Articles by News Desk

14 ponds in Manali to be restored in the first phase under the Smart City Mission Chennai Corporation will work on restoring 14 ponds in Manali, in the first phase of the pan city initiative under the Smart City Mission.  Chennai has around 280 water bodies of which 145 lakes and ponds come under the Corporation jurisdiction.  The Chennai Corporation has planned to revive all these water bodies in a phased manner. "According to the Corporation officials, it has been proposed to use permeable pavement methods like sand gravel mix as part of the restoration work. It has also been…

Chief Election Commissioner of Election Commission of India (ECI) Om Prakash Rawat announced the poll dates for Karnataka on Tuesday, March 27, 2018. The election will be held on May 12th across the state in a single phase. Counting of votes will take place on May 15th, 2018. Full schedule of events: April 17: Notification April 24: Last day to submit nomination April 26: Nomination scrutiny April 27: Last day to withdraw nomination May 12: Voting May 15: Counting and results Read the full press note from the Election Commission: [embeddoc url="https://citizenmatters.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/PN22_27032018.pdf" download="all"] Slew of measures towards free and fair…

GUIDING PRINCIPLES REMOVAL OF DISCRIMINATION AND PARITY IN TARIFF People living in apartments, no matter how large an apartment complex is, are NOT bulk-consumers. We are the same as individual house owners. All tariffs applicable to apartments should be on par with individual house owners. In addition, club house, swimming pool, STP etc. in apartment complexes are not commercial activities, hence all tariffs (water, power etc.) should only be at residential rates and not at commercial rates. PROVISIONING OF SERVICES Access to basic amenities like water, sewage network, garbage collection etc. is lacking in quite a few areas. The Government…

The growth in the nation’s cities has been maddeningly slow. And it has not even been much, according to the fifth edition of Janaagraha’s Annual Survey of India’s City-Systems (ASICS) 2017. There has been some improvement in the quality of governance in 23 cities. Yet, this has come about at a frustrating snail’s pace. Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy (Janaagraha), a Bengaluru-based non-profit, has surveyed the quality of governance in 23 major cities in 20 states. The survey was based on 89 questions. Pune was the Number 1 grosser, scoring between 3.0 and 5.1 on 10 and topping the…

Unique identification to properties in the city Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP)’s new system can now help you locate addresses easily. It has just launched DiGi7, a system that offers a seven-digit unique identification to 19 lakh properties. Launched by the Bengaluru Development Minister K.J. George on March 15, the system was developed by a team led by Special Commissioner (IT) Manoj Rajan. The BBMP assigned unique IDs to about 19 lakh properties spread over 800 sq.kms. So will the citizens be able to use DiGi7 to identify properties, get directions and navigate? Certainly. DiGi7 can help to transport you…

At the inaugural session of Mandram, Dr Balaji Sampath spoke about the need to help our children understand science through experiments using simple objects of daily use. He said everyone is born a scientist, everyone has  natural curiosity about how things work, but sadly this curiosity and scientific temperament is stifled and subsequently lost in the current education system. Watch the full video of his talk below. அன்றாட வாழ்வில் அறிவியல் பற்றி மிக சுவாரஸ்யமாக விளக்கினார் பாலாஜி சம்பத். இவர் ஆஹாகுரு என்ற தளத்தின் மூலமாக நடுநிலை மற்றும் முதுநிலை பள்ளி மாணவர்களுக்கு எளிய முறையில் அறிவியல் மற்றும் கணித பாடங்களுக்கு பயிற்சி அளிக்கிறார். குழந்தைகளுக்கு அறிவியலை எப்படி அறிமுகப்படுத்த வேண்டும் என்று அன்றாடம் உபயோகப்படுத்தும் பொருட்களை கொண்டு…

A wide range of people from all over Bangalore, representing a range of organisations and communities from within the city, peri-urban areas and villages affected by waste disposal, were present when Justice N. Kumar (Retd.), Former Judge of the High Court of Karnataka, released: “Bangalore’s Toxic Legacy Intensifies: Status of Landfills, Waste Processing Sites and Dumping grounds, and working conditions of Pourakarmikas”, a report prepared by Environment Support Group. This report provides a critical framework to evaluate the progress achieved in advancing environmental and social justice of communities impacted by waste handling and disposal, and is prepared to support ongoing…

While the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) recently published the Draft Revised Master Plan for Bengaluru, civil society groups from the city have filed Writ Petitions in the High Court of Karnataka challenging the constitutional authority of the BDA to prepare the Master Plan. They have argued that it is the constitutionally mandated Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC) that should prepare the Master Plan and not the BDA. As the High Court of Karnataka adjudicates whether the BDA or the MPC should have the power to make the Master Plan, this CLPR briefing note authored by Sudhir Krishnaswamy and Mathew Idiculla examines…

This statement concerns the recent proposal by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike to lease its newly constructed super-specialty hospital to Narayana Health for a period of 30 years. The hospital occupies 20,000 sq ft on Broadway Road in Shivajinagar. The Peoples’ Union for Civil Liberties sees this proposal as sign of intended theft against the people of this city with a view to deny them a very basic human right, the right to healthcare. This plan goes against the public interest of ensuring that every resident in this city has access to healthcare, and is another example of private companies…

In the year 2017, data collected by Housing and Land Rights Network India (HLRN) reveals that government authorities, at both the central and state levels, demolished over 53,700 homes, thereby forcefully evicting, at a minimum, 260,000 (2.6 lakh) people across urban and rural India. The total number of persons affected has been calculated by multiplying the number of homes demolished by the average household size according to the Census (4.8). However, many demolished houses had more than one family, and most of the affected families have more than five persons. The real number of people displaced is therefore likely to…