City: Bengaluru

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…

Bangalore Apartments' Federation (BAF) has strongly condemned Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) for its unilateral, unreasonable and illegal penalisation of apartments which have not been able to do in situ composting. BAF is a not-for-profit organisation with a membership base of over 500 apartment complexes across Bengaluru, representing almost one lakh households and three lakh people. Elaborating on Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules, Vikram Rai, Treasurer and SWM Lead of BAF, said, “The SWM Rules of 2016 - notified by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change on 8th April 2016 - mandates only waste segregation. It neither mandates…

As an engineer, I always try to find logic in everything. After years of persistent effort, I finally concede - there's no logic when it comes to hailing an autorickshaw in Namma Bengaluru. Autos refusing a ride isn't uncommon in Bengaluru. But a few weeks ago I had my moment of epiphany when six empty autos - all going in the same direction - refused me a ride on the straight, freshly white-topped stretch from Silk Board Junction to Koramangala Forum mall. The distance - not more than 2 km. That's when it dawned on me - hiring an auto…

Ward committees are supposed to make citizens the co-decision makers in governance of their ward. The idea is to entrust citizens with ward-level planning, budgeting and monitoring of BBMP services/schemes, and to leave corporators to focus on broader systemic issues of the city. But a recent study by Sensing Local Foundation revealed that the ward committees in Bengaluru were mostly ineffective. The foundation studied ward committees across 22 wards over four months, from July to October. The researchers found that while citizens were keen to attend the meetings, corporators often didn’t turn up, and the ward committee members didn't resolve issues…