City: Bengaluru

The theme of this year's flower show is Parliament House. Pic: Kate Clark What is Lalbagh flower show? The biannual Lalbagh Botanical Garden Flower Show. Every year in January and August a flower show is put on in Lalbagh to celebrate Republic Day and Independence Day. This August’s theme is the Parliament House. A large flower rendition of the Delhi Parliament House is on display. There are also dozens of stands with artisan crafts, spices, coffee, books, purses, scarves, seeds, plants and ceramics for sale. Where is it? The flower show is at Lalbagh Botanical Garden in and around the…

The Government of India (Ministry of Housing & Urban Poverty Alleviation) has published, on 02 August 2016, the draft Agreement for Sale under the Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, RERA-2016 for public comments. This comes as a sequel to the Act and the Draft Rules for the Union Territories also published by the Central Government in the recent past. It may be of benefit to those who are planning to buy a home for themselves or even a residential plot of land. It is also of importance since with the enactment of the RERA-2016, effective 01 May 2016, all…

Phase 1 and 2 of Namma Metro network. Image: themetrorailguy.com Over the last few months, the news of Metro connectivity along the Outer Ring Road has been making the rounds. There have been news reports of the modification in Namma Metro Phase II plan to accommodate the metro link along the ORR, connecting the Silk Board Junction and K R Puram. But will this plan materialise? Is there a timeframe? According to a recent Deccan Herald news report, BMRCL has decided to modify the Phase II project, to make K R Puram and Silk Board junction as interchange stations. BMRCL…

Urban Development Department published ward committee rules in June 2016. The rules will help formation of ward committees and can have citizen participation in ward level. Kathyayini Chamaraj, the co-founder of CIVIC, says that people can now start demanding that BBMP constitute the ward committees for each ward with a total of ten members with 3 women, 2 SC/ST members, 2 local associations and any three other members.Other terms: The committee must meet every month and put up the minutes and resolutions in the ward office. The Ward Committee meetings are open to the public and RWA members should make…

The process of Aadhaar authentication. Pic: UIDAI website The Unique Identification numbers of Aadhaar card holders are being extensively used by government and private agencies for authentication purposes, as we have already seen in an earlier article. READ: Part 1 of the Aadhaar story for an idea about how private agencies are using Aadhaar authentication system to provide service to the customers. There are 246 registered Authentication User Agencies in India, both government and private, which are helping organisations and individuals in executing the authentication process. In simple terms, they help the organisation that has placed the authentication request, to confirm…

Whitefield residents have beautified another spot formerly entrenched in garbage. The blackspot near the Whitefield outer circle, like many dirty spots in Bengaluru, had become a watering hole for rats and stray dogs and attractive to snakes. A glimpse of the recent spot fix in Bengaluru's Whitefield neighborhood. Pic: Kate Clark This particular 'spot-fix' was organised by Whitefield Rising, who have been conducting 'spot fixes' since 2013 after being inspired by the The Ugly Indian. ('Spot-fix' is a term coined by The Ugly Indian group for this process of beautifying dirty areas.) Over two weekends, dozens of volunteers gathered to…

Pic: Wikimedia Commons In November 2015, even before the Aadhaar Act was passed in the parliament, Swabhimaan Distributions Private Ltd, a company based in Gurgaon, launched an Aadhaar based service called TrustID. It was hailed as the first mobile app to help people verify the identity of an individual using his/her Aadhaar ID in less than 1 minute. The TrustID website says the service aims to effectively utilise the power of Aadhaar for identity verification of an individual. Basically, it offers instant Aadhaar ID authentication or Aadhaar ID background check for any contact. It can be used to check anyone’s Aadhaar…

Taking a keen interest to test the actual efficacy of its service delivery, BWSSB asked Bengaluru-based think tank, Public Affairs Centre to assess BWSSB’s services using its renowned Citizen Report Card (CRC) approach to include consumer and provider feedback to provide incisive insights. Nearly 80% of BWSSB consumers reported lack of any check into water thefts, 41% received new connections only after 2 weeks, 94% remained unaware of water adalats, and non-availability of help desks and a lax grievance redress system reported by those who visited BWSSB offices are just some of the prominent findings from Public Affairs Centre (PAC)’s…

So, this is the third in the Pavement series. Even if I say so myself, I think I am making progress. But there is pressure to change the format every time to keep my interest going, and that is kind of hard.  Anyway, this time I decided to do a different kind of quiz. This is somewhat like an exam. I have to give points, not answers. The maximum points I can give is ten and the minimum zero. No comprendo? Ok, read on. Pic: Suchitra Deep There are four categories.  Rules regarding pavements. Uses of pavements. Materials used for…

In the last two decades, Bengaluru, India seems to have let go of the moniker "The Garden City" and adopted some new ones: "IT City," "Start up city," "The Silicon Valley of India,” after tech companies set up base in the city and attracted millions of migrants. Having grown up in Seattle, the birthplace of tech-giants Amazon and Microsoft, I was interested to learn this before I left for a three-month stay in Bengaluru. What similarities there must be; two cities experiencing the brunt of the tech-boom. Like Bengaluru, Seattle is one of the foremost spots for startup growth. Amazon’s…