Articles by News Desk

Poll fever shoots up Even as all parties swing into campaigning, efforts are being made to increase voter turnout, hoping that it would go up to at least 75% from last time’s 55%. About 1.35 lakh voters in the age groups of 18-19 years will vote for the first time. About five lakh voters have been added since January 2023, said Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Chief Commissioner and District Election Officer Tushar Giri Nath at a voter awareness campaign organised by Bengaluru Chamber of Industries and Commerce (BCIC) . The hope is that voting goes up to 100%. A…

Bangalore Apartments’ Federation (BAF) is a federation representing the interests of residents of apartments and villa communities across Bengaluru. More than 1,180 apartment and villa resident welfare associations (RWAs) are members of BAF, representing nearly 250,000 households with close to one and a half million citizens either residing or working within these communities. Bengaluru city is growing at a rapid pace – nearly 1.35 crore of people from various parts of the country and the world have made this city their home. The rapid increase in population has been supported by a massive growth of vertical-living as the housing format.…

‘Civil Society Forum’ is a coalition of several civil society organisations and movements as well as individuals. It wishes to strengthen the electoral and democratic process in our city and state to make it more participatory and reflective of the real wishes of the people. The member organisations and individuals work in different sectors of urban and rural constituencies, engaging with diverse and marginalised communities in Karnataka and other states too. The Forum was actively involved in interacting with political parties, submitting manifestos during the Karnataka Assembly Elections in 2013 and 2018, the Lok Sabha Elections in 2014 and 2019…

In the wake of fierce citizen opposition to the Sankey Flyover and road widening project, the Citizens of Malleshwaram Constituency came together to create a ‘Climate Action Manifesto 2023-2024’ for their constituency. Citizens for Sankey presented this manifesto to Siddaramaiah of Congress and Dr. Ashwath Narayan, BJP, on March 28th. Read more: 10 guarantees in Aam Aadmi Party’s Karnataka manifesto Summary of the five-point climate action manifesto. Graphic courtesy: Citizens for Sankey "To safeguard the future of our city, our elected representatives and civic bodies must coordinate closely with us citizens when making decisions, which impact us all. A repeat…

Greater Chennai Corporation plans to clear abandoned vehicles In a joint operation with the police, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) plans to clear the city's streets of all abandoned vehicles. The drive will cover 471 bus routes roads and 40,000 streets across Chennai and is aimed at reducing congestion. As a first step, GCC plans to count the number of abandoned vehicles across 15 zones. Then, the owners of the vehicles will be sent a notice providing two weeks to remove the vehicles. After this time period, the GCC and the police will seize the vehicles. Details such as the…

Fishy investigation in IIT suicide case: Father says caste issue sidelined, raises question on authenticity of note found Ramesh Solanki, father of Darshan Solanki, an IIT Bombay student who died by suicide in February, wrote a letter to the special investigation team (SIT) expressing his concern that the police may have overlooked the possibility of "caste discrimination" playing a role in his son's death. He also questioned the findings of handwriting experts which concluded that the "suicide note" found at the scene was written by his son. The father has also expressed concerns regarding the SIT investigation, which implicated another…

Govt 'failed' in education: Civil rights body The government's performance in education has been marked ‘Grade E’ (Fail) by the civil rights group, Bahutva Karnataka. It evaluated the state's performance based on certain parameters, such as the learning abilities of students, implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, communalisation of education, revision of the curriculum, exclusion of students from marginalised communities, infrastructure, among others. The forum, consisting of education experts and student activists, said that its report card is an outcome of evaluation based on the government's performance in relation to its own goals, as well as the constitutional…

COVID-19 cases on the rise in Chennai With the daily tally of COVID-19 cases in Tamil Nadu crossing over 200, of which Chennai alone reported over 80 cases, Health Minister Ma Subramanian has said that the infection seemed to be spreading faster in healthcare institutions. The public has been advised to wear masks in public places, maintain social distancing and self-isolate if they show symptoms of infection. The Health Minister has said that the public need not panic as the current spread is only at the individual level and is not found to exist as a cluster. The GCC has…

Max fatalities in fire accidents due to electrocution, common cause of fire in Mumbai are human errors Data shared by Prabhat Rahangdale, former chief fire officer in Mumbai Fire Brigade (MFB) and deputy municipal commissioner, disaster management, revealed that nearly 73% of human fatalities during fire incidents were caused due to electrocution after electrical circuit failures. Read more: Appapada fire: Did authorities do enough to support affected families? The data states MFB receives between 6000 and 7000 emergency calls in a year, of which nearly 90% were calls made for fire related complaints. Furthermore, Rahangdale also told The Indian Express…

Withdraw FIRs: Sankey road protestors The Sadashivanagar police’s FIR against 70 people, who protested peacefully on February 19th against the proposed Sankey Road flyover, has drawn ire from citizens and Residents’ Welfare Associations (RWAs), activists, and civic organisations. The group wrote to the Police Commissioner C H Pratap Reddy, and met him on April 5th, demanding the withdrawal of “baseless allegations against the citizens”. The letter was endorsed by over 500 citizens and almost 100 organisations. The case has been transferred to the Halasuru Gate police station. The citizens have been charged with crimes under Sections 143, 341, 283 and…