City: Bengaluru

This article is supported by SVP Cities of India Fellowship Laly Randolf, an activist from Kasavanahalli, was holding a small social event, and wanted to rent steel tumblers. She called a plate bank called Hasiru Mithra Cutlery in HSR Layout, and rented what was needed. She wanted to keep the garbage generated as minimal as possible. Garbage dumps are a common sight in Bengaluru. If it is not piled up in empty sites or landfills, it is seen in mounds at street corners. This is not just due to poor management by the authorities in charge, but also because of…

Death by food poisoning is back in the news in Karnataka. As of the last report 13 people have died and over 130 people fell ill by consuming the prasad that was served at a temple in Chamarajanagar. This comes just two days after 87  students took ill after finding lizard in their midday meal scheme. And the chief minister’s answer to this is to issue a circular, by the Religious and Endowments or Muzrai department of Karnataka, which states that all food served in temples, including those to be donated by private individuals, should be tested before being distributed…

This article is supported by SVP Cities of India Fellowship When 78-year-old Shyamala (name changed) had a heart attack in the middle of the night, there was no one around to help. Shyamala was widowed, and had no children. “She was wailing from pain all night, but no one heard her. At around 5 am, neighbours came over, and Shyamala had to crawl up to the door to open it,” says Shyamala’s former neighbour G Ramachandra. Shyamala’s condition was critical, and the neighbours took her to a hospital where she was operated on. But afterwards, Shyamala was worried of living…

Mohammad Khan lived in an informal slum near Bellandur lakebed, making a living collecting and segregating waste. When Citizen Matters covered his story five years ago, we found many families who lived off waste, playing a necessary role in the waste management ecosystem. They traversed the neighbourhoods of Sarjapur Road, HSR Layout and Jakkasandra with bicycles stacked with recyclable waste from across the area. Informal squatter settlements with the ubiquitous blue tent dwellings are often at risk of eviction. Recently, about 5000 migrant labourers living in makeshift sheds in Thubarahalli were threatened by the police and asked to vacate, after local…

When you heard on November 22 that effluents from an exploded boiler's sugar factory entered River Shimsha, did you hear some alarm bells too? There were some fears that the potassium-laced river waters would enter River Cauvery near Shivanasamudra, which would pollute the Bengaluru water supply network. Would they have come true? "The city's water supply would not be affected. The polluted waters would get diluted by the time it reaches the city," explained Vishwanath Srikantaiah, an expert on water-related issues. The Karnataka State Pollution Control Board officials were camping on the site and sending the water samples for testing. K.L.…

HSR Layout is known to innovate citizen and politician engagement year on year. The local politician here funds special projects every year for his birthday as he sees value in the association. This year for his birthday, MLA Sathish Reddy, has funded a one of its kind Composting Learning Centre - Swachagraha Kalika Kendra. It is visualised as a live learning centre for all kinds of composting. It houses most home and community composting solutions available in the market today and many DIY composting solutions as well. One of the BBMP Parks in Sector 4 has been developed to make this…

Activists skeptic about Waste-to-Energy plants The waste processing area in Chikkanagamangala will soon get a waste-to-energy plant. The MoU for this was signed early this year. Solid Waste Management Activists from the city have upped their ante against the proposal. They say lower calorific value of the waste will make the plant unviable and would lead to its failure. They fear that the push being given to segregation at source would be derailed. However, BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad says it can be adopted to Indian conditions, and segregation of waste at source will not be stopped. Meanwhile in a written…

Garbage continues to be one of the biggest challenges in our city and can only be addressed by managing waste in a decentralised manner. More households should manage their waste ‘at source’ through home composting while the rest can be managed at a neighbourhood level. It is clear that with this degree of decentralisation, only a meager 5-10% of our waste would go to landfills. What is the key missing piece in this puzzle? Citizen Awareness. One such great initiative looking to solve this problem is 'SwachaGraha Kalika kendra' a composting learning center. It is a first-of-its-kind project in India,…

Mandran and NCBS (National Centre for Biological Sciences) have put together Jigyasa event for 2018, themed on Traditional Knowledge meets Modern Science. The event starts at 9.30 am on December 15, 2018 at the Dasheri Hall in the NCBS campus in Kodigehalli, Bangalore. This time the Jigyasa project features three languages, Kannada, Tamil and Hindi with eminent scientists participating to share their knowledge in their mother tongues. This event has been put together to benefit people whose primary language of communication is not English. Tamil: Prof. Sowdhamini and Prof. Dhandapani, from 10 am to 11.30 am. Prof Sowdhamini from NCBS…

INTACH Bangalore Chapter has organised a talk on 'MUZIRIS: The story and science of excavating an ancient port city', by Dr PJ Cherian. This will be held at The Bohemian House, (in the Woodlands Hotel Campus), Raja Ram Mohan Roy Road, Richmond Circle, Bangalore, on Friday, 14th December, 2018, 7 pm. With the Kochi Muziris Biennale opening on December 12th, it's time to find out all about Muziris! Archaeological excavations at Pattanam, near Kochi, have shown that it was likely the famed ancient port city known as Muziris to the Greeks and Romans and called Muciri Pattinam in classical Tamil…