Articles by Subramaniam Vincent

Rajeev Chandrasekhar, convenor of the Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure Development (ABIDe) committee, has sent a letter to the chief minister B S Yeddyurappa indicating that he has been left with no choice but to resign, Citizen Matters has learnt. Chandrasekhar, 44, is also a sitting Rajya Sabha MP (Independent), representing Karnataka and Bangalore Urban. He had won his seat with the support of the JD(S)-BJP combine in 2006.  He is also former president of FICCI (Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry). Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rajya Sabha MP (Independent) and Convenor of the ABIDe task force. Pic courtesy: www.rajeev.in Chandrasekhar's…

"Who are these people, these former IAS officers and all, to compare London to Bangalore and propose these changes?"  he thundered on the phone. His tone and outburst were astounding, and for a moment it appeared that he had mistaken the Citizen Matters editor for someone else. "What is the paristhithi in Bangalore?" he then shot off, implying that Bengaluru was simply not London.The speaker was Jayanagar MLA B N Vijaykumar. Citizen Matters had asked him what he thought of ABIDE's proposal to have direct elections from neighbourhoods into ward committees, which was being vetted by his party colleagues in…

Finally, elections to the Bengaluru council are to be announced soon. Roughly half the city's 198 wards have been reserved (for BC, SC, ST and women). The state election commission is expected to announce the dates by next week.Soon, and with a 'municipal' intensity, the usual election campaigning will begin  -- party ticket quarrels, rebels turning independents, the race to nominations, disclosure affidavits and the blaring of loudspeakers in our streets as campaigning culminates.For local elections, turnout has historically been around 50 per cent, and it's usually the urban poor who have gone out to vote. The middle and upper…

Transport. Transport offers mobility. From mobility comes access. Access to work, socials, leisure, everything. Transport systems even shape our cities.For years now, transport in Bengaluru has been in a state of breakdown. Our roads are flooded disproportionately with cars and two-wheelers which compete for every inch of space with the buses that carry the majority.We've all become weary travellers. It is now not uncommon to put off a jaunt to meet someone or attend a function unless its critical or something we cannot wriggle out of. Social connections are being rewired to lessen impact.Adding to this is the latest pressing…

For over 10 days, the power tussle between the Reddy brothers faction and the Yeddyurappa camp has virtually held the work of government hostage. How has the internal turmoil in the BJP government impacted the prospects for “fixing” a whole host of Bengaluru problems? The Government of Karnataka, on November 13th 2009, put out a state-level Urban Development draft policy for public comment. Minister of Law and Urban development S Suresh Kumar released the draft, which has been prepared by A Ravindra, Advisor to the Chief Minister on urban affairs. It mentions the setting up of a Metropolitan Planning Committee…

The long-delayed bridge over the railway line at the Whitefield Railway Station in Kadugodi, northeastern Bengaluru, has received a ‘second-life’ of sorts, with the Hyderabad based-contractor Soham Engineering Constructions, restarting work last week. Soham had stopped work on the project for almost four  weeks, citing reasons of acute cash shortage. Steel girder sections lie covered in tarapaulin sheets, awaiting long overdue welding approval. Pic: Subramaniam Vincent. In a second and related development that could give a further fillip to the project, citizens living on the northern side of the tracks have offered to mobilise funds for Soham to help them…

We live in times of massive traffic pileups on our roads and the stress that comes from simply watching long lines of vehicles stopped at intersections. With the ever increasing pressure on local authorities to relieve congestion, how did it come to pass that the BBMP-proposed link road connecting the Yeshwanthpur-Yelahanka artery to NH 7 (Bellary Road) resulted in a major litigation in the High Court?Over 4 kms of the proposed link road is to be laid through forestland inside the University of Agricultural Sciences’ GKVK campus in northern Bengaluru. The forestland itself was granted to the university by an…

There is a funny thing about ill-conceived policy. The longer it is accepted by the people, the harder it becomes to reverse course later. The destination signboards on Bengaluru’s ‘sada’ buses, run by the public-sector BMTC have been Kannada-only for along time. English is not used.Citizen Matters asked the state government’s transport minister R Ashoka about this and he said that only Kannada people use these buses and when reminded that this was a multicultural city, he said, “What do I do?”. But bus drivers, conductors and commuters themselves are not opposed to bilingual signboards -- don’t miss our special…

B S Yeddyurappa is a chief minister who struck out and created history of sorts recently, something few state chief ministers have managed to do. Working with his counterpart in Tamilnadu, he oversaw the long-pending unveiling of the Tamil poet-saint’s Thiruvalluvar statue in Bengaluru.This is not as easy as it may seem. Getting past strained ethnic tensions is fraught with risks anywhere in the world. In 1991 when the statue was originally due for unveiling, protests built up and tensions coincided with riots triggered by the Cauvery dispute. Kannada-Tamil tensions in Bengaluru have always simmered below the otherwise normal-seeming buzz…

The thing about blame is that it usually comes full circle. As incidents of viral fever (Dengue, Chikugunya, etc.), in the city started increasing, we decided to investigate why there was such a widespread spurt this time, how it was being tracked, who was tracking it, what they were doing about it, if it could have been averted and how. We discovered a number of worrisome realities, and do not miss our report on pages 6 and 7. Here’s our view. First, the blame game. Doctors quietly charge the BBMP for failing in mosquito eradication this year in water logged…