City: Bengaluru

The educational system in India is broken. Of course there are a few good schools, but the majority of our population is going through Government schools that have been proven to be inadequate, due to many reasons such as teacher absenteeism, wrote-learning sufficiency, lack of accountability, etc. (see James Tooley's research compiled in a book called The Beautiful Tree). Most of those forced to use the Government schools are in the Indian villages, where no alternatives are available. This rural population forms a majority of our population and it is disheartening and disturbing to see that majority Indian youth are…

I was heading to office one afternoon, when I saw a woman under the flyover. Greasy stains on her clothes, hair all knotted and tangled, she was wandering the streets, talking to herself. Nobody cared about her; nobody heard her. The lady waits to cross the road, bag in hand. Pic: Ashok Kumar S I felt sympathetic towards the woman and I stopped by the flyover and went near her. I was trying to do the best thing that I could and I offered her Rs 100. She looked reluctant and declined my offering. I tried to make her accept…

Open Streets (OMG) is being held today, February 21st, on M.G. Road, Bengaluru. Celebrating Bengaluru OMG aims to revive the long-lost charm of the 'Boulevard of Bengaluru City'. Traffic will be restricted between Anil Kumble Circle and the Brigade Road junction on MG Road between 9 am and 9 pm, opening the streets for festivities that celebrate the city of Bengaluru in all its traffic-free glory. BMTC and BMRCL have extended their bus and metro services respectively, to encourage people to use public transport when commuting to the event. Special arrangements for free and secure parking for bicycles have also…

  Bengaluru this week February 19th 2016     CITIZEN MATTERS Bangalore's own interactive newsmagazine Speak up, it's your city!     The important story of the week - on how there are no rules or regulations for water tankers that most apartments, especially those outside the core city area, are dependent on. Nobody monitors whether the water tankers are safe enough. What water are we drinking? Some good news after that shocker – plastic ban trending across the city. Koramangala, HSR Layout, Sanjay Nagar - who is next? We track the various citizen-led single-use plastic bans. And The Green Ogre…

Pic: Ganga Madappa Only one pet dog per flat, every dog to have a collar, badge and microchip, clean up after your pet. Rottweilers, Pit Bulls and other aggressive breeds to be muzzled in public places. These and some more new rules are part of BBMP's draft by-laws for pet dog licensing that Urban Development Department is expected to approve soon. All these years, there were no rules governing pet dogs in Bengaluru, while other cities like New Delhi, Chennai or Chandigarh have had rules that require pet dogs to be registered for many years now. However, Section 344 of Karnataka…

If the dogs of Whitefield could talk, they would have quite a story to tell. Every night, over a hundred dogs in the area lie in wait to be served dinner. Rice, chicken bones, mutton fat and turmeric, sometimes vegetables - all cooked together to make a delectable meal. Perhaps with the addition of a few spices, dinner could actually pass off as biryani, ready to be served to humans too. And it doesn't stop at food alone. An injured dog can expect to be nursed back to health. Unspayed ones are neutered and set back on the streets. What’s…

It is a known fact that water tankers extract any water that they see in Bengaluru. This video is a proof of it. Come summer, water tanker business is at its peak, especially on the outskirts of the city where there is no Cauvery water supply. The business is a pleasure in the years in which there is less-than-usual rain, because demand for water is the highest. Nagaraj (name changed) is an owner of a water tanker, operating in Kammanahalli. He has been in the tanker business for 15 years now. There were virtually no rules for extraction of groundwater…

Bangalore: Shettar to Completely Shut Doors on Use of Plastic Carry Bags - Daiji World, Sep 2012 Plastic producers vow to help enforce ban - Dec 2014 Plastic bag ban announced - Bangalore Mirror, Jan 2015 Tired of seeing such headlines over the past few years? The days of no-plastic-carry-bags are not far. While the state government is still sitting on the Plastic Ban draft rules, city neighbourhoods are slowly going plastic-free, led by BBMP and local volunteers. Yelahanka was the first zone to impose self-ban on plastic in December 2015. It is not a surprise anymore, when a Reliance…

The Great Backyard Bird Count came to a close yesterday and there were three things that stood out for me.  One: the birding wasn’t exactly great, but it was satisfying. Two: I stuck to the backyard of my immediate neighbourhood, not foraying too far from where I live. I did this for a reason. Often, it’s tempting to go to bird-rich habitats and notch up a big count. I was keen to survey and re-survey the same stretch of the backyard – old, familiar haunts – to see what kind of bird diversity I could dig up and compare it with…

The Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) tracked the ambient air and noise quality in Bengaluru before and during the Invest Karnataka 2016, Global Investor Meet. Here are their findings. Status of Ambient Air Quality To know the impact of the Global Investor Meet (GIM) 2016 on ambient air quality in Bengaluru, air quality monitoring was carried out at 12 locations round the clock before and during GIM 2016, using manual and continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations. Name of the Station RSPM µg/m3 before GIM RSPM µg/m3 during GIM % of RSPM I/D CAAQMS SG Halli 115.6 85.5 26.0…