Citizens staged an impromptu peaceful protest at the Kharghar hill entrance near RBI Colony Metro station at Belpada in CBD-Belapur on Sunday

Cidco has prohibited public entry to the Kharghar hill between June 15 and September 15, citing the risk of landslides during the monsoon season

Citizens staged an impromptu peaceful protest at the Kharghar hill entrance near RBI Colony Metro station at Belpada in CBD-Belapur on Sunday

Cidco has prohibited public entry to the Kharghar hill between June 15 and September 15, citing the risk of landslides during the monsoon season

Citizens staged an impromptu peaceful protest at the Kharghar hill entrance near RBI Colony Metro station at Belpada in CBD-Belapur on Sunday

Navi Mumbai: A huge group of citizens on Sunday staged an impromptu peaceful protest at the Kharghar hill entrance near RBI Colony Metro station at Belpada in CBD-Belapur accusing Cidco of ‘double standards’ for adopting an unfair and incoherent policy by restricting access for commoners, while allegedly allowing entry to marathoners preparing for the Panvel civic body’s run scheduled on August 23, apart from selective groups having political connections.The protesters raised serious questions on fairness and uniformity of enforcement.The protest was jointly organised by the Kharghar Hill Welfare Association and Sajag Nagrik Manch, Navi Mumbai, with participation of several morning walkers, joggers, senior citizens and nature enthusiasts. They voiced their demand for immediate withdrawal of the seasonal entry ban to the Kharghar hill and allow access to all citizens.Cidco has prohibited public entry to the Kharghar hill between June 15 and September 15, citing the risk of landslides during the monsoon season.The protesters displayed placards and banners with messages like ‘Every Citizen is Equal Before the Constitution’, ‘Why is there access for marathon runners but a ban on morning walkers?’ and ‘Stop CIDCO’s Double Standards’.Bharat Dhyani, a member of Sajag Nagrik Manch, said, “We are not against marathoners allowed entry to the hill for preparation for the marathon on August 23. However, denying entry to ordinary citizens for morning walk and jogging is a direct violation of the constitutional principle that all citizens are equal before the law. If Cidco fails to implement a fair and uniform policy before August 23, we shall intensify our agitation and oppose the marathon event organised by the Panvel civic body.”Suresh Nair, a local resident, alleged that despite the official ban, certain politically connected individuals and influential persons are being given entry to the Kharghar hill through verbal instructions by Cidco officials to security personnel.Some private vehicles are also allowed entry to reach atop the hill for leisure, a few claimed.During the protest, members of the Kharghar Hill Welfare Association and Sajag Nagrik Manch also alleged that repeated representations to the Panvel municipal commissioner seeking asphalting of the badly damaged road leading to Phanaswadi and Chafewadi trabal hamlets atop of the hill, had remained pending for several months. The stretch of road was refurbished only ahead of the scheduled marathon event, despite earlier requests from local residents.

Thane: Twenty-two families living in a Mumbra building have been asked to evacuate within 24 hours after a portion of its slab collapsed on Saturday evening, exposing serious structural defects, civic officials said on Sunday.No injuries were reported in the incident in one of the rooms of the ground-plus-five-storey Dhoom Apartment near Sania Hall in Chand Nagar, Kausa, Mumbra.“The nearly 20-year-old building has been classified as a Category C-1 structure, indicating it is in an extremely dangerous condition. Following the slab collapse, cracks were also found in the building’s columns, raising concerns about its structural stability,” said Deepak Zinjad, deputy municipal commissioner, Zone 1.The building has 42 occupied flats, housing around 170 residents. Notices have been issued directing occupants to vacate the premises within 24 hours.The incident, coming soon after the recent Bhiwandi building collapse, has renewed concerns over dangerous structures across the Thane Municipal Corporation limits. Officials said 43 of the city’s 93 buildings classified as dangerous continue to remain occupied despite repeated notices and appeals to residents.Municipal commissioner Saurabh Rao said teams would undertake fresh inspections of old and dilapidated buildings, intensify monitoring, and conduct awareness drives to help residents identify structural warning signs and promptly alert authorities.“Residents of unsafe buildings will be informed about the risks, and such structures will be vacated and demolished on priority,” Rao said.Officials said evacuation notices are being issued under Section 264 of the Maharashtra Municipal Corporation Act in accordance with state guidelines for dangerous buildings. Authorities are documenting the carpet area occupied by tenants and flat owners before issuing certificates to safeguard their rehabilitation claims.Temporary accommodation is being provided at municipal shelters. However, officials warned that essential services, including water and electricity, may be disconnected if residents refuse to vacate unsafe buildings despite repeated notices.

