City: Bengaluru

A press note released on November 10 said that intensive verification of ration cards has begun in Bangalore, which will soon be extended to the other cities, districts and taluks in the State. Commissioner for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs Harsh Gupta said in the press note that in view of the large number of complaints received from the public on the alleged bogus ration cards and misuse of ration by the Fair Price Shops, the Department has taken this initiative. How is verification carried out? Gupta said that the Department, which has 42 Food Inspectors in the Bangalore Informal Rationing…

Here’s one of the reasons why Bengaluru's administrator BBMP has a severe fund-crunch. Every year BBMP budget expects crores of rupees to be collected as advertising revenue. But, the actual amount collected by the BMBP is way below expectations. Budget estimates for 2012-13 predicted that the advertising department could bring in Rs. 45 crore, but the actual revenue collected from registered hoardings was only Rs.22 crore - thereby causing a deficit of 23 crores. BBMP advertising department manager Lakshmi M has the reason: “Many advertisers who fail to pay their taxes or renew their license are considered as illegal advertisers.…

Karnataka State Pollution Control Board has monitored the ambient air quality using continuous ambient air quality monitoring system at two locations and manual monitoring stations at 13 locations (11 manual stations and 2 Continuous Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Stations [CAAQMS]) in Bangalore city on occasion of Deepavali festival 2013. To see the impact of bursting of crackers etc. on air quality, round-the-clock (24 Hourly) air quality monitoring was carried out. The measured SO2 and NO2 values during normal days (29.10.2013) and Deepavali days (2nd and 4th Nov-2013) have not exceeded the National limits (SO2: 80 µg/M3 and NO2: 80 µg/M3).…

Sadananda Maiya. Pic courtesy: http://basavanagudinationaldegreecollege.blogspot.in It's known that Bangalore is Karnataka’s capital, Garden city, Silicon Valley, IT-BT hub of India, historically. Culturally, religiously, traditionally rich, educational hub tourists’ delight, cosmopolitan city ever growing in leaps and bounds in every aspect beyond one’s imagination, contributed to a galaxy of scientists, sports persons, actors, doctors, musicians and much more distinguished professionals. People from all over India and world jump at the first opportunity to come to Bangalore for whatever reasons and enjoy the social life it offers all irrespective of their vernacular background, culture, taste and lifestyle. Bangalore has great weather all…

Ibblur lake is a small lake situated on Sarjapura ORR road junction, roughly 12 acres in its current state. In the beginning of 2013, local residents and RWAs came together and instituted Ibblur Lake Forum, an informal federation of RWAs and united in their goal of the restoration and rejuvenation of the lake. The lake has rotated jurisdiction a couple of times in recent times and is presently under the purview of the BDA. JCB clearing encroachment on Ibblur lake bed. Pic: Mukund Rao After much engagement by the community with the authorities, the BDA finally approved the fencing of…

BBMP had initiated the road work, and volunteers started monitoring it, but the work has stopped now. File pic. Citizen Matters had reported about the BWRCA-led road repair initiation in Kadugodi-Hosakote road. Even as the residents were euphoric about their small victory, everything has gone for a toss again. The work that took off two weeks ago has not been moving forward. The reason: potholes are not small enough to fit the ward level budget. On persistent pressure by members of Bruhat Whitefield Residents Community Association, repair work of potholes took off at the Kadugodi ward level. But hardly after…

We all have heard of the dangers of plastic - about how animals can ingest the plastic and can then die due to indigestion. But there are several other ways plastic can endanger wildlife, too. Sometimes, the dangers are seen quite dramatically. Let me illustrate with two examples that I saw. At Nandi Hills, I saw this Black (or Common) Kite, with a big plastic bag entangled in its talons. It was flying about, desperately trying to get the bag off, but in vain: Black Kite with Plastic Caught in Talon Nandi Hill The Kite could not chase any prey…

  The state assembly election held in May 2013 saw people in Bengaluru coming out in large numbers to vote. There were 67.71 lakh voters on the voter roll, while population was 97 lakh in Bangalore. Everyone praised this as an achievement of election commission. However, were the voter rolls totally problem-free? P G Bhat, who is a retired naval officer and software professional, also an activist working towards quality voter rolls for some years now, traces the recent problems in Bangalore’s voter rolls. The 27 constituencies of Bangalore had more than 66.83 lakh voters in April 2012. Then as…

We spend a lot of time talking about national politics in India, with the general elections in 2014 being a subject of conversations for well over a year now. Conversations on state level politics take up the remainder of our time. In contrast, many of the problems that we face in Bengaluru on a day to day basis are municipal in nature: be it the lack of good roads and public transport, unreliable power supply, unsafe drinking water or garbage that lines our streets. Who becomes your next corporator or local council member is perhaps as important as who becomes…

Online voter roll registrations in Beengaluru were closed for sometime, on September 26, 2013. Those who logged in to the Karnataka Election Commission website received a message, saying that the voter registration will reopen after the publishing of the draft electoral roll. Now it is that time of the cycle when the draft rolls will be out soon and registrations will re-open. Karnataka Chief Election Officer Anil Kumar Jha talks about the Election Commission's plans, in an interview with Citizen Matters. Voters registration was suppossed to be open from August 10 till November 11, 2013. Why did it close now?…