Mumbai: Even as the Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation announced plans this week to develop its own Climate Change Action Plan (CCAP) for the city, a toolkit for a different kind of CCAP was launched in Mumbai on Thursday.The Community Climate Action Plan, developed by the non-profit YUVA, is not a one-size-fits-all formula but an adaptable framework that identifies local climate vulnerabilities and builds tailored adaptation and coping measures around them.Roshni Nuggehalli, executive director of YUVA, stressed that climate action planning must be anchored in the realities of the communities most exposed to climate vulnerabilities — without that grounding, she cautioned, broad-based CAPs risk being ineffective.Having piloted the framework successfully in 2022 in Ambojwadi — an informal settlement of roughly 53,000 people in Malvani, Malad West — and later implemented it in three other informal settlements, the organisation has now launched it for public use.Unlike top-down city, state, and national climate plans, this ground-up model is led by local people’s collectives who engage local govt directly for targeted interventions.“Around 42% of Mumbai’s population of 11.8 million live in bastis, yet climate action often bypasses this large group,” said Dulari Parmar, project lead for climate justice at YUVA. “CCAPs connect neighborhood priorities with city CAPs and can complement them.” Informal settlements commonly bear the brunt of heat, flooding, rising AQI, landslides, and sea-level rise.The CCAP follows a four-step framework: climate hazard mapping, rapid assessment, community-based vulnerability assessment, and the CCAP itself, with staggered adaptation and coping measures planned across immediate, short-term, and long-term horizons. For water and heat stress in an informal settlement, an immediate measure might be cool roofs paired with strengthened water-rights advocacy, while a long-term goal could be permanent municipal water connections.The CCAP isn’t meant only for informal settlements, said Nuggehalli, but for any community looking to be proactive on climate planning.In Ambojwadi, community consultations identified flood- and sewage-prone areas caused by the absence of sewage lines and successfully advocated with BMC for drains. “We didn’t just go to the ward office with a problem — we brought solutions devised by the community itself,” Parmar says, noting that the settlement’s lack of land tenure rights often blocks access to basic civic services, even as govt has grown more receptive to climate framing.Kiran Dighavkar, associate municipal commissioner for solid waste management at BMC, acknowledged the need to integrate informal settlements more meaningfully into climate planning — but argued that community stewardship, especially around waste management, must go hand in hand with govt action. “Get people to demand segregation and processing centres in their bastis,” he said. “This too is climate action.”

Bhiwandi: A Good Samaritan who offered shelter to relatives, three daily-wagers from one family counting down the minutes to the end of the day’s work, and a wife struggling with survivor’s guilt. The building crash plunged many families into insurmountable grief.Shamim Ansari (32) did not even live in the building and had rushed to offer help to a relative, Mehtab Ansari (32), after learning that a pillar in the building was tilting and occupants were shifting out. He offered Mehtab and his wife a vacant house he owned until things settled. “He insisted that we leave immediately,” Mehtab told TOI.Shamim convinced the two to leave with him. After they gathered a few essentials and walked out, Shamim stayed back to speak to some labourers repairing the pillar. “Within moments, the building collapsed. We survived because of him, but he got trapped under the debris,” Mehtab said. Shamim leaves behind his wife and three children.Siblings Ashok Paswan (40) and Rakesh Paswan (25) and their cousin, Mukesh Paswan (30), who were hired for repairs undertaken over four days, were also buried under the rubble. Ashok’s wife and their three young children are staring at an uncertain future since he was the sole breadwinner. “The three left for work together like every other day. We never imagined they would all die in the same accident,” a relative said.Ranjit Singh (45) failed to make it out of the building in time, while his wife escaped just moments prior. “Why couldn’t it have been me instead?” the wife cried at the hospital repeatedly.Three others escaped in the nick of time. Brothers Abhay Yadav (26) and Deepak Yadav (25), who lived on rent, said they decided to vacate the house after the pillar tilted and as they were stepping out, the building collapsed. “I managed to run to safety, but suffered injuries to my leg,” said Abhay. Deepak said he was on the first floor when he found that the staircase had given way. “I had no option but to jump. I fractured my leg. There was complete chaos. The entire area was engulfed in dust within seconds.”Another survivor, Sangita Prajapati, said she lost consciousness while running towards the exit and the rescue team found her.

