A swift move by Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan on Ajit Pawar's resignation could have thrown the too-clever NCP into utter confusion and secured a belaboured Congress an opportunity to come out smelling of roses, says Mahesh Vijapurkar
Why do Mumbai's civic authorities only ensure pothole-free roads only during the Ganapati season and not the year around, asks Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Tying up Parliament's either houses without doing any business but behaving as if it is already a street ill-behoves the nation which calls itself the largest democracy. Here, the maturity is measured, unfortunately, by the number of voters and the size of the Parliament than by the wisdom, reason, reasonableness, persuasion being its backbone, say Maheah Vijapurkar.
I am disgusted enough not to celebrate the Independence Day. Call this a rant, but that is all a citizen is left with. My promised tryst with my destiny has been elusive. It does not even seem to be round the far corner, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
The concern is low-budget coverage, not in-depth. Hype replaces substance, breathlessness providing it the requisite gravamen, writes Mahesh Vijapurkar
These days when things are slipping a lot more than ever in the country, most citizens are in despair, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Children as a collective seem to be no one's concern anywhere. Nothing is made child-friendly including the toys which being cheap and poorly made, putting them at risk, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
If the city runs, it is thanks to the people who brave every odd. The city has to thank the people, not its governors for its survival, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Mahesh Vijapurkar on phoney ideology excuses and the spurning of brand ambassadors.
Why are so many regions in the state facing water scarcity despite normal to excess rainfall? Mahesh Vijapurkar blames the government.
Mahesh Vijapurkar is not surprised that 41 villages in Sangli district want to be merged with Karnataka because of the perennial drinking water shortage in their villages.
I wonder if I can find anyone I could trust as a citizen, asks Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Once one of the best bus services in the country, the Bombay Electric Supply & Transport company has regressed into a loss-making, lumbering giant that clearly is not interested in serving the Mumbai long-suffering commuter, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
What Arvind Kejriwal or his other colleagues say finds resonance. It cannot be dampened. Now it has come to pass that people do not have to prove that politicians and politics are dirty; the latter have to prove that they are not, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
The city can wait, indefinitely. Of course, its citizens don't count. Those who thought they did and went to vote for a change have fooled themselves, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
No amount of stink, or raising one to correct it, would work quick enough to change the order of things. Toilets, you see, are our least priority, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Today is the day to mull and tomorrow the day to walk to your polling booth and decide what you want: a good city where there is a compliant corporator or a bad city with an arrogant politician ruling our civic destiny, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Mumbai city, overcrowded, run down, filthy, gasping, is far too precious a city to continue to remain in the clutches of the professional politicians who owe nothing to themselves and have made local self-government a caricature of what was the ideal -- people governing themselves and their spaces, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
Once civic elections are done with, the system discards the voter from the realm of self-governance, the essence of the grassroots democracy. The voter's vote, it appears, has been subverted by a system, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
The move to legitimise the occupants of pre-1995 slum homes till the year 2000 is welcome, but incomplete in managing the issue of Mumbai's slums. It is once again, a patchy effort, not fully thought through, says Mahesh Vijapurkar.
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