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SUNDAY TIMES OF INDIA, MUMBAI *APRIL 2, 2017 5TIMES CITY
CST TURNS BLUE FOR A CAUSEUma Kadam
Saturday night saw CST turn on its blue lights for World Autism Awareness Day, which will be observed onSunday. CR, in collaboration with a parents’ support group, Forum For Autism, will hold awareness pro-
grammes on Sunday. An audio-visual programme about autism will be screened at the terminus throughout April.An art exhibition will also be held at CST where paintings made by autistic children and youths will be on display
restaurants to ensure opportu-nities for young adults beyondtheir schooling years,” the pressrelease said.
As autism is a spectrum dis-order (some persons have veryhigh IQ and are called savants),FFA members have worked to-wards creating job opportuniti-es in international companieslike J P Morgan, SAP and HPCL.
“JP Morgan has offered in-ternships to two Mumbai yo-ungsters with autism. After trai-ning, they stand a chance of get-ting absorbed in the company,”said Chitra Iyer of FFA.
In Delhi, Merry Barua of Ac-tion for Autism said the LEmonGrass chain of hotels had emplo-yed two persons with autism.“One is in the housekeeping andanother in the café,” she said, ad-ding that more companies needto open up.
In the West, companies likeMicrosoft employ autistic per-sons; some firms say they are fo-cused, committed and less likelyto leave after learning the job(autistic people like structuredactivities that follow a pattern).
So what has brought aboutthis change? Parul Kumtha, aparent and FFA founder, belie-ves it is opportunity to study thathas helped. “Previously, ourchildren could never complete adegree as they were never offe-red concessions. But now con-cessions are offered right up todegree level,” she said. As per-sons with autism pick up degre-es and skills, they are ready to beemployed, she added.
Barua said there is a still along way to go. “In the West, com-panies have a policy to hire autis-tic persons, but the same compa-ny here won’t do that,” she said.
Youths defy autism to earnbread, butter & self-respect
TODAY IS WORLD AUTISM DAY
Gardens for special adults incorporating sensory integration needs.
Ease of certifi-cates to be issued for children
Availability of therapy centres in country or Mumbai to begin with
Priority at com-munity places
Schools to ac-cept children with autism and not throw them out fol-lowing diagnosis
Boards to follow concession guide-lines and ensure implementation
More internship opportunities from workplaces for young adults on the spectrum
More opportuni-ties for jobs from entrepreneurs for young adults across the spectrum
WISH LIST OF FO-RUM FOR AUTISM, (a parents’ group)
WHAT IS AUTISM
Autism is a lifelong neurological condition, a developmental disorder, that typically occurs in the first three years of life. Children with autism have difficulty in: communication (verbal and non-verbal), social interactions and imagination, which can be seen in repetitive and re-stricted play or leisure activities
Autism is not a rare or un-common disorder. It is the third most-common developmental disorder, more common than Down’s syndrome
Recent international studies show that about one in 68 people have autism and the overall incidence of autism is believed to be consistent around the globe (CDC, 2014). This means that there are over 18 million people with autism in India
We still do not know what causes autism. There is a
lot of research looking into what may cause the condi-
tion, and the indications are that autism may result
from a combination of factors
includ-ing genetic and en-viron-men-tal influ-
ences
(Source: Action for Autism)Ram
Mumbai: Citizens fromacross Mumbai marched tothe Aarey police station onSaturday and registered aformal complaint againstMumbai Metro Rail Corpora-tion Limited (MMRCL) for al-leged illegal construction inthe Aarey Colony.
In their complaint thegroup of 38 men and womensaid Aarey Colony is a notifi-
ed No Development Zone.“The government’s proposalto convert Aarey from NDZ toMetro shed/commercial zo-ne has not yet been sanctio-ned. No work of any natureincluding soil testing work ispermitted in an NDZ,” readsthe letter.
The complaint furtherstates that on March 30,MMRCL had entered Unit 19inside Aarey and started
unauthorised soil testing un-der police protection. “It is re-spectfully submitted that po-lice department are supposedto stop illegal activities andnot protect such illegal acts.”
