City: Bengaluru

On Saturday, October 27th, the city will be witness to yet another human chain, organised this time by the disgruntled citizens of Bellandur, one of the largest wards of Bengaluru with a tax collection of Rs 220 crore. The residents of the ward seek to highlight their issues and put forth their demands to make Bellandur livable. Residents point to the serious discrepancy of funds and infrastructure for the ward by all standards. As per the BBMP Budgetary expenditure (Source: Janaagraha), Bellandur (27 sq km) has got an allocation of Rs 6-7 crore in the annual budget. Considering the parameters…

This article is part of a special series: Air Quality in our Cities Ruchika fumed behind the mask that her mother tied around her nose everyday. She had to pass through Peenya, the "dirtiest and "most polluted" locality in Bengaluru to reach her workplace. Her mother, a health expert, had told her "This is the point where pollution in 2015 was 1300 ug/m3." That figure in itself made no sense to Ruchika, till her mother added that the junction was 26 times more dangerous than the World Health Organisation's recommendation and 13 times worse than the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB)'s  standards!…

This article is part of a special series: Air Quality in our Cities Over the years Bengaluru has seen a exponential increase in the number of registered vehicles; with the official data at 73 lakh vehicles as of January 2018. Out of these, 50 lakh vehicles are two-wheelers, while there are 14 lakh four-wheelers. One of the major causes of air pollution in mega cities in India such as Bengaluru is due to the emission from transportation sources. In a recent study by Centre for Science and Environment, Bengaluru ranked third among 14 metropolitan cities in India in terms of…

It was among the first PILs that was filed by the Citizens' Action Forum and it wasn’t even their first course of action! For a group that is often accused of being trigger-happy with the judiciary, CAF's petition against the Master Plan 2015 was a last recourse, after they had exhausted all other options.   When the BDA released the draft of its Master Plan 2015, it proposed rapid commercialisation of largely residential areas in Bangalore, allowing for almost unchecked change of land use. Bangalore had begun to boom by the start of the millennium. The rise of the IT…

This article is supported by SVP Cities of India Fellowship Sameer runs an independent self service store in JP Nagar 4th phase, Bengaluru, which sells a wide range of products catering to people’s grocery demands. He has four Point of Sale (POS) machines, offers free delivery within a 5 km radius; and has no minimum purchase quantity requirement. There are usually around 25 company salesmen who visit him regularly to check the stock and take orders. Manjunath runs SLV stores, a general store or kirana, in JP Nagar 3rd phase, Bengaluru. He primarily sells Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG). He…

Swine Flu in Karnataka: 86 cases recorded in BBMP limits this year As many as 542 cases of Swine Flu have been registered so far in Karnataka and eight people had died, between January 2018 to October 17 2018. The toll continues to rise.  86 people were tested positive in BBMP limits, of which 54 cases were recorded in Bengaluru Urban, by the state's Health and Family Welfare Department. Most of the deceased patients were treated at Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Chest Diseases (RGICD) between August and October. The latest death reported is of a 58 year-old man from Bengaluru south…

Shifting from the slick, tree-lined Vasanthnagar to the mud and gravel of HRBR in East Bengaluru did it. Building a dream house in a nightmare colony with no roads or facilities dealt quite a shock to D.S. Rajshekhar ten years ago. It was then that he felt that unless he stepped forward and joined like-minded citizens to show some fighting spirit, he would continue to live in a perpetually 'under-construction' colony. His Residents' Welfare Association referred him to Citizens' Action Forum (CAF), which was a simple association of rather indignant residents. It was an idea that was seeded in 2007. It had…

Bangalore Literature Festival (BLF), Bengaluru city’s flagship literary event, is all set for a spectacular 2018 seventh edition on October 27th and 28th at the breezy green lawns of Hotel LaLiT Ashok in Kumara Krupa High Grounds, Bengaluru. The tentative schedule: Day 1 | Sat | 27 Oct #blrlitfest Venues Venue 1 Venue 2 The Red Couch Malgudi Narnia 10:00 am Benares: Ancient Customs, Contemporary Politics Aatish Taseer with Manu Pillai 10:15 am Mythology, History, Science: Conspiracy Sells Ashwin Sanghi with Madhavi S Mahadevan 10:30 am Are Women Stories Only for Women? Andaleeb Wajid and Rhea Saran 10:30 am Four…

Bengaluru creates record with 33.4 tonnes of plastic collected in one day Last week, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) with support of NGOs working in the field of environmental conservation such as Go Native, Namma Nimma Cycle Foundation, United Way Bengaluru, and Let’s Be The Change hosted a Plog Run to mark Gandhi Jayanti. People who participated in the event jogged while collecting plastic on the way. A report in IB Times says 7000 people participated from 50 locations across the city.  33.4 tonnes of plastic waste was collected, and 10 lakh plastic bottles were recovered. This was a history, surpassing the previous Guinness…

This article is supported by SVP Cities of India Fellowship Why does one need to know the source of vegetables? Given the state of the environment today and the fact that each one of us is a consumer at some level, it has become almost imperative that our concerns grow beyond just our purchase and include the journey of the product before and after we use it. The fear among people seems to be related to heavy metal contamination. Kiran R V, a resident of Rajajinagar, says the vegetables might have been grown using contaminated water, or using sewage as…