Mumbai has never looked so ugly. Almost every road has been dug up extensively by contractors appointed by the BMC. Apart from the digging necessitated by metro rail, perfectly good roads and storm water drains have been dug up. What is worse is that there is no one to question these contractors. BMC staff do not care a damn. Electric cables are routinely dug up, resulting in stoppage of power. On Saturday night the entire stretch of Mahapalika Marg, where the BMC head office is located, was plunged into darkness, making driving dangerous.
A boy finds a comfortable place to use his mobile phone
without any disturbance in Bandra, on Sunday | SALMAN ANSARI
Blocking Access To Journos
At a time when courts are trying to make the judiciary more accessible to the masses, Mumbai Police continues to block details in cases of larger public interest. Recently, the investigating officer in the Baba Siddique murder case, Kishorkumar Keshav Shinde, objected to the presence of journalist in court. This when the special court was inclined to allow them during the hearing of the remand application of the accused persons. After invoking charges of MCOCA, the police produced the accused before the court, where the prosecution was seeking their custody. During the hearing, the journalist pleaded to be allowed in. The prosecution, under the instructions of the officer, took objection. The court hence reluctantly restrained the media from attending, but allowed it to report the hearing. The officer claimed that the case was very sensitive. The court thereafter did not allow journalists to attend any of the proceedings related to the case, without passing a formal order. Not even that, the press were thrown out of the court during the hearing of the remand proceedings of Sanjay More, the BEST bus driving whose negligence resulted in the death of nine people and severe injuries to many more. They were thrown out of the court citing security reasons, this time to with no formal order. (Charul Joshi)
A Delightful Discovery
Discovered a nugget of a food joint in Andheri’s Shastri Nagar the other day. It’s called ‘Namma’, which translates as ‘Ours’ in most south Indian lingos. The interior of this small restaurant is bright and pleasant with lots of sunlight falling in. The wooden furniture is functionally elegant. The vegetarian joint has a limited menu but that is more than made up by the superior taste of the dishes from Tulunad. You have poha upkari, guri appa, goli baje, biscuit ambade, chow chow bath, butter podi dosa, sajjige bail, ghee roast bullet idli, etc. You can smell the freshness of the ingredients. The service is smooth and the prices are wallet friendly. The best part is the south Indian filter coffee. It’s simply satisfying. The only minus point is there is no parking, for which you have to do some jugad.
Tailpiece
A social media post claimed that Elon Musk is opening an Irani cafe in Dadar and it will be called Musk Ka Pao!
(Compiled by S Balakrishnan)