City: Bengaluru

Preschools are much-needed in today's situation, but the sector is unregulated, so does not have any norms. File pic. There has been a preschool boom in Bangalore. Each layout, especially the residential ones, has at least a dozen preschools. The reasons seem quite obvious. What was once a play home for toddlers has now evolved as a lucrative business. Playschools have upgraded to preschools, which is undoubtedly a welcoming development for parents. What is unfortunate is the way this progress has blatantly turned into a money-making opportunity. A few years earlier, preschool education was a choice. Today, preschools have become…

  Pashmina Waterfront as seen on a Google map. Investing in real estate in Bangalore is a dream of any investor. However, is the growth of this sector in tune with the infrastructure that the city can handle? A close look by Citizen Matters at 26 constructions coming up in Whitefield - KR Puram area in East Bengaluru shows some alarming observations. When the 8,000 flats are fully occupied, new residents will need 10,662.87 KL of water a day (equivalent of 1780 water tankers of 6000 Litres). More than 19,697 cars will add to Whitefield traffic. Ministry of Environment and…

A view of the lake in the Lalbagh Botanical Gardens. Pic: Christopher Martin Lopaze Here are a few things listed by a Bangalorean for a first-time visitor to namma Bengaluru. Bangalore is the capital city of Karnataka state in South India. Kannada is the local language spoken in the city though in the current times, most are well-versed with English and Hindi as well. There are a significant number of people who can speak Tamil, Telugu and other Indian languages, even though it may not be their native language. Similarly, there are migrants to this city who are from various…

In 1997, while I was enjoying myself grappling with the policy challenges of the power sector, I was abruptly told that I must hand over my charge to an appointed successor – I was the Additional Secretary in the Energy Department, Karnataka – and take command of a tottering public sector undertaking, the Karnataka Agro Industries Corporation, as its Chairperson and Managing Director. I was aghast; but there was no going against the appointment. The Karnataka Agro Industries Corporation, a once proud institution that owed its prominence to the fact that it was a near monopoly provider of fertilizer retailing…

    Bengaluru this week  September 11th 2014       CITIZEN MATTERS Bangalore's own interactive newsmagazine Speak up, it's your city!  City news that matters   All of us know of the terrible floods in Jammu and Kashmir and resultant havoc. More than 640 people from Karnataka had been stranded, of whom around 200 have been rescued. The State Disaster Management Cell has opened the helpline 1070. Here is the list of persons from Bangalore in the area, with their current status (missing/rescued). Meanwhile, many organisations are busy collecting the materials needed to help the stranded citizens in Kashmir.…

A press note from the Information Department, Bengaluru, issued by Deputy Director to Government, Disaster Management, said that around 640 tourists from the state have been stranded in Jammu-Kashmir floods, out of which around 200 people have been saved. IAS officers Ramandeep, Commissioner of Hubli-Dharwad and Mohankumar from Karnataka Bhavan, New Delhi, have been sent to Srinagar in order to coordinate the rescue of people. As many as 30 people have been taken to Srinagar airport. Around 70 people have been sent to Delhi via flights. Around 200 people from Karnataka are at the Rajbhavan helipad waiting to be air-lifted.…

Residents at the Nightingales Centre for Ageing and Alzheimer's gather around on the lawn for a support session, in their Bangalore Centre. File pic. The first time Divya Sreedharan's father wandered off was when he and her mother were travelling on a train going back to Kerala from Bangalore. He simply got off the train unnoticed by his wife. The family already knew he had dementia-related symptoms at that time. The police were called, and Divya’s husband set off to search for him. "The worst thing was wondering if we would ever find him," Divya says. "The worry of never…

  ‘Development’! This term sends chills down my spine these days! I want to just run away from this once beautiful city of Bengaluru which is being ransacked from all sides.  As I drive past any highway, it is nauseating to see huge hoardings of various builders – 3 BHK, 4 BHK apartments/villas with all modern facilities such as gyms, parks, swimming pools, clubs, malls and what not for sale starting from Rs.1 crore!   ‘Crore’ was a figure which I saw only in a bank’s day book when I worked for a Bank!  But today all Tom, Dick and…

Even after constant monitoring from the High Court and many orders in place, managing waste the right way still continues to be a major issue in Bengaluru. Disposable diapers occupy a major share of the crisis. The solution doesn’t lie in leaving your kids run around naked, not for the busy and indulgent mom of today. This is where modern cloth diapers come into the picture. “What, cloth diapers? No...!” is what we hear, even from the environmentally conscious citizens of Bangalore, who otherwise try to do their bit. Many others who would want to minimise the expenses of diapers…

A water tanker collects water from a borewell next to Bellandur lake, whose water is contaminated according to tests by the Pollution Control Board. Pic: Meera K. The terms ‘water tankers’ and ‘water mafia’ are not new to an average Bangalorean. Neither is the knowledge that a vast part of the namma Bengaluru depends on the water they supply. Some of us like to believe the public authorities when they try to deny the existence of ‘mafia’ in managing water or garbage but their existence is a reality. Have you ever tried to understand how water mafias exercise a form…