City: Bengaluru

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…

After Nirmala’s mother was hospitalised with suspected dengue, she spent Rs 25,000 over three days to learn that it was only a case of general weakness. It was no small sum for the domestic worker to cough up in three days, not to mention the physical stress and emotional trauma. Nirmala had not even heard of health insurance for workers like herself, let alone have one. And those who do know about health insurance don't necessarily have it. Parvathamma, also a domestic worker, who is about 65 years old, asks: “I need to have a cataract operation. Will you help…

75,000 illegal properties may be regularised State government may regularise about 75,000 unauthorised properties in BDA (Bangalore Development Authority) layouts. Law Minister J C Madhuswamy said that the illegal properties are located in 5000 acres of BDA land spread around the city. They are paying neither taxes nor development fees. The government is planning to levy penalties based on guidance values, so as to regularise them. A cabinet sub-committee has been formed, which will suggest some amendments to the BDA Act, 1976, for regularisation. The buildings can be regularised if Section 38(c) of the BDA Act is amended. The sub-committee…

A couple of months ago, a mother and child met with a serious accident on the Varthur-Gunjur road. Passersby rushed them to a nearby hospital after they suffered injuries. Earlier this month, the condition of a Whitefield road became so poor that a school had to come forward to fix the road. A teacher from the school had met with an accident on the pothole-ridden road; one can only imagine how unsafe the school children would have been. We know of many such instances where commuters got injured or even lost their lives due to the poor condition of roads in Bengaluru. In…

A year after ward committee meetings began in Bengaluru, we look at how effective they have been. A recent study by Sensing Local Foundation reveals that many wards have not had these monthly meetings at all. In the seven months between December 2018 and June 2019, each of the 198 BBMP wards should have held seven ward committee meetings. But 52 wards had no meetings at all, and only 12 percent of the wards conducted at least five meetings. While the meetings are supposed to discuss new projects, budget allocation etc for the ward, they are functioning more like grievance…