Articles by Shree D N

The ex-chief minister of Karnataka, D V Sadananda Gowda, is preparing to contest from a parliamentary constituency for the fourth time. Gowda is contesting from Bangalore North, the same constituency that had elected him in 2014. The last five years of Gowda’s political journey have been spent mostly in Delhi. A 2013 profile of Sadananda Gowda by Citizen Matters throws more light on his rise within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka. In 2014, Bengaluru North constituency had over 24 lakh voters, of whom over 13.5 lakh came out to vote. Gowda won from this constituency for the first…

In the first part of this series, we explained how compensatory afforestation is a sham - compensatory saplings are not tracked or cared for, or are planted way outside the city. In this part, we explore why trees are felled in the first place without public consultations. Environmentalists in Bengaluru have pointed out the curious trend of tree-cutting packages awarded in bunches of 49 trees or lesser. Why is this? Section 8 (3)(vii) of the Karnataka Preservation of Trees Act, 1976, stipulates that if more than 50 trees need to be cut for any infrastructure purpose like road construction or…

‘Whitefield phase BMRCL gets over 44 acres from central ministry,’ said a recent headline in the Economic Times. The news report said that the state Revenue Department had agreed to hand over 16 acres of land in Thippagondanahalli and another 30 acres from six villages in Kali Tiger Reserve forest, to the Forest Department. The land transfer was on behalf of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL). With this, the “hurdle” that delayed BMRCL from acquiring forest land was cleared, making way for Metro construction in Whitefield. What was the “hurdle”? BMRCL had identified 45.18 acres of forest land…

To begin with, that's how India's map looks like right now, if we mark the parliamentary constituencies with women Members of Parliament (MPs) in green. The chart visualised by Lokdhaba, an initiative of Trivedi Centre for Political Data at Ashoka University, shows that women's representation has been scattered across the nation, for the 16th Lok Sabha. The debate on having more and more women at the helm of political affairs has been a long one. The Women's Reservation Bill promised by various political parties has remained unimplemented due to lack of political consensus. As we head towards yet another Lok…

The Rajya Sabha has listed The Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018 for consideration and passage in the budget session of February 2019. Whether it will indeed be taken up, or whether it will merely lapse and require reintroduction in the next Parliamentary session hosted by the new government remains to be seen, but in any case this is a law, developments related to which have been closely watched by banking entities, telecom companies, fintech businesses and activists. So, why have amendments to the bill been such a contentious issue and how does it really impact us as citizens? The…

“We, the women of India hereby commit to building a nationwide movement cutting across region, religion, language, caste and ideology to demand political power for women. All for one and one for all.” This pledge taken on December 8th by about 150 women assembled at Hotel Chalukya in Bengaluru resonated in the hearts of many more invisible people who were not in the room, including women political aspirants and people who want to see more women out there ruling the country and the states. The nonpartisan, crowd-funded collective of people, India Women’s Caucus, aimed at improving representation of women in…

This article is supported by SVP Cities of India Fellowship How many people in Bengaluru use Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Company (BMTC) buses, which are perceived to be the lifeline of the city, everyday? BMTC figures say the ridership is 51 lakh. This means BMTC, with its 6650 buses, sells 51 lakh tickets daily from the 70,892 trips it undertakes. Each bus undertakes an average of 5-6 round trips per day. There are demands for increasing BMTC buses. But will more buses help? Look at the city’s roads - the traffic crawls at such a low speed that even walking can…

50 people have tested positive for Zika virus in Rajasthan's Jaipur following which the Prime Minister's Office sought a detailed report from the Union Health Ministry. This has led to other states stepping up surveillance. Zika doesn't kill people, yet everyone is scared of it. To understand why, we need to delve deep into the subject. So what is Zika fever virus? Why is it important? This is a virus that causes fever and other symptoms among people, and also causes paralysis and neuro-related illnesses in extreme cases. A fact sheet compiled by the World Health Organisation says that Zika…

This article is supported by SVP Cities of India Fellowship. In our previous article, we saw how talent coming out of IT engineering colleges do not have the skill sets the IT industry needs. In this article, we look at what the solutions could be. Though the hiring scene for fresh IT graduates looks bleak, there is still some hope. There are options if one has the willingness to put in extra effort and learn while working. “Experienced talent is tough to come by and it is getting more and more expensive. Hence more companies, both large ones and startups,…

Reports from a surveillance mechanism of the Health and Family Welfare Department of the Government of India as well as World Health Organisation surveillance reports from Uttar Pradesh showed signs of the type-2 polio virus in stool samples of some children, following which the samples of Oral Polio Vaccines administered to children were sent for testing. This has set off a chain reaction of events, triggering a heated controversy in the realm of public health in India. The test reports confirmed that some batches were contaminated with type 2 polio virus, the manufacturing, distribution and use of which was stopped…