The citizens also submit-ted the urban developmentdepartment’s plan that clear-ly shows current NDZ areaand proposal (which is not yetsanctioned). The complaintalso informs that the Natio-nal Green Tribunal has pas-sed status quo orders on Au-gust 19 last year as well as onMarch 17 this year prohibi-ting any construction or pro-hibitory activity by MMRCLinside Aarey.
They requested that theirFirst Information Reportagainst MMRCL, its officersand contractors for carryingout illegal work be registe-red.They also demanded thepolice implement the NGT or-der by immediately putting astop to the work in the colonyand to withdraw the policeprotection given for the ille-gal activity.
Stop all ‘illegal’construction atAarey: Citizens
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
‘METRO SHED WORKIS NOT AUTHORIZED’
Mumbai: BEST’s flying squ-ad on Saturday raided resi-dences, commercial and facto-ry establishments in Dharavito unearth a power theft worthRs 1.2 crore by five consumersfor over the last two years.
According to BEST’s vigi-lance wing the early morningraid on a small plastic-moul-ding industrial unit of IliyasMagru and caught him red-handed using direct supplybypassing the 50 kw-load me-ter. Similar were the cases ofothers.
“The factory was using al-most 20,000 units of powerevery month for over last twoyears. If considered the bil-ling and that of the theft by fo-ur others in the vicinity, valueof theft comes to over Rs 1.2crore,” said a BEST official.
According to officials afirst information report hasbeen registered with the localpolice station and a penal ac-tion would be taken againstthe culprits as per the relevantsections of law after produ-cing the evidences.
`̀1.2cr powertheft detected
in DharaviTIMES NEWS NETWORK
Captured A Neat Idea In A Cartoon? We’re Looking For You...
PHASE 1 (Last Date: April 5)
PHASE 3
Aspiring cartoonists (can even be a team) send in entries through a microsite
An on-the-spot test at 18 publishing centres where the finalists will be asked to draw to a certain brief. The national jury chooses the final winners
PHASE 2 (April 6 – April 19)
Winners will be announced on World Cartoonist Day on May 5
Entries will be judged in a two-step process, first by a regional jury and then a national jury
Regional juries will shortlist 200 to 300 best entries in each region
The national jury will then select 400-500 finalists who will go on to participate in phase 3
www.toicartoonisthunt.com or email us at [email protected]
1,000+ entries from aspiring cartoonists from 53 cities in India & from across
the world including New York
Check out the website www.toicartoonisthunt.com
1 Lakh+ visitors to date
200cities | Page visits from over 200 cities across India and 74 countries
70% Visitors below 34 years
44% Of participants are women
1.45 Lakh+ | Page views
THE CONTEST PROMISES TO BE KEEN...
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Regional politics
Mumbai: Machindra Chate,the owner of Chate Classes,has been convicted and sen-tenced to two months’ simpleimprisonment in a 16-year-oldoffence where he had usedabusive words.
The Esplanade Metropoli-tan Magistrate B U Choudha-ry on Thursday convictedChate under Section 294 (ob-scene act or song) of the IPC.The court also imposed a fineof Rs 5,000. Failure to pay thefine would mean an additio-nal 15 days in jail for Chate, sa-
id public prosecutor RajendraSuryavanshi.
In 2000, there was a majorcontroversy over politicisa-tion of private coaching clas-ses. Congress leaders had ma-de serious allegations againstChate classes. It was in thiscontext that Chate organiseda press conference at MarathiPatrakar Sangh at Azad Mai-dan on June 1, 2000.
The police said that in thepress conference Chate usedabusive words against thethen CM Vilasrao Deshmukh.
Sources said Chate waslikely to go in appeal.
Class owner gets jailfor abusing ex-CM
Mumbai: Learning its les-son from last monsoon, theBMC has decided to resurfa-ce road stretches that havemultiple potholes, insteadof doing a patch work by fix-ing the craters on by one.The civic body is focussingon 110 road stretches that al-together had 430 potholeslast year, and is working tofix them by May 15.
At his monthly meetingwith ward officers on Satur-day, civic chief Ajoy Mehtareviewed work on thesechronic road patches and di-rected the officials to comp-lete the remaining work ona priority. An officials saidthe civic chief is trying tominimize pothole-relatedproblems this monsoon.
