News Analysis India

Tag: Maharashtra

  • Three injured as four men open fire on jewellery shop in Thane

    By PTI
    THANE: Three people were injured after a group of four opened fire on a jewellery shop in Ambernath in Thane district on Sunday afternoon, police said.

    The shooters came on two motorcycles and fired seven rounds at around 1:40am, in which three men were seriously injured, an official said.

    The quartet’s attempt to rob the jewellery shop was unsuccessful, and they fled from the spot soon after, he added.

    “The three injured people have been admitted in a hospital in Ulhasnagar. Senior officials have rushed to the spot and further details are awaited. A nakabandi has been imposed in the area to nab the culprits,” he said.

  • Maharashtra govt slashes security cover of Fadnavis, Raj Thackeray

    By PTI
    MUMBAI: The Maharashtra government has reduced the security of Leader of Opposition in the Assembly Devendra Fadnavis and his family, former UP governor Ram Naik and MNS president Raj Thackeray, and withdrawn the security cover of state BJP chief Chandrakant Patil.

    State BJP spokesman Keshav Upadhye termed it as “vendetta politics”, while former chief minister Fadnavis said this would not impact his plans to travel and meet people.

    As per a government notification issued on January 8, Fadnavis will now get ‘Y-plus security with escort’, instead of the ‘Z-plus’ cover.

    The security of his wife Amruta Fadnavis and daughter Divija has been downgraded from ‘Y-plus with escort’ to ‘X’ category.

    Former Uttar Pradesh governor Ram Naik will now get ‘Y’ cover instead of ‘Y-plus’.

    MNS chief Raj Thackeray’s security cover has been downgraded from ‘Z’ to ‘Y plus with escort’.

    The security covers of BJP leader and former CM Narayan Rane, state BJP chief Chandrakant Patil and senior party leader Sudhir Mungantiwar have been withdrawn.

    Rane had ‘Y-plus’ security.

    Besides, the security of state Lokayukta M L Tahiliani has been downgraded from ‘Z’ to ‘Y’.

    The government, as per the notification, has upgraded the security of two persons, downgraded of 11, withdrawn of 16, while 13 new people have got security cover.

    Prominent among the new persons to get security are Sunetra Pawar, wife of state Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, and Varun Sardesai, secretary of the Yuva Sena and nephew of Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray’s wife Rashmi Thackeray.

    Both have been given ‘X’ security cover.

    Union minister Ramdas Athawale will get only ‘wireless’ instead of the ‘Y-plus with escort’, while central minister Raosaheb Danve’s ‘Y-plus’ cover has been withdrawn.

    The government has also withdrawn the security cover of former minister Rajkumar Badole, BJP MLAs Prasad Lad and Ram Kadam, and former speaker and BJP legislator Haribhau Bagde.

    The state has also withdrawn the ‘X’ category security of former Mumbai Congress chief Kripashankar Singh, who quit the party, andBJP’s former minister Shobhatai Fadnavis, an aunt of Devendra Fadnavis.

    Senior advocate Ujjwal Nikam’s ‘Y-plus with escort’ cover has been upgraded to ‘Z’, while film actor and Congress leader Shatrughan Sinha’s ‘Y-plus’ cover has been upgraded to ‘Y-plus with escort’.

    The security of BJP’s former minister Ashish Shelar has been downgraded from ‘Y-plus’ to ‘Y’.

    State Legislative Council Chairman Ramraje Naik Nimbalkarand Relief and Rehabilitation minister Vijay Wadettiwar will get ‘Y-plus with escort’, while Shiv Sena MLA Vaibhav Naik, who had defeated Narayan Rane in the 2014 Assembly polls, will get ‘X’ security cover.

    Current state ministers Sandeepan Bhumre, Sunil Kedar, Dilip Walse Patil and Abdul Sattar, Leader of Opposition in the Council Pravin Darekar and state Assembly’s Deputy Speaker Narhari Zhirwal have been given ‘Y’ cover.

    Meanwhile, state BJP spokesman Keshav Upadhye alleged that the security of Fadnavis and other BJP leaders was downgraded out of “political vendetta”.

    “The decision shows what kind of a mindset the government has, and it is unfortunate. During the COVID-19 lockdown period, Fadnavis was travelling to the nook and corner of the state, while Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray was sitting at home,” he claimed.

