City: Bengaluru

The Bangalore Traffic Police (BTP) seems to have new arsenal - an Andriod app for Bangalore road users. The app has been developed Shree Manu, an employee with a software firm, who builds apps as a hobby. Manu initially approached the BTP with a location finder app called Wherez U, that he had developed post the Nirbhaya incident in Delhi. The BTP posted a link to the app on its Facebook page, and the app was received rather well; it has been downloaded about 4000 times so far. Following this, a user gave feedback saying that it would be useful…

Members of NBF and BRACE holding the press conference.T S Vidhyadhar, D S Rajshekar, Mahalakshmi Parthasarathy, Ravindranath Guru, Subbu Hegde, Nitin Seshadri and others are seen in the picture. Pic: Nikita Malusare Citizen Action Forum (CAF) backed by Namma Bengaluru Foundation (NBF), will question the Akrama Sakrama Bill – 2013 in court shortly. This was revealed in a press conference hosted by NBF on February 5th, 2014. N S Mukunda, President of Citizen Action Forum, who spoke in the press conference, questioned as to why the buyers should be responsible for the mistakes made by the builder. Since the bill…

The Adugodi Annual Chariot Festival, Rathasapthami, starts on February 6th and will go on up to 9am, February 7th, 2014. During the festival, there will be a large gathering, public movement and many pavement stalls in Adugodi. This is likely to affect movement of traffic in and around Adugodi.Plan your travel for tomorrow well in advance to avoid getting caught in likely traffic jams.  The Adugodi traffic police will divert vehicular movement on Adugodi Main Road, in view of large crowds coverging on Muni Chinnappa School for the Rathasapthami festival and other religious rituals. Alternative routes:- Vehicles coming from Madivala…

  Are you an ugly Indian? Why is India so filthy? Why do we keep our homes clean and our streets dirty? Why can’t we do anything about this pathetic lack of public hygiene? Who is to blame for our lack of civic sense? Is it our corrupt politicians, our dysfunctional governments, or ‘the system’ ? Or is it us, the people? Is it time to admit that many of India’s problems are because we are all ugly Indians – that we, the people, are as much part of the problem – if not, the problem. It’s about our rooted…

BESCOM consumers need not worry about wrong billing anymore. BESCOM has noticed that customers sometimes receive electricity bills that show more units they have actually consumed. They have attritudes error or negligence in meter reading, to be the main reasons for  wrong billing. Now BESCOM is taking a step to put an end to such human errors, through a technology called Photo Billing. A BESCOM employee checks the meter reading. In Photo Billing, the meter reader will take photographs of the reading of units consumed, with a special inbuilt 3MP Camera that is given to him. The captured images, will…

Come 8 and 9 February, Bangalore will play host to Neralu, a citizen-led Urban Tree Festival. The first of its kind in the city, and probably in the country, Neralu will bring together ecologists, artists, researchers, technologists, homemakers, professionals, adults and children in dialogue, to celebrate the spirit of Bangalore, its rich natural heritage and its trees. The event promises to have something in store for everybody and will feature a multitude of visual and experiential activities; walks, workshops, story-telling sessions, art exhibitions, movie screenings, children's activities - there’s plenty to choose from. You can have a look at the event schedule here. …

Off late, there has been a huge confusion on the cable TV networks across the country, including Bengaluru, with implementation of set top box. Many cable TV subscribers are not able to understand the development in this direction. Here is an attempt to throw light on this ongoing issue. In 1991, the Indian government started a series of economic reforms including the liberalisation of the broadcasting industry, opening it up to cable television. This led to an explosion in the Indian cable TV industry. The Cable TV Act was passed in 1995. With the advent of technology, the cable service providers…

In September last year (2013), I quite fortuitously ran into a group of excited Bangaloreans who had begun discussing doing something around the trees of the city. This is where we began conversations about a possible tree festival for Bangalore. Anush, Arpana, Sangeetha, Uma, Mallik, Jahnavi and I met at Airlines hotel one evening. Janhavi Pai, a researcher friend had told me that these folks were interested in Bangalore’s trees and their stories and were discussing various ways to expand and share their experience. It almost seemed like a call and a dream come true. For over 8 years now,…

Lake encroachment is rampant in Bangalore. This time, it is the turn of Somasundarapalya Lake near HSR Layout. About three days ago, residents of HSR layout reported that several tractors were offloading debris into Somasundarapalya Lake, also called Haralukunte Kere. The once healthy lake is now headed the way of the many lakes that no longer see the light of day. Repeated complaints to the police have failed to bring any attention to the matter. Concerned residents have written to several administrative bodies, including the Chief Minister, local police authorities, the BDA, BBMP and BMTF, in the hope that some…

  As soon as the monthly Council Meeting started at 11.30am on January 28, 2014, councillors from opposition party demanded to know why the BBMP annual report and CAG reports were not tabled in the council Padmanabha Reddy said that when the current Chief Minister Siddaramaiah was finance minister, he did away with 2% surcharge of stamp duty, which would have fetched some income to BBMP now if existed. Councillors of Congress party, outraged by this, protested vehemently by getting into the well of the council. The meeting was adjourned. Padmanabha Reddy later clarified that he did not have any…