City: Bengaluru

April 24th was the Women's Political Empowerment Day. Is this cause limited to just a day? How do we actually make it happen? This graph shows the representation of women in municipality, assembly and parliament levels, from Bengaluru. What does it tell you? Womens' representation in Parliament, Assembly and BBMP levels in Bengaluru. Graph: Sahana Mohan Think about it - though there are no women MLAs or MPs, there are 101 women corporators in Bengaluru. The number of councillors rose to 101 because BBMP has 50% reservation for women, not because the political and electoral system believed in the cause.…

‘Nurture your green patch' is an initiative from Wipro to grow and harvest vegetables and other plants. It is an opportunity for employees to showcase and learn horticulture at the workplace. Supported by the Sustainability and Facilities team, the Community Garden is flourishing at the Electronic City (EC4) campus of Wipro. Living in urban spaces, we seem to be moving further away from natural environments. A large part of our lives is spent indoors staring at gadjets. Some of us are lucky to have found a favourite nature-spot around where we live and work to help us relax, unwind and…

The Karnataka High Court has directed the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike to constitute Ward Committees in Bengaluru within a month! Several earlier orders that asked the civic body to constitute the ward committees had not been conformed with. Ward committees are mandated as per Constitutional 74th Amendment (Nagarpalika) Act, 1992. The direction came as part of a petition filed by Leo Saldanha and others, that said the BBMP is in violation of repeated directions from Karnataka High Court. Leo Saldanha, sharing this news over email, points out, "What would really help now is for public-spirited persons to step up and…

In the first part of the series on composting plant in HSR Layout, we shared the citizens’ view on Karnataka Compost Development Corporation (KCDC) plant in Kudlu. In the second part, I talked about what I saw in the plant. In this last part, I’ll be getting into the intricacies of what is going on. Every time the residents arose in protest over the functioning of Karnataka Compost Development Corporation (KCDC) plant in Kudlu, the KCDC and the BBMP would temporarily mollify them with assurances. BBMP would talk of introducing solutions for odour control or shifting the waste elsewhere, and…

ijay Nishanth, the founder of Vruksha, a non profit prganisation that works to protect trees, talks about how guidelines to put up hoardings are not being followed.He is also a member of Tree Committee in BBMP. Trees are often poisoned to death. Nishanth talks about how acid was poured on 17 trees in Marathahalli, to ensure visibility of hoardings. 14 of these trees died. An FIR was filed in this regard and the case has been assigned to the Lokayukta. He talks about how all of us can get together and work towards creating awareness of the need for saving…

Karnataka State Urban Development Department and the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) submitted an unconditional apology and undertaking in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) hearing held on April 19, 2017, promising to withdraw the circulars and letters that termed the NGT a ‘quasi-judicial body’. This could affect the legalisation of hundreds of building plans, residential and commercial, that followed old buffer zone rules and got sanctions, some of them even before the NGT rule came into effect. The occupancy certificate and completion certificate may be hard to obtain, if the new NGT rule is applicable for all the projects that…

Pic: Abhilash Matlapudi Pic: Abhilash Matlapudi A new school initiative is in the offing in Whitefield. Troubled by huge hikes in school fees, a few Whitefield parents under the name Citizens Gurukul have decided to setup a school. An account of their recent event by founder trustee Abhilash Matlapudi. When we have good intentions and stay committed, everything will fall in place. This was proven once again, during our 1st-ever Symposium event. We got speakers/panelists, venue, volunteers and required support to pull off a public event like this. It was a pleasant Saturday morning where about 50 parents predominantly from Whitefield and even from…

It was a hot mid-afternoon on March 22nd, 2017 - just a few days after the residents of Somasundarapalya and surrounding areas called off their protest demanding the closure of Karnataka Compost Development Corporation (KCDC) waste processing plant - that I visited this plant in Bengaluru. Days after the protest, the work had resumed at the waste processing plant and trucks were lined up to unload waste collected from Bommanahalli and BTM Layout constituencies. It was business as usual at the KCDC plant - a four-decade-old wet waste composting unit developed on a six acres of land (total area owned…