City: Bengaluru

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?…

Bengaluru kicked off the Cycle Day campaign with its first event, Feel Bengaluru Cycle Day today morning at Cubbon Park. With close to 1200 cyclists in attendance, the Mayor of our city opened the event by ceremonial inauguration of a new cycle stand at Cubbon Park. He then led all the cyclists off on a 1-km ceremonial kick off ride till the Central Library. After this, all the cyclists rode together on a 5-km rally around Cubbon Park touching several heritage spots along the way. It was a great sight as 1200 cyclists went around Cubbon Park, on Kasturba road,…

Problems in Bengaluru • There is no leadership of the city. Most of the important public services are in the hands of the State government, which is more concerned with its State-level priorities than with the city’s. Mayors serve short, uneventful terms. • There is hardly any planning. BDA does no more than zoning of areas for different uses, and even this is very poorly enforced. Other agencies plan-as-they-go, without any reference to a regional or city-level perspective. There is no commonality of jurisdiction among agencies, either. • The legal steps (outlined in the 74th Constitution Amendment Act, 1992) to…

When the clocks hit 10 on the Saturday, October 26, 2013, residents of Thubarahalli near Whitefield  in Bengaluru left their chores and stepped out in the hot sun. No slogans, no banners or hoardings. It was a sheer, peaceful Satyagraha - the Gandhian way of protesting, to draw the attention of the government towards the much-needed, but never sanctioned road at Thubarahalli. Residents of Thubarahalli Vibgyor School area protesting peacefully by forming a human chain. Pic: Nikita Malusare The buildings along the road wore the same mud which the road is made up of.  Tough the recent rains have washed…

The mud road battered by rains makes it dangerous to commute on this stretch. Pic: Javed Ahmad Citizens of the Thubarahalli area near Varthur in Bengaluru, frustrated by the slippery mud road and traffic jams, will hold a peaceful protest on October 26, 2013, to draw attention to the terrible state of affairs. Cars, trucks, buses, two-wheelers and cyclists get stuck in a chaotic frenzy here during their daily commute. Two international schools are located on this road. There are around 12 big apartments in this area, and a 13th one is getting ready. Over 150 school buses and over…

One of the amazing things about the city of Bangalore is that it sits on a natural wonder... the rock that the city sits on is one of the oldest exposed rocks in the world. Lalbagh rock. Pic: Deepa Mohan This wonder of Nature, called Peninsular Gneiss, is so easy to see. Here’s what the Wikipedia entry says: “The Geological Survey of India identified one of the best exposures of this rock mass, protruding high above the ground as a hillock (pictured), dated 2.5 to 3.4 billion years, in the Bangalore city in India at the famous Lalbagh gardens and…

Only six states of the country have Legislative Councils in addition to Legislative Assemblies. Karnataka is one among them. Assembly and Council together form the legislature. MLCs have almost equal authorities, opportunities and responsibilities as MLAs. There have been several prominent ministers from the Council. Common man does not vote in legislative council elections. Legislative Councils have separate electoral rolls and constituencies different from Assembly Elections. 75 seats in legislative council of Karnataka are divided as: Teachers constituency - 7 Graduate constituency - 7 Nominated by Governor - 11 Elected by MLAs - 25 Local Authorities constituency - 25 Teachers'…