4 Mumbai Lok Sabha seats may see re-election if MPs charged with serious criminal cases are found guilty within a year

MUMBAI: There might be a re-election in four of the six Lok Sabha constituencies in the city within a year if the victorious candidates are convicted in the criminal cases against them, said the Association of Democratic Reforms (ADR) in its analysis of financial and criminal records of the winners.

The ADR said there were serious criminal charges against Arvind Sawant from Mumbai South, Rahul Shewale from Mumbai South-Central, Kirit Somaiya from Mumbai North-East and Gopal Shetty from Mumbai North. They could not be reached for comment on Saturday.

"After ordering disqualification of MPs and MLAs immediately after conviction for heinous offences, the Supreme Court on March 10, 2014, took a second big step towards cleansing the political process by directing that trial proceedings in cases of corruption and serious crimes against elected representatives must be completed in a year," Sharad Kumar, member, ADR, said.

Sawant is accused of criminal intimidation. Shewale is accused of voluntarily hurting a public servant to deter him from carrying out his duty; he is also accused of dishonestly receiving stolen property. Somaiya faces three charges, one of voluntarily hurting a public servant and two of house trespass with prior preparation for assault. Shetty is accused of voluntarily hurting a public servant, criminal intimidation, and cheating and dishonestly inducing delivery of property.

Shewale's wealth grew 6,980.80% in two years after the BMC election in 2012. He was standing committee chairman for four terms.

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Not debris, it’s soil at Tower of Silence, Parsi committee members say

Earlier this week, four Bombay Parsi Punchayet trustees accused Chairman Dinshaw Mehta of dumping around 300 trucks of debris at the sacred Tower of Silence (see pic) and exposing colonies nearby to the threat of landslides.

On Saturday, Mehta and Dr Homi Dhalla, who is part of the Doongerwadi committee on a voluntary basis, took journalists' to inspect the soil and "show how well plants are sprouting in it". Since the ground level has been raised around four feet, "we are banking it with stones as a precaution during the monsoon," said Dhalla adding that a lab report showed that the soil was of good quality and all actions were taken under the guidance of a botany expert. Parsiana editor, Jehangir Patel, was part of the contingent and agreed with Dhalla's assessment. "It is soil, not debris," he said. "Earlier, the ground was rocky. With this new soil, they are hoping for more vegetation."

But trustee Jimmy Mistry, argues that such a decision should not have been taken unilaterally by the BPP chairman. "The bottom line is this was done without board approval. Merely because the earth is getting washed off with the rains doesn't mean you dump trucks of earth. We have to plan on how to retain it and create a structural report before doing a project like this." The charity commissioner has been asked to look into the matter.

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Captain Nair, founder of Leela hotels, dies at 92

MUMBAI: Indian hospitality doyen and Padma Bhushan awardee, C P Krishnan Nair, 92, passed away in the city on Saturday after a brief illness. Nair, founder of the Leela chain of hotels, breathed his last at 3.40am at the Hinduja Hospital, where he was admitted recently.

Nair, popularly called Captain Nair given his stint in the Indian Army, had also served under Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose. He had handed over the chairmanship of the hotels he built to elder son Vivek last year. He then became chairman emeritus of the company. His younger son, Dinesh, was made the co-chairman and managing director.

Nair's life typifies the proverbial rags-to-riches story that shows that through determination, grit and a bit of luck anyone can overcome challenging circumstances and achieve extraordinary success. The son of a government bill collector, Nair, one among eight siblings, was born in 1922 into a poor family in a Kerala village.

Part of Nair's school education was funded by a scholarship from a local landlord who was impressed by the 13-year old's recitation when the landlord was on a visit to the village school. It was also around the same time he joined the freedom movement and later enrolled in the Indian Army as an officer and was placed at Abbottabad in Pakistan, now famous for US secret services' operation to kill Osama bin Laden.

In 1950 Nair married Leela, the daughter of a handloom owner and soon started helping his father-in-law in the business. Over the next four decades he expanded the handloom business, set up a manufacturing facility in Mumbai, developed an export market for Indian handlooms and in the process went on to become one of the country's leading personalities in the sector.

In 1987, Nair opened his first luxury hotel in Mumbai. His inspiration to make a foray into the hospitality business came from his exposure to some of the finest hotels in the world like Adlon Kempinski and Waldorf Astoria during his business trips abroad. He ventured into a new business when he was 65, an age when many retire from active work and move to a quieter life.

Nair named the hotel after his wife and over the years grew the business into a chain of eight properties across India. In the process it also has become one of the most celebrated indigenous luxury hospitality groups in the country. Leela hotels are known for luxury and opulence, but it is now weighed down by huge debt and is considering divestment of stakes in some properties.

A few years ago when Nair felt a hostile takeover threat to his hospitality business from its bigger peer ITC Group, he said that he had a white knight in Reliance Industries chief Mukesh Ambani. ITC holds 12.2% in Hotel Leelaventure.

Nair is survived by his wife and two sons.

His funeral is scheduled for Sunday at Juhu crematorium. A condolence meeting will be held at The Leela Mumbai, on Thursday.

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Milkman gets Rs 1 lakh as payout for cattle death

THANE: The Thane Motor Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) recently awarded Rs 1 lakh to a milk vendor for the death of his cattle that were hit by a truck. The plea was made by Deonarayan Jaiswar from Ambernath against New India Assurance Company Ltd, truck owner, Baliram Dawre, and the driver, Rambhau Hiwarale.

