City: Bengaluru

How well do you know Namma Bengaluru? Let me start with a question. Who was the person that personally financed the levelling of a road with the intention of alleviating the pain of bullocks dragging heavy cartloads up a steep slope? If you don’t know, this man was Enayathullah Mekhri, who took notice of the sufferings of bullocks, and decided to act on it. Despite being offered compensation by the king of Mysore for his selfless act, Mekhri refused it. Such was his nature. Therefore, in honour of this gracious act and his willingness to help society at large, the…

Story of the season: Beating cash-crunch in cities As cash-crunch hits ATMs post-demonetisation, many people are finding alternative ways to pay the monthly bills and commitments. People living in cities have comparatively less worries in tackling this situation, as technology comes to help. >> Read our guide on Many options for cashless transactions, to help ease cash-crunch. >> Much is being said about ewallets. How does ewallet help? Here’s an article: A guide to e-wallets. Also read: What demonetisation means for common man on Chennai streets Elevated roads and public transport in cities R K Misra, who is one of…

Nominations for the prestigious Namma Bengaluru Awards 2016, which honours and celebrates the efforts of those citizens who have been at the forefront of the fight for a better Bengaluru, is coming to a close on November 30, 2016. If an ordinary individual doing extraordinary work has touched your life, then NOW is the time to nominate them for the awards and allow their stories to inspire more such unsung heroes. Nominations can be made online through www.nammabengaluruawards.org OR you can duly fill the nomination forms available at Bangalore One Centers. For any queries contact us on 080-41102757/+91-9591985287 or email…

That plastic is at the root of our waste woes and in fact, of most environmental risks besieging the planet today is well-acknowledged. In Bengaluru, even before the official ban on plastic by the state government, alert neighbourhoods and citizen groups had started their own campaigns against the use of plastic. However much of the dialogue that one gets to hear is against the use of plastic 'carry-bags' that most people have grown used to. While these pose a menace indeed, are the ubiquitious plastic bags (polythene) the only form of plastic that ends up in our landfills? If we…

A solidarity meeting was held at the Institute of Agricultural Technologists on Queen’s Road on 13th November 2016 for farmers across Karnataka who are suffering from acute drought in the last two years. This meeting is part of an effort to engage those who influence public opinion, such as writers, academics, journalists and any other professional in towns/cities to the farmers’ struggle as part of the ‘Bengaluru stands with the farmers in distress’ campaign. Chukki Nanjunda Swamy, Dr Vasu, Geethamma, K T Gangadhar, Prakash Kalmadi and other eminent people spoke about the problems the farmers are facing and how to overcome the drought…

It was supposed to be a quick route to get to South Bengaluru from the western part of the city, which it was during the 90s, when the portion of Ring Road linking Bannerghatta Road to Mysore Road opened. I was pursuing my post-graduation at a business school in JP Nagar then and would manage to reach Banashankari and JP Nagar that were next to the same road, in just half an hour from Vijayanagar even in the early 2000s. However, things started going downhill around 2003. My rides got longer. I relocated to Hyderabad in 2004 and was relieved…

Recently, in the midst of the furore over the Government of Karnataka’s ‘Steel Flyover’ announcement and the subsequent ‘BEDA’ protest that hogged headlines as well as social media space, the launch of a new railway station on Bengaluru’s map went quietly unnoticed. The brand new Hoodi Railway Station was inaugurated on September 29, 2016 by P C Mohan, Member of Parliament for Bengaluru Central Loksabha constituency, and MLA of Mahadevpura Arvind Limbavali and Sanjeev Agarwal, Deputy Regional Manager (DRM), South Western Railway. Pic: Khader Syed Hoodi is situated between K R Puram and Whitefield. It is home to Bengaluru’s IT…

Editor's note: We at Oorvani Foundation believe that it is important to give voice to all sides of a debate to make informed debates possible. Hence we provide space for multiple views, but the Foundation does not have any view of its own on any of the topics covered. Proposed elevated corridor network. Source: R K Misra As someone who wrote an article here on Citizen Matters supporting the Hebbal-Chalukya flyover, I wish to reply to this article by Prakash Belawadi and Naresh Narasimhan. To begin with, all the arguments I made on why civil society in Bengaluru should in…

Bengaluru’s water woes may only get worse this time. Though summer is still three months away, thanks to scanty rainfall, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) has already hinted at the city facing acute water crisis coming April. In fact, for the first time ever, the BWSSB has come up with a contingency plan predicting a bad season ahead. It has already submitted a contingency plan of Rs 75 crore to the State government for taking up water related works for the city. BWSSB Chairman Tushar Girinath, speaking at a meeting on water issues in Bengaluru convened at…

Editor's note: We at Oorvani Foundation believe that it is important to give voice to all sides of a debate to make informed debates possible. Hence we provide space for multiple views, but the Foundation does not have any view of its own on any of the topics covered. R K Misra's defence of the elevated corridors project, 'Elevated corridors will facilitate public transport' (Citizen Matters, 19 November 2016) is untenable because it is not supported by data or current expert opinion on sustainable urban mobility from anywhere in the world. Frankly, it seems out of date. The project in…