Articles by News Desk

Vehicle numbers increase in Bengaluru Bengaluru's vehicle numbers has increased to 80 lakhs; with this, the city has overtaken Mumbai, Hyderabad and Chennai in terms of the number of vehicles. Now Bengaluru is second only to Delhi, which has 1.5 crore vehicles, according to Transport Commissioner V P Ikkeri. Bengaluru's 10,000 km of road length is considerably lower than Delhi 's 30,000 km. The total number of vehicles in Karnataka has now increased to 2.10 crore, Ikkeri said. Since five to six lakh vehicles are added each year to the city, the number of vehicles in the Bengaluru metropolitan area…

Chennai Central is now Dr MGR Central Railway station The Railway board has cleared the proposal to rename Chennai Central station as Puratchi Thalaivar Dr M G Ramachandran Central railway station. To commemorate the centenary celebrations of the ex-CM, the state government had sent a proposal to name the station after him; subsequently, during Narendra Modi's visit in March, the PM made an announcement to change the name at a public rally. The change would come into effect from April 5th. The Railway board has however said that there can be no inaugural events due to the election code of…

To address the looming air pollution crisis in Bengaluru, Health & Environment Alliance (HEAL), a leading European non-profit organisation, in collaboration with Global Climate and Health Alliance (GCHA), launched the Healthy Air Coalition on Friday, 5th April, at the St John’s Research Institute (SJRI). SJRI is a key partner of the initiative. According to a study published in the environment journal Lancet Planetary Health, air pollution in India leads to at least 1.2 million premature deaths each year. The 2018 study attributed one in eight deaths that occurred in India in 2017 to poor air quality and exposure to ultra-fine…

India is in the midst of an acute unemployment crisis. Unemployment rate is at a 45-year high of 6.1 percent in 2017-18 as per the leaked Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) report of the National Sample Survey Organisation (NSSO). According to the NSSO data, unemployment rate in urban areas is 7.8 percent with open unemployment of about 20 percent among the educated youth. In addition, majority in urban India work in the informal sector and are thus exposed to a host of risks and precarities. This, along with continued ecological degradation and crumbling urban infrastructure needs urgent attention. To address…

Candidate list, MP profiles, interviews, voter guide, choosing an MP, polling booth info, news, analysis and data Constituency Summary of ConstituencyConstituency & all Candidates details Phase 7 (Completed) Shimla Kolkata Dakshin Kolkata Uttar Jadavpur Phase 6 (Completed) Gurgaon Chandni Chowk South Delhi North West Delhi West Delhi East Delhi North East Delhi New Delhi Phase 5 (Completed) Jaipur Jaipur Rural Lucknow Phase 4 (Completed) Mumbai North Mumbai North Central Mumbai North West Mumbai North East Mumbai South Phase 3 (Completed) Dharwad, Karnataka Ahmedabad West, Gujarat Ahmedabad East, Gujarat Pune, Maharashtra Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala Gauhati, Assam Phase 2 (Completed) Bangalore North Bangalore…

BBMP removes 2021 encroachments in KR Market On Friday, BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) cleared KR Market of 2021 encroachments and dozens of unauthorised shops. BBMP got together 390 personnel, 48 tractors, 15 lorries, eight compactors, eight earthmovers and 30 marshals, besides the traffic police, to clear the encroachments. The drive resulted in 240 loads of debris. Just a day before, BBMP Commissioner had inspected the market and promised to clear illegal constructions and footpath encroachments. The drive was in response a High Court directive on a PIL. The Bengaluru Flower Merchants’ Association had filed a PIL in 2017, questioning…

The quest for water deepens With storage levels at all the reservoirs in the red, Chennai Metro has started drawing from the dead storage from Redhills. The situation is so grim that the water board has started tapping the minimal storage of 328 million cubic feet (mcft), which is only 10% of its capacity of 3,300 mcft. Chembarambakkam reservoir is nearly bone dry and withdrawal is possible only for 10 days, given the current situation. Metrowater has already started pumping 30 mld of water from Cholavaram lake since early this week and this is expected to continue till mid-April. Meanwhile,…

There is huge variation in how Bengalureans source water and how much we pay for it. Older parts of the city get piped supply from BWSSB, supplemented by individual borewells, while the periphery is largely dependent on borewells and private tanker water supply. While BWSSB charges per kilolitre range from Rs 7 (for individual residences) to Rs 22 (for apartments), private suppliers can charge anywhere upwards of Rs 100 a KL. To get a better sense of the city’s water situation, we are conducting a survey on where you are sourcing water from, and what you are paying for it.…

Tambaram, a bustling suburban pocket has witnessed steady growth in its economy and population over the last three decades. With the increase in population, the pressure on the groundwater table has been tremendous. During the 2015 flash floods, a majority of water bodies in the suburb including Mudichur lake flooded their banks, creating a crisis that speaks about the mismanagement of the lakes and ponds. Now, TAKE Solutions that delivers domain intensive services in Life Sciences and Supply Chain Management has taken up restoration work in three ponds in the suburb as part of their CSR Project. TAKE solutions collaborated…

NGT calls for Delhi to act on noise pollution The National Green Tribunal termed noise pollution as a serious crime and called for authorities in Delhi to take strict action to curb it. The tribunal said that growing levels of noise pollution is a serious hazard. It directed the Delhi police to map hotspots of noise pollution in the city and evolve a surveillance mechanism to identify and act on violators. The Delhi police is to submit a report on the action taken on the issue to the NGT in a month. The NGT was of the view that the…