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By:

Quaid Najmi

4 January 2025 at 3:26:24 pm

MVA protests for third day:

Mumbai: The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies continued their agitation for the third day in different parts of Maharashtra with an aggressive state Congress hitting the streets today to protest the detention of Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, his sister Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra and other Congress leaders yesterday, here on Wednesday. State and city Youth Congress again carried out vociferous protests near Mantralaya raising slogans, carrying banners and placards slamming the...

MVA protests for third day:

Mumbai: The Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) allies continued their agitation for the third day in different parts of Maharashtra with an aggressive state Congress hitting the streets today to protest the detention of Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi, his sister Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra and other Congress leaders yesterday, here on Wednesday. State and city Youth Congress again carried out vociferous protests near Mantralaya raising slogans, carrying banners and placards slamming the state and central Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and when some attempted to enter inside, they were prevented by a strong posse of Mumbai Police deployed there since Monday. As tensions appeared to escalate, the police clamped down by detaining top state and city Youth Congress leaders including President Harshwardhan Sapkal, Vijay Wadettiwar, Bhai Jagtap, Hussain Dalwai, and many others. Thousands of students carried out a fresh demonstration at Dadar west Shivaji Park to vent their ire at the police action on Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)’s agitation in New Delhi on Monday. Several MVA leaders and Maharashtra Navnirman Sena chief Raj Thackeray visited or expressed solidarity with the protesting youth, comprising many women. Opposition’s Voice The Congress leaders alleged that Rahul Gandhi was targeted by the BJP-led government to muzzle democratic dissent, suppress the Opposition voices inside and outside Parliament and trampling upon the peoples' Constitutional Rights to protest peacefully. Defying pouring rains in the city on Wednesday, Congress workers along with activists of MVA allies, staged a noisy demonstration in Chembur and another group attempted to storm the BJP office in south Mumbai, condemning the assault on students in New Delhi and the detention of the Gandhi siblings. Senior Congress leader Hussain Dalwai flayed the government for “misusing the police” to gag democratic rights and the protests were intended to defend the Constitution and democracy against the BJP’s policy of intolerance of dissent in any form. “This is gross injustice. We are not allowed to protest against the government failures as they are misusing the police. The PM is scared of taking the resignation of Dharmendra Pradhan as he could be the next. We want to highlight to the BJP to govern the country as per the Constitution,” Dalwai declared, interacting with the media at Nariman Point. As the BJP also threatened to launch counter-protests, the police cordoned off and deployed a precautionary security ring around Tilak Bhavan, the state Congress headquarters, as leaders from both sides exchanged political darts and looked aggressive enough for a confrontation. MVA ‘bandh’, ‘Tricolour’ march today The state is set for another two days of political turmoil as the MVA has announced a Maharashtra shutdown (‘bandh’) on Thursday followed by a non-partisan ‘Tricolour Peace March’ on Friday. MVA allies, Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi (VBA) President Prakash Ambedkar and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aaditya Thackeray, besides other leaders of the alliance, informed of the state and city level actions today. Ambedkar appealed to the masses and also the BJP youth to participate wholeheartedly in the bandh tomorrow and claimed that students’ bodies, parent-teachers associations, colleges, universities, other institutes of higher education, private coaching institutions, and other governmental departments could support the shutdown, as it has now become a national issue. Aaditya sought the peoples’ participation in the ‘Tricolour Peace March’ on the theme of “One Nation, One Emotion” planned on July 24 afternoon to Shivaji Park, in support of environmentalist Sonam Wangchuk, the Cockroach Janta Party, plus the youth and students protesting in New Delhi. Terming it as a national citizens’ movement rather than a political party, he called upon the people not to carry any party flags but unite under the National Tricolour to assert democratic rights and express resentment against the government’s high-handed policies. Meanwhile, Mumbai Police have already imposed prohibitory orders under Section 144 across the city from July 23-to- August 6, apprehending the possibility of law-and-order disturbances.

Free library for commuters on Western Railway

Cricketer AB De Villiers inaugurates 'Library Junction', a first' of its kind reading corner, at Churchgate Railway Station, on Friday. | Pic: Bhushan Koyande
Cricketer AB De Villiers inaugurates 'Library Junction', a first' of its kind reading corner, at Churchgate Railway Station, on Friday. | Pic: Bhushan Koyande

Mumbai: The train commuters can have leisure time reading books at Churchgate Station as western railway started the library junction which will be the first of its kind in Mumbai. The initiative was taken by The Project Mumbai, an NGO known for public service. Now, the passengers can kill the travel time by reading books such as ‘The Immortals of Meluha’ by Amish Tripathi, ‘The Thousand Splendid Suns’ by Khalid Hosseini, ‘The White Tiger’ by Aravind Adiga, ‘The Book Thief’ by Markus Zusak and many more.

 

Currently, the library is home to 1200 books among which a section is given to children’s books, thrillers, fiction, non-fiction, magazines, romance, and so on. The books will be in four languages at present. It will have books in Hindi, English, Marathi and Gujarati. These books were all donated by ‘The Project Mumbai’, who has been collecting books for the public and the underprivileged. The genres will keep changing over time. If there is a Marathi literature week, then they will have a large number of Marathi books. In future the community project, although in a small space, will also be open to book launches.


Anyone who wishes to take books needs to give their basic information such as name, phone number and address. The book will be lent for two weeks and the person will get a reminder if not returned on time. There are no library cards to be issued. 


The purpose of the library is to inculcate and revive reading habits amongst people of Mumbai and make reading accessible to all. This initiative has an environmental angle also. The infrastructure built in red and stands as a post is made of recycled plastic bottles by ‘Jyoti Organisation’. 


The Library Junction was inaugurated by the South African cricketer AB de Villiers. He even donated two copies of his signed autobiography AB.


The location of the Library Junction is strategically chosen at the Churchgate station so that the commuters have more ease in getting books to read. There will be two librarians with different shifts who look after the books and the books will be locked in the cupboard when there is no one to supervise. The library will be closed only on Sundays. The books were collected from libraries, institutions and people. 


Pankaj Singh, Divisional Railway Manager, Mumbai Central Division, said, “At times we see the media and electronic media like mobile phones occupy a lot of time. But books are lovely. It is a personal passion of mine. The initiative is by the community and the structure is also made of recycled plastic. We will refurbish the beautiful furniture. We can have genre-specific months like a month for thrillers or biographies and so on.”


When asked whether the project will also help increase readers, Singh said. “Yes, I hope this will help revive reading and there are so many book lovers in the city. We even have a children’s section where we have comics, graphic novels, and young adult books.”


The initiative was implemented after months of preparations. NGO will be building more such libraries at locations like metros stations in Mumbai.

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