Mumbai: Saturday. Aug 4 1956. 3.45 p.m.Seventy years ago on this very day, as the monsoon was unleashing its full fury, India was rocketing into a new scientific era.It was India’s first nuclear reactor, Apsara —a pet project of Homi Bhabha—which attained criticality on that day at 3.45 p.m.In layman’s parlance, it means that this one mw reactor, which ushered in the atomic era not only in India, but also in Asia, had become operational. It was then formally inaugurated by Jawaharlal Nehru on January 20, 1957.Criticality in a nuclear reactor is attained when a self-sustaining fission chain reaction is achieved.The process begins when the reactor operators insert control rods. Then, at a certain point, these rods are withdrawn to initiate the process of starting the reactor.Former Indian nuke chief, R Chidambaram, recalled Nehru drawing a comparison between Elephanta Caves and Apsara. He remembered Nehru saying: “Both have their place and any person who ignores either of them misses an important element of life.’’The first attempt to make Apsara operational on July 31, 1956, failed due to technical reasons.In the second attempt on Aug 4, 1956, as the historic moment was nearing Raja Ramanna, the father of India’s nuclear weapon programme, who played a key role in the development of Apsara recalled in his autobiography, Years of Pilgrimage: “The event coincided with the heaviest monsoon in Mumbai. The roof was leaking, but so were the walls of the reactor hall.’’It was called a swimming pool reactor because, according to M R Srinivasan, former Indian nuclear chief, the core where the uranium chain reaction takes place is suspended in a pool of water.Six kg of enriched uranium fuel rods were imported from the UK.Bulk of the equipment, he said in his memoir, “From Fission To Fusion,’’ was obtained locally, with the New Standard Engineering Company at Chinchpokli, Mazagon Dock and TIFR playing a major part.Important visitors to Mumbai made it a point to visit Apsara, which included Chinese premier Chou-a-lai, Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia and the Dalai Lama and Panchen Lama.The role of the reactor was multipurpose—training scientists, doing experiments in what is known as neutron physics, the production of radioisotopes and studies in shielding of nuclear radiation.TOI spoke to two officials who worked in Apsara.Anil Anand, former director of BARC’s reactor projects group, recalled it was a rewarding experience doing experiments at Apsara as it helped in developing future projects.Mohan Phadnis, scientific officer, explained the significance of Apsara, saying that it marked the first step in India’s journey into the nuclear domain.A.C. Tikku, former director of the reactor group when Apsara was taking shape, has been quoted as saying that the commissioning of Apsara laid the necessary infrastructure for nuclear research in basic and applied sciences and isotope production.’’It was decommissioned in 2009, but almost a decade later upgraded and recommissioned in Sept 10, 2018.

