postal regn. no. nmb/154/2017-19/vashi mdg post …rni no. mahen/2007/21778 postal regn. no....

RNI No. MAHEN/2007/21778 POSTAL REGN. NO. NMB/154/2017-19/VASHI MDG POST OFFICE

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Navi Mumbai

VOL. 13 • ISSUE 137October

2019SATURDAY

12

Annual

exhibition

cum saleStudents, staff

and management ofSwami BrahmanandPratishthan, Centrefor special children isorganizing their30th annual exhibi-tion cum sale on Oc-tober 12, 2019 from10.30 am to 6.30pmat Swami Brah-manand Pratish-than ‘Nav-Shanti’,plot no 7, Sector 8A,CBD, Navi Mumbai.

Coffee with

Goa CMGoa State Chief

Minister PramodSawant will be com-ing in the city on theOctober 12. He willbe participating inthe ‘Coffee with CM’-a chat programmewith Navi Mumbaidoctors. The pro-gramme will be heldbetween 4 pm to5 pm at GrandMookambika Hotel,plot No 1, Sector 1A,Koperkhairane, in-formed Dr. RahulDhale, President ofdoctors Cell.

NEWS INBRIEF

NAVI MUMBAI: Elec-tronic waste or e-wasteis emerging as a seri-ous public health andmajor environmentalconcern in the country.With an aim to in-crease consumers’knowledge about e-waste and how to dis-pose it off correctly, en-vironmental groups,students and NGOs inthe city have come to-gether to observe theInternational E-wasteDay on October 14,

City to observe globalE-Waste Day on October 14

Red bins, street play, human chain tocreate awareness about safe disposal

2019.As part of the cam-

paign spearheaded byenvironment forum,The Nature Connect

and NGO Navi Mum-bai First, studentsfrom Anchorwala Edu-

Contd. on pg. 2

Contd. on pg. 7

Contd. on pg. 9

By Abhitash D. Singh

NAVI MUMBAI: Un-like most of the sta-tions inCentraland West-ern rail-way line,the sta-tions inN a v iMumbaiare stillnot com-m u t e rfriendly,say seniorcitizens.The sta-tions nei-ther havee s c a l a -tors norelevatorsdue to which they haveto use staircases, whichbecomes a difficulttask, they add.

Both the Centraland Western Railwayhad decided to installescalators and eleva-tors at most of the sta-tions in the year 2011.After eight years, mostof the stations in bothcentral and westernlines have at least twoto three escalators andalso lifts but this facil-

Senior Citizens demandEscalators & Lifts

Most of the stations do

not have the facility

ity is still a dream forthe Navi Mumbaikars.

Sunil Parab (60) aresident ofUlwe whot r a v e l sf r o mKharkoparto Vashi dai-ly says, “Itbecomes dif-ficult for theperson ofmy age totravel in thelocal traindue to un-availabilityof lifts andescalatorsin almostall the sta-tions of NaviMumbai. I

have to take staircasesfor changing thetrains.”

By Crime Reporter

NAVI MUMBAI: TheAPMC police have ar-rested members of agang who issued fakedriving license. Thegang allegedly stole thecancelled driving li-censes from the NaviMumbai RTO officeand made around 245fake driving licenses. Alarge number of fakelicenses, rubber stampsof Navi Mumbai, Pan-

Fake driving license racket busted

245 fake licenses seized

Saturday, 12 October 2019www.newsband.in | [email protected] 2

ATTENTION READERSWhile every effort is made to check the genuineness ofparty/parties inserting ads in this paper, we cannot be heldresponsible for the truthfulness of its contents. The publish-ers, Editor and/or the staff cannot be held responsible forany loss or damage due to transactions that they may enterinto guided by the ads.

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Sec. 30A, Vashi, Navi Mumbai 400 703. • RNI No. MAHENG2007/21778 • Postal Regn. No. NMB/154/2014-16/Vashi MDG Post Office

• ABC Certificte No. 133/2106 Phone : 2087 0513 / 2781 5380 Telefax : 2781 5380 e-mail : [email protected] website : www.newsband.in

By Ashok Dhamija

NAVI MUMBAI: USAbased Tia Walker, arenowned publicspeaker, facilitator ofwomen’s groups,healthy lifestyleadvocate and proudmother of three sonsonce said “To care forthose who once caredfor us is one of thehighest honors.”

Who better can bereferred in our closesurroundings, thanone’s own Grandpar-ents. They are thefamily’s greatesttreasure, the founders

RCS Students Pay Tributes To Elders With Love & Affection

Secondary students pen their thought about their sweet memories about their Grand Parents during one of the manyactivities held to mark the International Elder’s Day

Montessori students showcasing their personalised greeting cards and mimicked their Grandparents. Few of them even dressed like their elders in the family

of a loving legacy, thegreatest storytellers,the keepers of tradi-

tions. Grandparentsare the family’sstrong foundation.

Through their speciallove and care, grand-parents keep a family

close at heart. Tohonour them and toappreciate their

contribution towardsthe society an activitywas conducted onFriday 11th of Octo-ber 2019 by RyanChristian schoolVashi.

Ryanites fromMont I to Gr. VIIImade beautifulgreeting cards toexpress their love andgratitude for theirgrandparents. Littleones from Montessorisection also imitatedtheir grandparentswith role plays muchto the delight of thegathering.

cation Academy willstage a street play andconduct a humanchain at Vashi Railwaystation focusing on e-waste management. Lions Club of NaviMumbai NRI will alsoparticipate.

In a first citizen en-deavour, The NatureConnect will keep adedicated red e-wastebin at its premises atSector-6 as a perma-nent facility for peopleto deposit their dis-carded e waste prod-ucts, which may in-clude gadgets likesmartphone, tablets,

laptops, cameras, TVsetc.

A group of citizenswill gather at 11 am onSaturday to formallylaunch the campaign.“We will hand over theE waste to governmentrecognised labs for safedisposal and recy-cling,” said B N Ku-mar, director of TheNature Connect. An-chorwala EducationAcademy has also kepta red bin at its schoolinviting students, par-ents and teachers tomake use of it.

The Nature Con-nect has aligned itselfwith the Europe basedWEEE (Waste Electricsand Electric Equip-ment) Forum to focuson scientific disposal ofe-waste. “During our

last year’s collectivecampaign, Navi Mum-bai Municipal Corpora-tion (NMMC) had an-nounced to set up anE-waste education sec-tion at the country’sfirst Swachh Park atKoparkhairane. Thatwas a good beginning.We now need to go be-yond this Park conceptand ensure proper col-lection and disposal,”said Kumar.

The Nature Con-nect has launched acampaign addressingthe Chief Ministers ofStates like Maharash-tra, Telangana, Kar-nakata and Haryanawhich has IT andITES hubs using andreplacing electronicequipment in largenumbers.

“The ill-effects ofimproper and irrespon-sible disposal of e-waste are too wellknown to be de-scribed,” said MohanGurnani, Chairman ofNavi Mumbai First.“We are told that highand prolonged exposureto these chemicals andpollutants emitted dur-ing unsafe e-waste re-cycling leads to dam-age of nervous sys-tems, blood systems,kidneys and brain de-velopment, respiratorydisorders, skin disor-ders, bronchitis, lungcancer, heart, liver,and spleen damage,”he said.

N a n d a k u m a rPawar, head of ShreeEkvika Aai Pratishtansaid: “We have ap-

pealed to the PM andthe various States totake appropriate policymeasures and save thenation from futureshocks. Sadly, envi-ronment care is one ofthe most neglected as-pects by the Centreand States.”

”It is shockingthat the awarenessabout proper disposalof e-waste if generallylacking and hencemany of us tend to sellit as any other junk tokabadi and raddiwalas,”

lamented Lions clubmember, Vijayalaksh-mi B.

It may be recalledthat according to AS-SOCHAM, an indus-trial body in India, theCompound AnnualGrowth Rate (CAGR) ofelectronic waste is30%. With changingconsumer behaviourand rapid economicgrowth, ASSOCHAMestimates that Indiawill generate 5.2 mil-lion tonnes of e-wasteby 2020.

City toobserveglobal...Contd. from pg. 1

12 - 18 October 2019www.newsband.in | [email protected] 3

Two Nigerians arrested for selling drugsto school students in Navi Mumbai

By Crime Reporter

NAVI MUMBAI: A spe-cial anti-narcoticsteam of Circle-1 hasarrested two Nigeriancitizens and a peddlerwho smuggled heroinand methaculonedrugs to students invarious schools, colleg-es in Navi Mumbai. Ac-cording to DeputyCommissioner of Po-lice, Pankaj Dahane,heroin and methacu-lone powder worth Rs.2 lakh were seized fromboth the men.

According to police,a student, GaneshSuryavanshi wasfound consuming drugby a patrolling specialanti- narcotics team ofzone-1. When the spe-cial squad interrogatedhim, Ganesh informed

about a man namedImran Gulshan Khan(30), who sold drugsnear Fr. Agnel Schoolin Vashi. Accordingly,special squad laid atrap and nabbed Imrannear the school. Thepolice found 12 gramsof methaculone underhis possession. Whenthe team further in-quired, he informedabout two other accom-plices.

Following whichthe special squad, withthe help of ImranKhan, called Nigeriancitizen Anhee KingsleyChinedu, 29, near Fr.Agnel’s school. Howev-er, he tried to flee whenhe saw police. But, Spe-cial branch AssistantPolice Inspector Gan-gadhar Devde and his

team chased andnabbed the Nigeriancitizen and arrestedhim. When the policechecked they found 35grams of heroin in hispossession. Subse-quently, both the Nige-rian citizens and Im-ran Khan have beenarrested under NDPS,said Deputy Commis-sioner of Police PankajDahane.

The Nigerian citi-zen, Anhey KingsleyChinedu, arrested inthe case, was smug-gling drugs and sup-plying to Imran Khan.It is learnt that thesedrugs were sold to stu-dents near Fr AgnelSchool, ICL College inNavi Mumbai, as wellas the students at DYPatil College in Nerul.

