Articles by Bhanu Sridharan

India has been under the grip of a devastating heat wave for the past few months. Since April this year several parts of the country have seen abnormally high temperatures. For instance,  Bengaluru recorded a maximum temperature of 38.5 degrees Celsius on a Sunday, the city's hottest April day since 2016. The city and parts of Southwestern regions of the country have experienced relief with the arrival of monsoon. Representational image. Civic workers in the heat in Chennai. Pic: Padmaja Jayaraman However, conditions appear to be dire in North, Central and Eastern India. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) has issued…

The Mekedatu project has been proposed, opposed and has lain forgotten several times over the past many decades. However, the project idea is revived during every election. The current issue of water shortage in Bengaluru has particularly spurred interest in it again. Politicians from both the BJP and Congress in Karnataka are now using the project as an election campaign talking point. Mekedatu, which is Kannada for goat’s crossing, is a rocky outcrop along the river Cauvery. It is situated within the Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary, around three kilometres from the confluence of Arkavathy and Cauvery River. Read more: Water shortage…

At the best of times, mornings in a family of four are probably exhausting, particularly for women. Ensuring that everyone eats, gets dressed, heads to school or work on time and in one piece can be chaotic. But mornings in a hot Bengaluru without water is downright soul crushing, says Kala, a 38-year-old woman living in Krishnanapalya. The water shortage in several parts of the city has disrupted the lives of low-income families and put public institutions like schools and hospitals on the edge. Krishnanapalya lies in east Bengaluru. Unlike the 110 villages in the peripheral areas of the city,…

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has proposed building a four-lane elevated expressway through the Bannerghatta National Park, the only protected area within Bengaluru Urban district. The NHAI is working on a 280 km long expressway called the Bengaluru Satellite Town Ring Road (STRR). The road, which is part of the Bharat Mala Pariyojna scheme, will connect towns like Hosur in Tamil Nadu to satellite towns around Bengaluru, like Anekal, Sarjapura and Doddaballapura. Read more: Why a shrinking Bannerghatta forest should worry Bengalureans NHAI claims that the expressway will divert all commercial traffic, like trucks, that currently pass through…

[Part one and two of this series traced the history of Kannada signage rules in Bengaluru and the history of the Kannada movement, respectively. Part three looks at what the government is doing to promote Kannada] Rupa migrated to Bengaluru from Jharkhand a year ago. She works at a petrol station in North Bengaluru. She doesn’t speak much Kannada, though she can manage a few words. She is trying to learn Kannada by talking to locals around her, but it is not easy. The protests calling for implementing Kannada signage in Bengaluru has once again opened up conversations and resentments…

[Part one of this series explained the history of the Kannada signage issue] The protests by Kannada groups, led by the Kannada Rakshana Vedike last month, demanding that Kannada signage rules be implemented has sparked a debate in Bengaluru. Kannada groups point out that as Bengaluru is the capital of Karnataka, important communication in the city, including information on shops and businesses, must be done in Kannada. Imagine, they say, a Kannadiga coming from any other part of the state and feeling lost in a sea of English signs in Bengaluru. At the same time, the attacks on businesses and…

The Karnataka government introduced new rules on the use of Kannada on signboards in Bengaluru last week. The move follows protests by the group Kannada Rakshana Vedike (KRV), on December 27th, during which shops without Kannada signboards were vandalised. But this is not the first time that Kannada activists have demanded Kannada signage nor is it the first time that the government has tried introducing rules regarding Kannada. Signage rules in 2008 Activists promoting the Kannada language have repeatedly noted that the majority of Karnataka speak, read and write in Kannada and the people of the state deserve signage in…

The Gruha Lakshmi scheme was supposed to be the crowning glory of the Congress government's five guarantees scheme. But for lakhs of women in the state, the scheme has not yet borne fruit. Under the policy, female heads of household in low-income families can receive Rs 2,000 per month to supplement their income. The scheme was formally launched in August last year, but several women had not yet received the benefits. Who are eligible? Women who are heads of their household and have a BPL (below poverty line), APL (above poverty line) or Antyodaya card issued by the Karnataka Department…

Bengaluru ranked third in the country for crimes against women, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data for 2022. While the data is not clearly indicative of whether crimes are reported more or occurring more, it does beg the question, which areas in the city are safe? Safe Yelli?, a citizen-led initiative, is hoping to answer this question. Safe Yelli? is an online tool that allows citizens to report personal experiences of sexual assault and harassment in Bengaluru. These experiences are then used to create a map of unsafe locations in the city. Mapping harassment The initiative started…

Here is the deal with water and Bengaluru, and it makes no sense. We have had a year of poor rainfall and there is water shortage. Our reservoirs are running low, and our groundwater is already over-exploited. We have had a rainfall deficit. Also, overall, the city is experiencing much more rainfall. And, every time it pours, it floods. But when there is no rain, we start needing tankers. We are the land of lakes and the land of lost wastewater potential. By now my editor will be groaning, so I will stop. But to make sense of my stream…