Navi Mumbai: After five months of meticulous probe in the FIR of cheating and forgery registered at Panvel City police station against eight men for allegedly duping a Kharghar builder of nearly Rs 2.3 crore by fraudulently selling him a 47 guntha (approximately 4,755 sq m) parcel of land in Karanjade, which belonged to the deceased brothers Nathan and Shalom Eliyahu Chincholkar, who were Israel natives born in Panvel, police have arrested five of the accused — four of them from Goa and one from Dombivli.The Chincholkar brothers had migrated to Israel decades ago, and passed away in 2011 and 2016, respectively.Bala Kumbhar, senior inspector of Panvel City police station, informed that, acting on a tip off and technical expertise, Suraj Vasudev Shinde, Satish Namdev Shinde and Tejas Pramod Shinde were arrested from Thuvim, Goa. During investigation, it was found that co-accused Manish Manohar More was arrested in a theft case by Mapusa police in Goa and was in the Kolwal Central Jail. He was arrested after obtaining his transit remand. The fifth accused, Vasudev Namdev Shinde, who had posed as Nathan was arrested from Dombivli. Police have also seized from them the fake Aadhaar card and PAN card prepared in the name of Nathan.Kumbhar said, “During the probe, it was found that a case of fraud was also registered against Suraj and Tejas at Uran police station and the court had issued a non-bailable arrest warrant against Suraj . He had been evading arrest by changing his mobile number and place of residence repeatedly and had lived in the states of Maharashtra, Goa, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.“In his complaint, the builder Prashant Patekar (55) said that in 2024, estate agent Amrit Thakur told him that a 47 guntha land located at survey number 81/2 in Karanjade was up for sale, and that the property documents were given to him by an estate agent from Thane, Suraj Shinde. Patekar verified the documents through a lawyer, and found them to be authentic.Patekar said he called the two ‘landowners’ Nathan and Shalom, Shinde, an unidentified agent, and Thakur at his office, and the land sale deal was finalised at Rs 5 lakh per guntha. An MoU was signed, and a purchase notice of the property was published in a local newspaper on June 6, 2024, for objections, if any. The land purchase sale deed agreement was registered at the sub-registrar office, Panvel-1, on August 23, 2024, where the imposters submitted forged property documents and Aadhaar and PAN cards.Patekar told police that he paid the ‘landowners’ Rs 2.3 crore between June 5, 2024, and October 7, 2025, via cheque and RTGS.On August 18, 2025, Orian Moses Penkar, who was given power of attorney by Shalom’s son Bechalel on July 16, 2025, at the Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv, sent a notice to Patekar stating that he had fraudulently purchased the land. When Patekar questioned the ‘landowners’ through Shinde, they claimed the complaint was false. Then Aslam Munshi, on behalf of Bethel Israeli Trust’s chief trustee Moses E Jacob Korlekar, approached police alleging that the ‘landowners’ were impostors.Police summoned all parties for the investigation into the land sale application, but Shinde, and the co-accused did not appear for several months.On further enquiries, Patekar found that original farmers, Nathan and Shalom, had migrated to Israel decades ago, and died there. Their heirs resided in Israel and America, and Shalom’s son, Bechalel, had given the power of attorney to Penkar.Nathan’s son Emil Bezanmin alias Chincholkar and his wife Daisy also flew down from Israel for the application inquiry. After examining their documents, Patekar was convinced that he had been cheated. He then filed a complaint against Shinde and the co-accused on February 16.

Bhiwandi: Residents of the ill-fated building were repeatedly warned about the condition of the building, which was tagged “very dangerous”, according to Bhiwandi Nizampur City Municipal Corporation (BNCMC).The civic body said it sent a notice in 2020 directing the housing society to conduct a structural audit, followed by a reminder notice in 2022, but there was no compliance. It said it issued an evacuation notice on June 5 this year, disconnected the building’s power and water thereafter, and undertook an evacuation drive.BNCMC said hours before the tragedy struck, its officials had barred people from entering the building and stopped the illegal repair work.Residents disputed the claims, alleging that the civic administration was trying to wash its hands of the tragedy. They said they had not got any notice, that they had water and power until the crash, and that no evacuation drive was ever conducted.Ram Vilas, a tenant who lived in the building for seven years, told TOI, “We never received any notice. No one from the civic body asked us to vacate the building. Our electricity and water connections were never disconnected,” he said.Abhay Yadav, who sustained injuries in the collapse, echoed the claims. “I lived here for nearly one-and-a-half years. I was never informed about any notice, nor did the civic body ask us to vacate our rooms,” he said.Bhiwandi-Nizampur mayor Narayan Chaudhary, who was at the site during the rescue operation, defended the civic administration’s actions and blamed the tragedy on unauthorised repairs carried out after residents allegedly reoccupied the building. “We had asked residents to vacate the building, but some of them continued to stay there and began repair work without permission. Such negligence led to this.”As per BNCMC data, there are 289 buildings classified C-1 (very dangerous, unfit for occupation) and 1,439 ‘dangerous’ buildings in Bhiwandi. It plans to launch a drive to vacate the 289 buildings. “We will convene a meeting on Saturday to finalise the action to be taken against such buildings. The civic body will seek police protection to forcibly vacate all C-1 category buildings so that such a tragedy does not recur,” said Chaudhary.