To start with, civic engi-neers were earlier asked toidentify spots that have se-veral potholes. They identi-fied these 110 road patches.Officials said these spotswere found to have a largenumber of pothole duringevery monsoons for several
years. Subsequently, the ci-vic authority decided to re-pair the entire spot after re-surfacing the road stret-ches, instead of repairingevery pothole. Of these 110patches, twelve are in theeastern side of Andheri-Jo-geshwari belt, 11 in Kandi-vali (West) and 10 in Ghatko-par (West). Civic officials
claimed that they had alrea-dy repaired 80 % of the spotspatches and remaining 20%work would be completed byMay 15.
Filmmaker and activistAshoke Pandit said, “Entirecity witnesses potholes du-ring monsoon, so on whatbasis is BMC saying thereare just 110 stretches? We see
a huge number of potholesin our Juhu circle area eve-ry monsoon, as in the Wes-tern Express highway. Thecivic body should focus onall pothole patches insteadof a few select ones.”
Officials said they arehopeful of its success aftertheir similar experimentwith desilting work in dra-ins last year. After the floo-ding in the city in July 2015,the civic chief had put desil-ting work on his officials’priority list with severalchecks and balances. Theyclaimed that it showed itsresult, and there were fewercases of waterlogging in thecity during 2016 monsoon.
These SpotsHave Potholes
Every Monsoon
No patchwork, BMC to re-lay110 crater roads by May 15
80% WORK OVER, SAY OFFICIALS110 chronic pothole road
patches in city
430 potholes in these patches during last monsoon
Civic officials say 80% of patches already repaired
Work on remaining 20%to be over by May 15
RED ALERT | A recently concluded inquiry of 200 city roads found that in six roads, contractors had not put base layer that takes vehicles load
FATAL ROADSSEPT 2016 | Rizwan Khan (21) died after his bike hit a huge pothole near JJ Hospital. Rizwan was riding without a helmet
JULY, 2015 | Prakash Bilhore (16) was killed when the bike on which he was riding pillion hit a pothole on Jogeshwari-Vikhroli Link Road. His cousin who was riding the bike sustained serious injuries
WORST-HIT WARDSK-East (Andheri (E) and
Jogeshwari (East) | 12 chronic pothole road patches
R-South (Kandivli West) | 11N- (Ghatokpar-Vikhroli) | 10M-East (Deonar-Mankhurd) | 9R-Central (Borivli) |8
Mumbai:The assembly on Saturday pas-sed a bill amending criminal laws to in-crease the prison term to five years forthose found guilty of hurting or assaul-ting a public servant —officials and elec-ted representatives— discharging duty.
The prison term for those found guil-ty of “hurting” a public servant perfor-ming his duty under the Indian Penal Co-de has been increased to five years from 3years. The prison term for those found gu-ilty of “assaulting” a public servant to de-ter him from performing job has been in-
creased to five years from two years un-der the Code of Criminal Procedure.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavissaid stricter punishment was requiredsince the number of such cases was on
the rise. The state recorded 17,682 such ca-ses between 2011 and 2016, he said. BJPMLA Ashish Shelar had criticised the billsaying there are enough safeguards for of-ficials and they will use the new law aga-inst citizens who come to them for work.
Several MLAs, including Shiv Sena’sJaiprakash Mundada, had asked for mo-re time to debate the bill. “This may createthe impression that the government istrying to shield officials. Also, we need toconsider why the public wants to assaultofficials. It is often because they feel theirwork is not being done,” said Mundada.
However, Fadnavis said the main of-fenders were not members of the publicbut contractors. “In many cases, the of-fenders were those involved in sand mi-ning. We are not trying to shield officialsand public representatives but the rightpeople should get protection,” he said.
Assembly passes bill to increase prisonterm for attack on babus, netas to 5 years
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
OFFENCES ON RISE, NEEDSTRICTER PUNISHMENT: CM
Mumbai:March 31will be a spe-cial day for Dadar resident Vid-hula Bhatt as her son Viraj took,for the first time, a circuitousflight from Varanasi to Kolkatato Bengaluru. Viraj isn’t a teena-ger, but all of 29 years old. Whatis different about him is the factthat he has autism and is amongthe few with the disorder whohas a steady job.
