City: Bengaluru

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…

Yelahanka railway station. Pic: Sanjeev Dyamannavar During the now-concluded BMTC and KSRTC staff protest in Bengaluru and Karnataka, the South Western Railway came to the rescue of Railway passengers by providing stoppages for All Mail / Express Trains at Baiyyappanhalli,  Nayandahallai, Kengeri, Whitefield, Channasandra, Carmelaram in both directions. This basically helped railway commuters to get down or take trains at areas close to their residences of offices instead of struggling to reach Majestic or Yashwanthpur by private or hired vehicles, in the absence of BMTC buses. This goodwill gesture by the South Western Railway in such a short notice has…

One of the important tasks for the residents of a new apartment complex is preparation of comprehensive byelaws for the society, Apartment Owners Association (AOA) or an RWA. The initial ground work is generally done by a few volunteers who may or may not be conversant with the actual import of every word and expression. In many cases the byelaws of another society are copied without much deliberation since the main concern at that point of time is to get the Society registered as quickly as possible. It is quite natural and possible that some content if included may become…

In an age when the colloquial phrase “there’s an app for that” is true of almost everything imaginable—dating, determining whether your watermelon is ripe, predicting bad hair days—it makes sense Bengalureans would use apps to teach and learn Kannada. As early as 2001, before the largest cohort of migrants took up residence, Kannada, the official language of Karnataka, was the first-language of only 40 percent of Bengaluru's residents (this statistic doesn't include those who speak Kannada as a second or third language) Since then, the number of English-medium schools grew, Hindi became a more common choice of second-language, English became…

It has been raining heavily in Bengaluru — 41.8 mm rains according to MET Department—and our social media timelines are flooded with vivid images and videos of floods across the city. Here are some numbers you can get help from if you have a major problem in your area! It has also been a week of many protests. Bank employees are protesting today against privatisation. The now-concluded BMTC employee protest must have had some effect on your lives in its own way. Gear up for another BMTC-less day tomorrow, if at all you plan to go out, because there’s going…