City: Bengaluru

The new building of Government Higher Primary School, Nallurahalli which has remained unoccupied from last five years. Pic: Murugaraj Swaminathan Even after years of construction, the building of the Government Higher Primary School, Nallurahalli in Whitefield remained unoccupied. Inaugurated with much fanfare five years ago, the school building which is supposed to shelter students, turned out to be a dumpyard for builders. Eight classrooms in two blocks of the school were used by local contractors to dump the cement sacks, concrete blocks and other waste materials. However, the situation is going to change soon. You will hear the chitter-chatter of…

Pic: Subha Priya On June 29th 2015, a performance audit on Conservation and Ecological Restoration of Lakes under the jurisdiction of Lake Development Authority (LDA) and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in Karnataka by the CAG of India was tabled in the Assembly. The report brought into focus many of the ignored facts about lakes in the city and the state. This 75-page-long performance audit covering the period 2009 to 2014 highlights the deterioration in ecological health of lakes as well as issues among the institutions of management and governance of lakes. This audit scrutiny covers 56 lakes selected by adopting…

The India Biodiversity Portal is organising an invasive species campaign through the month of August 2015: Spotting Alien Invasive Species or SPAIS. India Biodiversity Portal (IBP) is an online, open-access repository of information on India’s biodiversity. It has already conducted several campaigns involving citizens in documenting, contributing and sharing biodiversity information from diverse parts of the country. With the SPAIS campaign, IBP and its partners aim to create awareness about, and to map the occurrences of, a set of widespread invasive species in India. The campaign will be conducted online at: http://indiabiodiversity.org/group/spotting_alien_invasive_species/show.  What are alien species? Alien species are sometimes…

Massive SEZ coming up on the catchment area between Agara and Bellandur lake. File pic. With the deadline only a week away for an eight-member Expert Committee to study Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project on Agara-Bellandur lake catchment area, the Committee has decided to submit an interim report on the project for the time being. The Expert Committee was formed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) as part of the litigation proceedings on the SEZ project by Mantri Tech Zone Pvt Ltd and another project by Core Mind Software and Services Ltd, on May 7th, 2015. ‘Yet to get details…

  Bengaluru this week July 30th 2015     CITIZEN MATTERS Bangalore's own interactive newsmagazine Speak up, it's your city!     Are you interested in contributing your bit to civic journalism for Bengaluru? Oorvani Foundation is looking for a volunteer to proofread material published in Citizen Matters every day. You need to be proficient in English, and be able to spend 30 minutes to an hour every day. If you are interested, drop us a mail to edit@citizenmatters.in and we will get back to you. Thanks! Also, in case you are yet to take the BBMP pre-poll survey, please do…

A meeting conducted on June 26, 2015, between the government and the Telecom Service Providers (TSPs) decided that the government will help the telecom service providers get a “speedy clearance” for laying Optical Fibre Cables (OFCs). According to this meeting, the applications received were to be cleared within 15 days by the Chief Engineer, BBMP (OFC), who will also have to provide security to the digging staff through police, if requested. There will be no criminal charges or penalties levied on telecom companies, for the damages if any, if restored within 96 hours of a notice. There is no mention…

CIVIC, a non-governmental organisation in Bengaluru has registered its concerns regarding new garbage tenders published in June 2015 by the BBMP. Here is the summary of the letter sent by CIVIC to the BBMP Administrator T M Vijayabhaskar. Overall concerns 1.     Outsourcing of garbage disposal to contractors needs to be discontinued and contract PKs regularised CIVIC feels that outsourcing of garbage disposal by BBMP to contractors should be discontinued as garbage disposal is a “core” and “perennial” activity of BBMP which cannot be outsourced as per the Contract Labour (Abolition & Regulation) Act. CIVIC suggests that the current contract workers…

Pic courtesy: Wikimedia Commons Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society has participated in the Expert Committee for DNA Profiling constituted by the Department of Biotechnology in 2012 for the purpose of deliberating on and finalising the draft Human DNA Profiling Bill and appreciates this opportunity. CIS respectively dissents from the January 2015 draft of the Bill. Based on the final draft of the Human DNA Profiling Bill that was circulated on the 13th of January 2015 by the committee, the Centre for Internet and Society is issuing this note of dissent on the following grounds: The Centre for Internet and…

Dr APJ Abdul Kalam October 15th 1931 - July 27th 2015 Pic: Wikimedia Commons Yesterday, India lost a kindred soul, scientist and former President, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam. News reports say that he suffered a massive cardiac arrest, when he was addressing students during a lecture at IIM Shillong, on the evening of July 27th. Referred to as the ‘People’s President’, Dr Abdul Kalam served as the 11th President of India from 2002 to 2007. Born and brought up in Rameswaram in Tamilnadu, he went on to do his aeronautical engineering from the Madras Institute of Technology. He spearheaded India's…

Dhanya M, an HR Consultant, had stopped at Empire Restaurant in Frazer Town to pick up food. As she made her way through the crowd, a man ‘accidentally’ touched her breasts. When Dhanya questioned him, the man feigned ignorance. His friend too joined in to defend him, while the crowd merely stood by. The excuse the friend gave was this: “Please forgive him. He is drunk!” After a five minute argument, where sentences like, “Being drunk is no excuse to molest”, and “What if he did this to your sister?” were uttered, the two men apologised and left. Though Dhanya…