Mumbai: “Asato ma sad gamaya, tamaso ma jyotir gamaya, mrityor ma amritam gamaya—lead me from untruth to truth, from darkness to light, from death to immortality.” The ancient Sanskrit mantra for enlightenment and peace echoed as 11-year-old Vihan Srivastav, who died when a roadside tree fell on his school bus on Chembur’s Road No 11, began his final journey.With the grieving family’s friends and relatives gathered around them, the outrage over the lack of administrative accountability for such fatal tree collapses was palpable.As the funeral procession made its way from the family’s residence at Kukreja Heights to the waiting ambulance, Vihan’s father, an engineer with UltraTech Cement, led the gathering with stoicism while the cries of his mother and other relatives and neighbours rang through the residential society.Before the funeral, Vihan’s inconsolable mother, Juhi Srivastav, had sat silently at home, clutching her son’s cricket bat while relatives and neighbours gathered around her, her silence reflecting a loss too profound for words.At the Deonar Pada crematorium, moments before the pyre was lit, family members placed a cricket ball beside Vihan’s body—a final farewell to a child who, according to his grandfather, S. N. Srivastav, “loved cricket”.“I had bought him a bat and ball. He was a big foodie as well,” said Srivastav, an advocate from Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh, adding tearfully but with pride, “he could recite the Hanuman Chalisa word for word, completely by heart.” Srivastav said he plans to file a complaint over the incident. “I will submit a complaint, but somebody has to take it up and ensure action is taken,” he said.“Our child cannot come back,” said Anil Srivastav, Vihan’s granduncle and a retired additional secretary of the Lok Sabha who flew in from Delhi. “No amount of compensation is enough. Our boy, the only child of his parents, is gone. Before every monsoon, funds are allocated for civic works. They should be properly utilised. Something has to be done about dangerous trees and open manholes so that no more families have to suffer what we are going through.”Shiv Sena (UBT) MP Anil Desai, who visited the family, said complaints about hazardous trees and civic infrastructure “must be taken seriously and attended to”. “It is criminal if complaints are lodged but no action is taken. Trees along roads must be maintained and looked after regularly,” he said. “It’s absolutely shameful. They call Mumbai an international city and this is what it does to citizens.”Also present at the funeral was local MLA Tukaram Kate who said an FIR must be registered against those responsible and accountability fixed. “What has happened is extremely unfortunate. The authorities have a responsibility to provide basic public safety. Watching the helpless parents is heartbreaking,” he said.Finally, as smoke from the funeral pyre rose into the grey sky, an overhead exhaust system drew much of it away, leaving behind only the damp scent of the monsoon. The family stood huddled together as relatives and neighbours streamed past to pay their final respects.Neighbour Vinod Malhotra recalled meeting Vihan just days before the accident. “I asked him how old he was and he smiled and said, ‘Eleven.’ I told him, ‘You’ve grown so tall.’ I was surprised how much he had grown in such a short time. He was such a kind and lovely boy,” he said.

Bombay high court will hear the matter finally after two weeks

Mumbai: The state government on Wednesday submitted before the Bombay high court an expert technical panel report for eco-friendly dissolution of PoP idols, which recommended two separate artificial immersion ponds: one for idols made of environmentally unfriendly material and another for those made of traditional clay.The report also suggested more research was required as biological disintegration of PoP is very slow and not technically feasible. But it recommended that chemical or thermal processes were an option.The HC will hear the matter finally after two weeks.Proposed eco-friendly disposal methods, the committee said, could be a calcination process of dehydrating the used PoP at 150°C to convert it back into fresh PoP and the ‘chemical process’ of using ammonium bicarbonate to chemically break down the idols into ammonium sulphate and calcium carbonate.The BMC reported accumulating 2,000-2,500 tonnes of PoP idol waste following the 2025 Ganesh festival.The panel noted that chemical use could lead to air and water pollution and its economic viability needs to be checked as the amount of the bicarbonate needed is equivalent to the idol’s weight and is “10 times more expensive”.Calcination of PoP can help in reuse for new idols, plaster board, medical use for plaster for ceramic items or brick manufacturing, the panel suggested.The “expert scientific committee for suggesting methods for reuse, recycle of PoP material and its faster dissolution” was formed by the Maharashtra government last August in a pending PIL filed in 2024 and four connected petitions against the harmful effect of PoP idols. Activist Rohit Joshi had flagged concern before the HC of violations of its orders to ensure compliance with Central Pollution Control Board on PoP idol immersions.The committee, headed by Maharashtra Pollution Control Board member-secretary Devender Singh, also has Anurag Garg, professor from IIT- Bombay, and S Venkata Mohan, director, NEERI (Nagpur). It said the chemical disintegration process could be expensive and its “process optimisation and detailed economic analysis needs to be carried out”.The expert committee recommended that idols be kept in artificial tanks for at least three weeks to enable proper dissolution of paint, softening of PoP, and partial disintegration, and local bodies can transport them later to a processing facility. Devotees who wish, may send the idols directly to a pre-decided centre, where calcination can take place.The state, in its comments, noted that the panel suggested that pilot projects be implemented in 8 to 10 cities, including Mumbai, Pune, and Nagpur, to test the feasibility and costs of these recycling methods before rolling them out statewide.Joshi said, “ Maharashtra sees approximately 1.5 crore idols installed annually. If an average idol weighs 10kg, and we conservatively estimate that just 50% of them are made of PoP, we are looking at a staggering 75,000 tonnes of PoP waste generated across the state every single year.”

