000-tobecategorised

Vidhyadhar Date: https://www.facebook.com/653125545/posts/following-their-recent-intervention-at-the-private-event-in-the-hks-bhavan-in-de/10160496912885546/

This is ludicrous. Is the MMRDA not even embarrassed that it has to call to commission an agency to decongest BKC Bandra Kurla complex in Mumbai ? It has been in the area much before BKC came up, I used to go several times decades ago to its modest office on one floor in the MHADA building. It now has two new buildings of its own in BKC and much more staff but things are getting worse. Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority was created mainly to plan the metropolitan area, that is what it should have concentrated on instead of becoming a land dealer and metro railway operator. It should have seen what is coming in is own backyard and all around it. It clearly does not care for common people, just look at the footpath at the entrance of its utterly faceless headquarters. It is so badly built with a slope that one cannot walk there. Because it is meant for cars and not pedestrians. And this is our highest planning body, unbelievable. The authorities above MMRDA of course are to blame more since they are responsible for the huge influx of people and vehicles into a limited area. This area is one of the best connected in Mumbai with a number of flyovers and broad roads but perhaps that is its undoing to some extent because it has encouraged private car transport all these years while neglecting public transport. It is a blot on the authorities that there is such poor bus connectivity with Bandra station despite a huge demand.
The diamond bourse alone employs over 50,000 people. The Reliance convention centre and so-called cultural centre has a car parking facility for 5,000 cars in total violation of all planning norms. What else do the politicians in charge and corporate honchos expect if not grotesque congestion.
If you are going to cater to the builder and automobile lobbies all the time, congestion is bound to be there. It is going to get worse if the ill designed proposal to redevelop the sprawling state government housing quarters and housing board or MHADA ‘s colonies for common people are vandalised for the sake of builders to provide for housing for the wealthy.
That is why the entrance from Kala Nagar junction is going to become problematic. This was a peaceful area just a few years ago, I have been there numerous times, one could walk freely on the broad footpaths in BKC and the Kala Nagar, Patrakar Nagar, housing colony areas. The whole area has now become utterly hostile to common people, ill gotten wealth stares at you here with contempt.
More outrageous is the decision to locate the bullet train project terminus here. The train project itself is an affront to people who are denied basic mobility and to locate a terminus here is worse. All the users of the bullet train will be coming in their luxury cars. So more congestion. So more money would be sunk to cure a malady created entirely by the authorities. And there is no money for projects for common people.

- Vidyadhar Date

https://twitter.com/VedantMhatre1/status/1677384026473259008?t=VXtIfqj6K2WUYjs9uocxGg&s=19  A creative video about what must be happening in the office of MMRDA that is leading to more and more road expansion projects like flyovers and coastal roads which increase traffic jams.

How Gulzar Azmi Helped Wrongly Implicated Terror-Accused Fight for Justice Across India https://thewire.in/rights/how-gulzar-azmi-helped-wrongly-implicated-terror-accused-fight-for-justice-across-india

Under Azmi's watch, the Jamiat Ulema-I-Hind transformed from a socio-religious to a legal aid organisation.'= Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind, only a socio-religious organisation until then, soon transformed into a legal aid centre for men across India implicated in terror-related cases. And the man spearheading the legal campaign ever since was Gulzar Azmi, a senior leader at the Jamiat. Azmi was 74 years old at the time.

Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind is a donor-driven organisation and every year during Eid, many people from the community offer zakat (a customary 2.5% of the total income offered to the poor and needy) to the organisation. The organisation, however, did not have a smooth run. In 2014, BJP MLA Ashish Shelar kicked up a storm by urging the Maharashtra government to ban the Jamiat Ulema-i-Hind. Shelar accused Azmi of having links with fugitive gangster Chhota Shakeel. The statement led to furore and eventually Shelar was forced to withdraw his statement.

S S on Whatsapp: 23.08.23
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Following their recent intervention at the private event in the HKS Bhavan in Delhi where several citizens had gathered to discuss some pressing issues, within closed doors, the Delhi Police needs to put out an announcement, in the public interest, about what kind of conversations it thinks can be had, between consenting adults, within private spaces, homes, offices, etc. that will not, henceforth, attract its punitive and restrictive attention.
While I am aware of section 144 of the IPC (which remains operational in a state of suspended animation until the draft text of the Bharatiya Nyaya Samhita translates into actual law) and that it can restrict the number of people who can gather in a public space, I am not aware of the exact police powers that can prevent invited people from gathering in a non-public space. For reasons of transparency, so that we all know what’s what, we should be informed of what we can or cannot do, can or cannot say, in private spaces, in Amrit Kaal.
Is, for instance, a conversation at the dining table within a home, or at lunch time amongst colleagues in a workplace, about, say, the price of tomatoes, permissible, or, can that be construed to constitute a threat to the security of the state?
Is the whisper of pillow talk, overheard through the paper-thin walls of a hostel room or apartment, over a post-coital cigarette, about the resignation of a professor after something that they had written, likely, now, to attract an unexpected midnight knock? Should people, just to be abundantly cautious, apply for anticipatory bail before indulging in pillow talk?
Perhaps, to make things clearer and easier, the Delhi Police could also publish a set of guidelines about permitted silent gestures. So that citizens do not, inadvertently let slip an unauthorised raised eyebrow, an illegitimate refusal to smile, or an untimely roll of the eyes, that can detract from the dignity of India’s G20 Presidency, or from the majesty of some other important national initiative.
Next, it should also inform us about permissible and impermissible thoughts, feelings and stray hunches, that remain unexpressed, but in circulation, within the consciousness and interiority of individuals, without ever finding public expression.
I ask this because I am sure that the Delhi Police and it’s masters in the Ministry of Homicidal Affairs know well that a silence that simmers, contagiously and continuously, can be just as ‘subversive’, in the long run, as speech