Bhiwandi: Ten persons were killed and three injured after half a wing of a five-storey building tagged “very dangerous” collapsed amid illegal emergency repairs to a tilting pillar and rain late on Thursday in Bhiwandi. Locals suspected one more person was trapped under the rubble. The rescue operation was still underway.Some of the residents had gone into the building—Kohinoor Apartments in Bhandari Compound—just minutes before tragedy struck. Many of the victims were residents, others labourers working at the site and at least one was a visitor. Around 12 of the 48 flats in all were affected and 200-odd residents displaced.Residents had pooled in money and hired a contractor for the repairs without conducting a structural audit. Bhiwandi Nizampur City Municipal Corporation had not been apprised of the work. It said some of its officials had stopped the work and evacuated 11 labourers and around 40 occupants in the night, but many of them went back.The civic body said it had issued three notices since 2020 and declared the building unfit in June, directing occupants to vacate it, and disconnected water and electricity supplies. Residents claimed they had not got any notice and they had water and power until the crash.The state govt ordered an inquiry. An FIR was lodged against the contractor hired for repairs, Ashok, and building owner, Bilal Khan, under Sections 105 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 125 (negligent act endangering human life or personal safety of others) of BNS and relevant provisions of Maharashtra Regional and Town Planning Act for illegal construction, said DCP (zone 2), Thane, Pawan Basod.The PM announced an ex gratia of Rs 2 lakh each for the families of those killed and the CM Rs 5 lakh each.This was the third such major building collapse in Bhiwandi since 2020.Repairs to the 15-year-old building began four days earlier after residents flagged falling plaster chunks and hired a contractor on their own. The structure was not vacated during the work.Around 8pm on Thursday, residents noticed that a supporting pillar in wing B had developed a crack and was tilting, alerted the contractor and vacated the building. Workers were immediately brought in and the pillar was reinforced with iron support rods. Assuming that the structure had been stabilised, many residents went back into the building around 11.30pm. Moments later, half the wing collapsed, trapping many residents and labourers under the rubble.Over 15 hours, NDRF, fire brigade and Thane disaster response force personnel pulled out the bodies of Rakesh Paswan (25), Mukesh Paswan (30), Ashok Paswan (40), Krish Kumar (32), Ranjit Singh (45), Radheshyam Kushwaha (45), Siraj Rasul Sheikh (45), Shamim Ansari (32), Shyam Pal (40), and Santosh Pandey (42). Those injured—Abhay Yadav (26), Deepak Yadav (25) and Sangeeta Prajapati (36)—were taken to a hospital. Some residents were rescued from the portion of the wing that remained standing.An NDRF officer said the building suffered a “pancake collapse”, in which one floor falls directly onto another. “The chances of survival in such collapses are extremely low. We deployed trained sniffer dogs to locate the victims. Since many were trapped on the ground floor, our teams created an escape route by carefully digging trenches before recovering the bodies.”Disaster management minister Girish Mahajan, who visited the site, said the repairs were carried out late at night to escape scrutiny by civic officials. “Strict action will be taken against those found responsible.” He directed the authorities to ensure that all dangerous buildings in Bhiwandi are vacated and appropriate action taken against them.Mehtab Ansari, a resident, told TOI that all flat owners had contributed around Rs 10,000 each for the repairs. Another resident, Komal Arvind Gupta, alleged that the contractor’s negligence during the work damaged the pillar.Row of slum huts blocks access rdThe rescue operation was hampered by about 20 slum huts blocking the narrow road leading to the site. Seven of these were demolished to allow earthmovers to move in, while four others were damaged by falling debris from the ill-fated building. Most others were damaged by the rubble being cleared. Around 100 people living in these tenements now stand displaced. The civic body offered them temporary shelter, but they sought compensation for their losses.

