City: Bengaluru

World over, June 5th is celebrated as World Environment Day. It’s that time of the year when people across the world come together to talk about the environment and how we need to make a change today, so we can help nurture the planet for tomorrow. In Bangalore, nothing could have said it better than the Parisara Habba. Organised by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), the Parisara Habba, or the Festival of the Environment, is a two-day event held on June 5th and 6th at Kanteerava Indoor Stadium. While KSPCB does organise the event almost every year on…

  Bengaluru this week June 4th 2015     CITIZEN MATTERS Bangalore's own interactive newsmagazine Speak up, it's your city!     Oorvani Foundation has received contributions from several folks through online transfer. However, some of you haven't shared all the details, as a result of which we have not been able to send you the acknowledgement. In case you are yet to receive the 80G receipt for your contribution, drop us a mail on foundation@oorvani.in with your name, transaction amount and date and we will get back to you. Here are the top stories from Bangalore for this week: Solid…

Tender SURE project hits the headlines often, mostly because of the work that has gone on for a long time in the roads selected for the project. Many have questioned the rationale behind Tender SURE. Space for trees on Tender SURE roads, space for street vendors, citizen participation before the implementation of the project, execution and other aspects have come under criticism. In an email interview with Citizen Matters, Swati Ramanathan, Co-founder of Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy, and Chairperson of Jana Urban Space Foundation (Jana USP), answers our questions regarding the project. She explains in detail about the…

  For many of us, ‘concern for the environment’ is that green bulb  which our schools effectively fitted at the back of our heads. It glows whenever we urinate under ‘Do not urine here’ murals or someone goes ‘thoop-splat’, staining a wall with red paan. Maybe when someone asks us to segregate, and we think that it is the most challenging thing to do, or when we walk past a water tanker which has water spilling out. This will in all likelihood continue happening, until one day the bulb fuses and the most convenient thing to do will be to…

Forum for Urban Commons and Governance protesting against TenderSURE on April 9th 2015 On April 9th, the Forum for Urban Commons and Governance organised a protest in opposition to the Tender SURE project, citing that there it was approved and being implemented in an undemocratic and unconstitutional manner. Their protest was a demand for the democratisation of governance, and to build a socially that was just, and inclusive. Citizen Matters spoke to Meena Artwani, a member of the group to understand their concerns. Here is the text of the interview: Who are the organisations and individuals that are part of…

Rock climbers at Turahalli Forest. Pic: Deepa Mohan Dr Vishnuvardhan was a dignified and mature actor in the film industry, a good human being – a veritable pride of Karnataka. It is in the fitness of things that such a person is remembered for long, by way of a suitable memorial in his honour. However, a memorial is anything to commemorate a person or an event. It does not, necessarily, mean a construction with bricks and cement only! Bengaluru is overflowing with such constructions already. That has been the bane of our city, which has made the city lose its…

A few days back, I had written about my interaction with two Bengali immigrant children as I biked past Bellandur Lake. These two children were happily playing with the Bellandur ‘snow’ unaware of the health risks that their games posed to them. Pic: Sanchayan Nath That day, I was on my way to Kaikondrahalli Lake where I wanted to spend some time before biking to Puttenahalli Lake in JP Nagar. As I walked around the Kaikondrahalli Lake, I came across two other children. In contrast to the two children I had met near the Bellandur Lake, the young lady and…

On June 1st, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) unveiled a new washing machine for its buses. Built in-house at the Bangalore Central Division (Shanthinagar) depot, KSRTC claims that the new machine is the first of its kind in India. The machine was inaugurated by KSRTC Managing Director, Rajender Kumar Kataria. As per the press release shared by KSRTC, the new washing machine offers quite an upgrade on the earlier washing process.   The new system comes fitted with six brushes on either side, for improved quality of washing. Only two brushes were used to wash the vehicles in…

My primary schooling was at Sri Kamala Nehru Makkala Mandira. The school was housed in old houses, some of them bungalows, others not, dotted about the Yediyur circle area and even in Tata Silk Farm. This was a lower-middle-class kind of school. However, that characterisation belies the nutrimentum spiritus (food for the soul) that was dispensed there. By luck or by design, the school had some amazing teachers. I certainly was lucky they were in my life. Classrooms were held in the patio (suitably partitioned with a plywood “wall”), in the bedrooms, under staircases, on balconies, in “servants’ quarters”.  In…

The place in front of K C General Hospital where a sky walk is proposed to come up. Pic: Taken from E-Proc website Walking on some of the Bengaluru’s roads will be easier henceforth. Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has opened up tenders for 54 skywalks across the city. These are either important junctions where multiple roads meet, or mid-blocks with prominent properties on either sides requiring pedestrians to cross the road regularly. While compiling the list of ten most accident-prone areas in Bangalore, Citizen Matters learnt from traffic police that the most predominant factor causing accidents is the pedestrians…