City: Bengaluru

Sights and sounds at Yediyur Lake I am not immune to FB posts, so when there was a sudden rush of bird sightings from Yediyur kere, I realized that I'd not visited for many years. When Padma and Ramaswamy suggested going there this morning, I was very happy to join them. So many trees have fresh leaves right now, like this Peepal tree: This lake is maintained well. However, the fact of its being completely fenced around, and having all growth stunted to bush size except for a few spots, made it feel more "manicured" than I am comfortable with...but…

Trifene, a student from Zimbabwe, came to Bengaluru, to study in Christ College in Bengaluru, after she was promised of cutting-edge technological opportunities and new multi-cultural experiences. But as she was soon to find out, the process of assimilating into Indian society would be much harder than she expected. She says she faced racially motivated encounters that she would shy away from to avoid any conflict; sometimes it was unavoidable to participate in such conflicts when they occurred inside her hostel. In the video below, she narrates an incident where another male student who lived in the same hostel as…

In the first part of the interview, you saw Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Praveen Sood speaking about various issues related to traffic management in the city. In this second and last part of the interview, he makes elaborate comments about issues such as the most challenging type of crime that Bengaluru police face, the drug menace, of the conflicts between foreign nationals and local people and how prepared are police for the election year. Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Praveen Sood. Pic: Akshatha M How is the nature of crime changing with changing times? What is the most challenging type of…

On the new year’s eve the State government appointed senior IPS officer Praveen Sood as the Police Commissioner of Bengaluru. On the same night, incidents of 'mass molestation' were reported in the city, showing Bengaluru in a bad light. Now that the dust has settled, and the police chief is completing three months in his office, he says he is working with an agenda which he terms as “citizen empowerment.” In a detailed interview with the Citizen Matters, the Police Commissioner tells why it is important for city police to shift from citizen awareness to citizen empowerment - to make…

To start gaining some perspective on and compare waste management practices across the world, it may be useful to have a look at a couple of documents produced by international organisations. As we will see, their approach is largely informed by income levels classifications, but that should not stop us from learning across income-groups. Comparing waste management systems across the world Firstly, the UN-Habitat’s report “Solid Waste Management in the World’s Cities” issued in 2010 is a good place to start. The report aims at filling a gap in our understanding of Solid Waste Management (MSW) around the world and…

  What’s I Got Garbage today? IGG is an initiative in the area of Solid Waste Management (SWM) and waste-picker livelihood. It aims to help cities to manage their waste better with the involvement of four major stakeholders: the government, social and NGOs, citizens, and waste-pickers. IGG partners with several organisations in the waste sector in Bengaluru including Hasiru Dala, the Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT), the Clean City Recyclers Association (CCRA), and Waste Wise Management and Consulting Services (WWM&CS). It is based on a cloud digital platform that offers suite of integrated business services, accessed by easy-to-use mobile…

Pooja Bhatia Arora, a fitness expert in Bengaluru, talks about her journey from a small town to city life and the impact it had on her health and the moments that put her on the path to fitness, and that fitness is about trying out different ways to be fit and in the process finding what works for you.

It's not an uncommon fact anymore that Bengaluru suffers from one of the worst traffic conditions in the whole country, where it can surprisingly take an hour to travel a distance as short as a few kilometres. While the daily victims of this grim state of affairs unsparingly blame the administration for the poor metro coverage, insufficient flyovers, dilapidated roads, and unprepared public transportation; here we propagate a specific issue which has seldom been discussed. Bengaluru's red lights at the traffic signals usually last for exorbitantly long durations that can be up to 5 minutes. Go to Koramangala sony signal…