    Upadhye said Fadnavis was the first to reach Bhandara where 10 babies died in fire at a hospital on Saturday.

    “Even if the entire security cover is removed, he (Fadnavis) would continue to travel in the state and highlight the voice of the people,” the BJP leader said.

    Reacting to the government’s decision, Fadnavis said he had no complaints or worry.

    “I am a people’s person and this doesn’t impact my travel (schedules) to meet people,” he said.

    Narayan Rane said he was given security by Mumbai police because he had a threat from terrorists.

    “I have no complaints. If anything happens to me, the state government is to be blamed,” he said.

    Sudhir Mungantiwar said he was given security due to Naxal threat.

    “I thank the government for withdrawing my security cover. This means the Naxal threat doesn’t exist. Our aim to highlight people’s voice will be more stronger,” he said.

  • Bhandara Hospital fire: Two-month-old girl victim was set for discharge

    By PTI
    BHANDARA: The gloom in the Behere household in Sonzari Tola in Bhandara’s Bhojpur area and the pain in the eyes of the people assembled there, especially in that of a 20-year-old tribal woman, is unbearable.

    The baby daughter of the Beheres was supposed to be discharged in eight days from the Bhandara district hospital, but the fire tragedy has turned their world upside down.

    A baby girl who had brought joy to Geeta and Vishwanath Behere (22), despite being born underweight at a private hospital on November 10 last year, was one of the 10 infants who died after a fire broke out in the childcare unit of the state-run Bhandara district hospital in the early hours of Saturday.

    The child was 830 grams when she was born and her stint at the Special Newborn Care Unit, to which she was shifted on the day she was born, was having a positive effect on her health and she was supposed to be discharged in eight days, a sobbing Vishwanath said.

    ALSO READ: Abandoned at birth, fire claimed infant’s life at Bhandara hospital

    “Her weight had increased to 1.3 kilograms and a nurse had told us that our baby would be discharged when she weighed 1.5 kilograms. Geeta had got to see the infant at 4 pm yesterday and today we get the news of the fire. It has destroyed us,” he said.

    “We had not even named our daughter and now we have got her burnt dead body,” Vishwanath, who is a labourer, said amid the wails and sobs from those present, including his homemaker wife.

    The girl was cremated after the couple left the hospital, he said, adding that no one had communicated anything so far about compensation for their devastating loss.

    Geeta, meanwhile, was too traumatised to speak, with kin and neighbours assembled around her to offer comfort.

  • Abandoned at birth, fire claimed infant’s life at Bhandara hospital

    By PTI
    BHANDARA: Authorities know the names of the mothers of nine out of ten babies who perished in fire at a state-run hospital in Maharashtra’s Bhandara district on early Saturday morning.

    One name is missing, as the child had been abandoned at birth.

    The new-born baby, a boy, had been found in the remote village of Kesalwada in Lakhanitehsil last week, a district official said.

    The Discovery of an abandoned child also made headlines in local newspapers.

    ALSO READ | Maharashtra to give Rs 5 lakh ex gratia for kin of infants who died in hospital fire, govt orders inquiry

    Police registered a case against its unidentified parents and admitted it to local rural hospital.

    As his condition was critical, he was shifted to Special Newborn Care Unit of Bhandara district hospital, the official said.

    When a fire broke out in the hospital in the early hours of Saturday, the staff succeeded in rescuing seven out of 17 babies from the Newborn Care Unit.

    The boy was not among the lucky ones.

  • Teacher ensures access to virtual learning in Maharashtra village

    By PTI
    JALNA: Even as primary and middle schools continue to remain shut amid the COVID-19 pandemic in Maharashtra, a teacher from a zilla parishad school in a remote village of Jalna district has ensured that his students get access virtual education.

    When the coronavirus-induced lockdown was announced in March, 2020, online education became a need of the hour, forcing schools and teachers to adopt different technologies to reach out to students.

    For Pentu Maisanwad, a teacher at a government-run school in the dusty hamlet of Dahifal Bhogane in Partur tehsil, the challenge was to get his students access to proper devices and internet.

    “We found it difficult to purchase devices and to add to that there were network issues in the village. Parents could not shell out money to buy tablets and some of them didn’t even own a simple phone,” the 38-year-old teacher said.

