Superstar Hrithik Roshan has joined hands with Mumbai Traffic Police to open a new traffic helpline in the city.

The service, which will help citizens get information on traffic jams, alternate routes, road blocks and diversions, was inaugurated on November 10 by the actor and Commissioner of Police Ahmed Javed.

The 41-year-old “Bang Bang!” star thanked the Traffic Police for the initiative.

“Thank you Mumbai Traffic Police for this great initiative. Thank you Mr. Javed Ahmed for making me a part of this. Traffic helpline,” Hrithik tweeted.

The call centre will also provide citizens with information on the best routes to reach their destination. The helpline will be handled by around 80 constables, who will be available as soon as a citizen calls.

Veteran playback singer Mubarak Begum has been ailing for long and is looking for financial support.

The 75-year-old legend is living in a one-bedroom house in suburban Jogeshwari with her son, who too is unwell.

“She has been unwell for quite sometime. Her daughter passed away last month due to Parkinson’s disease. Since then her health has deteriorated,” Begum’s daughter-in-law Zarina said.

“She (Begum) has breathing problem, weakness and forgets things. She was in ICU and doctors told us her heart has become weak. We must take care of her. So we have brought her home,” Zarina said.

Speaking to PTI the singer, however said, “I am okay now.”

Earlier in 2011, the Maharashtra government had sanctioned a financial aid of Rs. one lakh for the treatment of Begum.

“No one from the film industry comes ahead to help us financially. We somehow manage the medicine expense, but when we go to hospital it gets difficult,” Zarina said.

Begum was the voice behind evergreen hits like “Mujhko Apne Gale Lagaa Lo”, “O Mere Humrahi” and “Kabhi Tanhaiyon Mein Yun Hamari Yaad Aayegi” and “Hum Haal-e-dil Sunaenge” among others.

Adding a twist to his appeal proceedings before the Bombay High Court, Bollywood actor Salman Khan, sentenced to five-year jail term in the 2002 hit-and-run case, sought examination of his friend and singer Kamaal Khan as a witness by the prosecution.

Justice A R Joshi asked the prosecution to file by tomorrow a reply, rejecting or accepting the application filed by Salman’s lawyer Amit Desai.

“Why the prosecution had not examined this witness in the trial court?… Kamaal Khan is the best eyewitness available to the prosecution as he was present in Salman’s car on September 28, 2002, when it rammed into a shop in Bandra killing one person and injuring four others,” said Desai.

Kamaal can throw light on who was driving the car, the lawyer added. Salman’s defence has been saying that it was his driver Ashok Singh who was behind the wheel.

Other eyewitness, Salman’s police bodyguard Ravindra Patil, died during the trial in 2007. The prosecution relied on his statement before the magistrate implicated Salman, but as the defence couldn’t cross-examine him, it caused prejudice to the actor, advocate Desai said.

The prosecution also didn’t examine Ashok Singh, though he had gone to the police station (after the accident) to give his statement, he said.

The trial judge had rejected Singh’s testimony (as a defence witness), observing that he might be trying to save his master by taking the blame on himself.

Desai contended that the prosecution told the trial court that Kamaal was abroad and not available for testifying, but it made no efforts to bring the singer to the court, and it should explain this.

The trial court on May 6 held Salman guilty of ‘culpable homicide not amounting to murder’, upholding the police’s case that he was drunk and was driving the car when the accident took place in suburban Bandra.

SP MLA Abu Azmi demanded immediate rehabilitation of the people displaced by the construction of Metro and Monorail projects.

MLAs cutting across party lines and other public representatives, including Azmi (Mankhurd), Capt Tamil Selvan (BJP-Sion Koliwada), Trupti Sawant (Shiv Sena-Bandra), were invited by Maharashtra Minister of State for Housing Ravindra Waikar to discuss various issued related to slum development.

“I took up the issue of inordinate delay in the rehabilitation of displaced project affected people and urged the minister to do the needful to give possession of flats constructed by the authorities for them,” Azmi said.

“I handed over the memorandum to Waikar in this connection. I will raise the issue of government’s apathy in the upcoming Assembly session,” he said.

Changdev Wankhede, president of slum cell of Samajwadi Party alleged that due to callous approach of Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) and other agencies, thousands of affected people have become homeless.

“At least 561 hutments in various areas including, Ghatkopar and Andheri, had been removed for these projects and flats for their rehabilitation have been constructed at Nahur, Mankhurd and Kanjurmarg in the city years back. These displaced people did get the provisional letter. So far they have not been given the possession letters and keys for the flats by MMRDA,” Wankhede, who is also the President of Railway Zopadpatti Punarvasan Samiti, said.

Selvan said that “we also raised the issue of unhygienic conditions of slum dwellers and highlighted the solutions to overcome it”.

“I opined that toilets being built at collector’s land should not require a NOC and also demanded that e-tendering process should be fastened,” he added.

A division bench of the Bombay High Court declined to hear a bunch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the beef ban legislation in Maharashtra after one of the judges recused himself from hearing them.

“Not before a bench of which I am part of,” said Justice Gautam Patel who was sitting with senior HC judge Justice Abhay Oka.

Justice Patel told the advocates appearing in the case that he was recusing himself from hearing the petitions as he, as a lawyer, had written an article in a newspaper in 2012 expressing his view after the Karnataka Government proposed to pass a law banning beef in the state.

Acting Chief Justice V K Tahilramani would constitute a special bench comprising Justice Oka and another junior judge to hear the petitions.

In February 2015, President Pranab Mukherjee had granted sanction to the Maharashtra Animal Preservation (Amendment) Act. While the Act had banned slaughter of cows way back in 1976, the recent amendments prohibited slaughter of bulls and bullocks.

