City: Bengaluru

Co-authored by Angarika Guha and Senthil S In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the difficulties migrant workers face in accessing food during the lockdown. In this part, we explore how citizens themselves can help solve this problem. Even as NGOs and government agencies are involved in providing immediate relief (cooked food or dry ration) to the most vulnerable, the gap in their efforts is in the last-mile delivery of services. Janata audits can be a way to fix this. It is important to document local conditions of the community to which you are providing relief. Accurate, high…

Co-authored by Angarika Guha and Senthil S Amidst the shiny offices and gated complexes of a prominent IT corridor in the city lies Chinappa layout, Mahadevpura, home to close to 600 migrant workers from West Bengal, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and Nepal. Scattered across the area, they live inside blue tarpaulin tents, small concrete sheds, inside godowns filled with plastic, scrap metal and tin, or between the bamboo poles in construction sites. Bricks, tiles, garbage, waste, scrap, cooking, cleaning, sifting, constructing, clearing - their work is crucial to the daily fabric of life in the city. The lockdown caught them unawares.…

WithBengaluru, a citizens' initiative that came together to support vulnerable groups during the lockdown, has reached dry rations to over 11,000 families. The team has also written a letter to the Chief Minister, asking the government to use anganwadis, mid-day meal programme and the PDS effectively, and to transfer Rs 1500 per family to tackle the food crisis. The national lockdown due to COVID-19 is having a huge impact on various groups of people. The lockdown is particularly detrimental to the millions of internal migrants, many of whom work in the informal sector and as daily wagers. The sustenance of…

On April 14, BBMP war room bulletin had identified 38 wards as 'hotspots' for COVID-19 in the city. But the numbers have now come down to 32, as per the latest bulletins of April 15 and 16. A ward is declared as a hotspot, if: at least one COVID-19 patient was reported from there in the previous 28 days, or the ward has at least 50 people in quarantine. Below is a list of the 32 hotspot wards: Discrepancies in data; BBMP says new list is accurate After the initial hotspot list was released on April 14, the data changed…

Senior citizens everywhere are a particularly vulnerable section of society in these times of COVID-19 lockdown. Not only has this made it difficult for them to manage their day-to-day needs, their age and related health conditions make them more vulnerable to contracting the virus. A number of initiatives have sprung up in Bengaluru to specifically help senior citizens get medicines, groceries, mental health counselling, and help with hospital visits. We give below a list of such ongoing initiatives that senior citizens and those who know of seniors in need, can reach out to. 1. Relief Riders: “We carry supplies, not…

Workers building Namma Metro are facing a severe crisis due to the COVID-19 lockdown. Despite the central government’s order to all states to ensure that wages are paid during the lockdown period, the companies and contractors involved in Metro work have not paid most workers their salaries for February and March.  The construction of Metro Rail’s Yellow Line was stopped overnight on the day of the lockdown, and workers were asked to leave the construction site without any prior notice. Unless urgent action is taken by BMRCL and concerned authorities, thousands of workers will be directly affected and the secondary…

The COVID-19 pandemic is impacting everyone, but more so the vulnerable citizens – the homeless, migrants, destitute, those with disabilities, among others. As responsible citizens of our neighbourhood, we can support the government to avert a humanitarian crisis. Citizen Matters and Wipro Foundation are partnering to collate updates from the local community. This data will go into a dashboard that can be used by the civil society as well as the government to fill gaps in responses to the needs of all citizens. Do help by sharing this information - this form will be open for the period of the…

COVID-19 has put the spotlight back on Bengaluru's government hospitals. When COVID-19 cases started to be reported in the city, authorities rushed to ensure that these hospitals were cleaned up and prepared to deal with the situation. But on an average day, how well-maintained is an average government hospital in the city? These hospitals are all spruced up now, but how do we ensure this becomes the norm? First, let's see how hospitals are supposed to be maintained. The Centre's Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (MoHFW) has issued several guidelines on this. Most recently, this January, the National Centre…

In a recent interview with Citizen Matters, S T Ramesh, former Karnataka DG&IGP (Director General and Inspector General of Police), had pointed out the challenges as well as the shortcomings of the police in enforcing the COVID-19 lockdown. Ramesh had opined that the police was able to reduce social contact but failed to keep essential services unhindered. We caught up with the current DG&IGP Praveen Sood for his take. Over a phone interview, Sood said that the situation with respect to COVID-19 escalated so quickly that the police were caught off-guard. There was no specific protocol to follow, and no…

As Karnataka continues its battle against the COVID-19 pandemic with a two week extension of the lockdown, its leaders would do well to draw lessons from what came to be called the Bangalore Plague in 1898, which killed 10 percent of Bengaluru's population and 2.6 per cent in the rest of Mysore Kingdom. The then-colonial government had initially responded to the calamity with force, before realising its ineffectiveness and changing its response to successfully contain the outbreak. Today, it would be worth a look at how the then-Mysore state emerged victorious in its fight against the plague. What changed? In…