By Chandrashekhar Hendve

On the occasion ofVijayadashami (Dusse-hra), the Muslimcommunity in Turbheunder the aegis ofMadina Navi MumbaiCommittee distributed

Sharbat distrubuted on Vijayadashami

Sharbat to thedevotees. Present onthis occasion wereAnwar Shaikh,former Navi MumbaiMunicipal Transportcommittee chairman,Madina Navi Mumbai

committee presidentNajim Qureshi, Vicepresident FarooqSheikh, Secretary Wasim Shaikh,Treasurer IsmailQureshi, Salim Khanand others.

Training provided to citizens about voting in Agarkoli Bhavan in Navi Mumbai Nerul(Sumit Renose).

Deep Mela at Urban HaatOn the occasion of

Diwali, Deep Mela hasbeen organised at Ur-ban Haat in Belapurfrom 19th October to28th October, 2019 be-tween 11.00 am to9.00 p.m.

Artisans and art-ists from Maharash-tra State Small ScaleIndustries Board, De-partment of Tribal De-velopment, GoM,Madhya PradeshHandicraft and Hand-loom Development Cor-poration and from var-ious states like Rajast-

han, Gujarat, Odisha,Kerala, Tamil Nadu,Uttar Pradesh, Bihar,Chhattisgarh andHaryana will be dis-

playing traditional artand craft products dur-ing the Deep Mela.

The main attraction

will be the colourful di-yas (lamps) in varioussizes while the otherproducts include hand-loom clothes, modern

dress material,sarees, crafts, aro-matic candles, juteproducts, artificialjewellery etc. Therewill also be food stallsdisplaying the tradi-tional delicacies. Cul-tural programmeswill be held on week-

days between 07.00 pmto 09.00 pm to add fla-vour to the pro-gramme.

By Crime Reporter

NAVI MUMBAI: Theanti-narcotics teamarrested a smallvendor for sellingcigarettes and othertobacco products tochildren under the ageof 18.

The action wastaken followingcomplaints to theAnti-Narcotics En-forcement Teamagainst a shopkeeperin Vashi Sector-2 whowas selling cigarettesand other tobacco

Vendor arrested for sellingtobacco products to minors

products to minors.Despite ban on sellingcigarettes and othertobacco products tominors under the ageof 18.

Accordingly, theanti-narcotics teamwhich was monitoringthe shop in VashiSector-2 on Thursdaycaught the ownergiving cigarette to a16-year-old boy. Theanti-narcotics teamalso shot a video.Later, the team raidedhis home and arrest-

ed, KanhaiyalalGupta, 55 undersection 77, 78 of theChildren Act (JuvenileJustice Act, 2015).

“The police saidthat the action will betaken against shop-keepers if they arefound selling tobaccoand drugs, such asleaves, sugary nuts,tobacco, gutkha,cigarettes, alcohol tominors under 18 yearsof age,” said seniorpolice inspectorRavindra Budhwant.

Election Office of Airoli 150 constituencyholds an awareness camp for senior citizens

and people with physically challenged

By Chandrashekahr Hendve

NAVI MUMBAI: Withan aim to have goodvoter’s turnout duringthe upcoming assem-bly election, whichwill be held on 21st

October, 2019 theElection Office AbhayKargutkar orgainsedan awareness camp of

the specially abled andsenior citizens underAiroli 150 constituen-cy. Detailed informa-tion about ramps,wheelchairs, transportsystem, etc., wereprovided to the votersunder the guidance ofElection DecisionOfficer Abhay Kargut-

kar.During the aware-

ness camp Mr. Kar-gutkar gave demon-stration of the actualvoting process whichis done via the EVMmachine. He gaveinformation to the

Contd. on pg. 4


Gone are the dayswhen Navi Mumbaiwas just twin city along-side Mumbai. It istime to expand the ra-dius of these Metro cit-ies beyond and have atwin city concept. There are many 2 tiercities developing andonce these cities take astrong hold, Mumbaihas to be able to com-pete with them. NaviMumbai, Mumbai’ssatellite city, itself, isgiving Mumbai a runfor its money. The sat-ellite city is home tomany IT parks andhead office of variouscorporates. Same istrue for Bangalore, Hy-derabad, Chennai andmore recently Noidaand Pune. These 2ndrung cities have theadvantage of being bet-ter planned andequipped with betterinfrastructure, lesserpopulation, tax breaksetc. Mumbai, on theother hand is crowded,expensive and polluted.

It is time to aimhigh and should have abroader outlook. Ourvision should go beyondour expectations and wemust strive harder forgetting back the smartcity status. We shouldhave a vision for thefuture. Already, NaviMumbai is the cleanestcity in India and we arein the seventh positionand by striving hard,

Aiming for smart city status for the satellite citywe can touch 3rd posi-tion. Already, NaviMumbai is a childfriendly city with num-ber of schools and chil-dren’s parks availablein plenty. It hasachieved the status of alivable city and an In-ternational Airport iscoming up soon. More-over it is an eco-friend-ly city and measuresare underway to main-tain its environmentfriendly nature. It is aregional economic cen-tre with commercialcapital Mumbai by ourside. Again it is a tran-sit oriented city withtransport available togo to anywhere in theentry. With Konkanrailways starting fromPanvel and it is an en-route to many places.

There are lots of ex-pectations from Smartcities concept coming inIndia. Many of the pro-posed smart cities inIndia lacks basic infra-structure and the deci-sion to include them isdefeated with the draw-backs particularly lackof drinking water andother amenities. Withincreasing urbaniza-tion and the load onrural land, the govern-ment has now realisedthe need for cities thatcan cope with the chal-lenges of urban livingand also be magnets forinvestment. The an-nouncement of ‘100smart cities’ falls in linewith this vision.

A ‘smart city’ is anurban region that ishighly advanced interms of overall infra-structure, sustainablereal estate, communi-cations and market vi-ability. It is a city where

information technologyis the principal infra-structure and the basisfor providing essentialservices to residents.There are many tech-nological platforms in-volved, including butnot limited to automat-ed sensor networks anddata centres. Thoughthis may sound futur-istic, it is now likely tobecome a reality as the‘smart cities’ movement

unfolds in India.There are 10 basic

needs for achieving theyardstick and citizensexpect those basicamenities. The mainand the major ones arecommented upon here:-We need to have betterpublic transport sys-tem to be at par withworld’s best cities. Thegrowing urbanisationhas increased the num-ber of private vehiclesthereby creating trafficcongestion in almost allcities of India. In Mum-bai we look upon localtrains as our lifelineand if it stops on dayand everything goesawry.

In our roads, the

pedestrians should begiven a pride of place.We need to have betterplanning to make ourdream come true. Cit-izens will enjoy widepathways with streetfurniture at regular in-tervals with easy mo-bility to differently-abled. Car free Sundaythat will make streetsavailable for citizens tointeract and do lot ofactivities on streets.

Availability of ade-quate parking is theneed of the hour asnumber of vehicles areplying on the roads. With more and moreheavy vehicles on thestreet, manoeuvringthrough the heavy ve-hicular traffic is atough task. On streetparking managementis a reliable revenue forthe cities, which can beused to furtherstrengthen publictransportation systemin cities. Managing theon street parking willreduce traffic conges-tion, increase effectivecarriage way widthavailable for the vehi-cles to commute, re-

duce fuel, reduces prop-osition in the smartcity race. Thus wewould like to have lesstraffic congestion.

As we propose tohave a safe and soundliving with hassle freecivic services. Initia-tives such as LEDlights to ensure pedes-trian safety, video sur-veillance to monitorcrime in the city withan effective commoncontrol centre to moni-tor the traffic violationsand to ensure efficienton street parking man-agement. Most impor-tantly, this will enablecitizen’s engagement inall aspects of city func-tioning as the datasharing or transparen-cy between governmentand citizens will be aforum for citizens tounderstand the knowhow of their city.

The major and fore-most is the need for di-saster managementcell. Disasters are in-evitable, however hu-man interventions intaking up precaution-ary measures will helpin minimising the lossto a great extent. Clean and healthyneighbourhood is ablessing in disguise. Solid waste manage-ment through smartsolutions to make roadsclean and to ensure ahealthy environment isconsidered as an impor-tant factor for smartcities. Recycling ofwaste will produce re-newable energy, en-sures safe disposal ofsolid waste, preventssoil and environmentalpollution and reducesdepletion of resources.

There is need for

easy access to all basicinfrastructure withbest quality cent percent efficiency. The ef-ficiency of the utilitiesin one that is notachieved till date due toinadequate monitoring.Making the city beau-tiful is of foremost im-portance. Cities are fo-cusing on developingmore lung spaces in thecity. As part of smartcity initiatives, smartcomponents like cy-cling, street furniture,jogging track, space forhawkers etc., will con-tribute a lost in en-hancing aesthetic ofthe city. Green spaceswill get a new dimen-sion with new soft andhard landscape withWI-fi hot spots, whichwill be an interestingsport for citizens to re-lax, exercise and inter-act. It also plays amajor role in creatinga healthy and sustainedenvironment.

Now it is time tomake sure that the cityis clean and green togive the much neededambiance required forsetting up a smartcity. The city will haveto take up the addition-al responding of provid-ing quality education,dependable power sup-ply, health conscious-ness, e-governance, af-fordable housing forpoor, water supply andseveral other sectorswould be the centre offocus under the project. Smart city tag willbring cheers to the citi-zens of the country andwe dream of becominga place to behold in theworld.The writer is freelancer and

resides in Sanpada

By C K Subramaniam

citizens about thevarious servicesarranged for thepeople to ensure thatthey do not facedifficulties duringvoting.

During the campDeputy Commissioner(License) and ETC

Chief Kranti Patilwere present. Speak-ing during the occa-sion Mr. Kargutkarsaid, “Various facili-ties have been ar-ranged for the physi-cally challenged peopleand senior citizens.”He appealed them toturn in large numbersduring the voting day.

On this occasionSujatkha Tadavi(assistant electionofficer), Samata

ElectionOffice ofAiroli...

Cont. from pg. 1

Surve (DeputyTahsildar), VilasWhaval, ArvindUrsal, Ashutosh

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Solase (Nodal Officer)as well as a centraloffice coordinatingofficer were present.


