The Brave Pedestrian

Mumbai, 16 th September, 2017: If you are a flat-buyer looking for a new home for your family, or an property investor looking for good returns, be warned; Lodha Fiorenza is a trap. If you sign any papers or swipe your credit card at the Lodha Fiorenza sales office, you will be liable to forfeit lakhs of rupees very quickly, or make a regrettable investment from which there are only loss-making exits. The branding message of “interiors by Jade Jagger for Yoo” is a giant façade that hides an ugly mess of unverifiable claims, unfair dealings and badly planned towers that will prove extremely costly to maintain in the long run.  The advertising claims portray a stylish premium property, which is far from the ground reality. The designer interiors are flashy, mediocre and gimmicky. Half the flats have a view of the greenery of Aarey Colony, Goregaon, but this is marred by the continuous bass droning of day-and-night traffic on the Western Express Highway that permeates th...

Mumbai, 14 March, 2015: Planning to kill yourself and your family after a tasty meal? Go to Golden Chariot Restaurant. Blocked fire-exits and various other dangerous practices makes this restaurant at Goregaon's Hub Mall your best bet at achieving a fiery death. Although activists like Shaikh Fakhruddin Junaid, Sulaiman Bhimani and myself have repeatedly pointed it out to Mumbai's Municipal Corporation and Mumbai Fire Brigade, the ability of Golden Chariot to bribe the powers-that-be and also abuse judicial processes has helped it to survive. But orders passed by MCGM and Fire Brigade in 2017 suggest that Golden Chariot's goose is being slowly cooked. After the restaurant finally caught fire on 29th December, 2016 (read newspaper reports here and here ), civic authorities are finding it difficult to dodge their responsibility to ensure public safety by sealing it. Deputy Municipal Commissioner Kiran Achrekar and Deputy Chief Fire Officer V N Panigrahi have ordere...