Mumbai is the capital of the Indian state of Maharashtra. With an estimated population of thirteen million, it is the most populous city in India. Along with the neighbouring suburbs of Navi Mumbai and Thane, it forms, at nineteen-million, the world's fifth most populous metropolitan area. Mumbai lies on the west coast of India and has a deep natural harbour. Its port handles over half of India's seagoing passenger traffic and a large proportion of her maritime cargo.

The Mumbai Metropolis has a historic tradition of strong civic activism dedicated to the cause of a better life for all its citizens. And it's the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM), the primary agency responsible for urban governance in Greater Mumbai.

From the time of its establishment in 1882 as India's first municipal corporation, numerous non-political groups, NGO's and organizations of citizens have worked closely with the civic body in the fields of education, public health, creation of urban amenities, art and culture, heritage conservation, etc.

Mumbai is mainly famous for its glamour of Bollywood cinema, shopping malls full of designer labels, cricket on the Oval Maidan, promenading families eating bhelpuri on the beach at Chowpatty, red double-decker buses queuing in grinding traffic jams and the infamous cages of the red-light district.

This pungent drama is played out against a Victorian townscape more reminiscent of a prosperous 19th-century English industrial city than anything you'd expect to find on the edge of the Arabian Sea. It's a city with vibrant streetlife, India's best nightlife, and a wealth of bazaars.

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