By Dilip Sengupta

People born duringthis week of any yearhave the right inten-tions and you ride theright horses but the re-wards are not as expect-ed. There are new op-portunities and achance of true peace,plenty and prosperity.You take a break andspend time with conge-nial companion ship.You try to take yourhair down and laugh,play and relax, but itdoesn’t help too much.Deep down you knowthat your plans are notworking and as you hadhoped they would. Youneed to look ahead withhope .You look at themetaphysical aspects oflife and seek answers.It’s a time for deep in-trospection. Therecould be marital prob-lems and several indul-gencies that trap youand throw you frontal-ly into a downward spi-ral, i.e a way of yourown making. Yourmind is not rock steadyand is the cause of allyour problems.

There is some confi-dence and self beliefs inyour efforts but theyare still not bearingfruit. You are in debtand take to gamble andother excesses, it ishigh time that you pullup your socks or itcould get too late. Thefamily is pained bywhat they see and youto refuse to hear thesane counsel of friendsand well wishers.Youknow they are right butyou are adamant andrefuse to listen to yourinner voice which tellsyou to change in nouncertain terms. Yourmind is warped andyou are being swayed bynew found associateswho don’t mean well foryou .You need to extri-cate yourself from the

quicksand of life rightnow before it smothersto completely in itsslush.

You are trying yourbest to the most of therotten situation thatyou find yourself in. Itwill help you to take toself disciplining,through yoga and med-itation. Work is unat-tended and you couldrisk a job loss and thiscould to further ramifi-cation. You need to sta-ble your boat to a sta-ble ground and makean all out effort to do it.The waters are nowswirling around yourneck and you could re-alise that you coulddrown in it. Everybodyhelps you. Family andfriends rally aroundyou and with every ef-fort you salvage the lostground. Suddenly eventotal strangers lend ahelping hand.

There is progress inyour affairs as youwrestle to quell. Thedemons that houndyou. You look at growthand advancement andyou push hard toachieve your potential.You could see manychanges which couldinclude your job hope ora new line of work alto-gether. You feel isolat-ed now and need towork back lost prestige.You take time off andspend it in Ashramsand for GURU’s look-ing for answers. Theremay be even a pilgrim-age to a shrine as youneed divine help. Youhave the rails and needto get back on thetrack. Your mind is stillplaying tricks with youand you strive to quellit.

There is a shimmerof hope as you slowlyregain control of yourlife. You need to getback the respect of your

peers and believing inyourself more. You getdiscipline in your lifeand get organised. Youput in long hours atwork and start from thescratch. The dividendsstarts showing almostimmediately as thoughyour life was just wait-ing to be set right andlooking for the slightestexcuse to stabilise it-self. Finance improvesand so do the relation-ships. There are otherpersonal gains too butthe larger canvassneeds to be more illumi-nated as you knowwhere you are headed.

You are pulling your-self from the bootstraps.You have indulged your-self in various ways andfeel it’s time to returnto the daily grind. Youmake Super human ef-forts at your job frontand realise that you re-alise that the sincerehard work is the need ofthe day.

Enquiries, if any aresolicited on No.9869472971.

By Lakshman Sundar

The Anushaktina-gar Kanchi KamakotiKainkarya Sabha(AKKKS) organizedNavarathri Festivalat Sri ShakthiVinayaka & Sri RajaRajeswari Templeinside BARC Complexby having culturalprograms in whichvarious artistes fromMumbai and NaviMumbai participated.On Saturday, October5th Vashi basedCarnatic VocalistSmt. PraveenaGouthaman delighteda discerning audienceby singing famouscompositions inhonour of GoddessesDurga, Saraswathiand Lakshmi.

She commencedthe evening concertwith a KalyaniVarnam. Then Bhaja

Magnificent performanceby Praveena Gouthaman

Manasa in raagamBahudari with Kalpa-na Svaram followed.Saraswathi Na-mothuthe in Saras-wathi raagam com-posed by late Shri. byG N Balasubramanianand Sri RajaRajeswari in Poor-nachandrilka byShri. MuthusamyDhikshithar werepresented with con-summate passion andutmost devotion. Thencame Janani in SudhaSaveri by Shri. SwatiThirunal, ShankariShankuru (ThisraNadai) in Saveri byShri Shyama Sastri,Srinivasa in Hamsan-andam by Shri Papa-nasam Sivan andBhaagyada LakshmiBaaramma by SaintPurandara Dasar- allsparkling like dia-monds in a bejewelled

crown in Smt.Praveena Goutha-man’s exquisiteportrayal. She keptthe audience enrap-tured and entrancedfor more than anhour and half. “Itturned out be a greatevening of puretraditional Carnaticmusic. The artistevirtually transportedus to heaven throughher divine andmelodious voice,” saida group of connois-seurs of music whocame from Kharghar,Navi Mumbai.

The accompanistsShri. Satish Seshadrion the violin andShri. Anirudh Srini-vasan on the mridan-gam gave a goodsupport.

The artistes werehonored by thePresident of AKKKS.


By Ashok Dhamija

NAVI MUMBAI: Over2000 athletes (Boys andGirls) in three age groupsU-14, U-17 and U-19from over 55 schools inNavi Mumbai jurisdic-tion are participating inthe District Sports OfficeAthletics meet being or-ganized by NMMCSports Department atBharatratna Rajiv Gan-dhi Sports Complex, CBDBelapur. Photo featureshows some exciting mo-ments on Day 1 whichwitnessed 32 finals invarious Track and Fieldevents.

Navi Mumbai DSO Athletics Meet Gets Underway

The lush green track provided an ideal opportunity for the budding athletes in the U-14 age group to run bare foot.

Close finishes including those in the qualifying roundsof the relay event were the order of the opening day.

Fellow athletes find something to smile about duringone of the event even as their Coach keeps track of thebusy schedule of various Track and Field events for herathletes

Sai Sawant who won the Long Jump Gold in the U-19 Girls category also anchored Fr Agnel 4x100m Relay team to theglory on the opening day. Sai (extreme right) joins her U-19 other members of the quartet (Inset) which included (Lto R) Nidhi Shetty, Kirti Madhvi, Dharitri Nandy who were part of the successful Agnels team which had earlier alsowon the Navi Mumbai DSO U-19 Girls Football title.

A young athlete gets some support from his team matein order to me fit for the next race.

New Horizon Public School, Airoli athletes too made amark in various Track and Field the events on the open-ing day. They included (L to R in front row) Ishani Panthand Archit Mahale who came second in the Girls andBoys U 17 Discuss Throw events. On the other hand (Lto R second row) Smit Gaingade Shashank Kubeskarboth U-17 came in first in Long Jump and 100m events,while Prathmesh Patil (U-14) and Jay Adake (U-19) toocame in first in 100m and Javelin Throw respectively.

A Thane District Athletics Association official documents the proceedings at the finishline.


By Ashok Dhamija

NAVI MUMBAI: Totake a closer look atthe Community Help-er, who maintainslaw & order and ful-fils the responsibilityof providing securityto the citizens, an ed-ucational outfield tripto the nearby policestation was organizedfor the MontessoriSection of Ryan Inter-national School ,Kharghar early thisweek

The tiny tots smil-ingly greeted the menin kakhi with confi-dence. The young cit-izens were thrilled tosee the various de-partments of a policestation such as thewireless room, policelockup, case diaryroom, the weaponsroom etc. The inspec-tor on duty explainedabout the proceduralaspects of a com-plaint. He also tookthe students to theweapons room, wherehe demonstrated howto use a gun. The stu-dents were intriguedto see the gun andeven more excitedwhen they had ahands on experience.

“Even though formajority of the chil-dren, it was a maidenvisit to the police sta-tion they were not in-hibited by presence of

Young Citizens Embark On AEducative Trip To A Police Station

policemen, but wereeager to shake handswith them and movedaround the premisescomfortably. The pur-pose of the visit was ful-filled, which was tomake the students un-derstand the physicalstructure of a police sta-tion and make themaware of the nature of

The Montessori students of Ryan Kharghar enjoyed their educative outdoor trip to thenearest Police Station

Time to witness weapons used by men in kakhi at closequarters

A lady Police official extends warm welcome to all theyoung visitors

duties performed by po-licemen. It was an en-joyable experience forthe kids. On their wayback to school the stu-dents sang the rhyme‘Wheels of the bus’ andcouldn’t wait to sharetheir experience withparents” shared Swap-na Wale, Section Headof the institute.

KHARGHAR: Studentsof Saraswati College ofEngineering (SCOE),Kharghar won Mumbaiwon first prize for Pre-sentation at the Region-al level Nurturing Intel-ligence of Curious Engi-neers (NICE) competi-

Students of SCOE bring laurels

tion held at KJSIEIT,Sion.

Students from var-ious prestigious colleg-es in Mumbai regionparticipated in thecompetition. Dr. Man-jusha Deshmukh(Principal), Dr. Sunil

Rangari (Dean) and Dr.Madan Jagtap (Dean)of SCOE congratulatedthe students for theirstupendous perfor-mances. SCOE nowqualifies for NICESouth-Asia 2019 com-petition.

By Ashok Dhamija

NAVI MUMBAI: Blue-the colour of the sea andthe sky, Makes thespirit rise and fly….TheMontessori section ofRyan Sanpada celebrat-ed Blue Day on Friday

Funfilled Activities MarkBlue Day Celebrations

11 Oct, 2019 with en-thusiasm in the schoolpremises.

The teachers ex-plained the importanceof colors and showedthem various things inblue color through

props, toys and charts.As water is blue, theteachers took the oppor-tunity to make the tinytots aware about theimportance of water

Blue over the ages has been one of the favourite colour of Boys

Dressed in variants of Blue Girls too participated with enthusiasm and showcasevarious props, toys etc .

Contd. on pg. 7


Issue : 137 12 October, 2019

Om Books Interna-tional celebrated thelaunch of The AladiaSisters Khalid Moham-ed’s debut novel. Thenovel was launched byChief Guest, BollywoodDirector KaranJohar and Guest of Ho-nour Anil Kapoor, whospoke about KhalidMohamed’s immensecontribution to Hindicinema.

On the occasion,Karan Johar, AnilKapoor, Khalid Mo-hamed, Javed Akhtarand Publisher, AjayMago shared their ex-periences of putting to-gether the book.

