City: Bengaluru

We, Natalie Sridhar who has completed her bachelors in psychology from the US, Mohammed Fazil an ex-Cisco employee, and Deepa Mahesh, an ex-Target employee are currently Teach for India fellows, teaching Grades three and four at the Kadugodi Govternment School.  We have been in this system for the last four months and realise there are many things that the school needs support with.  Infrastructure needs Drinking Water: Water supply is an issue because the pump for the borewell keeps going out of order. The school also needs a water purifying system to make the water drinkable for the kids. Toilets: We have…

Heap of plastic burnt at one of the illegal garbage burning sites in Seegehalli. Pic: BWRCA's FB page The State Ministry of Forest, Environment and Ecology has invited objections / suggestions from public on the draft notification for plastic ban in the State. The government issued draft notifications on October 28 that seeks to ban various plastic based products. The draft notification proposes to prohibit the manufacture, supply, store, transport, sale and distribution of plastic carry bags, banners, buntings, flex, plastic plates, plastic cups and plastic sheets, irrespective of thickness. However, the draft notification gives exemption to manufacturing plastic carry…

How many tuition or coaching centres are there in Bengaluru? A simple internet search for SSLC/ PUC or other subject coaching centres in Bengaluru will throw thousands of results at you. No one knows the exact number. Yet, of all these tutorials, only 28 are legal, while the rest are functioning illegally, right under the nose of Education department! Information collected by Citizen Matters from various education departments has revealed that only a handful of tutorials in the city have obtained necessary permission from the department to operate. Majority of the coaching centres that promise to give a bright future…

HSR Layout residents participate in the protest against stench emanating from KCDC. Pic: Akshatha M ‘Garbage-free? Garbage is free here!’ ‘Allow us to breathe clean air,’ ‘KCDC, shut down or behave,’ ‘Process! Don’t pollute,’ ‘I want to go for fishing and boating at Somasundarapalya lake,’ read some of the placards. From children to senior citizens, majority of the crowd were holding placards that conveyed their demand to the Karnataka Compost Development Corporation (KCDC). About 500 residents of HSR Layout and nearby areas had assembled on the banks of Somasundarapalya lake, a few metres away from KCDC unit on Saturday morning,…

A snapshot from the rally. Pic: Beedhi Vyaparigala Okkuta Two hundred street vendors of HSR Layout Street Vendors’ Union and representatives of the Bruhat Bengaluru Beedi Vyapari Sanghatanegala Okkuta (A Federation of Street Vendor Unions in Bangalore) took part in a rally in HSR Layout to raise awareness on waste management and proper disposal of waste. The ‘Swacchata Andolana’ was an initiative of the Union and the Federation (with support from the BBMP). In addition to disbursing material on waste management awareness, they are cleared three blackspots in the area, i.e. a garbage dump on 27th main, one at Agara…

Very often, after the rains, one sees dragons in the air. Not fire-breathing ones, of course; those belong in the realms of fantasy. But the often-ignored dragons I am talking about, are marvellous creatures, too! Here’s a closeup of a dragonfly that I took, recently. Dragonflies are called 'odonates'; that is, scientific-name wise, they belong to the order Odonata. Dragonflies are agile fliers; you can find them hovering, quite motionless, in the air, and then, suddenly, zipping off at great speed. Contrary to their gossamer, delicate appearance, they are voracious predators, both in their aquatic larval stage, when they are…

Is Bengaluru the proverbial goose that lays the golden egg? If the political tizzy the city saw last month during BBMP mayor elections is anything to go by, one can confidently say yes! Should the citizens be grateful to all our netas for their public display of enthusiasm to serve the city or be plain worried? Going by BBMP’s history of siphoning off crores of rupees and scams after scams facilitated by the official-politician-contractor nexus, we should be a worried lot. The Kataria Committee Report to probe financial irregularities from 2007-2015 may have been a ploy used by the State…

Shankareshwara temple located on the hilltop at Hutridurga. Pic: Akshatha M On a lazy weekend, if you are desperate to escape from the hustle bustle of maddening city crowd and venture into an adventurous yet peaceful excursion, Hutridurga is the place to go. This hill located approximately 60 km away from Bengaluru on Magadi-Kunigal road, offers a refreshing trekking experience, which is reasonably easy even for a first time trekker. Hutridurga, popularly known as Hutribetta among the villagers, is a hill with historical significance. The name Hutridurga is derived from a village named Hutri located near the hill. It is…

To read part I of the series, click here: How C V Raman came to Bangalore The house of Tatas had always hoped to have an Indian director for the institute one day, which was not very feasible in the colonised country. But the opportunity to economise on the weight carried by Raman’s international reputation, by his knighthood and the Nobel Prize, was quickly seized by the Tatas, and for the first time ever since its inception in 1909, an Indian was appointed as the director of IISc in 1933. Many nationalists at that time harboured a feeling that the…

  Bengaluru this week October 29th 2015     CITIZEN MATTERS Bangalore's own interactive newsmagazine Speak up, it's your city!     As a local community media, Citizen Matters makes a small, but significant difference to the lives of Bangaloreans - by reporting about the news that really matters, by featuring the change makers in the city, by giving you a forum to communicate with other like-minded people. We will be launching our biannual fundraiser in a few days and we hope that you will continue to support Oorvani Foundation to enable change. With you by our side, we can continue…