City: Bengaluru

To say that the year 2019 belonged to the young people of the world would be understating it. Their voices were powerful and arresting with one clear message - “fall in line or fall by the wayside”. Climate change was one of the issues the youth engaged with, globally. Greta Thunberg, the 16-year-old Swedish activist whom Time magazine recently named as its youngest-ever 'Person of the Year', had called for a worldwide protest in September. Thousands of youngsters responded to her call and flooded the streets across cities. An offshoot of that movement was Fridays For Future (FFF), a group…

On 14th December, thousands thronged the Town Hall in Bengaluru in protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). The organisers printed the Indian Constitution’s Preamble on a banner that dangled off the neoclassical building as protestors kept gathering. But after speeches by prominents like Rajya Sabha MP Rajeev Gowda and author and historian Ramchandra Guha, the protestors appeared to be clearly divided. On one side were those from Assam sloganeering, “Bangladeshis go back”, while on the other were Muslims chanting around Azaadi (freedom). At one point an Assamese protestor looked at his friend and asked, “Inko kis baat ki azaadi…

Did you know that BBMP is liable to pay you compensation if you get injured in a pothole accident? This is as per a High Court order in July. BBMP refused to act on the order initially. But after warnings from the court, it published a newspaper ad last month saying compensation would be given on a case-by-case basis. However, currently there are no guidelines on the process for applying for compensation, a point of contact, or on the compensation amount to be paid for different types of injuries. BBMP has also challenged High Court's order in the Supreme Court.…

Anti-CAA protests In spite of Section 144 of the CrPC being imposed on the city, thousands of students, activists and citizens protested against the CAA (Citizenship Amendment Act), 2019, and the NRC (National Register of Citizens) on Thursday, December 19th. Police detained about 1000 people from various parts of the city on Thursday. Of them, 255 were arrested in eight cases and later freed on bail. Additional Police Commissioner (West) Umesh Kumar said they had been arrested under IPC Sections 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and 341 (punishment for wrongful restraint). Eminent historian Ramachandra Guha was…

Ten days ago, some miscreant children battered seven tiny puppies at Nagaraj Layout in Whitefield. The puppies, stoned and beaten with iron rods, were taken to the hospital by residents nearby. Five of the puppies died, and another one died today. As of now only one survives, Mintu. The incident was reported in newspapers and shared on social media. When students from Parikrma Humanity Foundation - aged between 6 and 16 years - came to know of this, they were very upset and decided to do something for the puppies. They made paintings, and have been holding a fundraiser since Thursday for the…

On December 18th, Bengaluru, which had seen near-daily protests for the previous few days, was gearing up for two simultaneous protests at 11 am the next day - one at Mysore Bank Circle and the other at Town Hall. This followed a nationwide call to hit the streets on December 19th, to protest against the recently-passed Citizenship Amendment Act (which would fast-track citizenship for non-Muslims from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Bangladesh) and against the nationwide NRC promised by Home Minister Amit Shah.  Bhaskar Rao, the Bangalore Police Commissioner announced that Section 144 was going to be imposed from December 19th 6…

Two novel proposals - longer pedestrian walkways and pedestrian-only roads on certain days of the week - make the latest draft of the Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) for Bengaluru Metropolitan Area significantly different from its four-year-old predecessor. CMP has been prepared to chalk out short and long-term plans for solving the city’s traffic mess.  Click here for the full summary of the Comprehensive Mobility Plan 2019 But unlike previous proposals that paid little or no attention to non-motorised transport, namely pedestrians and cyclists, the new draft CMP has specified pedestrian and cycling infrastructure. Whether this is integrated into the larger…

Karnataka government has imposed curbs in Bengaluru and some other parts of the state, under Section 144 of the CrPC. The government move came amidst widespread protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and the National Registry of Citizens (NRC). Bengaluru Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao said yesterday that those who violate Section 144 would be booked. But what do our laws say about protests? If you want to hold a protest, what rights do you have and what permissions do you need to take? Do citizens have the right to protest? The word ‘protest’ is not explicitly mentioned in the…

The Department of Urban Land Transport (DULT) has published a draft of the Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) for Bengaluru Metropolitan Area. The document has brought back the controversial Elevated Corridor project (road-over-road), 92 km of which has been proposed at the cost of Rs 18,480 crore. The CMP itself is necessitated by the centre’s Metro Policy which clearly states that funding for the Metro would require cities to develop a comprehensive mobility plan. Here is a summary of the proposals in this plan.  Many of the new three-phase CMP project proposals are there in the earlier plans proposed in 2011…

What is the environmental cost of a big music event? Can art afford to be for its own sake and not think about all the plastic bottles and banners left behind without being recycled? What about the emissions from generators or the decibel levels? These questions led Roshan Netalkar to come up with Echoes of the Earth (EOE), an annual music festival, three years ago. Held on the outskirts of Bengaluru on a sprawling 150-acre property, it was aimed at marrying music and art with the theme of sustainability. Netalkar hoped to prove that music festivals of such scale could…