City: Bengaluru

He is among the new breed of fresh faces aspiring to win elections and bring in a change in Bengaluru. And he represents a party that brought about a sea change in the way the game of politics is played out in India. Meet V Balakrishnan, the representative of Aam Aadmi Party for Bengaluru Central Lok Sabha Constituency. V Balakrishnan, called Bala by his partymen and friends, is the ex-chief finance officer of Infosys. Born and brought up in Vellore, Tamil Nadu in a classic middle class family, Balakrishnan has three elder sisters and one elder brother. His father was…

To understand what unexpected thing V and X did next, and why they did it, it is essential to know what they had done the previous day, at the same garbage dump. They had done a quick session of garbage forensics – or dump fingerprinting! If you saw the recent movie – Zero Dark Thirty – on the capture of Osama Bin Laden in Pakistan, it had one crucial garbage-related clue that revealed Osama’s hideout in the compound at Abbottabad, a stone’s throw away from the Pakistani military academy.  It was the “absence of garbage” emanating from this particular compound…

Yes, it has been an exciting weekend. Your own interactive news and analysis website, Citizen Matters, won the Namma Bengaluru Award in media category, at an event organised by Namma Bengaluru Foundation in Freedom Park, on Saturday, March 15th, 2014. Accepting the award, Citizen Matters co-founder Meera K noted that even though the team was tiny by normal standards of newsmagazines, in reality, it is hundreds of thousands strong, because of direct participation from citizens. "It is the citizens of Bangalore who share their news, community activities and events, the citizens who send leads for our professional journalists to investigate,…

Residents of HSR Layout, Somasundraplaya have written a letter to AnanthKumar, the incumbent MP of Bangalore South, apprising him of their problems and lack of response from the people's representatives. The letter says: "We are writing this mail in continuation of our earlier mails. We are now writing in pain and frustration as we continue to face the problem of total neglect of our area Somasundrapalya. The road work on the 27th main which had commenced has completely slowed down. The garbage problem continues to be a nightmare. The stink is so high we cannot breathe fresh air when we…

The press note from Namma Bengaluru Foundation states: The winners of the prestigious Namma Bengaluru Awards (NBA) for 2013 will be announced on 15 March, 2014, at Freedom Park, Bangalore. We invite you to be a part of the award function, to applaud and help celebrate our true heroes. Each one of the award winners is a crusader, fighting for justice and saving our city from vested interest. Anna Hazare, who has been spearheading the anti-corruption movement, will be the guest of honor at the awards, stressing our singular vision of breaking the nexus between unethical, dishonest, and illegal forces…

Arvind Kejriwal of Aam Aadmi Party will be participating in a road show today - on March 15, 2014. The road show route has been issued by Traffic Police as an advisory, in order to avoid the routes. The route and approximate timings have been given below. Road show will start at 9.30 am from Hebbal Bus Stand. It will move to Bellary Road towards Ganganagar Market at 10am. Then the show will move through Ganganagar 5th main, R T Nagar Bus Stand, R T Nagar Main Road, T V Tower Junction, Jayamahal Road, Cantonment Railway Station, Queens Road and…

On March 11, a reputed newspaper published an article — ‘It's no lottery: BDA doubles flat rates’. The article stated that applicants who had been allotted 2 BHK flats by the BDA as part of its low-cost housing scheme, had started receiving notices from the BDA, informing them that they had to pay Rs 10 lakh over the original cost price of Rs 7.5 lakh, and those who had been allotted 3 BHK flats should expect to receive notices to pay an additional Rs 15 lakh. The article obviously caused a furore among those who had been allotted flats so…

The past week has certainly set the tempo for the oncoming Lok Sabha Elections in Bengaluru. A frenzy of sop announcements, inaugurations, stone-laying, flagging off activities were seen just days prior to the announcement of dates for the elections when the Model Code of Conduct would be enforced. The elections were announced on the March 5th. About 72.62 lakh Bangaloreans will get to vote on April 17th. Notifications for filing nominations for the 28 constituencies in the state will be announced on March 19. Accounting of expenditure incurred by the candidate for poll expenses will be tabulated from the day…

You live in Yelahanka and always thought you belong to Bengaluru - but no, you can’t vote for any candidate from Bangalore - your area falls under Chikballapur constituency! There are many areas like this in Bangalore. Knowing the boundaries of the Parliamentary constituencies is important - because some of the wards that fall in BBMP limits actually belong to Bangalore Rural or Chikballlapur when it comes to Parliamentary voting, which is totally different when we consider the profile of the urban and rural areas. https://opencity.in/explainer/how-to-find-your-constituency-in-bengaluru/ Here’s a list of the Assembly constituencies and wards that fall in each Parliamentary…

Lakes in Bengaluru invoke the same awe as does the Ganga at Varanasi or the Yamuna in Delhi. Indeed lakes are very special to the city of Bangalore. Without any river passing by, lakes were the natural source of water for the plateau, now called Bangalore. Lakes have been the lifeline of the city and its surroundings till recently. Credible accounts exist as to how the Sankey Tank served as a source of drinking water till quite recently. The dependence on the lakes started easing in the sixties, thanks to bountiful supply from the Cauvery.   Bangalore has grown exponentially…