City: Bengaluru

  Bengaluru this week July 2nd 2015     CITIZEN MATTERS Bangalore's own interactive newsmagazine Speak up, it's your city!     It is game time in Bengaluru with the State Election Commission declaring BBMP elections. If all goes according to plan, the city may just have a new BBMP council by this time, next month. For the next couple of weeks, Citizen Matters will be presenting an in depth coverage of the elections - the latest news and updates, who is contesting from where, and much more. Keep a track of our special BBMP Elections coverage. Here are the top…

Long-pending demand of the electoral roll experts to introduce a software to trace electoral roll anomaly has been finally paid heed to. With the BBMP polls is less than a month away, the State Election Commission has come up with a special software to detect errors in electoral rolls including duplication, repetition of voters names with same photograph etc. Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner G Kumar Naik who is in-charge of BBMP polls, said that the software has detected discrepancy in over 35,000 cases in BBMP election voters list. During cleaning up exercise using the software, duplication, incomplete details,…

A few weeks back, while writing about Vibhutipura lake, I spoke with Shubha Priya of VIKAS, a citizens' group associated with the Vibhutipura lake. She pointed out a few interesting facts about the lake, which I missed out on during my previous visits. The idea for composing this essay originated from my interaction with her. As I had observed in my previous essay, Vibhutipura Lake is a fascinating case-study. On various tracts of the land around the lake, one can find people residing in high-rise apartments. A section of society that is not socio-economically fortunate, lives on some other parts…

Even as the State Election Commission has announced the calendar of events for BBMP polls, the Karnataka State government has filed an appeal in the Supreme Court on Monday, against the High Court single bench judgment on BBMP election.The State government in its petition has challenged the HC single bench judgment that directed the State to hold election before August 5th as per the Supreme Court’s previous order. Initiating a fresh round of litigation, the government has appealed the Supreme Court to put the election process on hold. It has sought time to conduct polls as per delimitation and reservation…

As kids, we used to chant a popular ditty: Ganesha banda kaayi-kadubu tindaChik-kereyl bidda dodd-kereyl edda (Ganesha came, ate coconut modakaFell in the small lake, emerged from the big lake) Don’t ask.  But I’ll come to the point. And I do have one, believe it or not. In the 1960s, when we first moved to Jayanagara 6th block, there were two kereys (tanks). The small tank was to the west of Kanakapura Road and the large tank to the east. Unlike now, the tank bund part of Kanakapura Road was very narrow. If two lorries—usually rickety old Fords—had to pass…

BBMP Administrator T M Vijay Bhaskar Pic: Akshatha M It has been only two months since senior IAS officer T M Vijay Bhaskar assumed charge as the Administrator of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). With the announcement of calendar of events for BBMP election and the council likely to be formed in a month, there is very less time left for the Administrator to prove his mettle. In an interview with Citizen Matters, Administrator T M Vijay Bhaskar shares his experience and the initiatives taken up during his tenure, challenges faced by BBMP and solutions to the impending problems. What…

BBMP Elections are here again. Candidates must make their stand clear about creation of Ward Committees / Area Sabhas as per Karnataka Municipal Corporation (Ward Committee) Rules 2013 and other Acts. Otherwise, people must reject them. Despite High Court of Karnataka orders in 2013, BBMP has failed to form Ward Committees / Area Sabhas in most of 198 wards under its limits; if existing, selection process of members is either skewed or manipulated to suit the whims and fancies of the ward corporation and local MLA. If existing, they are either defunct or the meetings held and recorded are far…

On May 17th, BBMP Administrator T M Vijay Bhaskar blew the lid off “development works” taken up in Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), with a tweet. In his tweet, he said  that details of works completed and pending bills as on April 30th 2015 are displayed on BBMP website for transparency. He asked public to check the list of works and inform the officials in case of discrepancies. With it, the Social Audit system was introduced in BBMP for the very first time. Enthused public, activists and new political parties got into action. With the data in hand, they went…

