rashmi

1.5 Lakh+ original tribals gathered in Delhi yesterday under Janjati Suraksha Manch, demanding delisting of converted Christians & Muslims from ST quota to protect indigenous identity. Amit Shah attended historic maha sammelan.

Mumbai has fallen in love with a tree that gives no shade. I was passing by a hospital in Mumbai recently, and I couldn't stop looking at the trees. Inside the compound, families were waiting - someone they loved was in the emergency ward - standing in the open, facing the full afternoon heat. Just outside the gate, on the pavement, autos and drivers and people on foot faced the same sun. Two groups, a wall between them, both baking. And above all of them stood a neat row of palm trees. Tall, premium, photogenic. Casting almost no shade on a single person below. That image stayed with me, and once I noticed it I started seeing it in several places in Mumbai. Look outside new hospitals, residential towers, office parks, redevelopment projects - the same thin, elegant palms, lined up like columns. I can't speak for the rest of India; I genuinely don't know what builders plant in other cities. But here, the pattern is hard to miss. We have chosen a tree that flatters the building and forgets the human being standing under it. And it's not only at a particular institution. It's the situation of almost every new building. Senior citizens waiting for a car. Children waiting for the school bus. Security guards standing through the entire afternoon. Drivers, delivery workers, domestic staff walking home in the heat. These aren't abstract "users" in an architectural drawing. They are people, and people need shade. There's a quiet contradiction here too. We ask people to drive less, walk more, take the bus, cut their fuel use. But if the footpath is a furnace and the bus stop offers no cover, the heat itself pushes people back into air-conditioned cars. A city only walks if it's walkable in the heat. Shade is what makes the greener choice physically possible - without it, "use your car less" is advice the street refuses to support. I understand why builders reach for palms. They're easy. Their roots don't crack the pavement or break the pipes. They survive pollution, they need little care, they look tidy in a brochure. On a spreadsheet, the palm wins. But the spreadsheet is measuring the wrong thing - it's optimising for the building when it should be optimising for the person. What our cities need are tree canopies - real shade-giving trees that cool the ground, soften the heat, cut the glare, and make an entrance feel humane. Not ornamental strips. Not tall, thin trees that look good and protect no one. And here's the part that makes this easy: the fix isn't expensive or complicated. It's one decision, taken while the landscape plan is still on paper. Plant shade-giving canopy trees along the boundary of the compound. That single choice does two things at once. It shades the compound inside, and it shades the public pavement outside. The housing society or institution waters and maintains the trees within its own wall - and the whole street gets the shade for free. That's civic generosity at almost no cost. It's how a private building can quietly serve public life. So if your building in Mumbai is being redeveloped or newly built, please raise this now. Ask for the landscape plan. Ask which trees are going in, and whether they'll actually form a canopy. Ask whether the pavement, the entrance, the waiting area, the children's pick-up zone will be shaded. Once the building is up, this becomes very hard and very expensive to undo. Shade isn't beautification. It's health infrastructure. It's climate adaptation. It's dignity - compassion made visible. Would you plant for the photo - or for the people? #Mumbai #Heat #Summer #ClimateChange #Trees @CMOMaharashtra @AshwiniBhide @PMOIndia

According to my friend @ranjeetnature this is happening in an Eco Sensitive Zone on the boundary of SGNP, Mumbai. Debris being dumped, green is becoming grey, @AshwiniBhide mam as the chair of ESZ, I request you to take immediate action against the perpetrators. In my opinion dumping of debris in ESZ isn’t permitted.

Going through the provisions of the proposed Maharashtra Devasthan Inams Abolition Act. Every line of it leaves me angrier than the previous one. A worse piece of legislation with regard to temple lands is yet to be found. Key points: 1. Occupiers become owners, even if unauthorised they can pay market rate and become owner 2. Hereditary occupants who are lessees become owners 3. Govt takes control of all the devasthan lands that are not under control of other occupants and can do what it wants with them 4. No provisions for compensating the devasthan for this irreversible alienation of its lands 5. Collector will decide any disputes, and devasthan isn’t even made a mandatory party. This deserves street level and legal level opposition on a large scale. CM Fadnavis has ordered a relook of the act as several Hindu organisations are already up in arms against it. But nothing less than a complete withdrawal will suffice.

@rushikesh_agre_ AQI is 34 !!

