After four decades in the same Mumbai slum, Vimal Gaikwad is well used to politicians’ tall promises at election time, when the city’s millions of shanty dwellers become sought-after voters.

“The candidates just promise and say they will help, and then they do nothing,” said the 60-year-old grandmother, perched on the steps of her green-painted, tin-roofed home in the northeastern Bhim Nagar neighbourhood.

Winning votes from the slums is key to political success in the financial capital, where the elites are traditionally apathetic and around half of the population lives in tightly-packed shantytowns.

But when they go to the polls on Thursday in the latest leg of the marathon general election, slum dwellers say they won’t be fooled by last-minute promises to improve their lot — especially from the ruling Congress.

Mumbai’s current six MPs are members of Congress or one of its allies, whose coalition is expected to be toppled nationally by Narendra Modi and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

A few weeks before the election began, the Congress-led state government extended a scheme making slum dwellers eligible for free housing.

“We believe in a slum-free Mumbai and we believe in rehousing slum dwellers, using that land for important infrastructure projects,” said South Mumbai’s Congress Member of Parliament Milind Deora.

Before the bill was passed, anyone who could prove they settled in their slums before 1995 was eligible under the scheme. Now that has been extended up to the year 2000, benefiting around four lakh extra households.

But slum residents and housing experts are skeptical of the news so close to an election, and many believe the scheme itself is flawed.

On the outskirts of Dharavi, 40-year-old Navnath Chaugule and most of his neighbours are now eligible for new homes.

By the banks of the Mithi River, with views across to the shiny commercial towers of the Bandra Kurla Complex, Chaugule recounted how they filled their swampy land with 60 trucks of rubble to make it habitable in the mid-1990s.

“Now the government is eyeing it. Wherever you see sugar, you will see ants around it,” he said, fearing the community would be forced to shift to the outskirts of the city to make way for new developments.

“If they want to demolish our homes, no problem, but we want rehabilitating here only,” chipped in his neighbour Faheem Ansari, 20, a driver.

Those in the colony said they would be voting for the Shiv Sena, an ally of the BJP — if only to bring about a change from the Congress MP who previously won their vote.

“If there was a fire here no political party would come and help us. But to fulfil the promises not fulfilled, we need an alternative,” said Chaugule.

The Bombay High Court has upheld the conviction and life sentence awarded to a 21-year-old youth for murdering his stepmother and her minor son over a personal grudge against them.

A division bench of justices P V Hardas and A S Gadkari while upholding the conviction of Amit Vitkar for the murder of Kajal and her six-year-old son Akshay observed that the prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt against the accused.

According to the prosecution, the convict Amit had developed a grudge against the victims soon after his father abandoned his mother to marry Kajal.

On April 16, 2003, Amit, along with his juvenile friend, visited Kajal at their house in Pune when his father was not there and assaulted Kajal with a knife.

Amit then took Akshay with him and killed him the next day.

The prosecution had relied on last seen theory while building their case against the two accused.

“The circumstances so proved by the prosecution form a complete chain which excludes every hypothesis of innocence of the accused and unerringly points to the guilt of the accused. Apart from him (Amit) no one else could have committed the said crime,” the bench said.

In 2005, a sessions court in Pune had convicted and sentenced both Amit and his friend to life imprisonment. However, another bench of the high court had earlier held that since the other accused was juvenile he be released considering three years he has spent in jail as the sentence served.

It seems that trouble and Sanjeev Ganesh Naik, a NCP candidate from Thane constituency have become synonymous. In a fresh dilemma, Congress has decided not to cooperate with NCP in this area. Local leaders of Congress party are showing non cooperation attitude to Naik.
One of the Congress leader said, “We are working hard as a Congress worker in the area but this Naik family takes the credit. The dynastic politics is hampering our prospectus. This time we will teach them a lesson.”

“MP, both the MLAs, and the Mayor of Navi Mumbai belong to one family. So, Congress is in loss by the Congress-NCP coalition. Even, NCP workers cannot see any future in politics; hardly, they can only fight the corporation election.

There is another trouble calling Naik family. Election commission has started the probe of alleged by Shiv Sena deputy leader and former commissioner of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation Vijay Nahata. Nahata has demanded an investigation in this matter.

Sanjeev Naik has accused his rival and Shiv Sena’s candidate Rajan Vichare. However, Naik has not produce any evidence of his allegation against Rajan. In his affidavit, Sanjeev Naik has said that there is no criminal charge against him. However, according to the 2009 affidavit, Naik had charges under sections 109, 403, 405, 406, 411, 415, 418, 420, 143, 341, 134, 504 and 135 of IPC.