“He works with SAP India inBengaluru and his seniors arehappy with his work,” said Vid-hula.
Autism is a neurological dis-order characterized byuneven development andpoor social skills, amongothers. So while Viraj is aself-taught computer ge-ek, he had trouble pickingup lessons at school.
As Indian workplaces se-em to be warming up to peo-ple with autism, Viraj isn’tthe only one. Juhu residentAarti Nagarkar (30) re-cently won a cooking com-petition organized by chefSajeev Kapoor’s YellowChilli chain of restau-rants. “She goes for once-a-month training sessionto the chain’s Andheri officeto learn new recipes and dis-hes,” said her mother SushmaNagarkar. At the end of thesetraining sessions, she hopes thatthere will be an internship forAarti.
Kapoor, who has been a sup-porter of the Forum For Autism,(FFA) a parents’ support group,said he has been offering shortstints at his TV shows andworkshops as well as interns-hips to people with autism. “I ha-ve run the Mumbai Marathonfor them for 10 years now. Mysupport will be permanent,” hesaid.
On the occasion of World Au-tism Awareness Day on Sunday,a press release sent by FFA saidthat parents are working to crea-te job opportunities for youngadults with autism. “FFA has be-en engaging with various orga-nizations such as Kshitij, An-chorage, Arpan, Sols Arc, Toget-her Foundation, Yellow Chilli
Many With TheDisorder Show
Grit At Work TIMES NEWS NETWORK
To check water theft duringsummer, the BMC has
prepared a policy underwhich it will bring meters ofwater filling points underCCTV camera to avoidmalpractices. The BMCsupplies water troughtankers for a charge, butthere was no monitoring ofthe quantity being takenearlier. The BMC supplies3750 MLD water daily throughtankers, which is 0.09 percentof total water supply in thecity on each day. TNN
CCTV to checkwater theft
Mumbai: Several medical ex-perts, including neurosurgeons,on Saturday checked on theeight-year-old girl who sustai-ned skull fracture after a nearly2kg tava landed on her in Nagpa-da on Friday morning. As Haze-qua’s condition is critical, doc-tors have not been able to do anyintervention.
On Friday morning, whenthe class III student of St Jo-seph's school in Agripada wasreturning home from tuitions, a
griddle fell on her from the 20-storey Danish Villa, a recentlyconstructed building in Madan-pura. It is not clear how thegriddle fell off. The Nagpada po-lice visited the spot and tried torecreate the incident to figureout from which floor the griddlefell. Police sources said that aro-und a dozen people residing fa-cing front side of the buildingare under the scanner.
”Our teams have been recor-ding statements of residents toprobe as to how the griddle fell,''said Yashwant Baswat, seniorinspector of Nagpada police sta-tion.
Meanwhile, Hazequa’s father,Faizan Ansari, said he was readyto forgive the person responsiblefor if s/he admits the mistake.
Girl hit by tavasuffers skull
fracture, docswait & watch
TIMES NEWS NETWORK
STILL CRITICALHazequa has been on
ventilator support in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Nair Hospital since she was brought unconscious on Friday morning
“She has a skull fracture and internal bleeding as well, but
we haven’t yet been able to
do any intervention because of her critical
condition,’’ said Dr Ramesh
Bharmal, dean of Nair Hospital
“If the building had the occupancy certificate, residents would have erected safety grilles,’’ said Pathan, who visited the girl in hospital
Thane: An alleged drug-addict who was undergoing treat-ment at a private hospital in Khopat area of Thane, sudden-ly turned violent and attacked hospital staff and anotherpatient with a scissor late on Saturday, the police said.
It is learnt that Abid Mirza Beg, who was being treatedfor a fractured hand, was attacked with the scissor and suf-fered serious injuries in his ribs and chest. He was moved toJupiter Hospital for further treatment.
DCP Abhishek Trimukhe told TOI that the drug addict,identified as Kismat Ali, turned violent as he did not get hisregular dose and attacked the staff. “The hospital stafferssuffered minor injuries,” said Trimukhe. TNN
‘Drug addict’ turns violent,attacks patient and hosp staff