Mumbai right now 🥵💧

Dhurandhar who lived 108 years 🔥 🔥 You've seen spies in movies. You've watched Dhurandhar. You've heard stories of brave soldiers. But what if I told you that the most dangerous, most feared, and most loyal secret weapon India ever had was not a trained intelligence officer, not a decorated army general, not even someone who went to school? Born in 1901, Ranchodbhai Savabhai Rabari known as "Pagi", meaning the one who shows the way spent his entire life doing exactly that. Guiding Indian soldiers through pitch black deserts. Tracking enemy footprints in the sand. Protecting a border that most of us can't even find on a map. His skill was unlike anything any spy school could ever teach. One look at a footprint and he could tell you how many soldiers passed, how fast they were moving, whether they were armed, and how long ago they walked there. 100 years of living in the desert gave him a sense no technology could replace. During the 1965 war, the Indian Army needed to move 10,000 soldiers to their destination in three days. Pagi guided them and arrived 12 hours ahead of schedule. Through a desert. In complete darkness. With zero technology. Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw one of India's greatest ever military heroes personally gave him the nickname "Pagi" and never forgot him till his last breath. In 2008, lying on his deathbed in a hospital in Tamil Nadu, Manekshaw kept whispering one single word in his semi-conscious state. "Pagi… Pagi… Pagi…" He worked with R&AW and the BSF guarding 540 km of the India-Pakistan border in Gujarat. He won the Sangram Medal, the Samar Seva Star and the Police Medal. The BSF named a border outpost after him that still stands today. His story is now in Gujarat school textbooks. Most people retire at 60. Pagi retired at 108. He left this world on January 18, 2013, at the age of 112. No viral moment. No prime time coverage. No trending hashtag. Just a shepherd from Gujarat who quietly kept a billion people safe for over a century. While we were watching fictional spies on screen, the real Dhurandhar was walking barefoot through the desert making sure we slept safely at night. Share this so his name never gets forgotten. 🔖 Save this. The world needs to know him

@mybmcWardGS @Dev_Fadnavis @mybmc @mayor_mumbai The Question that arises @mybmcwardgs is whether the new structure as legal is per the law , it is a continuation of an existing structure or was it only a cross that existed and now a new superstructure has been added new.

Just outside the Siddhi Vinyaka Temple Prabhadevi within the Mumbai Metro Prabhadevi station a new shed claiming as a chapel has come up. Now starts evangelizing and conversion besides probable illeligality of the structure itself. @Dev_Fadnavis @mybmc @mayor_mumbai

@RetardedHurt This was done earlier. They were back in a few days.

Those who don't live in Mumbai,do not know how big an achievement and relief this is for Mumbaikars,kudos to the goverment for taking this much needed action.

@baxirahul AQI in central Mumbai was 45 today. Could see the buildings on Nhava Sheva side from Parel

Clear skies and sunset today. They will get more and more dramatic before the monsoons arrive.

Austerity? What austerity? Sarkari officials to get retroactive pay hike with 8th Pay Commission. @tavleen_singh do talk about this in your wonderful column. The average sarkari officer is over paid, underworked and sadly forever over here. Cannot even kick them out like the Raj

@YusufDFI People were very well aware that prices of fuel will be increased after elections. They were prepared for that. He need not have made that statement about saving petrol and avoid buying gold. Now all are in panic unnecessarily

Earlier, one could pass such warnings as fear-mongering. But the gvt itself has instilled the fear part with the PM’s various statements, and the nautanki of austerity that has followed. What should mango man do?

@avarakai Its been over 12 years!! Time was always right. Now try removing them!! Such a large population. Where will they be moved?? The number of Bangladeshis have increased in last 8 odd years in Mumbai. This govt did not do anything. They have to take some responsibility.

@TweetsOfRashmi "turned a blind eye" because, time was not right. I see it as "biding with time" while collecting data.

Bhain ki aankh!! How big these encroachments are!! That too, prime properties.

Mentioned this to बाबा … He said: since 70s that area had been taken over by illegals including rohingyas’, bangla deshis, and possibly paxtanis. Someone clearly helped them ( sidebar question: who ). . If the area would remain illegal people free for 2 years, then it would be deemed successful.

These illegal Bangladesh1s who occupy every goddamn Mumbai station have been getting all the facilities from local politicians including BJP leaders. I’m sure soon they will get accommodated in PMAY flats with blessing from Mowgli Ji.

@Brahamvakya They will be back after 2 days max.

& she is qualified enough to understand the complexities of the job as well as benchmark and then evaluate 👇😂 On the fun side, other than Dharmendra Pradhan (Nepo Kid) & Nadda ji, other 3 are doing a fantastic job

India really needs a civic sense movement. The incident at Delhi Metro where an elderly man reportedly urinated inside a lift is severely unacceptable and deserving of penalty under public nuisance laws. Civilised societies should punish misconduct in real time!

@SandeepMall How do you manage to keep rats away from the tulsi tree? I've planted atlest 10. All eaten by rates in a couple of days post planting

The plants keep our backyard temperature more than 10 degrees lower.

1/10 #ObituaryOfTheDay Capt Amit Bhardwaj, Fourth Battalion The JAT Regiment. Martyred in #KargilWar on 17 May 1999 as he went looking for the the missing patrol of his immediate junior, Lt Saurabh Kalia.