Also present on theoccasion were AshaParekh, Lalita Lajmi,Maria Goretti, AnoopSoni, Juhi Babbar, Ra-jniesh Duggall andAchint Kaur, amongothers.

About the book

Traversing the eraof the British Raj, thePartition and India’sIndependence to thehere and now of the In-ternet millennium, thestory of six sisters of apatriarchal Muslimfamily, is investigatedby a journalist. Beforecoming of age, the sis-ters had run away inthe deep cover of thenight from a Haryanavillage to define theirlives and destinies. Be-gan an undeclaredgame of may-the-best-sister win. Earn mon-ey, express inchoate tal-ents in the arts, hookthe richest husband,raise the next genera-tion right – these werejust a scattering oftheir to-do list.Through confidencesand vignettes, updatesand interviews, theMumbai journalisttravels between Delhi,Ajmer, Mount Abu andLondon, to recreate thenarrative of a confeder-acy of women whodared to break the rulesway before they werewritten. The story –blending fact and fiction– could have been

Bollywood celebrities galore at thelaunch of Khalid Mohamed’s debut

novel ‘The Aladia Sisters’chronicled only by onejournalist, the grand-son of one of the sisters.

About the Author

Khalid Mohamedstarted as reviewer andco-editor during histeenage years, forClose-Up, a film societyquarterly magazine.He then covered crime,politics and the arts forThe Times of India,Mumbai, from the mid-

1970s, engaged in dai-ly reporting and filmcriticism. AppointedMedia Editor of the pa-per, he went on to serveas editor of Filmfaremagazine, while con-tinuing as the daily’sfilm critic for 27 years.He reviewed televisionfor The EconomicTimes besides contrib-uting articles to The Il-lustrated Weekly of In-dia and Femina. Hiswriting has also beenfeatured in India To-day, The Indian Ex-press, The Telegraph,the international filmweekly, Variety, and inthe Sunday Observer,London. He was filmcritic for Mid-day, Se-nior Editor of DNAnewspaper, and Na-tional Culture Editorand film critic for theHindustan Times. Apost-graduate in Polit-ical Science fromMumbai’s St Xavier’sCollege, he has trans-lated eminent painterM.F. Husain’s autobi-ography – Where ArtThou? – from Hin-dustani to English. He

has written the origi-nal stories and screen-plays for three films byShyam Benegal: Mam-mo, Sardari Begumand Zubeidaa. Hewrote the original sto-ries and screenplays forthe films, Fiza, Te-hzeeb and Silsiilay andalso directed them. Hewas playwright and di-rector of the stage playKennedy Bridge. His

documentaries TheLast Irani Chai, LittleBig People on Mum-bai’s street children,and The Master: Shy-am Benegal, have beenwidely screened at in-ternational film festi-vals and on television.He has written twoshort story collections– Two Mothers andOther Stories and Fac-tion: Short Stories by22 Film Personalities

Speaking about thebook, Ajay Mago, Pub-lisher, Om Books In-ternational said, “TheAladia Sisters is trib-ute to the novel as anart form. It a story thatstarted germinatingyears ago, was castinto different art formsbefore being distilledinto a novel spanningthree generations. Thecanvas is vast, and thechoices made by theprotagonists—six sis-ters—caught at thecrossroad of the na-tion’s and their person-al histories, make it anovel reminiscent ofthe classics we grew upwith.”

Sustainable developmentis the need of the hour

Economic Development vs. Environment protection- This hasbecome the biggest dilemma and the topic of heated debate intoday’s world.

Even though development and growth have always been vitalto people, dramatic changes in the climate as well as its impact onthe environment have made a sea change in the perception of de-velopment in the recent years.

The Indian economy has grown at a tremendous pace over thelast few decades. With the fast paced construction, there has alsobeen large influx of people migrating from rural areas to citiesleading to newer settlements. While, the development growth hashelped the rising population in improving their quality of life, ithas led to compromise in the natural habitat of animals as theyhave been displaced from many a places where high rise buildingshave come up.

The catastrophic consequences of environment degradation forachieving growth rapidly have been largely visible as the numberof floods as well as torrential rains have increased drastically andthe world is experiencing global warming, rising pollution etc.

There is no denying the fact that both development and envi-ronment are important in their respective spheres. While on theone hand, to eradicate poverty and increase growth in the econo-my, development is mandatory. Without economic development anation cannot come out of the vicious circle of poverty and cannotprovide their residents a guarantee of survival. On the other hand,rapid development is depleting the natural resources, withoutwhich survival is impossible.

Development and environment need to be seen as complemen-tary, not antagonistic terms. Although the issue has gained moreimportance in today’s grave scenario, sadly, environment conser-vation is still a neglected sector. Improper implementation of pol-icies, coupled with indifferent attitudes of authorities has accentu-ated the ineffectiveness of environment strategy in India.

What probably is needed is to create more awareness and sen-sitivity towards the environment and the best way to do so is totap students. We should also provide infrastructure for waste man-agement, water harvesting and paper recycling in schools and col-leges which can help in sowing the seeds of environment conscious-ness in young minds.

Environmental balance has been one of the primary reasonswhy sustainability has been maintained for thousands of years. Ifdevelopment is achieved at the cost of spoiling environment, thendevelopment loses its sheen. What needs to be focused andstressed upon is sustainable development. The development shouldbe planned and carried out in such a way that it uses as less naturalresources as possible and also saves a considerable amount forour future generations. With this sustainable development, theeconomic growth of the world is also not restricted and the envi-ronment is also taken care of. We all need to join hand in thisendeavour. A conscious step by each one of us can go a long way inmaintaining a perfect balance between environment and develop-ment.

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Employees fromJohnson & Johnson’salong with their fami-lies collected over 1057kilograms of plasticwaste across India insupport of the Indian

Johnson & Johnson India employeesjoin forces to battle plastic pollution

government’s Swach-hata Hi Seva initiative.

“We laud the Indiangovernment’s sustain-ability initiatives, andas responsible corpo-rate citizens, remain

committed to the ef-forts to reduce the reli-ance on single-useplastic,” says VikasSrivastava, ManagingDirector, Consumer In-dia at Johnson &

Johnson. ”At Johnson& Johnson, we encour-age and support civicimprovements thathelp protect the envi-ronment and naturalresources,” he added.

Hawkers are a nuisanceThe hawkers menace in Mumbai and its sub-

urbs is getting out of control. Hill Road in Ban-dra (West) has become a terrible and horribleplace with hawkers occupying the road rightfrom Bandra railway station to Mehboob Stu-dios and even further. Majority of these hawk-ers selling clothes and other items do not evenhave a license. The concerned authorities shouldtake a strict action against them.

Jubel D’Cruz, Mumbai

A burning issueThe common practice for household refuse

disposal in rural areas is to dump solid wastesopenly in backyard gardens or in an open space.Such indiscriminate disposal is an environmen-tal hazard and can threaten human health andsafety.

Solid waste that is improperly disposed ofcan result in a number of problems. It can cre-ate a breeding ground for pathogenic microor-ganisms and vectors of disease, and cause apublic nuisance due to unsightliness and badsmell. It can cause contamination of surround-ing soil, groundwater and surface water, and itcan also create fire hazards, physical hazardsand have poisoning effects (from pesticides andinsecticides).

However, these problems can be avoided byusing appropriate management techniques. Forall waste management issues, your role shouldbe to engage community members and fami-lies in awareness of the solid waste problems intheir area and try to change their behaviour.In doing so, it should be possible to have a clean,attractive and sustainable environment.

Proper management of solid waste will helpyour community prevent communicable diseas-es and safeguard the environment in a sustain-able manner.

C.K Subramaniam, Millennium Towers, Sanpada

Letters to the Editor....

Hasina Barakhab(72) a resident of Nerulsaid, “Undoubtedlymost of the stations onthe western and centrallines are commuterfriendly. Commuters,especially elderly peopleor those with physicalchallenges or expectantmothers, need facilitieslike elevators, escala-tors- which are the ba-sic amenities. However,same is not the case inNavi Mumbai’s station.The central railwayshould provide at leasttwo escalators and twolifts at most of the sta-tions in Navi Mumbai.”

Bhakti Dave,President of Panvel

Pravashi Sanghinformed, “We havebeen doing a regularfollow-up with therailway authoritiesand also communicat-ing with the Ministryof Railways for provid-ing escalators as wellas lifts for the benefitof the people of NaviMumbai. We havebeen assured that theproposal for the samewill be taken up soon.We are hopeful thatsoon the stations inNavi Mumbai too willget these facilities,which is likely to bestarted from Airoli andlater at all the stationstill Panvel.”

Central RailwayPublic RelationshipOfficer A K Singh wasunavailable for thecomment even afterseveral attempt.

SeniorCitizens

demand...Contd. from pg. 1

and the reasons to con-serve and save it. Theyexplained the value ofenvironment and itscontribution in ahealthy world. Chil-dren make beautifulbadges with the mes-sage of saving everydrop of water and car-ried proudly the mes-sage to their parents.

“The event is a partof a Funfilled educativeinitiative which is heldover a period of time tointroduce the youngkids on various topics,

colour being one ofthem. All the childrenlooked dazzling brightin various shades ofblue color. Blue is oneof the three primarycolours of pigments inpainting and tradition-al colour theory, as wellas in the RGB colourmodel. Its one of the fa-vorite color of humans.A blue and clear sky, asparkling blue waterbody add to the fitnessof the Earth and help tospread awarenessabout the priority itholds in life” sharedMuriel Fernandes,Principal of the RyanSanpada.

FunfilledActivities...

Cont. from pg. 5

By Ashok Dhamija

Hockey India CEOMs Elena Norman wonthe prestigious ‘Busi-ness Woman of the YearAward’ at the India Aus-tralia Business & Com-munity Awards (IAB-CA) 2019 which is sup-ported by Trade & In-vestment Queenslandheld in Brisbane, Aus-tralia at the IABCAGala on Fridayevening. Ms Normanwas given the Award forher contribution and anoutstanding impact onthe development andpromotion of hockeywithin the country andbeyond.

