Mumbai Musings

Irrigation Report Down The Drain? 

The much awaited Madhav Chitale committee report was submitted to the government, after the interim budget session was over. The committee looked into the allegations of financial irregularities worth Rs70,000 crore. The report, divided in two sections (one of which is 640 pages), was prepared over a period of a year and a month (including two extensions). The committee visited 19 project sites and had 30 meetings. The committee is said to have investigated primarily into cost escalation and delays in the implementation of irrigation projects. It was to give recommendations on how to address these problems as well. However, since there are no obvious remarks about any irregularities, on part of the government, experts say the report will stay under wraps until elections. Is it just another report, gone down the drain then?

Young is Gold, Old is Old

In continuation with the yuva josh campaign of every party, the Shiv Sena too declared its first list of candidates for the upcoming Loksabha polls. And just as expected, Manohar Joshi, popularly known as 'Sir', does not figure on the list. He was not considered for a Rajya Sabha nomination either. Rahul Shewale, chairman of the standing committee in the civic body, has been given the ticket from south central constituency in Mumbai, where Joshi had previously contested from. Shewale is not only younger, compared to 75-year-old Joshi but also rather influential in the richest civic body of the country. Not to mention that he hasn’t criticised Uddhav’s leadership the way Joshi did— getting nothing but the wrath of Sena workers. Sena contests 22 seats while the BJP 26 as part of their seat-sharing alliance. Of the predictable names from the BJP are Nitin Gadkari and Gopinath Munde from their respective constituencies from Nagpur and Beed respectively.

Parole Pain

Finally, someone has a problem with Sanjay Dutt’s parole. The Bombay High court, reacting to a public interest litigation challenging parole granted to Sanjay Dutt repeatedly, questioned the government and asked if due diligence had been followed. Not to deny the right to the privileged, the court remarked, “We don’t say that because somebody is influential, his rights should be curtailed. Pain and suffering are common to all. But you have to exercise your discretion properly. It is high time you addressed this issue.” The PIL also urges the court to frame proper guidelines to determine parole applications so that discriminatory powers to grant parole are not misused. Wait and watch. 

Another Tragedy, Another Funeral

Yet another tragedy rocked the Indian navy with one more submarine accident that killed two young officers. While Admiral DK Joshi resigned claiming moral responsibility, the whispers of the Indian navy struggling with an old fleet got louder. However, at the time Commander Kapish Singh’s family and friends witnessed his funeral with full state honours in Mumbai. They will be dealing with a vacuum in their lives forever. "Losing a machine is manageable, but losing a human life is unbearable," a friend of Singh told a daily newspaper at the funeral. And the report of enquiry into INS Sindhurakshak explosion is yet to be made public. 18 officers had died on board in August last year. 

No Smoking

Filmmaker Anurag Kashyap’s petition in the Bombay High Court has been challenged from a stranger quarter. Not by the censor board that Kashyap has challenged for stalling his film Ugly’s release. But by a doctor from the city’s cancer hospital Tata Memorial Hospital. Dr Pankaj Chaturvedi has written an open letter to Kashyap urging him to not to promote smoking under the garb of creative expression. “Superstar Rajnikanth, who has a massive fan following and was famous for flipping a cigarette and catching it in his lips that millions of our youngsters must have tried. After he suffered from smoking-related health issues, he quit smoking and urged his fans to do the same. This is just one of the examples where cinema may have misled many youngsters into believing that smoking is cool. After persuasion by then health minister Rajnikanth decided to shun smoking scenes in his next movie. It was heartening that Chandrmukhi turned out to be a block buster even though Rajanikanth did not have a single smoking scene in that!” he says among other things.

Eternal Space

Artist Prafulla Dahanukar, known for vivacious abstract paintings that explore “eternal space” passed away after prolonged illness. Former President of Bombay Art Society and member of Kala Akademi Goa, Lalit Kala Akademi, Dahanukar exhibited in countries such as Hungary, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, Japan and France after getting a scholarship for the study of graphic art at Ecole de Beaux Arts and Atelier 17 in Paris for a year.

The Long Wait

As if having slog for board exams that pretty much decide your future in Class X and XII, is not bad enough, the students have more to worry this time. After finishing Class XII exams, the students are worried about the results because the teachers have refused to correct the answer papers unless their demands are met. And worse off are Class X students. The authorities have goofed up on their hall tickets, without which they cannot appear for the exams. As a last ditch effort the school authorities were allowed to issue hall tickets and the exams have now started on schedule. Who said studying was all you need to worry about?

Satyamev Jayate?

Last time when Amir Khan launched his extraordinary, experimental show on social issues it took a while for critics to pounce. But this time, the very first episode of season 2 of Satyamev Jayate is in the line of fire. An NGO that works on socio-legal issues has lashed out at Amir for misrepresenting the facts related to sexual assault cases.

“Health is a state subject and protocols have to be passed by each State Government and Maharashtra has done so. Even though some groups have issues with the protocols, to state that no standardised protocols exist except the CEHAT protocols, is incorrect,” says a statement issued by Majlis Law centre. It goes on to list different initiatives that have started for sexual assault survivors. It further states, “This program could have been effectively used to create awareness about such initiatives and to see how these can be extended to other states. Unfortunately it choose to be unnecessarily provocative without accurate research and sensationalised issues that are critical to the work being done on the ground by several organisations. 

It is important to record this as the producers may later claim that these changes have been brought about due to the impact of the show. They have done this in the past by claiming that the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012 was due to the impact of their show on child sexual abuse, even though the bill was already placed before parliament at the time of airing of the show.” The show has had an impact among general tv watchers and hopes to have the same run as the previous one. With or without the inadequacies, should we still be glad that Sunday morning primetime has yet again been slotted for food for thought?