Vasai: Waliv police have cracked the attempted murder of Vasai-based industrialist Mohansingh Parmar (46), arresting seven persons, including the alleged mastermind, who investigators say plotted the attack to evade repaying him Rs 32 crore and gain complete control of their company, GSM Foils.The prime accused, Sagar Bhanusali (33), is chairman of GSM Foils while Parmar is the managing director. Police said Bhanusali suffered massive financial losses after the US stock market crashed following the Iran-Israel conflict, leaving him burdened with debts running into crores. GSM Foils’ stock price on NSE closed at the 20% lower circuit at Rs 192 on Friday.In a notice to NSE, the stock exchange on which GSM Foils is listed, the company said that the incident had happened in the Naikpada area under Waliv police station. “Soon after the incident, (Parmar) received prompt medical attention… His health condition is reported to be stable and improving.”“The senior management team has taken the necessary steps to ensure continuity of the company’s operations. At present, the company’s manufacturing facilities at Vasai and Ahmedabad continue to function normally,” the company disclosed on NSE.GSM Foils is engaged in manufacturing blister foils and aluminium pharma foils for the pharmaceutical industry. In Friday’s relatively stable market, its stock price on NSE closed at the 20% lower circuit at Rs 192.According to investigators, Bhanusali had persuaded Parmar to purchase his stake in the company and received nearly Rs 32 crore. Instead of repaying the amount, though, he allegedly conspired to eliminate Parmar, believing that his death would wipe out the financial liability and enable him to take complete control of the company.The attack took place on July 24 at the company’s premises in Diamond Industrial Estate at Navjeevan in Vasai East. Two motorcycle-borne assailants intercepted Mohansingh Laxmansingh Parmar (46) and opened fire. Parmar was hit in the shoulder by the first bullet. The assailant attempted to fire a second round, but the pistol jammed. He then assaulted Parmar with the butt of the weapon before fleeing.Police investigations pointed to Bhanusali as the prime suspect. Acting on technical intelligence and local inputs, a Waliv police team, with assistance from Uttar Pradesh police special task force, tracked down and arrested Bhanusali in UP. Six other accused were subsequently arrested from different locations.Additional Commissioner of Police Sanjay Shintre said Bhanusali had invested heavily in the international stock market and suffered huge losses after the US markets declined, pushing him into severe debt. Investigators found that he hatched the murder plot to escape repaying Rs 32 crore and gain complete control of the company.Police said Bhanusali allegedly paid Rs 30 lakh to execute the contract killing, including an advance of Rs 5 lakh.The arrested accused have been identified as Sujit Devendrabhai Pandey, the alleged shooter; Manoj Mulchand Thathera, who allegedly arranged the illegal firearm from Uttar Pradesh; Gokul Omprakash Gautam, who assisted in procuring the weapon; Anup Virendra Prajapati, who conducted reconnaissance, rode the motorcycle, facilitated the assailant’s escape and attempted to destroy evidence; and Vijaykumar Prajapat Vishwakarma, who allegedly arranged the vehicle and the shooter.Police said the pistol used in the attack is yet to be traced to its source. Investigators are also probing whether the conspiracy has links to a larger financial, commercial or organised crime network. The investigation is continuing with the help of scientific, technical, digital, financial and forensic evidence.Parmar, who sustained a gunshot injury in the attack, is stable, police said.