City: Bengaluru

On October 13, Tanishq withdrew an advertisement – featuring a Hindu daughter-in-law and her Muslim mother-in-law – in response to widespread trolling on social media that the company was promoting ‘love jihad’. A couple of months earlier, on August 11, even as the country was emerging from the Covid-19 lockdown, Bengaluru witnessed communal violence.  We are living in a communally charged atmosphere where anything and everything seems to be susceptible to becoming a source of religious polarisation. It is in times like this that initiatives, both at the interpersonal and institutional levels, that encourage tolerance and co-operation between religious communities,…

Cities are often thought of as progressive spaces, antithetical to rigid hierarchical systems like caste. Babasaheb Ambedkar himself believed this to be true and advised Dalits to move to cities to escape casteism. Before him, Jyotirao Phule had echoed the same sentiment. However, studies as well as lived experiences suggest that caste continues to shape urban spaces, albeit often invisibly. The same holds true for Bengaluru, even as it is often thought of as one of India's most progressive cities. How does caste continue to play an often invisible, yet important role in Bengaluru? How does it affect different spheres…

Indira Canteen contractors not paid for seven months Contractors of 198 Indira Canteens, including mobile canteens, find it difficult to operate as the BBMP has not paid their bills for more than seven months. The contractors include Chef Talk Food and Hospitality Services Pvt Ltd, Rewards, and Adamya Chetana. Udaykumar of Rewards used to operate 88 canteens, but is now managing 50, according to the new tenders which came into effect on August 1. The government subsidy (for three meals per day) was earlier Rs 37, but has been reduced to Rs 30.3 (Rs 9.8 for breakfast and Rs 10.25…

As we saw in Part 1 of this series, many apartments in Bengaluru have been rushing to install rooftop solar panels in view of expected policy changes. These systems have helped apartments steeply reduce their monthly power bills for common areas. Here's a guide on how you can get a rooftop solar system installed in your apartment too, based on information from the Bangalore Apartments' Federation (BAF), a collective of nearly 500 apartment associations in the city. Also see: A guide to installing solar power in your home What is a rooftop solar system? In this system, solar panels are…

Vishnu Gattupalli is a happy Management Committee (MC) member of his apartment, Trifecta Starlight, located at Mahadevapura. Their newly commissioned 84 kWp solar power plant helps them save more than 80,000 rupees each month on common area electricity bills. “We are extremely happy to have the rooftop solar power plant that has no direct emissions”, says Vishnu. The committee was inspired by the success stories of solar installations in other apartments. Vishnu who is also Secretary, Whitefield Cluster of Bangalore Apartment Federation (BAF), says over 30 apartments in the city have adopted solar rooftop. Rooftop solar systems are now an…

Who governs the lakes of our cities? Or should that question be: who should be governing our lakes? Most of us believe it should be the government. A lot of us assume that places like lakes are, by default, to be  taken care of (preserved, maintained and conserved) by the government. And we are not wrong there. It is the government who does that, by default. But what we often don’t realise is that that reality can be changed, and the community that inhabits the areas around these lakes have a big role to play.  At the same time, a…

Bengaluru was 'cleanest' city post Deepavali Karnataka State Pollution Control Board's Air Quality Index data during this year's Deepavali (November 14 to 16) showed that air pollution levels in Bengaluru were lower by 30.34% when compared with the corresponding days last year. With an AQI between 50 and 70, it had the cleanest air among other cities. The most polluted localities on those days were Chandra Layout, Vijayanagar, Hampinagar and Nayandahalli, with an average AQI of around 90. The least polluted areas were the Kempegowda International Airport, Madiwala, Bellandur, Bommanahalli, Yemlur, Koramangala and HSR Layout. There has been a 20%…

Two stories--with different endings. The first, from November 11th, 2020.  Suma, a 38 year old Hakki Pikki tribal woman---the Hakki Pikkis are a nomadic community originally from Gujarat but now settled in Karnataka over the past several generations---was discovered in an almost comatose state by a young health volunteer while doing a COVID survey. Suma was critically ill with chronic anaemia.  She was immediately taken to the local government hospital from where they decided to shift her to a “big hospital” in the city since they were ill-equipped to deal with the case. Unfortunately, and not surprisingly, the “big hospital”…

Garbage generated in Bengaluru’s markets big and small can be a star, according to  VEDAN, an NGO working on creating awareness among people on waste management issues. Named G-Star, the suggested model, which came out of Vedan’s study of K R Puram market, brings together people who produce waste and those who can make productive use of it. The G-star model can reduce the mixed waste that goes to landfills. This waste can be distributed to all stakeholders in a desired form by collecting it directly from vendors at the market as and when it is produced. The K R…

How many of us consider approaching the consumer court for a faulty piece of electronics, for an insurance claim that’s not honoured or for services like warranty and maintenance contracts that are promised but not provided? What happens when you do? How long do you wait? And how many of us succeed? The idea and intention behind setting up Consumer Dispute Redressal Commissions was to ensure swift and cost-effective access to justice to us, the consumers. Though it serves this purpose (in comparison to having to fight consumer cases in other courts, where it would take longer), a report by…