    “I had to convince parents and local residents that the lockdown time cannot be wasted and there should be no roadblocks to learning,” he said.

    Thanks to contribution of locals, all 27 children in the primary school (Classes 1 to 4) now have tablets and three dongles have been set up at different places to give students access to Internet, he said.

    Classes of various subjects are conducted through applications such as Google Meet and WhatsApp, Maisanwad said.

    With the help of his colleague S U Gaikwad, Maisanwad also organises “nukud” classes and teaches children on the premises of a temple in the village.

    Principal of District Institute of Education Training (DIET) Dr Rajendra Kamble, Dr Prakash Mante, block education officer Santosh Sable among other officials also visited the village and praised the efforts taken by the teacher.

    “Earlier, Maisanwad had worked at the zilla parishad school in Jaipur village of Mantha tehsil and there also, he had brought in innovative methods of learning and teaching,” Dr Mante said.

  • Maharashtra: Rift in MVA govt as Congress, Sena spar over renaming of Aurangabad 

    By Express News Service
    MUMBAI: The rift in the Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government in Maharashtra over the renaming of Aurangabad as Sambhaji Nagar has been widening.

    Despite state Congress president Balasaheb Thorat’s objections, the Chief Minister’s Office (CMO) has been using Sambhaji Nagar for Aurangabad. 

    While both Congress and Shiv Sena have stuck to their respective political agenda, this difference has no threat to the government.

    Shiv Sena has decided to use Sambhaji Nagar even though the change of name has not been approved officially by the Maha Vikas Agahdi just to keep its vote bank happy. On the other hand, Congress is opposing the move though it is falling on the deaf ear.

    The difference between the parties surfaced after the CMO, in one of the tweets about cabinet decisions on last Wednesday, mentioned Aurangabad as Sambhaji Nagar. The state Congress took objection to it.

    The tweet read: “Approval has been granted to additional 165 beds and creation of 360 new posts at the government medical college in Sambhajinagar (Aurangabad).” Congress leader and Minister for Medical Education Amit Deshmukh was tagged in the tweet. 

    Soon after Maharashtra Congress chief Balasaheb Thorat tweeted reiterating his party’s opposition to any attempts to change the name of the city.

    “The Directorate of Information and Publicity should not rename cities on its own. Renaming of cities is not on the common minimum Programme (CMP) of the MVA government,” Thorat said. The MVA government is committed to what is promised in the CMP, he said.

    “We want to reassert that we are opposed to renaming any city to ensure that social harmony prevails,” Thorat, who is also the state Revenue Minister, said.  “Chhatrapati Shambhaji Maharaj is our revered deity. The renaming politics in his name should be avoided. Let’s work together for Aurangabad’s development,” Thorat said. 

  • Maharashtra: Congress gets nervous of NCP’s ‘expansion plans’, hunts for new, aggressive state chief

    By Express News Service
    MUMBAI: The NCP’s “expansion plan” in Maharashtra has made the Congress nervous. The Grand Old Party has now decided to replace the incumbent Maharashtra Congress president with someone who is more aggressive and takes on Opposition and alliance partners as well.

    According to the highly-placed sources in Congress, party chief Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi have expressed their displeasure over the mild stand and limited growth of the party in Maharashtra despite being in power.

    “NCP and the Congress share similar vote banks. The NCP is eating our traditional vote bank of Muslims and Dalits by reaching out to them and promoting their community leaders. On the contrary, the Congress has no plan to counter NCP’s growth. If this trend continues, the future of the Congress will be very bleak in Maharashtra, and in the next elections it will be thrown out of power as well,” said a senior Congress leader requesting anonymity.

    “Sonia Gandhi and other senior Congress leaders discussed this issue with state president Balasaheb Thorat and expressed disappointment over lack of growth in Maharashtra. They told Thorat that he can no longer be any help to the party. Following the meeting, Thorat offered to step down paving the way for someone young and dynamic,” said another top source in the party.

    Sonia Gandhi asked Maharashtra Congress observer HK Patil to go to Mumbai and consult the Maharashtra Congress leaders over the restructuring. Patil was in Mumbai to consult with the Congress ministers and MLAs. 

    “Patil got mixed reactions from the party leaders in Maharashtra on the decision of replacing Thorat. The people close to Thorat defended him while others were ready to accept the decision of the high command. Patil has been told to prepare the report and submit to Congress president for the final decision over replacing the incumbent Maharashtra Congress president,” added the source.