As may be recalledMs Norman hasworked in the Indiansports industry formore than a decade,and prior to joiningHockey India, sheserved as the COO witha Sports Marketingagency in New Delhi.Her expertise, alongwith her dedication to-wards the growth, de-velopment and better-ment of Indian Hockeyhas seen the Men’s andWomen’s NationalTeams improve tremen-dously over the pastdecade. During her

Hockey India CEO Ms Elena Norman Bags‘Business Woman of the Year Award’ At IABCA 2019

Hockey India CEO Ms Ele-na Norman poses with theIABCA 'Business Womanof the Year 'Award .jpeg

term as the CEO ofHockey India, the Indi-an Women Hockeyteam qualified for theOlympic Games after36 years when they tookpart in the 2016 RioOlympics and climbedto No. 9 in FIH Rank-ings, the Junior Men’sHockey Team won theJunior Hockey WorldCup 2016, the IndianMen’s Hockey teamimproved their rankingto No. 5 in the FIHRankings by virtue ofwinning various inter-national tournaments

around theworld, alongwith thesuccessfulorganizingof variousprestigiousinternation-al eventssuch as theO d i s h aH o c k e yM e n ’ sWorld Cupheld in Bhu-baneswarlast year.

Congrat-ulating Ms Norman on

the occasion, MohdMushtaque Ahmad,President, Hockey In-dia said, “On behalf ofHockey India and itsstaff, I would like to con-gratulate our CEO MsElena Norman, on re-ceiving the prestigiousBusiness Woman of theYear Award at the In-dia Australia Business& Community Awards2019 (IABCA). Over theyears, her contributionto the sport has beenimmense which has

Contd. on pg. 9


X1 Racing League from November 30, powered by JK TyreThe X1 Racing

League; a conceptstarted by Indian rac-ers Armaan Ebrahimand Aditya Patel willhit circuits on Novem-ber 30-December 1 inNew Delhi and Decem-ber 7-8 in Chennai.The league announcedits six team ownersand will be powered byJK Tyres Motorsport.

“We are excited topartner with extreme-ly passionate team own-ers who have a long-term vision to developand build motorsportsin India. We thank JKTyre for believing in usand coming on board asour Powered-By spon-sor. Personally, forAditya and me, this iscompleting a full circlewith them, and wethank Sanjay Sharmafor his enthusiasticsupport. We are excit-ed to partner with One-Plus – they are a glo-bal leader and havemade pioneering ad-vancements in technol-ogy. With them as aTitle Sponsor for X1Racing eSports Season1, we are aiming to setthe gold standard forthe ecosystem in India

and make motorsportaccessible to all. It is ahuge opportunity for

aspiring racers fromIndia to make theirmark and all eyes fromthe racing communitywill be on the leaguethereafter,” said Ar-maan Ebrahim at apress conference heldin Mumbai on Wednes-day.

The franchise-basedX1 Racing League willhave six teams com-prising of four driversand two cars in eachteam. Of the four driv-ers in each team therewill be one internation-al male, one interna-tional female, one Indiainternational and do-mestic racer. Each racewill last for 30 minutes

and will have threeunique team-basedrace formats per day.

The X1 Racing Leaguewill follow the eSportscompetition and willtake place at the Bud-dh International Cir-cuit in Delhi NCR andthe Madras Motor RaceTrack in Chennai.

“We at JK Tyre havebeen nurturing andhoning talents in thecountry for almost overthree decades now andseeing our boys Ar-maan and Aditya whostarted their motor-sport careers with uscome up with this con-cept is so heartwarm-ing. We are happy to beassociated with X1 Rac-ing League which is aninteresting new format

that brings interna-tional motorsport tal-ent to interact with In-

dian talent in this com-position. It will appealto a larger fan base andwith the addition of theeSports league, willmake the sport moreaccessible.” said Mr.Sanjay Sharma, Head-Motorsport, JK Tyre.

The internationalmale racers includeformer F1 Italian rac-er Tonio Luizzi, Malay-sian Alex Yoong, son oflegendary Austrian F1driver Niki Lauda –Mathias, China’sFrankie Cheng andEnglishmen OliverJames Webb and Fred-die Hunt, son of formerF1 world champion,James Hunt. The in-

ternational femaledrivers are Englishracers Pippa Mann

and Alice Powell, Swit-zerland’s Rahel Frey,Denmark’s MichelleGatting and ChristinaNeilsen and Polish rac-er Gosia Rdest.

The X1 RacingLeague teams will berepresenting six cities,franchise owners wereannounced today.These included Chen-nai team to be owned byIndia’s first F1 driverand the fastest Indianin the world NarainKarthikeyan; Delhiteam by the CrownPrince of Abu Dhabi,Sheikh Tahnoon BinSaeed Bin Tahnoon AlNahyan; Pune team byGhadoke group promot-

er Ameet Ghadoke; Hy-derabad team by re-nowned industrialistAkhilesh Reddy andAhmedabad by Pen In-dia Studios promoterDhaval Gada. Thesixth team ownershiphas been confirmed andwill also be announcedshortly.

Adding to the inno-vation in the Indianrealm of motorsports,OnePlus, the globaltechnology brand, hasjoined hands with X1Racing team as the Ti-tle Sponsors to launchthe X1 Racing eSportsSeason 1, a digital sim-ulator-based racingcompetition with a prizepool of Rs.1.5 crore. Thefirst-of-its-kind eSportsinitiative in India willbe organized betweenOctober 10, 2019 andNovember 17, 2019across all franchise cit-ies. The eSports compe-tition will happen at thePhoenix Mall in Chen-nai, Mumbai and Pune,DLF Mall in Delhi,Manjira Mall in Hyder-abad, and One ForumMall in Ahmedabad. Itwill also take place incolleges across thecountry.

Mission Organic FarmingBy Vinod C. Dixit

The Governor of Gu-jarat Acharya Devvratdeserves big Kudos forsuccessfully populariz-ing and launching or-ganic farming in thestate of Haryana and hasmotivated over 50,000farmers to adopt organ-ic technique. As a Gov-ernor he is associatedwith this innovative ideaof the Zero Budget Nat-ural Farming projectwith the motive thatfarmers of the state canadopt organic farming,in Gujarat state too, hehas already implement-ed his dream project oforganic farming.Acharya rightly saidthat natural farmingwas a zero budget occu-pation and was based onthe use of cow dung inagriculture. It preservesland fertility, saves wa-ter and helps reduce glo-bal warming.

According to the Gov-ernor, Zero Budget Nat-

ural Farming pro-gramme is related to aset of natural farmingmethods, under whichthe cost of growing andharvesting plants iszero. Acharya has al-ways tried to interactwith farmers and in-forms them about theprogramme which in-volves almost no mone-tary investment and en-visages the use of ‘Jee-vamrutha’ and ‘Beejam-rutha’. Here ‘Zero Bud-get’ refers to zero net costof production of all crops,which means that farm-ers are not required tobuy fertilisers and pesti-cides to ensure thehealthy growth of crops.It will take time, butGujarat is committed toincrease the spread of or-ganic farming throughsystematic planning.

Today, for promotingorganic farming, state

government has takensteps like setting up ofa cell to implement itsnew organic farmingpolicy. Farmers shouldnow switch to organicfarming and its waysfrom conventionalmethod of farming.Many farmers are ap-prehensive about adopt-ing organic farming dueto the high productioncost and the three-yeartransition period whenfarmers have to waitbefore getting theirfarms certified. Thereare who are talking onyield drop by 30% withorganic cultivation butwhen we compare thiswith chemical inputstechnology invest-ments, the resultingbenefits from organictechnology is superior. It is fact that thoughthere is lower yield,these farms are more

profitable and environ-mentally friendly, pro-vide several ecosystemservices, numerous so-cial benefits and delivernutritious foods withrelatively less pesticideresidues compared toconventional farming.Earlier we use to guidefarmers by telling themto use chemical fertiliz-ers but now there is astrong need to tell themto use organic ways offarming. Organic agri-culture is an ecologicalproduction manage-ment system that pro-motes and enhancesbiodiversity, biologicalcycles and soil biologicalactivity. Today, consum-ers purchase organicfoods for many differentreasons. There aremany who want to buyfood products that arefree of chemical pesti-cides or grown without

conventional fertilizers.Organic agriculture

is the best insurance pol-icy that India can havefor its population withbetter performance onproductivity, environ-mental impact, econom-ic viability and socialwell-being. Training,camps and awareness atthe grassroots level is amust. Organic farmingis beneficial but calls fora planned strategy. Thefarmers should adopt or-ganic farming and re-duce or avoid usage ofpesticides. Organic farm-ing does not include theuse of any artificial ad-ditives that can causeserious health issues ifconsumed. Most producethat is available today isnot fully safe to consumeas a lot of them havetraces of the artificial fer-tilizers and pesticidesthat were sprayed on

them during growth.What we need is to

encourage organicfarming and our agri-culture universitiesshould become part of itvia promoting researchof organic farming. Nodoubt, organic farmingpresents many challeng-es. Some crops are morechallenging than othersto grow organically;however, nearly everycommodity can be pro-duced organically. Wemust remember that or-ganic produce can usu-ally qualify for higherprices than non-organ-ic products. With theincrease in populationour compulsion would benot only to stabilize ag-ricultural productionbut to increase it furtherin sustainable manner.Don’t we think it is timeto look at the healthbenefits of organic pro-duce ?

The writer is freelancer,

writer and cartoonist


vel, Thane RTO andother materials wereseized, said Pankaj Da-hane, Deputy Commis-sioner of Police, zone-1.

The police has ar-rested an RTO agentDeepak VenkatSuryawanshi, 25, theowner of Phoenix XeroxCentre, Daryl Lobo, 54,from Panvel and motorschool owner Dheerajalias Narendra Maurya(25).

An official said,“Deepak used to takethe photos of the peoplewho came to get thedriving license at RTOPanvel. He would latersteal the license whichwere cancelled from theNavi Mumbai RTO of-

fice and would makefake licenses by attach-ing the photos of oth-ers”.

While Daryl Lobo,another accused in thecase, would help

Suryawanshi with fakerubber stamps of vari-ous RTOs. Dhirajcleared the licenses. Inthis way, the gang hadissued fake driving li-

censes to many citi-zens”.

“Upon receiving theinformation fromAPMC police, the policesent Jaipdeep Pawar, apolice officer, to Deepak

Suryawanshi on thepretext of obtaining alicense. AgentSuryawanshi took aphoto and demanded Rs5,000 for making the

license. He then madea fake RTO licensewithin 3 days, withoutany documentation,and without any RTOtesting.

