The Brave Pedestrian

12 th August, 2016: In today's mumbai Mirror, there's this frontpage story headlined, " Buyers Hire Rock Climbers to Enter Flats that Builder won't Hand Over ". One empathizes with the desperation that triggered a dozen home buyers in Powai's Tej society, a redevelopment project of Shwet Realtors ... but their adventurous act is likely to land them into trouble. Yes, this move succeeded in focusing public attention on the plight of the home owners and the defaults of Shwet Realtors in particular, but nevertheless, the police will probably register an FIR for "House Trespass" and related offences against the home-buyers and the rock-climber, and promptly issue arrest warrants. The fact that the redeveloper delayed possession of the flats for years will not cut ice, because the police or magistrate view the builder's actions as a "civil dispute", and the buyers' actions as a "criminal offence". Bottomline: Our system i...

23 March 2016, Mumbai: While browsing through my old emails, I found the following letter drafted by some of my fellow activists to the powers-that-be a few years back, when Prithviraj Chavan was Chief Minister of Maharashtra, and Sitaram Kunte was the Municipal Commissioner. Methinks this letter is as relevant today as when it was written, back in December 2013. Activist friends like Abbaas Rizvi, who have been working to thwart the encroachment mafias in Mumbai, tell me that the issues that this letter points out are still as bad as ever. And so, I am reproducing this letter here for everyone to read, and hopefully to copy-paste onto their own letterhead, sign and send to the Chief Minister and our civic bosses.    To Hon’ble Chief   Minister of Maharashtra,   Mantralaya   Chief Secretary of Maharashtra,   Mantralaya   Principal Secretary-I, Urban Development Dept   Municipal Commissioner, BMC Head Office, Mahapalika Marg. ...