ನಿಮ್ಮ ಮನೆಯೆದುರಿಗಿನ ರಸ್ತೆಯಿರಬಹುದು, ಕಸವೇ ಇರಬಹುದು ಅಥವಾ ಬೀದಿ ದೀಪಗಳೇ ಇರಬಹುದು, ಎಲ್ಲವೂ ಸರಿಯಾಗಿರುವಂತೆ, ಕಾಲಕಾಲಕ್ಕೆ ರಿಪೇರಿಗಳಾಗುವಂತೆ ನೋಡಿಕೊಳ್ಳಬೇಕಾಗಿರುವುದು ಬೃಹತ್ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು ಮಹಾನಗರಪಾಲಿಕೆಯ ಕರ್ತವ್ಯ. ಪಾಲಿಕೆ ಚುನಾವಣೆಗಳು ಇನ್ನೇನು ನಡೆಯಲಿವೆ. ಇದು ನಿಮ್ಮ ವಾರ್ಡ್, ನಿಮ್ಮ ರಸ್ತೆ, ನೀವಿರುವ ಜಾಗದಲ್ಲಿ ಎಲ್ಲವೂ ಸರಿಯಿರುವಂತೆ ನೋಡಿಕೊಳ್ಳುವಂತಹ ವ್ಯಕ್ತಿಯನ್ನು ಆಯ್ಕೆ ಮಾಡಲು ನಿಮಗಿರುವ ಸುವರ್ಣಾವಕಾಶ. ಈ ಸಮಯದಲ್ಲಿ, ಪಾಲಿಕೆ ಚುನಾವಣೆಯ ವಿಶೇಷ ವರದಿಗಾಗಿ ನಾವು ನಿಮ್ಮ ವಾರ್ಡಿನಲ್ಲಿ ಸ್ಪರ್ಧಿಸುವ ಅಭ್ಯರ್ಥಿಗಳ ವಿವರಗಳನ್ನು ಕಲೆಹಾಕಿ ನಿಮಗೆ ನೀಡುವ ಪ್ರಯತ್ನ ಮಾಡುತ್ತಿದ್ದೇವೆ. ಕನ್ನಡ ಹಾಗೂ ಇಂಗ್ಲೀಷಿನಲ್ಲಿರುವ ಈ ಅರ್ಜಿಯನ್ನು, ನಮ್ಮ ವಿಶೇಷ ಪುಟಗಳಲ್ಲಿ ತಮ್ಮನ್ನು ತಾವು ಕಾಣಬಯಸುವ ಅಭ್ಯರ್ಥಿಗಳು ಭರ್ತಿ ಮಾಡಬಹುದಾಗಿದೆ. ಇದು ಸಾರ್ವಜನಿಕ ಹಿತಾಸಕ್ತಿಯಿಂದ ಮಾಡುವಂತಹ ಕಾರ್ಯಕ್ರಮವಾಗಿದ್ದು ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಯಾವುದೇ ರೀತಿಯ ಶುಲ್ಕ ಇರುವುದಿಲ್ಲ. ನೀವು ನಮ್ಮ ಓದುಗರಾಗಿದ್ದಲ್ಲಿ: ನೀವು ಚುನಾವಣೆಯಲ್ಲಿ ಉತ್ತಮ ಅಭ್ಯರ್ಥಿಯನ್ನು ಆಯ್ಕೆಗೊಳಿಸಿ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರನ್ನು ಉತ್ತಮಗೊಳಿಸುವ ಕನಸು ಹೊಂದಿದ್ದೀರಾ? ಹಾಗಿದ್ದಲ್ಲಿ ನಮ್ಮ ಈ ಯತ್ನವು ಹೆಚ್ಚು ಅರ್ಥಪೂರ್ಣ ಹಾಗೂ ಮಾಹಿತಿಭರಿತವಾಗುವಂತೆ ಮಾಡಲು ದಯವಿಟ್ಟು…

  Bengaluru this week June 25th 2015     CITIZEN MATTERS Bangalore's own interactive newsmagazine Speak up, it's your city!     Here are the top stories from Bengaluru for this week: All-India Sub-group of Chief Ministers on Swacch Bharath headed by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah met in Vidhana Soudha earlier today. Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT) showcased citizens’ efforts to make the city garbage-free to the sub-group. Law Minister TB Jayachandra confirmed that the approvals for tenders for the proposed signal-free corridors between Mysuru Road junction to Central Silk Board junction on Outer Ring Road (Rs 153.42 crore), and between…