A multi-storey ‘chawl’ collapsed in Mumbai’s Mankhurd area on Sunday evening

MUMBAI: At least six people were killed and one injured after a multi-storey chawl collapsed in Mumbai’s Mankhurd area on Sunday evening amid heavy rainfall. The incident occurred around 8.30 pm at Chawl No. 5 in Janta Nagar, behind Hanuman Mandir in Mankhurd.Rescue operations were underway at the site, with emergency teams working to locate and rescue those trapped under the debris.Heavy rains lashed Mumbai on Sunday, disrupting flight operations at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj International Airport for nearly an hour, inundating several roads and triggering multiple treefall incidents across the city. One person was killed after a tree collapsed on a shop in Kurla, officials said. The India Meteorological Department (IMD) had issued a red alert for Mumbai, warning of extremely heavy rainfall. Several parts of the city recorded over 200 mm of rain in 24 hours, while a few locations received more than 300 mm. Flight operations at Mumbai airport were affected as strong winds and poor visibility caused significant disruptions. According to sources, four IndiGo flights were cancelled and 13 incoming flights operated by various airlines were diverted to nearby airports due to adverse weather conditions. All diverted flights later returned and landed in Mumbai after conditions improved.Meanwhile, a 63-year-old man lost his life in Kurla after a tree fell on a shop during heavy rainfall. Civic officials said the incident took place around 12.40 pm near Hindi BMC School in the Naupada area of Kurla West. The victim, identified as Yunus Kundawala, was pulled out from the debris and rushed to Fauzia Hospital, where doctors declared him brought dead. The incident comes less than a week after an 11-year-old boy was killed and several others were injured when a tree fell on a moving school bus in Chembur on June 30. Videos circulating on social media also showed a tree collapsing in front of industrialist Mukesh Ambani’s security convoy in Bandra, briefly disrupting traffic movement in the area. Data from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) automatic rain gauge network showed that several locations received more than 200 mm of rainfall during the 24-hour period ending at 8 am on Sunday.(With Agency Inputs)

The murder came to light on Saturday after Jyoti Pawar, who worked as a domestic help, failed to respond to repeated calls from her family

Mumbai: Malabar Hill police have arrested a 23-year-old man for allegedly killing his 55-year-old neighbour and robbing her gold chain within 24 hours after her body was found in her chawl room at Nepean Sea Road.The murder came to light on Saturday after Jyoti Pawar, who worked as a domestic help, failed to respond to repeated calls from her family. Her daughter, Ekta Jadhav, who lives in Dahisar, became concerned as her mother was known to follow a fixed routine and was not answering her phone.Relatives reached Pawar’s residence and found the room locked from inside. After gaining entry, they found Pawar dead with visible injury marks around her neck. Malabar Hill police were alerted.Police sent the body for post-mortem examination and doctors prima facie opined that Pawar had died due to strangulation. Based on the complaint lodged by her daughter, police registered a case of murder against an unidentified person.Investigators examined CCTV footage from the locality, questioned neighbours, and verified the movements of persons who had visited the chawl around the time of the crime. During investigations, suspicion fell on Pawar’s neighbour Mohammed Kaif after police found inconsistencies in his version. They gathered technical and circumstantial evidence linking him to the crime.Kaif was detained for questioning, during which he allegedly confessed to strangling Pawar to death. He told investigators that he had recently suffered losses in his small business and was facing financial difficulties. According to the police, he knew Pawar wore a gold chain and planned to rob her. On Saturday, Kaif allegedly entered Pawar’s house on some pretext and strangled her to death before fleeing with her gold chain.Police said the recovery of the stolen chain and other evidence collected during the investigation strengthened the case against Kaif, who has been booked on charges of murder and robbery under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.Further investigation is underway to establish the complete sequence of events and gather additional forensic evidence against the accused.

Two youngsters were reported to have drowned in separate incidents on Friday and Saturday at the waterfall, one of Navi Mumbai’s best-known natural landmarks in the Kharghar hills that draws thousands of monsoon visitors every year.