MUMBAI: Amid the Ram Mandir donation controversy over alleged embezzlement of cash and valuables from donation boxes, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray on Saturday alleged that donations worth Rs 18 crore were being siphoned off every year from Mumbai’s famous Siddhivinayak Temple. The temple is headed by former Shiv Sena MLA Sada Sarvankar and is managed by a trust comprising state government-appointed members. Raj also took a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, questioning why he had not spoken about the alleged theft at the Ram Temple in Ayodhya. Addressing an MNS gathering, Raj read out a letter that he claimed was written by the Siddhivinayak Temple Board of Trustees to deputy chief minister Eknath Shinde, seeking a high-level inquiry into the alleged theft of money from the temple’s donation boxes. “Sir, we, the undersigned, are all trustees of Siddhivinayak Trust Temple, Prabhadevi… you have appointed us as trustees. We are trying to live up to your faith. We have been successful to some extent in increasing the income of the temple by 35%. ..Income?…some employees have been caught stealing money from the temple’s donation box. Before these employees were caught, the amount in the donation box every Wednesday was within Rs 50 lakh. However, after these employees were caught, the amount in the donation box has reached around Rs 1.5 crore in the last three weeks. This means that earlier some amount was being lost from the total money deposited in the donation box every week. Due to this, the temple was losing about Rs 18 crore every year, and we strongly suspect that the threads of this are at the senior level. We, the board of trustees, expect you to take serious note of this entire matter and investigate it at the senior level,” Raj quoted from the letter during his speech. “This letter is from the board of trustees of Siddhivinayak Temple. That is, Rs 18 crores are stolen from Siddhivinayak Temple every year. We go there as devotees, put donations in the donation box and such thefts happen here. These people are looting all the temples. Our people or students go to the temple before exams or during jobs and pray to God to get me a job, but today thefts are happening in the same temple. The people in the temple itself are committing these thefts. Is this our religion? These are the temples of our religion? So what will happen if this is the situation of the country? I think it is necessary for all of us to think about this together,” Raj said. Sarvankar did not respond to Raj Thackeray’s allegations.

MUMBAI: The Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) has approached the State Coastal Zone Management Authority for Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) clearance for the proposed Rs 5,140.92-crore Thane Coastal Road Phase II. The statutory approval is required as the 7.13-km project passes through several environmentally sensitive coastal zones, including mangrove areas and the Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ) of the Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary. The proposal has been submitted as a fresh CRZ application under the CRZ Notification, 2019. According to documents filed by MMRDA, the road alignment falls within CRZ-IA, CRZ-IB, CRZ-II and CRZ-IVB categories, requiring regulatory scrutiny before construction can begin. The authority has invoked provisions of the notification that permit public infrastructure projects such as coastal roads, subject to environmental safeguards. The application states that the project will affect around 12.72 hectares of mangroves, while nearly 1,733 mangrove trees are proposed to be removed. MMRDA said a forest clearance application is already under process and that a compensatory afforestation plan will be submitted as part of the approval process. The environmental assessment also highlights the project’s proximity to protected ecosystems. Part of the alignment passes through the Eco-Sensitive Zone of the Thane Creek Flamingo Sanctuary, with the sanctuary located about 700 metres from the proposed road. The Eco-Sensitive Zone of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park is about 2.6 km away, while the Tungareshwar Wildlife Sanctuary lies within an 8-km radius. As part of the clearance process, MMRDA carried out terrestrial and marine Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) studies between December 2025 and February 2026. The authority has also prepared a disaster management plan and submitted coastal zone maps showing the project’s alignment across the notified CRZ areas. The proposed six-lane freeway will connect Balkum and Kasheli with Anand Nagar in Mulund East and is intended to serve as a bypass for regional traffic passing through Thane. According to the application, the project aims to ease congestion on the Eastern Express Highway and Ghodbunder Road by diverting non-local traffic, thereby reducing travel time, accidents, pollution and vehicle operating costs. The CRZ clearance is one of the key statutory approvals required before the project can move to the construction stage. Once completed, the road will form part of a wider regional transport network linking Thane with Mumbai and the rest of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region.

