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| Edited By: |Source: DNA |Updated: Apr 23, 2016, 08:10 AM IST
As people in Maharashtra tailor their lives according to the water available to them, only Mumbai residents are having it easy. In fact, they are being pampered in these extreme drought conditions. An IIT Bombay study has found that while per capita requirement in the city is 62lpcd, the Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation supplies anywhere between 100 and 307 litres. This profligacy in times of dire need is a criminal offence. Especially, if you juxtapose the life of a Mumbaikar with a family from Latur, where the state government had to send water trains to counter the mounting shortage and even slap Section 144 to prevent riots erupting over water. In Latur, a household gets 200 litres per week in which they have to manage virtually everything. True, Mumbai’s share of water has decreased over the years, but the capital city still enjoy more privileges than the rest of the state, which is experiencing a prolonged dry spell since 2012. A dna report says that out of the 11 major irrigation dams, seven have become completely dry. The Maharashtra government has deployed nearly 4400 tankers across the state only so that people can meet their basic needs. Monsoon is still at least one-and-a-half months away, and this time, the MET has raised the hopes of people with its forecast of robust rains.
The Prince is dead! Long live the Prince! Prince Rogers Nelson, known the world over as Prince, died on Thursday at the age of 57, leaving his fans stunned. His body was found in an elevator. The man behind several chart-topping songs over the decades was a self-taught musician with a voice to die for. It is often said that such was his singing prowess that the audience and critics overlooked the fact that he was one of the best guitarists of his generation. Prince had his highs and lows — a chequered trajectory that a hugely acclaimed star goes through in life. His phenomenal popularity in the Eighties, gave way to a somewhat lacklustre Nineties and finally came a decade when Prince wasn’t quite a darling of the masses. But, then Prince never really accepted this decline as an act of fate. The prolific singer-musician that he was, he constantly found ways to come back to the collective reckoning. From his debut album, For You, in 1978 to his first breakthrough in 1982 with a double album, to an Oscar for original score in 1985 to the approaching twilight of his musical career in 2007, Prince didn’t allow himself to be a ‘has-been’. No wonder the US President Barack Obama said that the world has lost a creative icon.
Elections in the politically surcharged West Bengal are invariably violence-prone. Right from the Congress days in the state, the legacy of bloodletting has continued unabated, especially during polls. The Left in its 34-year-rule used violence as means to crush dissent. Now Mamata Banerjee as the Chief Minister and the Trinamool Congress supremo is unleashing it on the Left and the Congress. The third phase of polling in the state was the most violent till now, though only one person has been reportedly killed. In this phase, in total 62 constituencies from Murshidabad, Nadia, parts of Kolkata and Bardhaman went for polling. It is also a testing time for some of the political heavyweights in all the four parties, including the BJP. By Bengal’s standards, the turn out at 79 per cent has been poor. This is sort of a do-or-die battle for the CPI-M and the Congress, which are depending on their alliance to emerge as a credible counterpoise to TMC.
