News from Mumbai, of Mumbai and for Mumbai!
What's the story
Noose tightened on electricity mafias and power theft offenders as the vigilance department of BEST registered more FIRs this year to serve as a deterrent.
Meanwhile, demonetization continues to make news for wrong reasons as liquor sales take a hit post November 8.
In other news, Sonam Kapoor made a startling revelation about her molestation during a TV show, tap in to read further.
Nariman Point
Fire at Air India building
Air India building in Nariman Point caught fire on Tuesday morning.
Fire broke out on the 20th floor of the building at around 6:41am.
10 fire tenders were immediately rushed to the spot to control the blaze.
As it is a commercial building, not many people were expected to be present in the building at that hour.
Cause of the fire is still undetermined.
Bandra-Worli
Three motorcycles crashed leaving a man dead
A freak accident on Bandra-Worli sea link took life of a 22-year-old, after three motorcycles crashed into each other.
Deceased was returning after having gone to see actor Salman Khan, when he parked his bike at roadside.
A speeding bike crashed into the stationary bike leaving him dead and injuring the other biker.
Another biker crashed into the two bikes lying on the road.
20 Dec 2016
South Mumbai's housing society dismissed for demanding inordinate fee
Co-operative housing societies' deputy registrar dismissed the managing committee of south Mumbai's Grand Paradi housing society.
The committee was accused of demanding an exorbitant amount of transfer fee from a buyer, who approached the deputy registrar.
Committee failed to fall in line with the registrar's order, who had ruled in buyer's favour after which it was disbanded.
Members have been barred from contesting elections.
Bollywood
Sonam Kapoor revealed about her molestation incident
Bollywood star Sonam Kapoor recounted the horror of being groped during childhood at 'The Actresses Roundtable', while discussing the sexual harassment women silently go through.
Sonam revealed that she was grabbed from behind by a man, at the age of 13, when she was out with her friends for some snacks.
Calling it traumatizing, Sonam stressed that women should speak about incidents of harassment.
Space Technology
Signal received from IIT-B's satellite
Pratham, a microsatellite launched by students of IIT-Bombay responded positively on December 17, after a month of silence.
Ground station at the institute received a signal from the satellite which means that the satellite is stable and operational.
Project manager said that though the satellite is functional, its data transfer activity is still to be observed.
Pratham's aim is to count electrons in ionosphere.
BEST
Increase in FIRs against power thieves this year
An RTI query revealed that to check power theft, Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport Undertaking (BEST) has registered 174 FIRs till November this year.
In 2015 119 FIRs were registered by the vigilance department of BEST.
More FIRs are being seen as a strong deterring message to the offenders.
FIR is not registered against first time offenders, if they have paid the fine.
Elections
Congress bounces back in civic polls
In what can be called a face-saver performance, Congress won the most number of seats in Maharashtra's third phase of municipal council elections.
Congress won 126 seats out of total 409, followed by BJP which won 119 seats.
NCP and Shiv Sena won 79 and 48 seats respectively.
BJP outperformed Congress in number of president's posts by winning 65 posts against 34 by Congress.
Demonetization
Liquor sales dip post demonetization
Among other things, liquor sales have been acutely hit by the demonetization.
A sharp drop of 11% was seen in the sale of beer in November this year along with 1.46% decline in sale of Indian Made Foreign Liquor.
Shops in lower and middle class area were deeply affected by demonetization as people preferred paper money as mode of payment in these areas.