Jaiswar said on October 19, 2005, the truck driven by Hiwarale hit four of his buffaloes, killing them. He added each buffalo delivered about 15 litres milk daily. He substantiated his claim with the valuation of the buffaloes given by a vet and of the loss of Rs 90,000 from milk sale. After considering his monthly income of Rs 45,000, he claimed Rs 1.75 lakh. The tribunal gave the verdict ex parte against the owner and truck driver while the firm contested the claim saying the application was false. But the tribunal said the cattle died due to the accident and awarded Jaiswar Rs 1 lakh as compensation.

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80 RTO transfers may hit work in Maharashtra

MUMBAI: Transport-related work across Maharashtra is likely to be affected statewide for a few days as the government transferred around 80 officials across regional transport offices.

An official said, "This can have some impact on RTO-related work where officers have been given transfers orders." He added the transfers were routine. Work likely to be affected includes issuance of learning or driving license, new vehicle registration and permit issuance.

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Borivali local skips Khar station

MUMBAI: A Borivali slow local train from Churchgate skipped its mandatory halt at Khar station on Western Railway on Sunday afternoon. It led to confusion and scare among the commuters, who had plans to alight at the station.

WR sources said that the incident happened around 12.40pm. The motorman and the guard were taken off the duty and train short-terminated at Andheri station.

The incident is abnormal as there have been extremely rare cases of entire train skipping the halt on suburban section. Usually, the violation is of motorman over shooting the platform of some coaches.

WR official said, "The incident is surprising as it happened on slow corridor where the motorman has to halt at all the stations in up and down direction between Churchgate and Virar. Such incidents usually happened on fast corridor and that too between Andheri and Borivali Virar fast locals skip the stations while Borivali fast locals halts at stations between this stretch."

The motorman and guard will be issued a chargesheet and minor penalty will be levied.

The official said, "Even though the train skipped the Khar station it never jumped the red signal, which in railway parlance is called Signal Passing at Danger (SPAD) case and amounts to suspensionof motorman or the guard or both from the service."

In this case, motorman immediately conceded his mistake.

Railway sources said that the incident led to brief commotion. There were fears of accident while others thought if they had boarded the wrong train.

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Mod’ Art International organises its annual fashion show in Mumbai

Mod' Art International, the French fashion school, is the sister concern of Mod'Art Paris, a premium Parisian fashion school. It hosted its annual fashion show, which witnessed models on the runway in inventive collections designed by students themselves. The presentation gave them a platform to put forward their creative energies and give them a glimpse of the fashion world.

Spotted at the event were Simran Kaur Mundi, Hazel Keech, Shibani Kashyap, Archana Kochhar, Shane and Falguni Peacock, Gavin Miguel, Shaheen Abbas, Shamita Singha and Mashoom Singha. Students were also felicitated with accolades for their conduct through the academic year.

The show presented an amalgamation of themes by the first, second and third year students. Kickstarting with the collection of the first year students, CosmosA Static Illusion showcased garments inspired by the universe and based on motion in space. The collection by second year students, Metamorphosis — A Dream Escape explored the theme explores of the metamorphosis of the human body in different shapes and forms.

The third year students exhibited a bunch of diverse collections with themes revolving around concepts like independent women, fashion from mid 90's, simplicity, magic realism, garments for various occasions, psychedelic apparels, strength and holiness of koi and dragon, attire representing sins, elegant and stylish modesty of women, modern and Indian architecture, Victorian era, geometric shapes, structures and curves, power of gods and their representation in nature, feminity and glory of goddess, collection inspired from snakes and its different representations.

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Elections 2014: Financial capital chooses NDA, AAP fails to pose a challenge

MUMBAI: Mumbai turned saffron with a vengeance, just one election after it blanked out the Shiv Sena-BJP combine from its map. NDA swept all six seats, with both partners bagging three each.

A combination of factors led to the Congress-NCP rout, which has been a once-in-atwo-decades phenomenon in Mumbai; the city ousted Congress in 1977, repeated the washout 19 years later in 1996 and did it again 18 years later.

The two important factors would have to be the Modi wave and the anti-incumbency sentiment playing overtime. Congress and NCP candidates have had to bear the cross of the voters' anger against the UPA-II government, if not against themselves. What made the outcome certain was a simultaneous, almost-en-bloc gravitation of these anti-incumbent votes towards NDA.

These twin forces were so strong that it made the potential spoilers entirely irrelevant to the final result. MNS, which helped the Congress-NCP combine get a tennis set-like, 6-0 margin last time, has struggled to retain its own voter base. It played the role of a passive ally to BJP, refusing to field candidates in the BJP seats. But Raj Thackeray's party failed to spoil even cousin Uddhav Thackeray's party in the three seats where Sena candidates were the NDA representatives.

AAP was reduced to a footnote. It, however, has its supporters—in some seats it has approximated MNS levels but it has a long way to go to even become a serious spoiler.

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Goregaon lift mishap: Cops begin probe

MUMBAI: The police are trying to ascertain whether or not there was any negligence on part of the builder or the construction firm in the lift mishap in Goregaon, which led to the death of two workers and left four others injured.

The incident occurred in an under-construction building near Oberoi mall on Thursday.

A case has been registered under IPC sections 304-A (causing death due to negligence) and 338 (causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others).

"We are looking into the role of people implementing the project," said Uttam More, senior inspector at Aarey Sub police station.

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Leela hotels founder CP Krishnan Nair dies

MUMBAI: Capt. CP Krishnan Nair, a war veteran and founder of the Leela Group of hotels, passed away on Saturday morning following a brief illness, an official said.

Capt. Nair, 82, is survived by his wife and sons, including Vivek, who heads the 28-year-old hotels chain with eight prime properties across the country.

According to the hotel official, Capt. Nair, as he was known in professional and military circles, breathed his last around 3.30 am at Hinduja Hospital, where he was admitted recently.

The funeral ceremony will be performed on Sunday at the Vile Parle crematorium in Mumbai.

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