Navi Mumbai: Environmentalists urged the Maharashtra govt to revive the long-abandoned eco-tourism project at the Pandavkada waterfall in the Kharghar node amid a rise in drowning accidents in and around the site.Two youngsters were reported to have drowned in separate incidents on Friday and Saturday at the waterfall, one of Navi Mumbai’s best-known natural landmarks in the Kharghar hills that draws thousands of monsoon visitors every year. The Kharghar fire brigade and police teams conducted a search operation to track the two youngsters missing at the Pandavkada waterfall, Kharghar, and they were feared to have drowned.A Taloja resident, Mohammed Mobshir Mohammed Shahid (20), was missing since Friday evening and a collegian, Shannon Kini (19), from Santacruz, was missing from Saturday after entering the gorge of the waterfall. Five on a picnic had reached the waterfall on Friday and two collegians on Saturday, defying the prohibitory orders.Social activists said scientific management rather than blanket prohibitory orders was needed to prevent recurring loss of life at the iconic site. They said continued access via multiple unofficial and treacherous routes led to repeated tragedies despite a ban, barricades and police deployment.The environmentalists said the limits of an enforcement-only approach were exposed again by the latest drowning cases, and said the groundwork for a managed solution already existed because the Forest Department initiated an eco-tourism project at Pandavkada in 2014 and constructed a compound wall, ticket counter and changing room before the initiative was abruptly abandoned. The unfinished infrastructure remains unused while rescue operations and drowning incidents occur almost every monsoon. Environmentalists have called on the state govt to establish a coordinated institutional framework involving the Forest Department, CIDCO, Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation, Panvel civic body, police, fire services, the Bombay Natural History Society and local environmental groups to prepare and implement a comprehensive eco-tourism, visitor safety and water conservation plan for the Kharghar hill range. “The administration cannot wish away people’s desire to experience nature,” said Jyoti Nadkarni, Director of SwarnSrishti Habitat Restorer Foundation. “Pandavkada has become a magnet for monsoon visitors despite the ban. Instead of allowing people to slip into dangerous, unmonitored areas, the government should create a professionally managed eco-tourism destination with strict safety protocols. Saving lives and protecting nature must go hand in hand,” she said.NatConnect Foundation Director B N Kumar said the Kharghar-Belapur hill range, extending towards Taloja, offered an opportunity to create one of Maharashtra’s finest urban eco-tourism destinations. “Navi Mumbai is uniquely endowed with hills, waterfalls, mangroves, wetlands, creeks and flamingo habitats. With proper planning, Pandavkada can become a national model for safe nature tourism and climate resilience instead of making headlines every monsoon for tragic drownings,” Kumar said.The activists said the govt must replace reactive rescue operations with proactive ecological planning, and that a well-managed eco-tourism zone could enhance visitor safety, conserve biodiversity, generate local livelihoods and showcase Navi Mumbai’s natural heritage.Meanwhile, 14 monsoon revellers from Mumbai were sent back before the water levels swelled in a discharge channel near the Adoshi waterfall, off the Mumbai-Pune expressway, on Sunday morning. Khopoli police beat marshal constable Shubham Jadhav said, “The youths had arrived in their vehicles but were asked to leave due to heavy rainfall. They had moved more than 5km from the E-way. ” A Dharavi teenager Ashraf Shaikh (17) on a picnic with his friends was drowned on June 30 in a pond at the foothills of the Kharghar hills behind the Bharati Vidyapeeth.

Bombay high court slapped a Rs 1 lakh penalty on a Kalyan college for admitting a student to a BMS course despite his ineligibility and then informing him late (Representative image)

MUMBAI: Bombay high court has imposed costs of Rs 1 lakh on a college for belatedly informing a student last February, of his ineligibility to a BMS course he was admitted to in 2022, and denying him permission for final semester examination.The college said he was ineligible as he hadn’t cleared the HSC exam in the first attempt, as required. The cost must be paid in 2 week to the Mumbai University and its Examination Board, Justices RI Chagla and Farhan Dubash held in their July 1 order available on Friday.Mehul Ghavari, the student had last year petitioned the HC to challenge the denial of permission by the college to appear for the sixth semester.The college, Seth Hirachand Mutha College in Kalyan is “entirely to blame” and “student should not be made to suffer,’’ since the college was aware of his ineligibility in December 2022, yet allowed him to continue, said the HC.Mumbai University’s counsel Rui Rodrigues informed the HC that in December 2022 itself following scrutiny the college was informed that the students was amongst two, found to be ineligible.In March the HC had directed the college to comply with its December 2025 order permitting the student, represented by advocate Atharva Dandekar, to fill the exam form and now the student wanted his results.Advocate Sumit Kothari for the college submitted its affidavit dated June 29 which said the Covid-19 pandemic led to remote working, communication challenges, staff shortage and the unprecedented circumstances led to the “oversight in admission’’ to the Bachelor of Management Studies. It was “a human error’’, sans malafides.Rodrigues citing a July 2025 HC order against the same college for a similar oversight in the same course, in 2021-22, where while granting relief to that student, who cleared HSC in his third attempt– said, court imposts costs of Rs 50,000. The HC had directed the college to scrupulously follow the rules on eligibility. This was the second instance and heavy costs be imposed on college, Rodrigues argued.The HC, agreeing with MU counsel, said the college had committed lapse earlier too in student admission for the same course. “The Petitioner should not be made to suffer at the hands of the College,’’ the HC said and directing the results be given to the petitioner in a week, sought an undertaking from the college to not commit such lapses of granting admission to similarly placed students, in the future.

Researchers from IIT Bombay and the ICMR-National Institute for Research on Women’s Health (NIRWoH) have developed an indigenous placenta-on-chip platform that mimics the human placenta in the laboratory.

MUMBAI: In a breakthrough that could make medicines safer for pregnant women while reducing animal testing, researchers from IIT Bombay and the ICMR-National Institute for Research on Women’s Health (NIRWoH) have developed an indigenous placenta-on-chip platform that mimics the human placenta in the laboratory.The placenta is a temporary organ that develops during pregnancy and serves as an interface between mother and baby. It regulates the exchange of nutrients, oxygen, hormones, drugs and waste products while protecting the developing foetus.However, due to ethical and practical limitations, direct investigation of placental function during pregnancy remains extremely difficult.The new device allows scientists to study how medicines, nutrients and waste products move between the mother and foetus.

Major leap

The study, published in the journal Biofabrication, describes a compact two-chamber device containing human placental and blood vessel cells grown on opposite sides of a porous membrane.The model successfully reproduced placental functions, including hormone secretion, nutrient transport, waste exchange and selective barrier function.Unlike many existing organ-on-chip systems that require complex equipment, the Indian platform uses a simpler design that is easier to manufacture and operate.“Many organ-on-chip systems are powerful but often require specialised infrastructure. We wanted to develop a robust platform that could be adopted more broadly by research laboratories,” said IIT Bombay’s Prof Abhijit Majumder, co-corresponding author of the study.The system’s biological validation was led by researchers at ICMR-NIRWoH’s Prof Deepak Modi, who said such human-relevant models are increasingly important for understanding disease biology and evaluating therapeutic safety.“By combining engineering and reproductive biology, we have created a platform that can help bridge this gap and advance research,” he said.