Articles by News Desk

Bangalore Traffic police Numbers by Citizen Matters

The campaign against the bus fare hike by the Bangalore Bus Prayaanikara Vedike has been going on for the past one week. On Friday June 28, the Vedike held a protest outside the BMTC office and submitted a memorandum (scanned copy and English version attached) to the GM, BMTC. The GM promised to review the fare-hike decision and also call for a meeting. However, the very same day, the BMTC MD once again issued a public statement declaring that the fare hike will not be taken back at any cost. We have also not heard from BMTC on whether they…

Volvo Buses, India is calling for entries for the third edition of the Volvo Sustainable Mobility Awards 2013. Instituted in 2011, this award aims to reward progressive and practical action in the area of promoting sustainable solutions in urban mobility. For more information about the contest, visit www.volvobuses.co.in. Register and submit, if your group or organisation has made a positive impact in the area of sustainable mobility that stands out, be it concerning public transport, bicycle, pedestrian safety, or just about any initiative in the interest of sustainable mobility. Last date for registrations is August 31, 2013. Last date for…

Atul Chitnis was a technologist, open source evangelist and organiser of FOSS.in. For more, check Wikipedia or even better, his own description. Here are some memories by those who knew him, those who were close to him, reflecting on his different facets. Sandhya Mendonca, a journalist and media entrepreneur writes: I have known Atul Chitnis for over 15 to 17 years. Though our acquaintance happened because of his messianic zeal for getting Indian IT going in the way that benefitted users, I am not going to dwell on his credentials as an open source guru; others are more qualified to…

Citizens of Koramangala, HSR Layout and Bellandur areas have come together under an umbrella group called South-East Bangalore Forum for Sustainable Development, to oppose the massive 72-acre IT SEZ project by Manipal ETA Infotech, near Agara Lake. 27 RWAs representing over 25,000 residents have joined hands and written to Traffic police, BBMP, BDA, BWSSB, Karnataka Udyog Mitra, KIADB, Lake Development Authority, and industry bodies like CII, CREDAI and Nasscom. Citizen Action Forum, a pan-Bangalore federation of over 70 RWAs, has also come forward to support the campaign. The ongoing construction at the area between Bellandur and Agara lakes Pic: Kedar…

‘Whitefield Rising - Waste Management Team’ conducted their maiden seminar on June 15th,　2013 at The Whitefield Club.It was attended by the Corporator of Hagadur Ward, Mr H A Srinivas and several Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanaga Palike (BBMP) officials -Devaraju, Joint Commissioner, BBMP; Vinayaka, Environmental Engineer, BBMP, Sidalinge Gowda, Executive Engineer, BBMP, Whitefield, Devaraj, Health Inspector, and Kalpana, Health Officer. R. K Misra, (Founder of Nav Bharat and　SAHYOG - Indian Council for PPP) along with over 100 residents of the Whitefield area including communities such as Adarsh Palm Meadows, Waterwoods, Waterville, Renaissance Jagrithi, Vaswani Pinnacle, Brigade Metropolis, Prestige Shantiniketan, Laughing Waters, Shobha…

Tariffs are the single most important economic tool to control individual resident’s water usage. Many apartments often bundle water charges into a single maintenance account. But this keeps the expense of water consumption invisible. RWAs must have a Cost Account for water separately. RWA Management Committees need to consider various parameters to arrive at the tariff. What cannot be measured cannot be managed. The first step is to measure water consumption and calculate the total cost for getting water into a resident's flat. See part 1 of this series: Where does Bangalore get its water from? To read, click here.…

It is common knowledge that India is passing through a tumultuous period in her democratic governance. Though postmodern democracy has many drawbacks and has been dominantly designed by many nations, it needs to be recognized that the world in our times has irreversibly arrived at democracy as the most acknowledged healthy way of governing nation states. It is also recognized that most nation states have adopted representative democracy as a pragmatic way of respecting citizen’s power. In the evolution of representative democracy several types of electoral systems have been invented, developed, modified etc. Nations with known dominant ideologies have developed…

Time is now ripe for bringing in systemic changes and strategies to take Bengaluru on a road towards a sustainable solution for handling and processing of solid waste according to the MSW Rules 2000 notified by the Ministry of Environment & Forests. As an important step towards managing Municipal Solid Waste Management (SWM) as well as to evolve and implement strategies and action plan for Bengaluru getting back its glory as a clean and green city, the Government of Karnataka, Urban Development Department constituted an Expert Committee (EC) under the Chairmanship of Commissioner, BBMP and seven other experts to advise…

The residents of Chaithanya Samarpan layout at Kadugodi, north of Whitefield, started smiling in late May when pre-monsoon showers blessed Bengaluru and then continued into June. Water stopped in a storm water drain. It gets diverted into the collection chambers through the PVC pipe shown. Pics: Rainwater Concepts. But their smiles were not just because the rain brought much-awaited respite from the heat wave of April and May. It was because earlier this year the Samarpan owners' association had initiated a massive rainwater harvesting project for the layout. A network of water trapping, filtering and harvesting structures were built underground.…