Intimate house concerts are emerging as a popular alternative night out

MUMBAI: By now, Smridhi Sharma has learnt to carry earplugs to concerts.Booming speakers have made the 23-year-old marketing professional want to protect her eardrums.Three Saturdays ago, though, volume wasn’t the problem.She winced as sections of the audience heckled an indie singer who was opening for a bigger act.“The noise drowned him out.” No wonder Sharma treasures a gig she attended in a fairy-lit fifth-floor room in Navi Mumbai months ago.There, a few dozen strangers sat on the floor and swayed to an indie band whose name, ‘A Day Old Sushi’, they had never heard.“The conversations between the sets were as memorable as the music,” says Sharma, who ended up talking about life and friendship with a stranger she now chats with daily.Connections, friendships and even love are among the happy side-effects of invite-only house concerts that are increasingly offering an alternative night out.Even as live-music venues contend with rising rents and audiences tire of high-octane shows, intimate gigs are finding new currency with their promise of paid gigs and attentive audiences for young artists and noise-cancelling avenues of engagement for listeners.At Rs 1,200 to Rs 2,000 a ticket, collectives such as Tiny Room Concert (TRC), Sofar Sounds and supper clubs such as Around The Table (ATT) turn homes into venues where 20 to 60 strangers gather for food, music and conversation.Reminiscent of traditional baithaks, “the format isn’t new, but it feels newly relevant”, say ATT founders Ishita and Rukaiya.“People are craving a way to make friends and find their community,” agrees Chyna Brackeen, vice president of Experiences at Sofar Sounds, which began in Bengaluru in 2015 with the idea of bringing music into intimate spaces for meaningful engagement.In the last decade, Sofar Sounds has grown from four or five Indian cities to roughly 15.“Sofar began because musicians were tired of being shoehorned into noisy venues meant to entertain a crowd that wasn’t really listening,” says Ankit Dayal of Sofar Bombay, which has staged nearly 90 shows, drawing from over 500 artists across India over the last decade.“Best friends and even life partners have met at Sofar shows,” says Dayal even as TRC founder Aditya Patil tells us about four unintentional couplings that have happened so far.Started last year by three former event planners who “realised club culture was dying”, TRC has hosted events in villas in Karjat and flats in Navi Mumbai.“Clubs were full of people getting drunk and dancing, and there was no respect for the artists or the DJs,” says Aditya Patil, one of the three Gen Z cofounders of TRC.The appeal lies in what these gatherings remove too.“There’s no pressure to dress up,” says TRC cofounder Pratham.“The events are also great for introverts and safer for women, as we offer the option to stay back,” adds Pratham who has seen lawyers, techies and others break the ice at the venue.TRC had invited the band A Day Old Sushi, named because “sushi tastes better the day after”, to play after watching them win a competition in Terna Engineering College.Though initially concerned about the drum kit drawing complaints, band members say “the acoustics were “just perfect”.“We played Punjabi songs that had the crowd dancing until it turned into a house party”, recalls vocalist Ayush Sawant. “Even the DJ was vibing with us.”That search for connection drives ATT, host of six living-room concerts since Ishita and Rukaiya started the supper club in May 2024.Guests eat first; once music begins, service stops.“You’re sharing silence,” the founders say, “listening together, noticing the same moments in a song.”ATT has settled on 20 to 35 people as the sweet spot.That way, “it becomes less of a performance and more of a shared experience,” says Ishita.What guests are paying for, she adds, isn’t the music alone. It’s being welcomed into someone’s home and watching an artist perform a few feet away, “things you simply can’t replicate in a traditional venue.”Besides a chance to “be vulnerable and transparent” and preview unreleased material, artists even bag gigs.Singer Avantika Ganguly, who has performed at ATT events alongside bassist Sayar Mitra, has since been booked for birthdays by listeners.The economics is “a win-win for us,” says Ganguly, who has felt the pinch of time caps and high rents in studios.Challenges though remain: acoustics, neighbours, floor seating among others.Mumbai’s shortage of spaces does not help.Dayal admits to being “a little jealous” of sister chapters in Hyderabad, Goa and Kochi, which stage shows in heritage properties.Profits, too, are hard to come by but some have started measuring success in other ways.The morning after a recent Navi Mumbai apartment concert, Pratham of TRC texted a male attendee who had come in with a woman colleague: “Hope you enjoyed the night?” The reply came back: “Yes… thank you. I finally got the courage to confess my feelings to her after I got home.”