APMC police regis-tered a case against theagent DeepakSuryawanshi and ar-rested him after verify-ing that the license wasfabricated”.

Fake drivinglicense...

Cont. from pg. 1

“Police thensearched his house andfound 143 fake licenses,2 Aadhaar cards, 4school certificates, rub-ber stamps and stampsof Thane RTO in hishouse. On further en-quiry, Suryawanshi re-vealed the details ofPhoenix Xerox Centerin Panvel from where102 fake license copies

were found.Suryavanshi also

revealed that 245 fakelicensees have been is-sued so far, said Depu-ty Commissioner of Po-lice Pankaj Dahane.

The action was tak-en under the directionof Assistant Police In-spector BhushanPawar.

seen Hockey India tru-ly embrace the HockeyRevolution. Her effortsand utmost dedicationas the CEO towards thesport has benefited itsathletes, coaches, offi-cials and the backroomstaff, and I hope thatshe continues to keep

working for the devel-opment of the sport.”

About IABCA

India AustraliaBusiness & Communi-ty Awards (IABCA) is ahighly regarded awardamong the Indian andAustralian populationworking towards thebetterment of businessand community in boththe countries. The 2019edition of the awards

received over 300 entriesacross the twelve cate-gories over eight weeks,and a panel of expertsselected suitable candi-dates as the finalists ineach category, whichalso saw Ms Norman getselected as finalist in twocategories BusinessWoman of the YearAward and Spirit ofSport Award earlier thisyear in July.

HockeyIndia...

Contd. from pg. 7


Round Table meet held on challenges of E-Buses

Availability of renewable energy at local level and battery life - A big challenge

By Jaspal Singh Naol

NAVI MUMBAI: In linewith the announce-ments made by the gov-ernment of India ofphasing out internalcombustion engines,states and cities acrossthe country are promot-ing an accelerated tran-sition to electric publicbuses. Waatavaran andPurpose jointly hosted astakeholder meet withan aim to develop a planaround Mumbai’s elec-tric buses and publictransport, highlightingthe aesthetic, environ-mental, economic andoverall sustainability ofrenewable poweredElectric Buses (E-bus-es). The meet was heldat The Ambassador Ho-tel, Churchgate. ‘News-band’ participated asone of the stakeholdersfrom Navi Mumbai.

Bhagwan Keshbhat,Founder CEO, Waata-varan Foundation wel-coming the participantsexpressed, “This is aprimary stage and atthis very moment thediscussion on the issueof adoption and practi-cal aspects will help toenhance the penetra-tion of renewable pow-ered electrical busesand how it can meet thegoals of efficient, reliableand clean transporta-tion. This consultationwill work as a tool forproviding support inshaping up the rightfuture for Mumbaikarvia better public trans-portation system, cleanenergy and to put an airpollution free Mumbaiand its outskirt on theglobal map.”

Sandeep Dahiya, acampaigner at Purposesaid, “Mumbai today isfacing an acute problemof clean and affordablepublic buses which of-ten leads to other prob-lems: traffic congestion,high fossil fuel con-sumption, loss of pro-ductivity, vehicularparking shortages, anddeterioration of air andenvironment. While thecity has a formal publictransport system in

place, there has been asteep increase in thenumber of private ve-hicles in the last twodecades, in the absenceof strong, clean & well-connected public infra-structure.”

Sudhir Badami, In-dependent Transporta-tion analyst expressed,“Currently there is lessthan a third of the re-quired number of bus-es on the roads. Under-takings like BEST,NMMT etc. have beenworking towards pro-curing new buses andmitigating the unsus-tainable vehiculargrowth in the city, butthe efforts need muchmore urgency. Howev-er, it is important thatwe address this ur-gently and look at in-novative and adaptablesolutions. Short routeTen Seat buses are hav-ing big scope as theyare the alternatives torising Auto Rickshawsin the city.”

He also emphasizedthat bus stops must bedesigned keeping inmind the visually andphysically challengedcommuters.

Sunil Dahiya, se-nior Campaigner,Greenpeace stated,“Electric Mobility canproved a solution to airpollution and clean en-ergy transition, whichneeds to be studied indepth and proper ac-tions must be taken toresolve the challengesthat are presentlyfaced.”

Amit Bhatt, Direc-tor, Integrated UrbanTransport at WRI In-dia speaking about the

experience of Ahmeda-bad stated, “E-Busesare being launched inthe city and the firstbuyers are mostly Pub-lic Transporters. Thebuyers of E-Buses arepresently still operatingit on an experimentalpractices with respectto batteries being used.There are two majorBatteries being utilized-one is Swapping Batter-ies and the second isCharging Batteries.One must not beshocked to know that90 percent of the Elec-tric Buses are dominat-ed by China made bat-teries and buses global-ly.”

Explaining the chal-lenges of Swapping Bat-tery, Dr. Surendraku-mar Bagde, GeneralManager of BEST Un-dertaking said, “In theswapping batteries pro-cess the dried batteriesare replaced withcharged batteries atthe charging station bymeans of a plug-in con-nector solution and ro-bot system. On an av-erage one E-Bus willneed to move to charg-ing station atleast 2-3times a day. Even if itis said, that it takes amere 7 minutes, on apractical note it takesaround 15 - 20 minutesof process time”

He further in-formed, “On an averagean E-Bus with a swap-ping battery, if it leavesthe depot at 6 am, by 9am it completes 30 kmof distance. And then asthe battery gets dis-charged, the Bus has tocome back to theCharging Station to

swap the battery. Thequestion is, whethermy Bus driver has tobring the commutersalong with him andmake them wait for 15minutes? Or must he/she ask the passengersget down and wait foranother Bus.”

Informing about theCharging Battery heexpressed, “In thecharging battery optionwe have to charge over-night only. On an aver-age one single Bus runsaround 135 km. Butconsidering the civilcondition of the city,the battery consump-tion will be more. Thisagain raises a question,what if the bus batterygets dried in the mid-way. Surely it has anautomate system to in-form early about thestatus. But then, thedriver has to serve thepeople and cannot saythat the battery is get-ting dried up and needsto be charged and go offthe road. After all weare not private trans-porters, we are publicservants and are an-swerable”

He concluded stat-ing, “There is a need forsubstantial solutionand it has to be the re-sponsibility of the man-ufacturers to provideproper solution.”

Speaking about theavailability of spacesfor charging and ener-gy source, Victor Nag-aonkar OSD, BEST in-formed, “The BEST isgoing to have around600 E-Buses and all willbe charged mostly over-night in our 27 Depots.However the energy

source will be differentat different locations.In island we have 6Depots, here we haveour own power, but rest21 are in Suburbans,the utilization will bebased on the serviceproviding agencies.”

He also expressedthat, “As a transporterfor us Diesel was themost comfort, CNG isbit discomfort, but Elec-tricity is presently abig discomfort. The rea-son is we are not usedto it. Actually we haveskipped one sectionthat is Hybrid. It is likejumping from Pager toMobile. Before under-standing the basic tech-nology we have gone tohigher technology. Andhence we will have tolearn from our experi-ences.”

Abhishek KumarPratap, Senior Re-searcher at Asar sharedthe scope of renewable-powered electric busesand experience of Delhibased ESL ChargingKiosks that helps insaving time.

Polash Mukerjee,from Lead – Clean Air,NRDC expressed theproper need of creatingNational Electric Vehi-cle Policies and Citytransport. He also ex-pressed that there is aneed to understand theGross Cost the trans-porter is going to face.

Chirag Gajjar, Se-nior Manager, Climate& Lead- Mitigation,WRI India spoke on theIntegration of decentr-alised renewable ener-gy to power electric bus-es. He also shared theexperience of Portland

E-Buses, he said, “InPortland the E-Buseshave two batteries, onewith standard chargingthat runs for around120 km and second isfast charging batteriesthat run for 80 km andall are charged throughWind power.”

Hussain Indoriwa-la, Asst. Professor, Ka-mla Raheja Institute ofArchitecture gave abriefing on the transfor-mation of the PublicTransportation fromAnimal based Carts toTrains, Buses, Metrosand the Private vehi-cles and the challengesahead.

Discussion was alsomade on the vision tohave 100% clean publictransport while it is onthe roads and its sourceof energy. In the Associ-ation of State RoadTransport Undertak-ings, government of In-dia and their vision forall State Transport bus-es to be electric by 2030.And how to ensure theseelectric vehicles arepowered by clean andrenewable energy.

The other big chal-lenge discussed was toincrease ridership, Jas-pal Singh Naol of News-band Newspaper and aCampaigner of GreenSociety Forum sharedthe experience of orga-nizing NMMT Bus Dayin Navi Mumbai for be-havioural change and toincrease the ridership.

The stakeholderspresent on the occasionincluded, SharmilaDeo, Prasar Pune,Debi Goenka, Conser-vation action Team,Nirja Bhatnagar, Ac-tion Aid, Shikha,Jhatkaa.org, Rasika,Regularity AssistanceProject, Rahul Kadri,Principal Architect andPartner at IM KadriAssociates, JayendraWadhankar, MEDA,Meghna Y, WRI, San-geeta Kharat, Shrush-tidnyan, VirochanRaate, Nirmala Niket-an College of SocialWorker, Evita Das,IGSSS.

�Vol 23 � No 24�Navi Mumbai � 12 - 18 October, 2019 �RNI No. 71478/97 �Pages 6� Price Re.1

Contd. on pg. 6


NAVI MUMBAI: Withan aim to create aware-ness amongst the citi-zens on the importanceof casting vote andelecting the right can-didate and also with aview to increase per-centage of voter’s turn-out during the upcom-ing Vidhan Sabha elec-tions, the Navi Mum-bai Municipal Corpora-tion (NMMC) has comeout with a novel initia-tive. A huge board hasbeen placed at the en-

NMMC Commissioner urges votersto exercise their democratic right

A huge board with message ‘I will Vote’ placed

at NMMC HQ; Annasaheb Misal signs first

trance of NMMC HQ atBelapur with the mes-sage ‘I will Vote andExercise My Democrat-ic Right’ where the res-idents can sign and joinin the initiative.

