City: Mumbai

St. Francis Pakhady, a 200 year-old gaothan in Vile Parle, is no stranger to change. What began as a village of close-knit farmers on Salsette Island in British Bombay is now threatened by concrete development. Bullock carts would ply the Milan subway to get from east to west. Train tracks were laid along one side, leading to a level crossing. The opening of Vile Parle station, and its subsequent increase in lines, trimmed and pushed back the goathan. The upcoming sixth railway corridor between Mumbai Central and Borivali will eat 4.5 metres into Veer Ghanekar road, a stretch currently occupied…

Knowing how to a register a flat in Mumbai is important for a person's legal ownership over a property. When you purchase or receive a flat, its agreement of sale, transfer, gift or lease needs to be registered with the government for the transaction to be considered valid and legal under The Registration Act, 1908. Rules in the state are framed under the Maharashtra Registration Rules, 1961. What is the significance of flat registration? Legally, a flat owner's name is not changed or transferred until the sale or gift transaction is registered with the government. Any unregistered transaction has no…

On 12th February, a webinar organised by civic organisations Mumbai First and The Blue Ribbon Movement discussed the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s (BMC) civic budget for 2022. Questions surrounding scope and allocation highlighted the need for citizen participation in policy making. Moderated by Abhishek Thakore, co-founder of The Blue Ribbon Movement, the panel consisted of experts, journalists and grassroots workers, with years of expertise on the functions of the BMC, its historical trends and practices.  The panellists were Chaitanya Marpakwar, a journalist for The Times of India, whose work covers civic and political issues in Mumbai, Ravikant Joshi, an expert on…

Dadul, a security guard at a construction site in Mira Road, returned to Mumbai from Allahabad a month ago. "I went back to my village by truck, paying Rs 3,000, at the start of the pandemic. All I was given from the government at the time was Rs 1,000 and some ration because of the 14-day quarantine. But I was scared of another lockdown, so I stayed back in my village, until recently." he says. Dadul is not aware of any relief announced for construction workers through the lockdown, and he is not alone in this. In the early months…

Mumbai University exams to be conducted offline Mumbai University will open its doors soon for undergraduate exams for this year's summer session. A detailed timetable is yet to be released, but the exam committee has devised a broad outline. Semester 2 will be offline for both regular and candidates with a backlog of exams, while Semester 4 exams will be entirely online for Arts, Science, and Commerce streams. Backlog candidates for Semester 1, 3 and 5 will appear for exams online.  A call on final semester exams will be taken based on data collected on vaccinated students and the public…

On January 10th, a 19-year-old teenager shared an incident of domestic violence in Mumbai on the city-based website Safecity, which encourages citizens to report all kinds of violence. “My friend has an abusive household where her mother was always beaten up. It hasn't changed and due to lockdown, things had gotten worse as they couldn't get out,” she said. Like her, many others have been reporting and sharing incidents of violence on the website. So far in 2022, over 20 citizens have reported domestic violence cases in Mumbai anonymously on Safecity. Indeed, domestic violence cases in Mumbai have risen. In the…

Every year, rains in Mumbai claim lives and leave behind destruction to infrastructure and the city’s economy. Excessive flooding in the city is only increasing. The 2021 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned us about rising sea levels in Mumbai in the coming years, and, towards the end of the century, the city is set to see a 4.6 degree celsius rise in mean temperatures.  In January 2022, the Centre for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP) released a report on emerging trends of climate change in Western India. The report provides trends for western…

On January 22nd, a healthy and flourishing peepal tree, approximately 100 years old, was chopped at Azad Road in Vile Parle East. Junior Tree Officer of K East ward, Mr. Pradip Jadhav, arrived at the spot at 9:30 am** with his team to cut the tree. At the sight of this, I asked the officials about permission they had been granted for the operation, and learnt that the notice was given four years ago in December 2017. The permission to cut, after objections, was given in November 2018. Because of it’s outdatedness, in a constrained manner, I requested the officers…

Jacob D’Souza, 63, a resident of Matunga and a school bus operator for schools in Mumbai, once owned four buses and operated independent bus services in five neighbourhood schools in and around Sion Koliwada. Two years into the lockdown, he is left with just one bus and struggles to make ends meet with that. Within a year of the lockdown, financiers seized two of his buses for defaulting on loan repayment. “My buses were confiscated despite my sound credit record of paying all my dues on time,” said Jacob. “They didn't care that I had no income due to the…

On February 3rd, India's richest civic body, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC)'s commissioner Iqbal Singh Chahal unveiled the civic budget for the financial year 2022-23. The budget for this year is a whopping Rs 45,949.21 crore, a 17.70% jump from the previous year (Rs 39,038.83 crore). The focus of this year's allocation is on health, infrastructure and education. We've highlighted key points from the budget announcement. Big developmental projects Rs 3,200 crore for the Mumbai Coastal Road project Rs 1,300 crore for the Goregaon Mukund Rail projectNew security systems like Boom Barrier and Hand Metal Detectors to be installed at…