City: Bengaluru

On January 16th, Jones Lang LaSalle, a professional services and investment management company released the list of top 30 most dynamic cities in the world. Surprisingly, the JLL’s City Momentum Index (CMI) put Bengaluru in the first position. The study ranks cities around the world based on 42 variables including socio-economic factors like GDP, population, corporate headquarters, commercial real estate momentum and innovation capacity and technological prowess, access to education and environmental quality. In the concluding remarks of the research article, Jeremy Kelly, Research Director at JLL writes, “looking ahead, we’ll be watching for the effects that protectionism, nationalism and…

'Sakala’ meaning ‘In Time’ is an initiative of the government Karnataka to ensure time bound services to its citizens. There are around 700 public services of the government Karnataka which are covered by this initiative and citizens through this initiative, can demand time bound services from their government. Learn more about how to use Sakala to get birth certificates or to get a Khata extract!

On January 8th 2017, over 4500 people from across Bengaluru visited Kaikondrahalli Lake to connect with their friends, community and nature. Lake festival, or Kere Habba, is a completely volunteer-organised event aimed at raising awareness, increasing community participation and fostering an appreciation of lakes in Bengaluru. Kaikondrahalli celebrated its third lake festival on January 8th, 2017. A bird living in the Kakondrahalli lake premises. Pic: Shree D N Over a hundred students from Renuka school situated on the banks of the lake, involved themselves in many activities; they organised a Halli Games session, to teach visitors how to play traditional…

Priya Muthukumar is a professional storyteller, who uses storytelling to make learning more interactive and impactful. Here you can listen to Priya tell a story to the children assembled by the lake side during the Kere Habba. The moral of the story was about not be disturbing nature and to live in harmony with it.  

The Real Estate Research Initiative of Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB-RERI), with support from the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), has launched a web-based portal - www.rajakaluve.org to enable Bangaloreans to know if their property is situated on a storm water drain or ‘raja kaluve’. Inaugurating the portal for public use, BBMP Commissioner Manjunatha Prasad, said: “This portal enables people ease of access to find details about storm water drains in one place.” Citizens need to have the survey number, village, hobli and taluk as per the schedule in the registration document to be able to use this portal.…

Asha conducts tailoring classes for women in Prakash Nagar in Srirampura to teach the basics of tailoring and also advanced classes in tailoring. Listen to her speak on how to get started with tailoring and be self reliant, there is always a demand for good tailors! In her words “People will come to your house to get their clothes stitched, if you are good at it”. Her underlining philosophy is that we should not waste our time by doing nothing, the least that we can do, is use our time to be useful to others, conducting these classes brings her…

Bellandur is one of the largest wards in Bengaluru. Of late, it has been in news for inefficient garbage collection and burning of garbage in public places. A few months ago, a new garbage contract was awarded to Bellandur. The residents allege that the new system is unscientific and designed to fail. The monthly waste management expenditure for Bellandur ward till August 2016 was Rs 35 lakh. A new contract was awarded in September 2016 and the contract amount was revised to Rs 45 lakh per month. But the difference was not just in cost calculation. The entire system of…

Kaveri (name changed), hails from a remote village in Raichur district. It has been two years since she shifted to Bengaluru and started working in a construction site. Her employer would pay her Rs 6,000 a month in two instalments. The money she earned added up to the family income and was used mostly to look after her three girl children, whom she sees as a ray of hope. She admitted all her girls to a private school back home with an intention to provide them good education. But last two months have been considerably tough for Kaveri. She has…

At a workshop on gender justice in collaboration with Rutgers University-New Jersey, Visthar and Action Aid. Senior Programme Officer Nandhini from Action Aid recounts such cases and explains why gender equality is basic human issue. Kalyani's (name changed) is one such case, from a upper middle class family with degree in Engineering, she got married and moved to Bangalore. Within a month, her husband asked her to quit her job, not talk to her parents, did not allow her to dress the way she wanted. He took away the sim card of her mobile phone and soon this became regular…

The fully functional water treatment system. Pic: Akshatha M Arjun Ravi Kumar, a builder, once visited T-Zed, an apartment-cum-villa community that treats and reuses all its waste water. There he met Srinivasan Sekar, who as part of the Management Committee there, worked on the water system design. He recalls, "Sekhar offered me a glass of tap water saying that it is generated from sewage, initially I was a bit reluctant to drink it but when I did, (I realised) it was as good as any bottled water. " Arjun lives in an apartment that his firm built - Surbacon Maple,…