Articles by Marianne de Nazareth

It was World Environment Day last week and India had the honour of hosting the International World Environment Day 2011 for the very first time. Jairam Ramesh, our erudite and enthusiastic environment minister called trees ‘water pumps’ and paradoxically the event was devoted to ‘Forests: Nature at your service’. As a media fellow of UNEP, I was proud to sit in the audience and listen to the minister tell the world that India was among the developing nations working towards addressing the pressures of ecological change. He told us about India’s Rural Employment Act and the country’s encouragement of renewable…

It was a regular working day and I was on my way home on my scooter from college after a session of corrections of end of term answer scripts. The traffic lights were red at the Lifestyle junction and I waited till they turned green before I rode onto Richmond Road. As I took the turn I noticed a large pile up of traffic before me stretching backwards to the Sapphire Toy Shop. So riding up fairly slowly I came to a halt behind a large black car. Barely had I put my feet down and left my grip on…

There I was in the midst of all the top brass of the International Transport Forum listening to countries debate on achieving sustainable urban mobility, better transport makes for better mobility and looking at liveable and sustainable societies. Ideas flew around my head, ideas so foreign sounding for me coming out of India and Bangalore where the only thought of providing solutions by my state government, was to cut down our trees and widen our roads. Here I was in Berlin which has narrow streets where trams and buses ply and all I did was take the combination of a …

The latest fad in Bangalore is motorbikes racing down pavements to get to the top of the line of traffic halted at a traffic signal. Woe betide if you are a pedestrian on Richmond Road or Residency Road or any of the large arterial roads in the heart of the city.  Vehicles plying on pavements pose danger to pedestrians. Pic: Marianne De Nazareth Very often you will get a motorbike rider or scooterist, provoking your annoyance by honking at you to get out of his way - on the pavement! It's a dangerous bane that is spreading and it is because…

We suffered for months with bad roads. And my recent article on Citizen Matters got some good comments. One especially good comment was the 'sit in bund' suggested  to galvanise a reaction from the powers that be.  Castle Street now free of potholes. Pic: MN. Then on Sunday morning we were so surprised to see road rollers move in and a group of labourers sweeping off the mud. By nightfall the entire stretch of Castle Street had been done and you can see from the picture which is taken at the same place, before and after, there is an amazing difference. …

Castle Street in the heart the city has turned into a nightmare for residents of the road. Almost four months ago, KPTCL dug up the road to lay their lines which took over a month to be completed. Contractors were hired and water and sewage lines of most of the homes on the road were damaged during the digging. Requests for the lines to be repaired fell on deaf ears and finally private plumbers were hired by most residents to repair their lines. Immediately, BBMP issued notices to the residents and in some cases threatened to take them to the…