    While talking to The New Indian Express earlier, HK Patil confirmed that the party had decided to restructure the Congress in Maharashtra. Many names such as Speaker Nana Patole, minister Amit Deshmukh and Nitin Raut are making rounds for the next Maharashtra Congress president.

  • Bird flu, Maharashtra issues red alert though no cases reported yet

    By ANI
    MUMBAI: After many states reported cases of bird flu, the Maharashtra government has issued a red alert in the state and asked the district officials to keep a strict vigil, said state’s Animal Husbandry Minister Sunil Kedar on Thursday.

    Speaking to ANI, Kedar informed that till today no case of bird flu has been reported in Maharashtra.

    “As per the information that we have, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh and Himachal Pradesh have confirmed of bird flu. Because Maharashtra shares borders with some of these states, we have asked district authorities to keep a strict vigil and issued a red alert in the state. If any case is reported, we have made arrangements for vaccines and medicines,” said the minister.

    When asked about the dead birds found in Thane district on Wednesday, Kedar said the samples from the dead were sent for testing and were found negative for the Avian Influenza virus.

    “If the bird flu breaks out in the state, it will be difficult to manage the situation especially when the situation of Coronavirus is delicate in Maharashtra. I have called a meeting with the Animal Husbandry Commissioner today to take the stock of the situation,” the minister said further.

    Yesterday, Union Minister of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying Giriraj Singh said migratory birds are the reason behind the spread of bird flu in the country.

    Avian influenza (AI) viruses have been circulating worldwide for centuries with four known major outbreaks recorded in the last century. India notified the first outbreak of avian influenza in 2006.

    According to the Ministry of Environment, infection in humans is not yet reported in India though the disease is zoonotic.

    There is no direct evidence that AI viruses can be transmitted to humans via the consumption of contaminated poultry products.

  • Man held in Maharashtra for trying to film woman in eatery’s toilet

    By PTI
    PUNE: An 18-year-old man was arrested for allegedly attempting to take a video of a woman on his phone inside the restroom of an eatery in a suburb of Pune, police said on Wednesday.

    According to the police, the accused, who is a waiter at the eatery in Baner area, tried to film a video of the victim from the gap on the roof of the restroom on Monday.

    On noticing this, the victim immediately raised an alarm, prompting the accused flee the scene, an official from Chatushringi police station said.

    An offence was registered under relevant sections of the IPC and the accused was subsequently nabbed, he added.

  • Maharashtra govt reduces premium charges by 50 per cent on construction of new projects

    Express News Service
    Maharashtra cabinet on Wednesday cut down the premiums charges on construction by 50 per cent till December 31, 2021.

    Maharashtra government while giving a reduction in premium charges — a 50 per cent benefit to developers — put one major condition that the developers who avail this scheme benefit will not charge the stamp duty and registration fees from buyers of this project.

    “It is the win-win situation for the buyers and developers,” said Shiv Sena minister.

    The move is expected to give a boost to the real estate sector in the state.

    The state government has approved a reduction in premiums by 50 per cent under the new DCPR rule 2034 across the board for on-going and new projects up to December 31, 2021.

    Municipalities charge this premium on Floor Space Index or FSI which is construction allowed on a plot of land.

    Maharashtra government had appointed Deepak Parekh committee to study the real estate sector and recommend suggestions to boost the property sector and economy as well.

    Farshid Cooper, MD, Spenta corporation said, this is a very encouraging announcement at the start of the year by the Maharashtra Government.

    “The lockdown had worsened the situation and the liquidity crisis in the real estate industry. The department’s proposal to provide discounted premiums of 50% on all new and on-going projects will go a long way to ease the liquidity constraints faced by the sector.

    This will boost new launches in the market and lead to a reduction in the project cost for developers. The stamp duty reduction helped the sector regain from the pandemic with property registrations rising in the state and now with lesser premiums, it will provide great impetus to the business. Homebuyers should definitely consider this as a golden opportunity to buy their homes,” he added.

    The State Government had, in September, lowered stamp duty from the existing 5 per cent to 2 per cent till December 31 2020 and pegged it at 3 per cent from January 1 till March 31, 2021. This led to a jump in property sales in Mumbai and other major cities.