Articles by News Desk

It's yet another milestone in the journey of Oorvani Foundation. You may have read about our joint initiative with Radio Active Community Radio 90.8 MHz - Co Media Lab. The community media lab serves as a resource centre, newsroom and a space for dialogues and discussions for community collaborations. The past few months now, Co Media Lab has been organising workshops for public and for students. Co Media Lab is hosted at Jain University, and supported by the University. (More details here.) We are happy to share news of an exciting new project of the lab - a partnership with…

To: His Excellency, Sri Vajubhai Rudabhai Vala, Governor of Karnataka Your Excellency, As a forum named Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB), now representing thousands of concerned citizens, with numbers growing by the hour, we approach you to intervene in a serious matter. As you are aware, Sir, the Government of Karnataka proposes to build a steel flyover from Basaveshwara Circle to Hebbal flyover, with connecting ramps on Race Course Road, Palace Road, Vidhana Soudha Road and Raj Bhavan Road. The project envisages a 6.7 km stretch of a six-lane steel flyover to be built at an estimated cost of Rs 2,200…

We have heard the CM of Karnataka and are disappointed with his response. However that doesn't change what was seen, heard and felt by thousands  on the road on Sunday - #SteelFlyoverBeda. There are thousands who are against this flyover – old and young who lined the streets in the Human Chain on Sunday, Oct 16. We believed that 8000 people on the streets would most certainly lead to a dialogue and re-examination of the project and cancellation of the project as well. The 219 people or 73% of 299 responses does NOT represent the public sentiment evident on the…

Google Earth image of Hebbal traffic choke point. Why are citizens opposed to #SteelFlyover? A lot of people have asked during the week, "why are you so opposed to the steel flyover?" I've said to many of them, in reply, that they should pause and think about that question. The answer should be quite easy to spot, especially since so many people have been saying it again and again. They used other words - about governance, and design, and planning, and due process, and a lot of other things that can confuse the issue. But those are the vocabulary of…

Owing to public pressure, Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) has uploaded more details on the steel flyover, including the Detailed Project Report (DPR) of the BDA's proposed steel flyover from Chalukya Circle to Hebbalon Bellary Road late on Friday night (October 14, 2016). The same information was earlier denied when Namma Bengaluru Foundation had applied for it under RTI. 3D animation for the proposed project: 2D simulation video for the proposed project: Link to the video: https://www.youtube.com/embed/Caq0Swx_46M Here is the copy of the Detailed Project Report. [embeddoc url="https://citizenmatters.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/BDA-Detailed-Project-Report.pdf" download="all"] More clarifications on the project [embeddoc url="https://citizenmatters.in/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Update-on-the-Elevated-Road.pdf" download="all"] List of trees to…

The floods of December 2015 have made the various departments of the Government think beyond conventional solutions for Disaster Management. As part of a long term plan, the Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure and Financial Services Ltd (TNUIFSL) is currently floating a tender for an Early Warning System, that would typically predict the areas and levels of inundation depending on the rain forecast. This will take into account the level of moisture in the soil, which will increase the accuracy of the prediction. This is expected to take about 2-3 years. LiDAR mapping, a remote sensing method that uses light in…

From: Citizens Concerned over the Proposed Steel Flyover An open letter to: The Bengaluru Vision Group Comprising - NR Narayana Murthy, Azim Premji, Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Sachin Bansal, Ramesh Ramanathan,Swati Ramanathan, V Ravichandar,Kalpana Kar, Mohandas Pai,Ramakanth, K Jairaj, RK Misra, BS Patil,Siddaiah, andVivek Menon cc: CMoK Siddaramaiah, Chairman; Bengaluru Development Minister KJ George, Co-Chairman; et al Members, The purpose of your group, was, according to an April 28, 2016, order of the Government of Karnataka: "... to improve life of Bengalureans by ushering in reforms in infrastructure and systems, resource mobilization, transparent governance, especially e-governance solutions, and increased participation of citizens, organizations and industry members." (Media reports) As concerned citizens,…

This is surely a map no one wants to see. Nearly 1100 garbage dumps across different wards captured on a map, in the city of Bengaluru, by citizens - a crowdsourced attempt, point to how common and ubiquitous is the problem of garbage in public spaces. Each garbage dump has a story behind it. Some of the photos from the map: What's happening near this lake? Thermocol is a type of waste Bengaluru cannot figure how to dispose. Dumped in a no-man's land, it slowly pollutes the atmosphere and water bodies. A cow feeds on garbage full of paper and…

Written by Sowbhagya and translated from Kannada to English by Devaki Samuel It’s been twenty years since I started working as community organizer. I started as a teacher for children of 3-6 years of age. I noticed most of the time older sisters came to drop their younger siblings. The sisters were beautiful, smart and intelligent but had taken the burden of single mothers, who were involved in incense stick making. Deprived of education, instead of holding books, their hands were blackened with the ingredients of incense sticks. Whenever I saw them, my heart ached.  I had an opportunity to…

  With just a day left for Gandhi Jayanti, various citizen led groups have planned to organise cleanliness programmes in various locations of Bengaluru on October 2nd. Here are the list of cleanliness programmes to be organised across the city as part of the Bengaluru Swachh Utsav 2016. The programme is organised by the Solid Waste Management Round Table in association with BBMP and KSPCB. The campaign which will be kicked off on the day of Gandhi Jayanti, will continue for the next one year, to create awareness about waste management among citizens. It includes, emphasising on door-to-door waste collection,…