Right before Mumbai civic polls, Bal Thackeray has extended an olive branch to Raj Thackeray. ...
10:57 PM, Feb 14, 2012
Mumbai: Mumbai's crumbling infrastructure is best exemplified by the city's potholed roads. An RTI filed by CNN-IBN reveals how Rs 60 crore were spent last year alone. This is double the budgeted expense to smoothen the roads, and it's the taxpayers' money that has gone down many potholes. Despite allegations of irregularities and kickbacks not a single contractor has been blacklisted. Minimal fines are being imposed for shoddy work and...
10:05 AM, Feb 14, 2012
Mumbai: Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray, who parted ways with the Shiv Sena in January 2006, on Monday night said he was willing to "walk a hundred steps" for his uncle Balasaheb Thackeray and added that the doors of his party were always open for the Sena founder. "It hurt me when I left Shiv Sena. I respect Balasaheb and will continue to respect him. I am ready to...
06:49 AM, Feb 14, 2012
Mumbai: As political parties battle it out to capture the control of Mumbai's civic administration, the city's neglected waterfronts are back on priority, being poised for a makeover. But the question is whether plans to transform the island's coast's will ever become a reality. The world's biggest cities including New York, London, Sydney and Tokyo are often defined by their popular waterfronts. Mumbai's 60-km long coastline on the other hand...
01:56 PM, Feb 13, 2012
Mumbai: There is a paradigm shift in the voter market. Bartering votes in city slums for locally made alcohol just won't do any more. For the dweller of the urban shanty, being courted by the corporate-types moving in to 'tap the bottom of the pyramid', has undergone a refinement of taste. He is demanding that netas ply him with a bottle of foreign liquor in exchange for his vote, and...
12:37 PM, Feb 13, 2012
Mumbai: In a blow to Maharashtra Navnirman Sena's apparent attempt to score brownie points over its arch rival Shiv Sena, the Bombay High Court on Friday refused to grant permission to the Raj Thackeray-led party to hold a public meeting at Shivaji Park in central Mumbai. MNS had approached the High Court through its President of Dadar division, Sandip Deshpande, seeking permission to use loud speakers at the rally to...
03:38 PM, Feb 03, 2012
Mumbai: The presence of the underworld may soon be seen in the local civic body office in Mumbai. The dreaded Mumbai underworld may no longer be the dominant presence as it once was but when the stakes are high the dons aren't too far behind. In the battle for the country's richest civic body the mafia influence goes beyond just hawala money or muscle power. Aiding the underworld in its...
06:48 AM, Feb 03, 2012
Mumbai: A Right to Information (RTI) activist has accused a BMC assistant engineer and an executive engineer of faking his presence at an RTI-related hearing to close a case. On January 10, Sudhir Singh filed a complaint to this effect with Assistant Municipal Commissioner (S Ward) Ramakant Biradar, asking him to investigate the matter. According to Singh, on September 8, 2011, he sought details about a restaurant at Vikhroli through...
12:14 PM, Jan 30, 2012
Mumbai: Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray announced on Sunday the first list of his party's candidates for the Mumbai, Thane, Pune and Nashik municipal corporation elections in Mumbai. Addressing a press conference, Raj said the lists for Nagpur, Solapur, Amravati, Pimpri-Chinchwad, Ulhasnagar and Akola would be declared at the local level soon. He released the list of 208 candidates out of the 227 wards in Mumbai, 138 out of...
05:39 PM, Jan 29, 2012
Mumbai: Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) chief Raj Thackeray on Friday said he was in a dilemma over selecting party candidates for the 27 Zilla Parishads and the nine major civic corporations which go to polls on February 7 and February 16 respectively in the state. "The biggest question before me is: Whom to give tickets to and whom to reject?" Raj said at a meeting of MNS hopefuls for the...
05:32 PM, Jan 27, 2012
Mumbai: The BJP on Tuesday released the first list of 32 candidates, including 13 women, for the February 16 elections to Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC). Mumbai BJP President Raj Purohit, who released the list, said the party has decided not to give tickets to relatives of the leaders. "We have given opportunity to over 20 new faces in which 13 are women," he said. Ten sitting BJP Corporators, including Deputy...
12:23 AM, Jan 25, 2012
Mumbai: Mumbai's municipal schools are in a dismal state. An RTI obtained by CNN-IBN reveals a high dropout rate, a dearth of teachers, and rampant mismanagement, which are just some of the problems plaguing the system. The elections to control the country's richest civic corporation Brihan Mumbai Corporation (BMC), are just a month away, but questions raised about municipal education in Mumbai have thrown up disturbing answers. The BMC's own...
08:50 AM, Jan 17, 2012
Mumbai: The 2012 Mumbai civic body election is being seen as a do-or-die election for the Shiv Sena and its executive president Uddhav Thackeray. With the Sena-BJP combine worried about the MNS factor, the question is - will tying up with the pro-Dalit RPI help bail out the Sena? With the Congress and NCP announcing an alliance for the Mumbai corporation polls for the first time, the Shiv Sena-BJP combine...
04:21 PM, Jan 12, 2012
If you go by the results of last time, if we contest together we will win the BMC polls, said Prithviraj Chavan. ...
08:28 AM, Jan 11, 2012
The NCP will be contesting from 58 of the 227 seats while the Congress will contest from the remaining 169 seats. ...
08:08 AM, Jan 11, 2012
New Delhi: After days of negotiations, Congress and NCP ON Tuesday finalised the seat-sharing deal for the next month's election to the Mumbai municipal corporation. NCP would contest 58 seats, while Congress would fight on the remaining 169 seats, Maharashtra Congress chief Manikrao Thakre said after a meeting of leaders from both the parties at Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan's residence here. Chavan was reportedly keen to forge the alliance as...
11:02 PM, Jan 10, 2012
Mumbai: When the roads are rocky and pothole-laden, when the gardens look squalid, when the sewers overflow - we are all too ready to point fingers at the apathy of the civic body. But when it's our turn to show some enterprise and trudge to the nearest booth and vote for change, it is the same malady of apathy that gets the better of us. In 2007, a shameful 46...
04:12 PM, Jan 09, 2012
New Delhi: Amidst reports that the NCP had served an ultimatum to the Congress over an alliance row for the upcoming Bombay Municipal Corporation polls, NCP leader Jitendra Awhad has clarified that it was merely a suggestion and not an ultimatum. "Negotiations are on... He (Sharad Pawar)only said that negotiations should be finished at the right time because if the whole matter is delayed then it is a matter of...
08:37 AM, Jan 09, 2012
Mumbai: Medical officers from the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) are busy spending their time at spas, wellness and ayurveda centres. But for those who think the officials are merely relaxing, they are mistaken. They are carrying out a survey of the various spas, naturopathy, ayurvedic centers and wellness clinics mushrooming across the city in order to find the number of institutes that would fall under the Central government's Clinical Establishments...
02:36 PM, Jan 06, 2012
Mumbai: Ahead of the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) polls, the Mumbai Regional Congress Committee has resorted to social networking sites - like twitter and Facebook to invite suggestions from people for drafting the party manifesto. "We are welcoming suggestions from people through the social networking sites about what kind of development they want in their area. Based on their suggestions, we would draft our manifesto for the civic elections," party...
03:18 PM, Dec 25, 2011
