Fugitive diamantaire Mehul Choksi was arrested in Antwerp on April 11 following a CBI extradition request, with Belgium's Court of Appeal backing extradition on 6 of 7 charges in the Rs 13,000 crore PNB fraud. Back in Mumbai, the ED's seven-year-old plea to declare him a Fugitive Economic Offender hit a fresh snag: the judge who'd just heard the ED's final arguments was transferred mid-case, forcing the agency to start over with a new one. The Mumbai legal system: technically operational. (Free Press Journal)

Two new lines opened last week: Line 9 runs from Dahisar East to Kashigaon in Mira-Bhayandar, the first metro to cross into Thane district, with trains every 6–8 minutes during peak hours. Line 2B Phase 1 connects Mandale to Diamond Garden in Chembur, operating from 6 AM to 10:30 PM. Fares on both lines run Rs 10 to Rs 80. The 100 km milestone lands quietly but it is real, and it is running.

Central Railway's Kurla-CSMT 5th and 6th line project, sanctioned under MUTP-II back when most of us still used paper tickets, is finally moving. Land at Swadeshi Mill, Kurla, and Vidyavihar was acquired in January 2026, demolition prep is underway, and Phase 1 covering Kurla to Parel is next. The corridor carries 38 lakh passengers daily. Not done yet, but visibly less indefinite. (Free Press Journal)

Assembly has begun at Vikhroli on two Tunnel Boring Machines (each weighing over 3,000 tonnes) for the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Bullet Train's 16 km underground stretch between BKC and Sawli near Ghansoli. The route includes India's first undersea tunnel: 7 km beneath Thane Creek. Tunneling is expected to start by July 2026. File this under things that sound impossible until they aren't. (Free Press Journal)

CM Fadnavis has approved a 28-acre integrated township in Borivali West, built on former BSNL and MTNL land, to produce 1,000+ homes of about 450 sq ft under PMAY-U. The site sits near proposed metro stations and the Versova-Dahisar coastal road: infrastructure that will either justify the location or remain on a timeline. Groundbreaking in 2–3 months. (Social News XYZ)

The BMC's budget for FY 2026-27 clocks in at Rs 80,952.56 crore, the highest in the corporation's history, up Rs 6,525 crore from last year, and already approved by the standing committee. Formal house discussions begin April 15, with final approval expected April 29.

The headline number is Rs 41,390 crore for developmental works: the Goregaon-Mulund Link Road, Western and Eastern coastal roads, the newly approved Gargai Dam (adding 440–450 MLD to Mumbai's water supply once complete), and sewerage upgrades across older parts of the city.

For what it's worth, the BMC is also issuing green bonds for the first time as a financing mechanism: a signal, at minimum, that someone in the standing committee has heard the word ESG.

Here's what this budget actually means for most Mumbaikars: whether the monsoon drainage holds this July, how quickly the coastal roads open to reduce the daily SV Road–Carter Road–Lilavati Hospital crawl, and whether the affordable housing allocations are real money. The question worth asking at the April 15 public discussions is where exactly the sewerage and stormwater drain budgets sit relative to the headline projects. Historically, the drainage work that determines whether Hindmata floods again gets far less attention than the bridges and roads that cut ribbons.

Sources: Free Press Journal (budget discussions) | Gargai Dam approval | Commissioner's vision

On a Friday afternoon in April 1944, a British cargo freighter moored at Victoria Dock tore itself apart in two massive explosions heard 50 kilometres away.

The SS Fort Stikine had arrived two days earlier carrying 1,400 tonnes of explosives, cotton bales, oil drums, and 124 gold bars consigned to the Reserve Bank of India. A fire broke out in one of the holds around noon. At 4:06 p.m., the larger blast lifted the ship out of the water and deposited it on the dock. Gold bars landed embedded in rooftops and alleys across Byculla and Mazgaon. Between 800 and 1,300 people died, 66 of them firefighters. Twelve ships were sunk, 300 acres of dockland devastated.

During dredging operations as recently as 2011, intact gold bars were still being recovered from the dock floor.

The Victoria Dock is today part of the Mumbai Port Trust complex on the eastern waterfront, the same site being redeveloped as the city's new public waterfront promenade. April 14–21 is observed as National Fire Service Week, directly commemorating the firefighters who died here. The Byculla memorial still stands. Walk past it sometime.

Sources: Wikipedia | Scroll.in | Amusing Planet

On any given evening, families walk the terraced paths of the Hanging Gardens at the top of Malabar Hill. Children chase the animal-shaped hedges. The sun sets over the Arabian Sea. Almost no one who visits knows what is directly beneath their feet.

The Hanging Gardens (officially Pherozeshah Mehta Gardens, or PMG) are built over three municipal water reservoirs holding 30 million gallons of South Mumbai's drinking water. The soil between your shoes and the reservoir roof is 6 to 30 inches thick. The garden was laid out in 1881, one year after the reservoirs were built, and placed there deliberately: the city needed a cap over the water supply to prevent contamination from the Towers of Silence on the same hill, where the Parsi community's dead are exposed to vultures.

Here's the full irony: the garden is named after Pherozeshah Mehta, the "Lion of Bombay." Mehta was himself Parsi. A structure built partly to protect Bombay's water from his own community's burial practice bears his name.

Sources: Wikipedia | Culture Trip | Incredible India

Flint — NCPA, Nariman Point | Veteran chef Rahul Akerkar (of Indigo fame) and Chef Jaydeep Mukherjee have opened a fire-forward all-day café at the NCPA campus, everything cooked over live flame. The menu runs from an Eggs Benny with Spicy Crab Cakes at breakfast to Char-Grilled Lamb Chops at dinner, with smoky cocktails including a Bacon-Washed Bloody Mary. Aditya Birla Group's backing means the fit-out is serious; Akerkar's track record means the food should match it. (Instagram)

Gaijin — Lotia Palace, Linking Road, Khar West | Named after the Japanese word for "outsider," this two-level restaurant reimagines Japanese cuisine through an Indian chef's lens: Chef Anand Morwani imports tuna, hamachi, uni, and scallops from Japan weekly, with a focus on Gunkan (battleship) sushi. Tokyo alleyway aesthetics, sharp cocktail program, Rs 1,900 for two without alcohol. Lunch from 12 PM, dinner from 7:30 PM, closed Mondays. (Free Press Journal)

Alta Stella — 30th Floor, Parinee I, Andheri West | A constellation-themed rooftop restro-bar thirty floors above the city, open evenings only from 6 PM. Chef Manoranjan's menu blends global and Indian (Beetroot & Whipped Feta Croquettes, Podi Butter Prawns), and the views are panoramic. Rs 3,500 for two. (Slurrp)

Muze — 15th Road, Danda Road, Khar | Art Deco-inspired restaurant evoking 1920s glamour, run by a sister duo with Head Chef Thevar Chandrahasan Pandian. Open from 7 PM, intimate format, reservations recommended. (Knocksense)

In 2011, divers doing routine maintenance work at Mumbai Port Trust's Victoria Dock found a gold bar on the harbour floor. It had been there for 67 years — one of the 124 bars from the SS Fort Stikine, still sitting in the sediment after the 1944 explosion. The bar was returned to the Reserve Bank of India.

Bombay has been quietly yielding wartime treasure back to itself for eight decades. The city contains multitudes, including things nobody has found yet.

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