As Sanjay Raut continued to attack BJP leader Kirit Somaiya over alleged siphoning of funds in the name of restoring decommissioned aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, the Shiv Sena on Thursday came out on the streets in Mumbai and other parts of the state in a show of strength for the Sena MP.
Thousands of Sena workers gathered at Mumbai airport to receive Raut, who was in New Delhi for the Budget Session of the Parliament. Raut was accompanied by Sena MP Vinayak Raut and party legislator Sunil Prabhu.
While Maharashtra may have revoked all Covid-19 restrictions, the government is yet to approve reopening of the 1.10 lakh anganwadi centres that provide hot cooked meals (HCM) to children up to six years of age, expectant, and nursing mothers. Activists claim the continued closure of anganwadi centres is not only hindering the pan-India nutrition programme, it is also affecting the non-formal pre-school education and health-checkups in the rural parts of the state.
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The Bombay High Court on Friday asked former Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh, who cited a medical emergency to seek an early bail hearing in the bribery case registered by the Enforcement Directorate, to give details of his ailments and deferred the hearing by two weeks.
“Not only in this case, but in a number of cases the accused are languishing in jail for years. So keeping them inside and taking up this matter (Deshmukh’s plea) will not be right. The court will take up those cases wherein there is a medical emergency [or] there is death in the family. However, now, every matter comes citing medical emergencies and then lawyers argue on merits. That is not correct. You cannot take the court for granted,” Justice Anuja Prabhudessai said.
As instructed by the Centre, the BMC on Thursday sent the sequencing data of the patient who was possibly infected with the new Covid-19 variant XE to National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG) in West Bengal for further analysis.
On Wednesday, the civic body had flagged – for the time in India – a case of XE variant in a 50-year-old South African national in Mumbai. It was discovered in the 11th genome sequencing conducted at state-of-the-art genome sequencer in BMC-run Kasturba Gandhi Hospital. However, within hours, the Centre announced that the sample didn’t match the variant’s genomic picture.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) recently told the Bombay High Court that former Maharashtra home minister Anil Deshmukh is the “mastermind and brain” behind the money laundering conspiracy and misused his official position to create unaccounted assets. He also exercised “undue influence over transfers and postings of police officials and on performance of those police officials,” it added.
The ED, in its response to Deshmukh’s bail plea, said that the probe is at nascent stage and Deshmukh being an influential person, if released, may tamper with evidence and witnesses. And since he has not cooperated with the investigation, he should not be granted bail.
Maharashtra reports 128 new coronavirus cases, 6 deaths; active tally at 828
Maharashtra on Thursday recorded 128 fresh coronavirus cases and six deaths linked to the infection, while 159 more patients recovered from the disease, the health department said. With fresh additions, the state’s COVID-19 tally reached 78,74,818, while the death toll rose to 1,47,806, the department said in a bulletin. On Wednesday, the state recorded 108 cases and seven fatalities. Jalgaon, Nandurbar, Hingoli, Nanded, Bhandara, Gondia and Chandrapur districts have zero active cases.
Congress takes out protest march in Mumbai over price rise issue, slams Centre
The Maharashtra Congress on Thursday took out a protest march here over the rising fuel rates and inflation, and warned it will make the BJP-led government at the Centre run helter-skelter if soaring prices of essential commodities are not brought under control to provide relief to common citizens.
State Congress president Nana Patole led the march — taken out from Bhavans College (in Girgaum) to August Kranti Maidan here, a party statement said.
The state Cabinet on Thursday expressed its displeasure over the language used by Nashik Police Commissioner Deepak Pandey in his letter to Director General of Police Rajnish Sheth, allegedly terming revenue officials and executive magistrate as “RDX” and “detonators”.
In his letter earlier this week, Pandey had alleged that revenue officials, hand-in-glove with the land mafia, were harassing people. He had sought that powers of revenue officials and executive magistrate be given to the police.
NCP leader Eknath Khadse.
The Colaba police investigating the alleged phone tapping incident recorded the statement of Nationalist Congress Party leader Eknath Khadse on Thursday. They said the process went on for around two hours and investigations have revealed that Khadse’s personal assistant and another NCP worker’s phones were also tapped, when senior IPS officer Rashmi Shukla was heading the State Intelligence Department (SID) of the Maharashtra Police.
Requesting anonymity, a senior IPS officer said, “We wanted to verify that the phone number which was being tapped belonged to Khadse. He is the victim in the case and his statement was recorded as a witness in the matter.” On March 2, the Colaba police had registered a case against Shukla for allegedly tapping phone conversations of Khadse and Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut.
Western Railway to get Vistadome coach for Mumbai-Gandhinagar Shatabdi Express from April 11
The Western Railway has decided to attach a Vistadome coach, which provides panoramic view, to the Mumbai Central-Gandhinagar Shatabdi Express on a temporary basis from April 11, an official said on Thursday.
The Shatabdi Express is the second train on the Western Railway to be attached with a Vistadome coach, and its first train from Mumbai to have the coach with a panoramic view. On the Central Railway, the Deccan Express on the Mumbai-Pune route and some other trains departing from Mumbai are being run with Vistadome coaches.
The state Cabinet on Thursday decided to hold a meeting again on Friday to clear a proposal on buying around 1,000 MW power as short term measure to tackle the increasing demand of power.
Sources in the government said Energy Minister Nitin Raut mentioned in the Cabinet meeting that there were apprehensions of load shedding in some parts of the state due to the shortage of coal. Hence, it was decided that another meeting be held on Friday to approve a proposal to buy 800 to 1,000 MW power.
Source: https://indianexpress.com/article/cities/mumbai/mumbai-news-today-latest-updates-april-8-7859213/
