22,000 crore aircraft manufacturing project where the Tata Group has tied up with Airbus. PTI
News agency ANI reported that Marathi actress Kalyani Kurale died in a road accident on Sangali Kolhapur highway near Halondi village in Kolhapur dist around 11pm on 12 Nov. She was on her way home on a 2 wheeler when a tractor hit her. FIR registered u/s of IPC & Motor Vehicles Act: Kolhapur Police officials.
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