Bombay High Court canteens underwent inspection by the FDA on Thursday.

MUMBAI: A day after questioning whether Maharashtra’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had inspected canteens run by government and semi-government institutions during its statewide hygiene crackdown, the canteens inside Bombay high court came under the regulator’s scanner.An FDA team on Thursday inspected three canteens operating inside the Bombay high court premises. One was ordered to stop operations for allegedly functioning without a valid Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) licence, while the other two were issued improvement notices. Officials said a detailed inspection report is being prepared.“Our team did inspect the canteens of the Bombay high court. We are preparing a report. Once we submit it to our higher authorities, a statement will be issued,” an FDA official told news agency PTI.Be uniform. Be fair to all. Can’t target only private properties: HCThe inspection followed Wednesday’s hearing before a bench of Acting Chief Justice Ravindra Ghuge and Justice Gautam Ankhad, which had asked the state whether the FDA’s ongoing drive also covered eateries run by government departments, statutory authorities and semi-government bodies. The government assured the court it would place details of inspections conducted across Maharashtra, including at government-run canteens.The FDA’s statewide crackdown has intensified since IAS officer Tukaram Mundhe took charge as commissioner in May. Besides inspecting several restaurants and hotels, the regulator has suspended the licences of establishments, including the Cricket Club of India and MIG Cricket Club, over alleged food safety and hygiene violations.During Thursday’s inspection, the FDA found that the Bombay Bar Association (BBA) canteen had already shut operations voluntarily earlier in the day. Officials later issued it a “stop business” order, alleging it had been operating without the mandatory FSSAI licence.In its order, the FDA said non-compliance could attract a penalty of up to Rs 2 lakh, while continuing to operate without a valid licence could lead to prosecution under the Food Safety and Standards Act.The third-floor BBA canteen, which serves snacks to original side members, had informed its members that services were being “temporarily discontinued until further intimation”. The association’s notice said the closure was initiated voluntarily and that no adverse communication or order had been received from the FDA.BBA president Nitin Thakker said the canteen had been shut before the FDA team arrived. He added that the contractor obtained the required licence later in the day and operations were expected to resume shortly.The FDA also inspected the high court’s ground-floor staff canteen, where food samples were collected, though it remained operational throughout the day. Another small tea canteen near Court Room 36 was shut voluntarily. Advocate Suresh Sabrad, secretary of the Advocates Association of Western India, said no FDA officials visited that outlet.The inspections continued till late evening as officials completed documentation.The high court again took up the issue on Friday, questioning the FDA’s “selective” approach after a lawyers’ panel reported poor hygiene at Mantralaya canteens despite the regulator awarding them a 98% compliance rating. The court sought an explanation from the state on the apparent discrepancy.