According to the amended Act, the sale of bulls and bullocks in the state for slaughter is an offence punishable with five-year jail term and Rs 10,000 fine. Besides, possession of meat of cow or of bull or bullock is also an offence for which the punishment prescribed is one year jail and Rs 2,000 fine.

While hearing the petitions, the high court in April had refused to grant an interim stay on the law on the issue of possession of beef.

Arif Kapadia, a city resident, and noted lawyer Harish Jagtiani, challenged this provision of law which says mere possession of beef in any place in the state is a crime.

According to Jagtiani, this provision of law is arbitrary and hits upon the cosmopolitan nature of the city which is home for people from various religions and communities.

A Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed in the Bombay High Court seeking a direction to Maharashtra government to register an offence against concerned persons for allegedly launching a website “glorifying” Mahatma Gandhi’s assassin Nathuram Godse.

The petition, filed by social activist Ketan Tirodkar, urged that the authorities may be directed to register an offence under section 121 of IPC which deals with ‘waging war against the nation.’

According to the PIL, the act of launching website amounts to committing the offence of ‘waging war against the nation’ and urged that action should be taken against those who had launched the website, “https://www.menathuramgodse.com.

The Contact page (of the website) reflects the address of Shivaji Nagar, Pune, of one Nana Godse, the PIL said and added that the petitioner had sent a complaint by e-mail to Mumbai and Pune Police but they have so far not registered any offence. The petitioner also offered to produce a copy of the complaint.

The PIL is expected to come up for hearing in due course.

Mumbai unit of BJP claimed that the state government was fully prepared to extend all administrative support to lakhs of devotees, who are scheduled to celebrate Chhath Puja at Juhu beach on November 17 and 18.

Mumbai BJP’s general secretary Amarjeet Mishra said the government was ready to facilitate Chhath devotees but within the purview of the court ruling, which is expected to tone down the celebrations this year.

On October 23, the Bombay High Court had upheld a Mumbai suburban collector’s decision that prohibited celebrities from taking part in Chhath Puja celebrations at the Juhu beach, questioning the need to invite them and for song and dance during the rituals.

“The (Chhath) rituals, unfortunately, have been politicised in the recent years, which is why High Court had to step in. I met our Cultural Minister Vinod Tawde and apprised him about the possible inconvenience to devotees in wake of the court ruling. Tawde ji immediately spoke to Collector and instructed to make all arrangements to facilitate the devotees.”

Chhath Puja also called ‘Dala Puja’ is a Hindu festival dedicated to the Sun God. It is popular in the North and Eastern Indian states of Bihar and UP.

During the two-day festival, devotees observe fast and make offerings to the Sun God near a pond or sea.

Over the years, during Chhath celebrations in Mumbai, few political leaders as organisers started inviting celebrities to the festival and this distorted its original essence.

“Had these leaders taken some restraint in inviting celebrities and maintained the sanctity of the festival then this situation would not have arisen,” said Mohan Mishra, vice-president of North-Indian cell of Mumbai BJP.

“This is the festival of faith and purity. What is the point in inviting comedians and film personalities to this Puja, who make a mockery of it,” he asked.

A domestic help working at ‘Matoshree’, the heavily-guarded bungalow of Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray in suburban Bandra, was injured when his colleague allegedly attacked him with a knife, the police said on Monday.

“The incident occurred on the night of November 14 when the accused, identified as Sevak, tried to kill another servant, Pandit with a kitchen knife,” DCP (Zone VIII) Virendra Mishra said.

He said Sevak, who was also injured in the scuffle, was arrested on the same night from the house, and the provocation behind the attack was being investigated.

The DCP said a maid, named Manda, also suffered injuries when she tried to intervene and separate the duo. “Sevak and Pandit were admitted to Bhaba Hospital and are reportedly out of danger”, he added.

‘Matoshree’, situated at Kala Nagar, is probably among the heavily-guarded places in Mumbai and the incident has raised concerns about internal security.

Police have charged the accused under Section 326 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means) of the IPC and he has been remanded in police custody.

Suspended AAP leader Munish Raizada on Monday demanded that the party leadership hold a free, fair and transparent meeting of its National Council which is scheduled on November 23 in Delhi.

Raizada, who is a founder member of Lokpal.Us (www.Lokpal.Us), that claims to be an internal pressure group within the AAP, said the party “is sitting on a volcano and it can erupt any time, if transparency and democracy are not restored in it”.

Raizada, the former co-convener of AAP’s Chicago-based NRI Cell, was suspended from the party’s primary membership last week over “anti-party activities”.

Speaking from Chicago, he told, “Only selective invitations are being sent and the agenda of the meeting has been withheld. I demand the party to upload the list of current National Council (NC) members and agenda on the website.”

“The meeting should be held with live coverage as AAP is a volunteer-driven party and preaches full transparency and accountability in its conduct. I also appeal to avoid the deployment of bouncers unlike before.”

He said the ‘One Man One Post’ principle, if applied in letter and spirit in the organisation, would create a lot of scope for grooming other leaders in the organisation.

However, Preeti Sharma Menon, national spokesperson of the AAP, refuted the charges and said Raizada was a “disgruntled” party worker and was being promoted by the Opposition.

“Our overseas wing is being handled successfully by our leaders like Alka Lamba, Adarsh Shastri, and is working to expand the party’s base overseas,” she said.

“As far as agenda and invitations are concerned, of course the agenda is being given final touch and invitations have also been sent. Since there have been few splinter groups, so naturally, invitations have been sent to only those members who are still in the party.

She stated that putting the names of NC members on the website is out of question, as they also need privacy.

Menon also rubbished the allegation that AAP took the services of bouncers in the last party meeting.

They were old AAP volunteers and terming them as bouncers is very shameful, she said.