City: Bengaluru

Siddhakka, a street food vendor aged around 70, has been working in the Peenya Industrial area for 14 years. She had come to Bengaluru due to drought and agricultural distress in her home village. Her daughter, who was deserted by her husband, had no means to earn as she lacked proper education. She has been entirely dependent on Siddakka, and lives and works with her. Food vending is the only livelihood for this mother-daughter household. The current 21-day nationwide lockdown has made people like Siddakka, who already live on the margins, more vulnerable. A telephonic survey of informal sector workers,…

It is being called the ‘long march of India’ - millions of migrant workers are fleeing our cities amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Ex-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s 1967 political slogan “Roti Kapda aur Makaan” still resonates with approximately 139 million internal migrants in our country who form the unappreciated (but not anymore, as we are forced to clean up our homes) layer of our service industry. The COVID-19 pandemic has seen one of the most stringent lockdowns in the history of our country. And it was necessary too, to curb the spread of the virus. But the entire concept of lockdown…

My domestic help Vijayamma is an ardent student of the WhatsApp University syllabus. Ever since the world began to grapple with COVID-19, Whatsapp forwards have gone from ridiculous to Sajid Khan-movie-level logic. Picture this - somebody told her that exposure to sunlight on Sundays causes the infection, and I found myself sitting in semi-darkness a whole day. Another day, I woke up to her peering over me, wearing something like Tom Hardy's mask from the 'Dark Knight Rises'. Her theories gets so bizarre, I often want to order a chemistry set and start finding a cure for this damned virus…

By now, you must've seen the gut-wrenching pictures of migrant workers walking from cities to their homes. You can imagine what they must be going through. All of us know that Bengaluru has a large migrant population. Lakhs of people work in the construction industry as daily wage labourers. They build our city - day and night, rain or shine. They sweat it out to create everything from the Metro to your mega apartment. Large numbers of people are working in the informal sector too. Rag pickers, coolies, microenterprise owners who make a living selling anything from pani puri to…

On Friday, Day 3 of the nationwide lockdown to contain COVID-19, Bengalureans - who were on Day 14 of their own lockdown - received news of the state’s third reported fatality from the virus. A 65-year-old man, with recent travel history to only Delhi, had died at 10.45 am in the isolation ward of Tumakuru’s district hospital. The state’s tally of positive cases now stands at 81, with Bengaluru accounting for 41 of those cases. Three weeks into this crisis, all we know for certain is that the disease is spreading fast; we don’t exactly know where it’s spreading and…

Earlier this week, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa announced that all Indira Canteens in Bengaluru will remain open during the nationwide 21-day coronavirus lockdown. However, the next day, the opposite was stated in another announcement, that Indira Canteens will remain closed during lockdown to avoid assembly of people. This was a shock to many since providing food to the vulnerable population is critical at this point. After much public outcry, the government has again announced that Indira Canteens will remain open and provide food to street vendors, daily wage workers, and others who fall in the low-income category. The canteens will…

Lockdown tensions Just a few hours before the 21-day national lockdown started, there was a sudden rush of people trying to return to their hometowns, even though buses and other vehicles were off the roads. Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa had allowed a final window till Tuesday midnight by lifting the ban on inter-district movement that had been enforced since Monday. The move was apparently to enable people to celebrate Ugadi, but the rush undid social distancing. Moreover, several thousands were stuck at various toll booths. An official memo signed by the City Police Commissioner, Bhaskar Rao, revealed that passes…

Supply of packaged drinking water in several parts of Bengaluru has been affected after the total lockdown that came into effect from Tuesday midnight. There are many sides to the problem. One, packaged water distributors are unable to fetch cans from bottling companies due to the lockdown. Two, distributors are unable to supply cans to residents who place orders through phone calls. Several distributors in the city have stopped answering their phones as the demand for packaged water has soared and they are unable to meet it. The other side of the story is that offices being the biggest customers…

The Bengaluru City Police (BCP) has introduced a pass system to regulate the movement of people during the 21-day lockdown that began at midnight on Monday. According to the BCP memo, passes would be issued at the offices of the jurisdictional Deputy Commissioners of Police (Law & Order) and would be made available 24/7 on the submission of a standard application form. Staff at DCP offices would be working in three shifts to issue these passes, the memo said. The memo, signed by city police commissioner Bhaskar Rao, said that two types of passes would be issued - one for…

Today, the BBMP Commissioner issued an order that applies to all apartments/gated communities/layouts in Bengaluru, so as to ensure social distancing and quarantining of citizens. The order directs BBMP officers to ensure that the following preventive measures are undertaken strictly. Spraying and fumigating apartment complexes, gated communities and layouts. Ensure there are hand sanitisers/soap solution at the entry and exit, and ensure that every person entering or exiting uses them to wash their hands. Ensure that the health of every person who enters/exits, is checked using a thermal sensor. If any one is found with a cough, cold or fever,…