City: Bengaluru

Drone shot of a Metro station. All transport projects including Metro should be reviewed in light of COVID-induced changes, says a letter from three civic groups to the Centre. Pic: Siddharth Sriram This September 16, Hardeep Singh Puri, Centre's Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs, said no time limit could be specified for the sanction of the ORR-Airport Metro line (from Silk Board to airport). He further said that Metro projects are cost-intensive and hence require extensive inter-ministerial consultations. In this context, members from three civic groups - Bangalore Environment Trust, Praja-RAAG and Citizens for Citizens - have written to…

After supporting hundreds of ‘Cycle Days’ in Bengaluru, the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) is now inviting citizen groups to propose sustainable transport solutions in their neighbourhoods. DULT's new initiative, the Sustainable Mobility Accords (SuMA) will offer Rs 50 lakh to implement approved projects, along with the required technical expertise. In the first year of SuMA, 10 applicants will be selected. While the original deadline for submitting applications was September 30, it has now been extended to October 7. (Note: The deadline has been extended again, to October 15.) Sonal Kulkarni, Senior Transport Planner at DULT, says they are…

A survey conducted by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palik in November last year said there were 4,246 homeless people in the city. As many as 3,380 of them are males, 857 females and nine sexual minorities. They live in and around the city railway station, bus station, footpaths and empty plots. Civil society organisations had proposed then that the BBMP set up 77 shelters for the homeless, including separate ones for women. While these are the official figures, the number of shelterless is clearly far higher. The current availability of working shelters, 10 by official claim, is nowhere near the…

In my lifetime, I’ve transitioned from an Indian-type squat-pour-flush toilet to a more spacious western-style commode toilet with the luxuries of a mirror and wash-basin.  This transition is one of the more eloquent symbols of my upward mobility.  It was in the privacy of the toilet that I have felt the most free and uninhibited.  It is the place where my deepest angsts have found their release in helpless tears and the place where I’ve imagined my wild aspirations coming true. It is where I’ve thought of the comeback line to the school bully and where I’ve pretended to be…

Traditionally, Bengaluru’s lakes stay dry for a couple of months, and fill up during the monsoons. This made it easier for potters, brick makers and farmers to collect silt from lakes. But due to climate change, rapid urbanisation and unplanned development, more lakes have been drying up for longer periods of time. An article by Times of India states that “According to BBMP, about 50% of the lakes have water less than half of their holding capacity. Some of them have gone dry and in others, the water level is fast depleting”. Sowl Kere, Kannamangala lake, Arakere, Sarakki, and Yelahanka…

Farmers protest, call for bandh on Sept 28 Hundreds of farmers blocked major highways and state highways in and around Bengaluru on Friday morning to protest the amendment to Land Revenue Act and the APMC Act passed in Parliament. The protest and blocking of roads was called by Ryot, Dalit, Labourers Aikya Horata Samithi - a collective of 35 farmers' groups, Dalit and trade unions. It affected the movement of regular traffic at Nayandahalli and Goragunte Palya junction. Police personnel were deployed at many places to prevent complete blockade of key routes. Hundreds of farmers courted arrest and were taken…

It's been five years since GAIL Gas Limited (GGL) got a contract to supply Piped Natural Gas (PNG) in Bengaluru. The aim was for GGL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of GAIL (India) Limited, to give PNG connection to 1.32 lakh homes and 200 industries in the city by 2020. But PNG, a cost-effective, green fuel, is yet to reach large parts of the city. Karthika P S N, a resident at JP Nagar’s RBI Layout, says she's awaiting a natural gas connection since it's "eco-friendly and cheap, and will relieve us from being dependent on Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders". She…

Flanked by the Outer Ring Road, where unceasing traffic spews noxious fumes, and a concreted canal where heaps of plastic float amid sewage, the Hennur Lake Biodiversity Park is an incongruous speck of green in a wide swath of concrete. And for a few slender loris individuals, it is an unlikely home. As implausible as it may seem, gray slender lorises (Loris lydekkerianus) have clung to life while the city’s concrete-scape has cornered them into this 34-acre park. At least 4-5 individuals of the beady-eyed, small, elusive primate species has been spotted in the canopies of the park. Surveys conducted between…

When 2020 started, we wouldn’t have imagined that schools would shut down, playing outdoors would be unsafe, regular income will be affected, and that staying at home would become the only way to stay safe.  Personally, I  haven’t been able to venture out for plogging -- something that I have enjoyed doing for close to three years now. Running-plus-picking-waste has been an effective way of keeping the environment clean and creating awareness. COVID made me and my team, The Indian Ploggers Army, realise that even if we’re not able to plog, there are other things we can do. The gaps…

On September 23, the Deputy Comissioner, Bengaluru Urban district, is hosting a virtual public consultation to discuss the environmental impacts of the proposed Peripheral Ring Road (PRR). The project has been in the news for a number of issues - continued public opposition over non-availability of the Detailed Project Report (DPR); the validity of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report; the number of trees which will be felled for it; the plethora of court cases brought in by a number of citizens set to lose their properties. That is quite a long list. Sure, the devil is in the details,…