City: Bengaluru

  Bengaluru this week February 4th 2016     CITIZEN MATTERS Bangalore's own interactive newsmagazine Speak up, it's your city!     We have lots in store for you this week! No more gas cylinders? GAIL’s plans for Bengaluru will get piped gas to your kitchen as they plan to connect the entire city, over the next few years. Do check out two important campaigns that you can easily get involved in - Green Spot Challenge and My City My Budget. We also have the first article in our series on Disappearing Professions. All this and more. This week’s highlight: GAIL…

By-election for Hebbal Legislative Assembly Constituency is just a week’s away. The Chief Electoral Officer of Karnataka has announced the date for by-election to Hebbal and two other constituencies. The election for the three constituencies, Hebbal, Bidar and Devadurga, is scheduled for February 13th. The by-election in Hebbal is to fill up the vacant post that was created following the death of MLA Jagadish Kumar last November. As many as 20 candidates are in the fray in the Hebbal constituency. During the last election, the BJP candidate had won the seat. As this by-election is seen as a matter of…

Amidst the complaints raised by residents of HSR Layout, Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) is busy laying pipelines across the city to provide piped natural gas to households in Bengaluru as a part of its City Gas Distribution (CGD) project. However, many people are unaware of what is going on - as we see roads dug up, trenches and warning signage in front of homes. GAIL's map for the City Gas Distribution Project in Bengaluru. Here is all you should know about CGD. What is City Gas Distribution Project? Control Room for GAIL Gas Ltd 080 6888 8081 City…

Here is a picture of the Bombe Mithaiwala. I met him during the Republic Day flower show at Lalbagh. The Bombe Mithaiwala with his bombe (doll). Pic: Smitha Jacob I saw him standing with a doll propped on a stick and asked him what was special about it. He showed me a rubbery red, white and yellow chewy candy which he kept in a huge packet under the doll, and said "Bombe Mithai." Children soon began gathering around him as he started shouting, “Airplane, peacock, car, doll, flower... Enu beku?" A child shouted, “Car!” He then pulled some candy from…

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has reached out to Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu and MPs from Bengaluru in order to garner support for commuter railway in Bengaluru, by means of various letters, ahead of Railway Budget 2016-17. A letter dated January 6th, 2016, draws the attention of the Railway Minister towards the importance of commuter railway network for the city of Bengaluru. It says the process of preparing a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the phase - I of the commuter railway is underway, and points to an earlier letter from the government of Karnataka to…

Many government officials invited to attend the state’s first ever public discussion on slum evictions chose not to attend the event. The Karnataka Slum Janara Sanghatanegala Okkoota, a federation of slum resident organisations, organised the hearing in light of the increasing number of slum evictions in Bengaluru. The federation invited officials from the departments of Housing Urban Development, Revenue, Women and Child Welfare, SC/ST Commission, Backward Classes Commission, Minorities Commission, Child Rights Commission and the Karnataka Slum Board. The discussion was held to examine citizenship, urban deprivation and future policy direction. A jury of eight was present to preside over…

Here’s a video I took, of some remarkable ‘fishers’ that we are able to see, even in urban lakes such as Madiwala or Lalbagh, in the winter. These are Spot-billed Pelicans which are local travellers. There are some long-distance travellers, too. These are Bar-headed Geese landing at Hadinaru Kere, near Nanjangud, Karnataka, in August 2015; they come all the way from Mongolia! Here’s one, which was tagged in Mongolia (yes, I received a reply from the scientists there when I emailed them, it was quite a thrill). This winter, we had another lone, and surprise visitor. The Demoiselle Crane was a lone bird that I spotted in a lake…

Most of our neighbourhoods in Bengaluru are beset with infrastructure issues; issues that need to be fixed to ensure a better quality of life for us. In a city that is as cosmopolitan as ours, the issues are also not the same across the city; they differ from one neighbourhood to the next. Every year, our local government prepares an annual budget for the city, in which, budgets are allocated to all the neighbourhoods (wards). Also, a decision is taken on which issues would be taken up for work in each neighbourhood. So far, it was difficult, maybe even impossible…

“Compost, grow and cook” is the new slogan of Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT). The voluntary organisation from Bengaluru has invited people to take a pledge to keep one week’s wet waste away from the landfills by taking part in Green spot challenge. To be a part of the campaign, all you have to do is simple. Start a green spot in the house premises and compost the wet waste generated at home. A website swachagraha.in was launched on the Republic Day, January 26th, 2016, to share information with people who are interested to take up the initiative. The…

Ever since the BBMP published a draft notification proposing to hike the property tax with effect from next financial year, there has been opposition for the proposal from various quarters. Citizen groups have termed the property tax hike as unscientific and non-essential. While the BBMP is gearing up to revise the property tax in less than two months time, the citizens groups comprising motley of residents welfare associations have been trying their best to convince the BBMP on why the tax hike does not make much sense.   On September 8th, 2015, the BBMP issued a draft notification on revising…