Former Minister and Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Aditya Thackeray has criticized the Mahayuti government in Maharashtra and the BJP-led government at the federal level for delaying the naming of the Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar airport after Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj and the upcoming Navi Mumbai International Airport (NMIA) after veteran leader DB Patil.
Is this pending matter typical of the BJP’s Union government? Or is it just their desire to continue disparaging Maharashtra?” he inquired.

“It is DB Patil’s birth anniversary,” Aditya Thackeray said in his post on X. The Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) Government cabinet recommended to the Union government in 2022 that the Navi Mumbai International Airport be renamed DB Patil International Airport. The Government of India’s clearance is still waiting. It has been waiting for more than three years, even though we have all written reminder letters to the Union Civil Aviation ministers both then and now. On this unique occasion, I kindly ask Union Civil Aviation Minister @RamMNK ji to accept the proposal once more today.

“In the same way, the union government has been considering renaming Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar airport as Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj airport since 2020,” he added.
Similar requests were expressed by Uddhav Thackeray, the leader of the Shiv Sena (UBT), in a letter to the Center in January 2024.

In honor of the late chief minister of the state, Manohar Parrikar, the airports in Ayodhya and Goa have been renamed Maharshi Valmiki International Airport and Manohar International Airport, respectively. Why can’t the same standard be applied to the airports at Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar and Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra, if Ayodhya and Mopa may be named after specific people?” he said.

Furthermore, the Mahayuti administration has said that the greenfield airport would begin operations in April of this year with a capacity to handle 20 crore people annually, making Aditya Thackeray’s action to remind the state and the center of designating NMIA significant.
When NMIA performed its first flight validation test on December 29 of last year, an Indigo A320 aircraft safely landed on the airport runway. An Indian Air Force C-295, a sizable multi-role tactical airlifter, made its first landing from the airport on October 11, 2024.

Navi Mumbai Man Arrested For Forging Deputy CM Pawar’s Signature.

The Sign

A 42-year-old guy was taken into custody in Malabar Hill on Sunday for defrauding the public by pretending to be Ajit Pawar OSD (Officer on Special Duty). He utilized phony letterhead bearing the Deputy Chief Minister’s falsified signature.

Pravin Prakash Sathe, the accused, has been taken into custody. Sathe lives in Ulwe, Navi Mumbai, and is originally from Satara. He has been accused by the police under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Sections 318(4) (cheating), 316(2) (criminal breach of trust), 336(3) (creating fake papers or electronic records with purpose to cause damage), and 340(2) (forged document or electronic record). He must appear in court and is being held on police remand until Tuesday.

When Sathe tweeted a screenshot of the deputy CM’s counterfeit letterhead with his forged signature, claiming to be Ajit’s OSD and claiming to have been appointed as such, the issue was uncovered last month.

The complaint was lodged by Atul Shitole, a 53-year-old Pune resident, who told the police that Sathe had also claimed to have operated out of Devgiri, the deputy chief minister’s official home on Malabar Hill.

Under the guise of assisting them with government-related tasks, Sathe has defrauded several individuals of their money by claiming to be a government official. Police discovered a screenshot of the fake letterhead in his phone’s photo gallery while conducting their investigation.

“We will extract the data to ascertain that he has duped many people,” a police official stated.

According to a senior officer, they were also looking into how many individuals Sathe had deceived and where else he had used the fake letterhead.

The officer stated, “We have also been looking into how the accused created the documents using fake signatures and how many people have lost money as a result of him.”

“It also seems that he could not have done all of this alone—there must have been accomplices with him,” the officer stated.

PAPs accuse CIDCO and NMMC of bias in demolition drives.

The Drives

The ongoing demolition campaigns by the City & Industrial Development Corporation (CIDCO) and Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC) have drawn criticism from Project Affected Persons (PAPs), who say the activities are discriminatory, selective, and arbitrary.

The Bombay High Court is keeping a close eye on the matter, thus CIDCO and NMMC have stepped up their efforts to demolish unlawful buildings all throughout Navi Mumbai. PAPs, however, claim that the drives are being conducted unfairly, frequently destroying some buildings while preserving others.

Devidas Bhoir, a PAP from Koprigaon in Vashi, noted that on January 7, 2025, CIDCO and NMMC authorities destroyed his old building even though he had a court judgment in his favor to keep things as they were. Bhoir, a longtime resident of the region, said that his buildings were demolished but that Urmila Singh’s allegedly unlawful home (house number 1603/2015) remained intact.

Bhoir underlined, “We have endured constant suffering in exchange for the land we donated to build this megacity. After years of hardship, the government is still declaring our need-based dwellings unlawful and tearing them down, despite the government’s promise of land under the 12.5% compensation plan.

He also expressed worry about the inaction taken against unauthorized development by strangers who are occupying the same area. “Our own homes, built with our own resources on land we rightfully possess, are demolished, while illegal structures erected by migrants are left intact,” Bhoir said.

The response from NMMC Turbhe Ward Officer Prabodhan Mavade upon being approached was, “We conduct demolition actions strictly as per the rules.”