Mumbai: Heavy rain continued to lash Mumbai on Wednesday, inundating several low-lying areas, triggering tree fall incidents and pushing rainfall in parts of the eastern suburbs well past the 150 mm mark within 12 hours.The India Meteorological Department (IMD) issued a red nowcast warning for Mumbai around 12.30 pm on Wednesday, warning of intense spells of rain over the next few hours. The city continues to remain under an orange alert till July 5, forecasting heavy to very heavy rainfall at isolated places. Neighbouring Thane has been placed under a red alert for July 4.The downpour also brought some relief to the city’s strained water reserves, with lake levels witnessing a marginal rise and Powai lake overflowing. Powai lake supplies water only for industrial use.At 170 mm, Mankhurd recorded the highest rainfall for the 24 hours ending 8 am on July 1. Chembur recorded 169 mm, Govandi 163 mm and Byculla 162 mm.Other areas that received heavy showers included Mumbai Central (142 mm), Bandra-Kurla Complex (132 mm), Borivli (126 mm), Lower Parel (125.4 mm) and Dindoshi (123 mm).Rain continued through the day. Between 8 am and 9 pm on July 1, IMD stations recorded intense rainfall, with Mulund topping the chart at 166 mm, followed by Bhandup (155 mm), Powai (152 mm) and Vikhroli (152 mm).In the western suburbs, Santacruz recorded 141 mm and Andheri 135 mm. In the city, Lower Parel recorded 84 mm, followed by Matunga (82 mm), Wadala (78 mm) and Dadar (74 mm).The current meteorological analysis and numerical weather guidance indicate that an offshore trough at mean sea level extending from south Gujarat to Karnataka is likely to persist during the week.“An upper air cyclonic circulation over north Bay of Bengal and neighbourhood, extending between 1.5 km and 7.6 km above mean sea level and tilting southwestwards with height, is also present. Under its influence, a low-pressure area is likely to form over the northwest Bay of Bengal and adjoining regions around July 3, 2026. In addition, a trough extending from this cyclonic circulation over the north Bay of Bengal and neighbourhood to the northeast Arabian Sea, across south Gangetic West Bengal, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, north Maharashtra and Gujarat between 4.5 km and 7.6 km above mean sea level, is also active,” the IMD said, pointing to the reasons for the ongoing wet spell.The persistent rain led to waterlogging at several vulnerable stretches, including SV Road in Andheri and Lokhandwala Circle, slowing vehicular movement during the day.In Navi Mumbai, a Dharavi teenager, Ashraf Shaikh (17), was drowned in a pond at the foothills of the Kharghar hills behind Bharati Vidyapeeth. A group of teenagers from Dharavi were on a monsoon trip to the area. Some of them had entered the pond for a swim.Amid the disruption, the rains brought encouraging news for Mumbai’s water supply. The combined stock in the seven lakes supplying drinking water to the city increased from 6.75% on Tuesday to 7.18% on Wednesday, offering some relief after weeks of dwindling reserves and the ongoing 10% water cut. The rainfall also caused Powai Lake to overflow at around 5.30 am on Wednesday. The lake, which has a storage capacity of 545 crore litres, is not part of Mumbai’s potable water supply and is used for industrial purposes.

Pic used for representation purpose

Mumbai: Five families of brain-dead patients donated the organs of their loved ones over five days last week, taking Mumbai’s cadaver organ donation tally to a record 35 in just the first six months of 2026 — among the fastest the city reached the milestone since its deceased organ donation programme began in 1997.The five donations between June 26 and June 30 benefited 17 patients with end-stage organ failure, while the city’s overall 35 donations this year have helped over 90 patients.The five-day run began on June 26 when two families at Sir H N Reliance Foundation Hospital consented to organ donation within hours of each other. A 39-year-old woman who suffered a traumatic brain injury in a road accident donated her heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and corneas. Later that day, the family of a 57-year-old woman who was declared brain-dead after a stroke donated her liver, kidneys and corneas.On June 28, the family of a 69-year-old woman at Fortis Hospital, Mulund, donated her liver, kidneys, corneas and skin. A day later, the family of a 28-year-old man at Wockhardt Hospital, Mira Road, donated his heart, lungs, liver, kidneys and bones. The BARC employee had met with a fatal accident.On June 30, the wife of a 37-year-old man who was declared brain-dead in Fortis Hospital, Mulund, consented to donate his liver, corneas and skin.The pace of donations marks a significant turnaround. Mumbai recorded 53 cadaver donations in all of 2025 after posting 60 in 2024, 50 in 2023, 47 in 2022 and 33 during the Covid-hit 2021. This year, in the first six months itself, the city has witnessed 35 donations.However, a senior doctor pointed out that the donations could have been far higher if public hospitals had also motivated organ donations. “The state health minister a few months back held a series of meetings to promote organ donations, but public hospitals haven’t responded,” he said.