The Bombay High Court was informed that the defunct Shakti Mills compound in central Mumbai, where a photojournalist and telephone operator were gangraped in separate incidents last year, has been secured by fencing and a new gate. Public Works Department (PWD) officials informed Justice N M Jamdar that they have completed securing of the outer wall of the mills’ premises by fencing it with barbed wire and a gate.

The high court had taken up the issue of securing the premises soon after the gangrape cases in June and August last year. The court was hearing the winding up petition of the defunct mill. Justice Jamdar asked assistant official liquidator to inspect the premises next week and submit a report by June 6. “After the inspection, we will decide on commencement of phase 3 of the clearing and securing of the premises,” the court said.

According to PWD, fencing and putting up of new gate which was part of phase 2 has cost Rs. 55 lakh. As per the three-phase plan set by the high court, phase one included clearing of the shrubbery and trimming of trees. Phase two included putting up of barbed fencing and securing the compound wall and construction of sliding gates and security cabins.

Phase 1 was completed in October 2013 which cost Rs. 17 lakh. The third phase would involve pulling down of the structure inside the site which has become dilapidated and dangerous and lighting of the entire premises. The estimated cost for all the phases is approximately Rs. 1.58 crore.

A total of 338 candidates, including 24 women, will contest the third and final phase of polls in 19 Lok Sabha constituencies of Maharashtra Thursday, officials said Wednesday.

There are 119 Independent candidates in the fray.

Over 3.17 crore voters will exercise their franchise in 16 general and three constituencies reserved for the Scheduled Tribes, spread across parts of northern Maharashtra, Marathwada and the coastal Konkan region.

Aurangabad has the maximum 27 candidates, while Nandurbar has just nine contenders.

Among the parties, the Bahujan Samaj Party and Aam Aadmi Party are contesting from all the 19 seats, while the Bharatiya Janata Party and Samajwadi Party are fighting for 11 seats each.

The Congress has fielded 10 candidates, Nationalist Congress Party and Shiv Sena eight each, Maharashtra Navnirman Sena seven, Communist Party of India-Marxist three and CPI two candidates.

Thane is the largest constituency with 2.07 million voters, while Mumbai South Central is the smallest with just 1.44 million electors.

As many as 262,725 polling personnel will be on duty at 34,343 polling stations in 19 constituencies across the state.

In some areas of coastal Thane, they will travel by boats to polling stations.

Mumbai has 3,141 polling stations to be manned by 14,499 polling staff.

As many as 98 polling stations have been identified as “critical”, of which 63 are in Mumbai alone.

The 19 constituencies going to the polls Thursday are Aurangabad, Bhiwandi, Dindori, Dhule, Jalgaon, Jalna, Kalyan, Mumbai North, Mumbai North West, Mumbai North East, Mumbai North Central, Mumbai South Central, Mumbai South, Nandurbar, Nashik, Palghar, Raver, Raigad and Thane.

Now rail users can get information on expected arrival and departure timings of a particular train on their mobile phones besides tracking its position on a real time basis.

Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), the information and technology arm of railways, has launched a new mobile application which can be used for various enquiries including train timings, a senior railway official said.

CRIS has enhanced the train enquiry system by developing the mobile app and a desktop application on Windows 8 platform for train enquiries with support from Microsoft, he added.

National Train Enquiry System (NTES) is railways’ back-end system which provides information to the public about train schedules on a near real time basis through various interfaces like nationwide unique rail enquiry number 139, website (www.trainenquiry.com), mobile interfaces, touch screens, enquiry counters and display boards at stations.

An interface of NTES website along with a mobile version of it was launched in September 2013 earlier which has proved to be quite useful for train passengers, said the official.

Among the many features of the new mobile app is the ‘spot your train’ feature which offers information such as its current position, expected time of arrival and departure at a particular station.

The ‘Train schedule’ feature provides complete schedule of a train with all stoppages enroute and its scheduled arrival/departure at the station, distance and day count.

In “Trains between stations” query, one can find out the list of all types of trains available between any two stations on railway network.

The mobile App also has “cancelled trains” option which displays all trains marked as cancelled. It displays trains which are cancelled through the entire route as well as trains which are cancelled on partial route.

Besides, it also provides features for query on rescheduled and diverted trains. The App has been launched for Windows 8.0 phones and will be further developed for other mobile platforms.