Annasaheb Misal,

NMMC Commissioner,initiated the drive byhimself signing on theboard. The other offi-cials then followedsuit. Present duringthe initiative were Ad-ditional Commissioner

Ravindra Patil, Ma-havir Pendhari, HeadAccounts and FinanceOfficer Dhanraj Gar-ad, Head Accounts In-spector Officer Day-


NAVI MUMBAI: Thewest side of the Nerulstation near DwarkaHotel has become thedumping ground forconstruction debris.Piles of cement bags,sand bags and otherconstruction materialscan be seen dumped il-legally in the vacantarea near the station.With city experiencingstrong winds, the sandand other materials getblown away while thegarbage gets strewnalong the side.

“Shockingly, the de-bris is being dumped inbroad daylight and isgoing on for almost amonth. However, nei-ther the City and Indus-trial Development Cor-poration Ltd. (CIDCO)nor the Navi MumbaiMunicipal Corporation(NMMC) have takenany action against theculprits or have tried toclear the area,” re-marked a commuter.

Sachin Tandel, aresident of Nerul in-formed, “Not only con-

Illegal dumpingof debris rampantat Nerul StationConstruction waste dumped

near Dwarka hotel

struction debris is be-ing dumped illegally,now the slum dwellerstoo are dumping gar-bage at the same spot.The vacant area hasturned into an open gar-bage throwing spot.”

“We have com-plained the authoritiesabout it but so far ourcomplaints have falleninto deaf ears. The foulstench emanating fromthe garbage is unbear-able while the sandblowing in the air is be-coming reason for lunginfection. The area re-sembles a slum pock-et,” said Satish Jadhav,who runs a shop in thenearby lane.

Abba Ranaware, anenvironmentalist fromJuinagar said, “Due todumping of debris andgarbage, the residentsliving in the vicinityare suffering from innu-merable health prob-lems. It appears thatthe authorities arewaiting for some unto-ward incident to hap-

Contd. on pg. 6


VASHI: Here is somegood news for vegetablelovers. The rates of thevegetables which hadconsiderably increasedduring last month hasnow become stable. Thetraders from the Agri-culture Produce Mar-ket Committee (APMC),Vegetable Division inTurbhe stated that thestability in prices isdue to the increase inthe supply of vegetablesand with monsoon sea-son almost coming toan end.

As per the data fromthe market 550 to 650trucks and tempos arearriving daily at thevegetable market yard.

“The supply of vege-tables was hit badly dueto the heavy rains es-pecially during the pe-riod of Ganesh Utsav.Due to this, the rates ofvegetables had in-creased. However, dur-

Veggie prices remain stablei n gNavratr i ,the vegeta-ble priceshad comedown. How-ever thesales wereless asmany in theHindu com-munity ob-served fast,”said a trad-er from theAPMC.

Anothert r a d e r ,P r a s h a n t

Jagtap from APMCsaid, “Due to torrentialand prolonged rainsacross the country, veg-etables and fruits wereaffected the most. Veg-etables were gettingrotten due to rain wa-ter and the quality wasnot good. Now that therains have stopped allover the country, goodvegetables have startedarriving at the APMCas a result, prices havecome down”.

”About four hun-

Current Wholesale Rate Last month Rate Current Retail Rate

Okra Rs 28 to 34 Rs 28 to 40 Rs 25to 60

Cauliflower Rs 12 to 28 Rs 14 to 22 Rs 15 to 50

Cluster beans Rs 25 to 40 Rs 30 to 45 Rs 40 to 60

Cabbage Rs 14 to 26 Rs 18 to 35 Rs 15 to 60

Chillies Rs 20 to 40 Rs 20 to 35 Rs 25 to 70

Coriander Rs20 to 35 Rs 22 to 40 Rs 22 to 40

Tomato Rs 30 to 50 Rs 25 to 40 Rs 40 to 60

Vegetable prices in the wholesale market

Contd. on pg. 5


Printed and owned by Kailash Shankarlalji Gindodia Published by Shiv Kailash Gindodia Editor : Varda Sharma Printed at Siddhakala Print Media & Publications

Pvt. Ltd., Plot No. W-230, T.T.C. Ind. Area, MIDC, Khairane, Navi Mumbai – 400 710 and published at 1313/1314, 13th Floor, Real Tech Park, Plot No. 39/2,

Sec. 30A, Vashi, Navi Mumbai 400 703 • RNI No. 71478/97 • ABC Certificte No. 133/2107

Phone : 2087 0513 / 2781 5380 Telefax : 2781 5380. e-mail : [email protected] website : www.newsband.in

Issue : 24 12 - 18 October, 2019


NAVI MUMBAI: Theresidents of Sector 1, 3and 4 in Ghansoli nodeare fed up with the fre-quent load shedding intheir area. It is allegedthat despite com-plaints, no action hasbeen taken by the au-thorities. Ironically, de-spite huge residentialcomplexes coming up inthe area, the electrici-ty cables continue to beoutdated, due to whichthere are frequent pow-er cuts.

Republican Party of India Demandsto replace electricity cable

“Whenever there ispower cut, the officialsof MSEDCL providetemporary solution.Frequent power cutscause a lot of trouble tothe citizens. Under-standing their woes, weapproached the officialsand demanded immedi-ate replacement of elec-tricity cables”, said Sa-chin Katare, GeneralSecretary of the Repub-lican Party.

Katare, furthersaid, “The students andold people suffer the

most. With exams go-ing on, frequent loadshedding, causes stressto them”.

Assuring to solvethe issue, DeepakJadhav, MSEDCL offi-cial said, “The old ca-bles will soon be re-placed.”

A number of activistsincluding RepublicanParty of India youth ac-tivist Mayur Bhosale,Ghansoli youth presi-dent Sanket Pawar, An-iket Gaikwad, KetanPatil were present.


NAVI MUMBAI: Witharound 70% officials ofthe Navi Mumbai Mu-nicipal Corporation(NMMC) engaged inelection duties, theNMMC Headquarter,is now wearing a de-serted look. Dueto the absence ofofficials, the doc-umentation andother importantworks of the com-mon man aregetting delayed,say the resi-dents.

According toNMMC PRO,“Around 600 employeesare on election duty andhence very few officialsare coming to the civicbody headquarter. 70percent of the staff andofficers have been giv-

NMMC HQ wears a deserted look70 percent of officials on election duty

en the election duty inthe eight administra-tive ward offices for theAiroli and Belapur con-stituency.”

Earlier, before theimposition model codeof conduct, around1500-1700 vehicles used

to come to NMMC HQon a regular basis butnow even the number ofvehicles has gowndown to 800-900 perday. Also in a monththere used to be one gen-

eral body meeting andat least four standingcommittee meetings.This too is not beingheld. Hence, even thestanding committeechairman, mayor andother senior leaderswho have been given

cabin in theNMMC, are notcoming to the of-fice as they arebusy campaign-ing for the elec-tions.

Pratik Ya-dav, Founder ofNGO ParivartanFoundation in-formed, “I have

filed an RTI applicationseeking information onthe working of NMMCSolid Waste Manage-ment department in

Contd. on pg. 5

Sustainable developmentis the need of the hour

Economic Development vs. Environment protection- This hasbecome the biggest dilemma and the topic of heated debate intoday’s world.

Even though development and growth have always been vitalto people, dramatic changes in the climate as well as its impact onthe environment have made a sea change in the perception of de-velopment in the recent years.

The Indian economy has grown at a tremendous pace over thelast few decades. With the fast paced construction, there has alsobeen large influx of people migrating from rural areas to citiesleading to newer settlements. While, the development growth hashelped the rising population in improving their quality of life, ithas led to compromise in the natural habitat of animals as theyhave been displaced from many a places where high rise buildingshave come up.

The catastrophic consequences of environment degradation forachieving growth rapidly have been largely visible as the numberof floods as well as torrential rains have increased drastically andthe world is experiencing global warming, rising pollution etc.

There is no denying the fact that both development and envi-ronment are important in their respective spheres. While on theone hand, to eradicate poverty and increase growth in the econo-my, development is mandatory. Without economic development anation cannot come out of the vicious circle of poverty and cannotprovide their residents a guarantee of survival. On the other hand,rapid development is depleting the natural resources, withoutwhich survival is impossible.

Development and environment need to be seen as complemen-tary, not antagonistic terms. Although the issue has gained moreimportance in today’s grave scenario, sadly, environment conser-vation is still a neglected sector. Improper implementation of pol-icies, coupled with indifferent attitudes of authorities has accentu-ated the ineffectiveness of environment strategy in India.

What probably is needed is to create more awareness and sen-sitivity towards the environment and the best way to do so is totap students. We should also provide infrastructure for waste man-agement, water harvesting and paper recycling in schools and col-leges which can help in sowing the seeds of environment conscious-ness in young minds.

Environmental balance has been one of the primary reasonswhy sustainability has been maintained for thousands of years. Ifdevelopment is achieved at the cost of spoiling environment, thendevelopment loses its sheen. What needs to be focused andstressed upon is sustainable development. The development shouldbe planned and carried out in such a way that it uses as less naturalresources as possible and also saves a considerable amount forour future generations. With this sustainable development, theeconomic growth of the world is also not restricted and the envi-ronment is also taken care of. We all need to join hand in thisendeavour. A conscious step by each one of us can go a long way inmaintaining a perfect balance between environment and develop-ment.


By Jaspal Singh Naol

PANVEL: With modelcode of conduct in place,the Panvel City Munic-ipal Corporation(PCMC) celebrated itsthird anniversary in anon-politico manner,with less fanfare, butlots of laughs (LOLs) insync with the MunicipalCommissioner’s visionof making PCMC one ofthe stress free and bestCorporations.

