City: Bengaluru

Citizen Matters co-founder Meera K receiving Manthan award in New Delhi. Pic: Navya P K This is yet another feather in our cap—and your cap too! Your own web magazine for city and hyperlocal news, Citizen Matters, has won its sixth award in its sixth year. Support us today Oorvani Media, the company that publishes Citizen Matters, began its journey as an angel-investor funded startup. We are indebted to the original angel Bangaloreans who helped us develop this news magazine as a platform for hyperlocal news, between 2009-2013.Today our journalism is completely funded out of Oorvani Foundation, a non-profit charitable…

The Subramaniam Committee has prepared and submitted its report on amending environment and forest-related laws. The leaked report, a copy of which is with Citizen Matters is uploaded below. It can be recalled that this committee walked out of a public hearing in Vikasa Soudha in Bengaluru last month, when green activists threw many questions about the mandate of the committee and other issues. The main hearing did not take place,though there were many other hearings that actually took place in Bengaluru. If you have anything to say about the report, do comment below the article, or mail us expressing…

  Bengaluru this week December 4th 2014     CITIZEN MATTERS Bangalore's own interactive newsmagazine Speak up, it's your city!     We’re glad to inform you that your community news magazine, Citizen Matters, has made it to the shortlist of the Manthan Awards (South Asia and Asia Pacific), in the e-News and Journalism category. Our co-founder Meera K is presently in Delhi to attend the summit. In August 2014, we won the Manthan Award (South West India) in the same category. City news that matters And before the summary of our own stories, here’s a curation of the latest news…

Sometimes people do not encounter problems; but rather problems have a way of finding those who have the vision and resolve to make the world a better place. That’s what happened to Prateek Kaul and Prarthana Prateek Kaul, when they were working on an event with blind kids and had to struggle in order to arrange for appropriate gifts for them.  Prarthana and Prateek Kaul of GiftAbled Foundation at an event This made them think of what would happen if a sighted person wanted to give a card to a blind person. If it was a card with words, the…

WR Open House. Come see what this is all about! A year and a half of existence. Over 40 projects initiated. 4500 Facebook members. Over 100 active doers. Increasing visibility for Whitefield. Good engagement with Government. Brookefield, Hoodi and ECC Rising are emerging. Postive changes happening, slowly but surely. Come join and instantly be a part of the change. There are no fees, no mandates, no organization structure. Its not an NGO, a trust or a club. Its just like minded residents that have had enough of the status quo and want to make a difference. Come, engage and empower…

On November 26 and in the days before, police in Bangalore, India, rounded up more than 150 hijras and put them in a concentration camp. (Hijra is a traditional term, across much of South Asia, for people born males who who identify either as women or as a third gender.)  At Orinam, an online resource for LGBT issues in India, human rights lawyer Gowthaman Ranganathan tells the story: Approximately 167 members of the transgender community have been taken away by the police and kept at the Beggars’ colony. These detentions have been entirely arbitrary … Most detainees were not on the streets begging or doing any act that is prohibited…

Suresh, an employee of a private firm, waited patiently at the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) premises, for his name to announced in the flat allotment list. He had applied for a one bedroom flat in Kaniminike, as he trusted the BDA, and was wary of going through any middlemen to purchase a house. He was one among the hundreds who waited with bated breath to see if they would be lucky, in flat allotment that took place on November 27th 2014. In its 4th notification dated February 28th 2014, the BDA called for applications for 4,228 flats (1BHK EWS category…

Someone in your apartment complex has collapsed. You suspect it is a cardiac arrest and have called for an ambulance. However, you know that the ambulance is going to take a while to arrive, considering the traffic. You also know that the victim needs timely help. What can you do now? When an individual suffers a cardiac arrest, this is what happens within his body: His heart has unexpectedly and suddenly stopped functioning. This prevents the effective supply of blood, and therefore oxygen to his brain. This also causes him to lose consciousness and stop breathing. If untreated, the lack…

The Prime Minister’s recent call for a clean India notwithstanding, the authorities are content dumping truckloads of rubble right in the middle of the city as a “solution” of sorts. In fact, this has been going on for almost at least two years and it is startling that this has gone on for such a long time. At Hosur road, coming from Bommanahalli, as you walk below the Silk Board flyover, you can notice mountains of rubble under the flyover – this, a solution to discourage the vehicles to go on the other side of Hosur road. There’s a No-Entry…

Over 200 hundred bus commuters, including 90 senior citizens and differently-abled persons, supporters and members of 17 organisations participated in a peaceful walk on the Hebbal Flyover to `Reclaim the roads.’ Raising slogans and carrying placards, led by two people on wheelchairs, who find it very difficult to use the roads for lack of proper facilities and space for pedestrians. The event was organised by Bengaluru Bus Prayanikara Vedike, a coalition of over 20 organisations in Karnataka, which has been fighting for the rights of the road users and for safe roads and facilities for bus users in Bengaluru. “On…