The guest of honourwas Ashok Deshmukh,Founder President,Stress ManagementFoundation. He gaveguidance on ‘Stress FreeLife’. Right from themoment he startedspeaking, till his lastword, there was laughriot among the audi-ence. He interacted withthe staff for more thanan hour and left themis splits with his sense

Laughter riot at the PCMC’s third Anniversary celebration

of humour.Ashok Deshmukh

said, “To live a StressFree Life, one needs topractice the following:First is Talking: Everyindividual must incul-cate the habit of com-municating and talkingwith friends, familymembers and office col-leagues. Second is toeradicate Jealousy. Wemust rejoice in the hap-piness of others. Thirdis Forgiveness: We mustnot spend our energy inthinking of taking re-venge. Instead, we mustforgive people for theirfaults and channeliseour positive energy indoing good deeds.Fourth is Good Sleep: Ifwe talk openly, we willnot feel jealous and willbe able to forgive people.By doing so, by default,we will be able to havesound sleep. And if a

person is still unable toget good sleep, he/shemust recite either patri-otic songs, bhajans,mantras etc. whichevercalms and soothes themind. Fifth is Laughter.We must either makeothers laugh or laugh

with others on jokes andsarcasm. And the finalone is Appreciation.When we appreciatesomeone for their goodor hard work, the latterfeels motivated to workharder. Gaining andGiving appreciation hasto be practised on a

higher level.”He further ex-

pressed, “In our days,schools were located faraway and lodging com-plaints against anyone-be it teachers or fellowstudents- was not enter-tained by the parents.

Even when we fell andhad bruises, our fathersnever missed the oppor-tunity to inform us ofour shortcomings- Canyou ever walk properly?-was the commonphrase. While we dis-liked this at that time,it actually made us

strong. But the newgeneration is too weakpsychologically. As weserve them whateverthey want on the plat-ter, they are not awareof hard work. Every-thing in their life comeseasily. When these chil-

dren face challenges inlife, they get depressedand even go to the ex-treme of taking theirlives. As parents, wemust teach our childrento accept failures andfind alternatives.”

The event was fol-lowed by a musical ex-

Celebration in sync with Commissioner’s vision to make PCMC one of the stress free Corporations

travaganza, whereinthe staff too sang songsalong with the musicalteam. Overall the eventwas an icebreaking mo-ment for the PCMCstaff who work 24x7 forthe development of thesociety.

It may be recalledthat the PCMC hasaround three hundredstaff only, which is noteven one eighth of thetotal staff required totake care of the PCMCregion.

The event wasgraced by the PCMCMayor Dr Kavita Chout-mal, CommissionerGanesh Deshmukh,Chairman of Womenand Children WelfareCommittee Leena Gar-ad, DMC Jamir Lin-garekar, DMC Chan-drashekhar Khamkarand other Corporatorsand PCMC Staff.

Weapons were worshiped on the eve of Dassehra at Navi Mumbai-Vashi Police Station(Sumit Renose).

February, 2019. Sincethen I have been doingregular follow up.

NMMC HQwears...Contd. from pg. 2

By Vijaykumar Kamble

NAVI MUMBAI: TheMaharashtrian Build-ers Association (MBA)on 1st October, 2019 ap-pointed Madhu Patil asits president. His namewas declared during apress conference held inBelapur in the pres-ence of all the mem-bers of MBA.

Earlier on26 th July, 2019 atM a h a r a s h t r i a nBuilders Associationgeneral body meet-ing, Madhu Patilwas elected Presi-dent by the mem-bers. The formerPresident of the asso-ciation Sangram Patilthanked all the corecommittee and themembers of the associ-ation for supportinghim in the growth ofthe association.

Sangram Patil said,“I am confident thatthe way, members have

Madhu Patil appointed as President ofMaharashtrian Builder’s Association

He was honoured during the Association’s

Annual GB meeting

supported me they willcontinue to render theirsupport in the similarway to the new corecommittee.”

The new PresidentMadhu Patil thankedhis predecessors fortheir good work during

their tenure.The other members

elected are: Anand Pa-til, Shankar Mhatreand Hitesh Sawant asVice Presidents, Ba-basaheb Bhosale asGeneral Secretary,Ajay Patil and AshishKawde as Vice Secre-tary, Lakshman Sa-

lunkhe as Treasurer,Santosh Ugale, Pras-hant Shetye, MaheshMate, Prashant Pin-gle, Santosh Am-bawane, RajendraKolkar and Ajit Yelmaras Vice Treasurers.Prakash Bawiskar, Ki-

ran Bagad, K K Mha-tre and Vikas Bhamreas Advisors.

The newly electedPresident Madhu Patilthanked all the mem-bers and said that hewill be giving his timeand energy for the well-functioning of the As-sociation.

dred to five hundredtonnes of vegetables areneeded for the whole

Mumbai MetropolitanRegion. With good sup-ply coming in the mar-ket this has helped inregularising the rates,”said Yogesh Kasare, avegetable wholesaler.

When I went to NMMCHQ on 27 th March,2019, I was informedthat the then NMMCCommissioner Dr. Ra-maswamy N. had goneto Uttar Pradesh for

the Loksabha electionduty. Since then, I amwaiting eagerly for therevert, which I feelwould be unlikely inview of the upcomingAssembly elections.”

Meanwhile the ratesof tomatoes have goneup, say the traders.However, the rate is ex-pected to come downwith the fresh arrival ofthe crop after 20 days.

Veggie pricesremain...Contd. from pg. 1


PCMC to beautify city lakesBy Jaspal Singh Naol

PANVEL: Realisingthe dearth of enter-tainment facilities inthe city, the PanvelCity MunicipalCorporation (PCMC)has decided to beautifyand redevelop twomajor lakes and makethem into recreationalspots.

While talkingabout the initiative,Dr. Jameer Lin-garekar, DeputyMunicipal Commis-sioner, PCMC said,“PCMC’s Navi Mum-bai accommodatespopulation from bothurban and rural area.With most of themworking, they hardlyget time to go torecreational centres,which are usually farflung. PCMC underthe guidance of itscommissioner, GaneshDeshmukh hasdecided to develop bothGreen spaces and Bluespaces in the city,which is bound tobring a great differ-ence in the health oflocal residents and

will change the look ofthe city.”

One of the resi-dents of SpaghettiSociety, Ankit Kothiyaladded, “The residents

had been demandingfor the redevelopmentand the beautificationof lakes since long.These lakes are usedfor many ritualpurposes. It may befor Chatt Puja,Ganesh Visharjan,Devi Visarjan, Bap-tism, etc. With lack offacilities available atthe lakes, people arefacing inconvenience.The development willbring in big sigh of

relief for the resi-dents.”

The two lakesslated for redevelop-ment and beautifica-tion are Jui Lake and

Kopra Lake. Thedevelopment willinclude compoundwalls, visarjan pond,fountains, gardenspace, sitting arrange-ments, ritual space,joggers path etc. ThePCMC has floatedtenders for the project.The expected comple-tion time for theproject is around ninemonths at an approxi-mate cost of Rs threecrores each.

By Chandrasekhar Hendve

NAVI MUMBAI: In thewake of the upcomingelection, a total of 3,000staff have been deployedin the Airoli constituen-cy along with four fly-ing squads. With thehelp of the computers,randomization of thevoting machines wasdone at the Election Of-fice in Airoli under theguidance ofElection deci-sion officer Ab-hay Kargut-kar. Represen-tatives fromvarious politi-cal partieswere presentalong withNaib Tehsil-dar SamtaSurve, 150 Airoli De-partment CoordinatorGanesh Aghav.

The voting will beheld on October 21 un-der the guidance of Col-lector and District Elec-tion Officer RajeshNarvekar. Accordingly,the election schedulehas been prepared,which includes infor-mation about voter’s

3000 staff deployed to carry outelection process in Airoli constituency

awareness, possessionof polling booths, set-ting up of informationboards, examination ofballot boxes and dem-onstration of ballot box-es, actual work done inpolling booths.

More than 4 lakhvoters are registered inthe Airoli constituency.Awareness campaignhas been launched to

keep the voting processpeaceful and fearless.There will be 440 poll-ing stations in 82 plac-es in the Airoli assem-bly area. During theelection period, 4 flyingsquads, 4 video deploy-ment personnel and oth-er centre wise 3000 per-sonnel will be deployed,Kargutkar said. He fur-ther said, “In Airoli, 36

constituencies in theAssembly constituencyhave been identified assensitive zones and theElection Commissionalong with the policewill keep a vigil. Ar-rangements for wheel-chair facility has beenmade for the physical-ly challenged votersand the senior citizens”.

As per the decisionmade by theElection Com-mission, theduties as-signed to eachemployee arecompulsory.He also saidthat he wouldtake actionagainst em-ployees who

fail to comply by or-ders.

Abhay Kargutkar,said, “A special helplinefacility 1950 has beenlaunched for the pur-pose. Citizens are re-quested to visit websitehttps:/ /ceo.maharashtra.gov.in if they no-tice any suspicious ac-tivity during the elec-tion process”.

anand Nimkar, Depu-ty Commissioner Da-dasaheb Chabukswar

NMMC Commissioner urges..Contd. from pg. 1

along with many oth-er officers from theNMMC.

Apart from this,NMMC is conductingvarious other initia-tives to encourage vot-ers to exercise theirdemocratic rights.

pen before they willswing into action.”

Official from NMMCwas unavailable for thecomment even afterseveral attempts.

When contacted

Priya Ratambe, PublicRelationship Officer,CIDCO said, “We havenot received any com-plaints from the resi-dents. Nevertheless, wewill ask the officials

concerned to take stockof the situation andtake strict actionagainst the culprits.Dumping of construc-tion debris is illegal andif any person is foundto be flouting rules,stringent action will betaken.”

Illegal dumping of debris...Contd. from pg. 1


NAVI MUMBAI: TheMIDC and CIDCOProject Farmer ActionCommittee met MandaMhatre and assuredtheir support duringthe upcoming assemblyelection. Manohar Pa-til, Chairman of MIDCand CIDCO Project Af-

PAP action Committee

meets Manda Mhatre

fected Farmers ActionCommittee, Vice Presi-dent Vasant Mhatre,President Dr. RajeshPatil, Secretary SudamPatil, NamdevDauarkar and othermembers were present.

“MLA Manda Mha-tre has completed 5year successfully and

during this 5 year shehas worked on all theproblems mentioned byour PAP members andhas fulfilled all the de-mands we have made,”said Manohar Patil,chairman of MIDC andCIDCO project affect-ed farmers’ commit-tee.

postal regn. no. nmb/154/2017-19/vashi mdg post …rni no. mahen/2007/21778 postal regn. no....

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