City: Bengaluru

A PIL, questioning the deletion of lakhs of entries from the current voter rolls has come up for hearing at the Karnataka High Court. The court heard the case on November 6th.The PIL has been filed by Commander P G Bhat of Daksh, a Bangalore based organisation working towards accountability in politics and governance, Ashwin Mahesh of Loksatta party and Smart Vote, a campaign that encourages people to vote. The petitioners have named the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the Chief Electoral officer (CEO), Karnataka as their main respondents, along with four other Electoral officers from Bangalore zone. It…

With his halo of white hair flying out behind him, India's famed "snake man" Rom Whitaker jogged on to the stage at Opus, a cafe on Palace Road, in the evening of 12th October. He held forth on King Cobras in front of a packed crowd for over an hour. Organized by the volunteer run, public science initiative Café Scientifique, the event called Radio Kings was the first in a monthly series aimed at dismantling the barriers between scientists and the public. Rom Whitaker at the Cafe Scientifique event. Pic: Janaki Lenin Based on the French café philosphique model, Café…

Over 2.4 million (24 lakh) people in Bengaluru face the prospect of severe water shortage in the near future, a study by the Department of Mines and Geology has reported. In fact, going by the growth in population of the city and the water requirement per person per day, the city harbours about 2.2 million (22 lakh) more people than there is piped water to supply them. This is before the commissioning of the Cauvery Water Supply Scheme's Stage IV, Phase 2, project. This project if it meets the target of 500 million liters a day (mld), will marginally improve…

With rapidly growing vehicular numbers, traffic congestion in Bangalore seems unmanageable. Pedestrians, particularly senior citizens and physically challenged persons, are facing grave problems. Walking on the footpaths has become hazardous and an almost impossible task, due to narrow, uneven footpaths, footpaths littered with debris, garbage, vendors and in several cases non-existent! The only alternative is to walk on the roads, risking one's life. And, crossing the roads, especially with heavy traffic, is an adventure, few would dare attempt. To address the problem of increasing vehicular traffic, BDA, BBMP etc., understandably, focuses on widening roads, constructing flyovers and underpasses etc. This…

This past weekend, around 50 youngsters from diverse backgrounds including designers, entrepreneurs, web developers, photographers and farmers amongst others, brainstormed the ideas for sustainable living. This was the Bangalore edition of the Global Sustainability Jam.The event started on 2nd November, Friday evening, and ended on 4th, at the ThoughtWorks office, Koramangala. Seven teams proposed designs for sustainable solutions for any problem around the theme ‘heartbeats'.Sustainability Jam is conducted world-wide to propagate sustainability enabling the people to learn and find design based approaches to problems in any field - environment, financial or social. Participants slog over a weekend for 48 hours…

For over a month, there have been reports about power shortage in the city. Early October, BESCOM had contemplated power cuts for industries, but later changed the plan when rains started.Currently, the city has shortage of around 100 MW daily, which is only less than 5% of its total requirement, says P Manivannan, MD of BESCOM [1]. The shortage for entire BESCOM area is upto 600 MW. Manivannan says, "The shortage cannot be quantified, but varies from 0-600 MW through the day depending on wind and other sources. We are able to handle it, and are not contemplating any load…

The Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, advertised on 30th October with a headline  "Electoral rolls are being revised. Ensure that your name is in the Electoral Roll." After deleting about one million names from the rolls of Bangalore districts alone, does he cover up some gross errors of his organisation putting the onus on citizens to ensure that their names are in the roll? When his organisation has not accepted the errors, why would they shown any concern to correct the errors.Now they have delivered another set of incomplete and incorrect voter lists.The advertisement has some interesting phrases."... your tryst with…

For the last few months, ever since the muck literally hit the ceiling, and yes, I am referring to Bengaluru's garbage crisis, a new English word has sunk into the city. It's 'segregation', referring to segregation of waste. 'Segregate' is all over the media now, on radio, newspapers, magazine, TV, blogs, and the social media. It is also in all of the city government's (BBMP) recent communications on getting the city out of the mess. Mind you, in a totally different social context, 'segregate' is a bad word for a progressing, modern society. And yet for waste management, it is…

If you have voted in previous elections, have a voter ID card, and have not shifted your residence, still your name may have been deleted from the electoral rolls. Please verify and restore your name if deleted. In the last post we discussed that time, effort, and financial cost involved in voting should be lowered to increase voter turnout. Electoral organisation in Karnataka has created such costs by flouting rules and defying common sense. The burden of correcting the errors is on hapless voters who are not even aware of the mischief. On 18 April 2012, CEO’s website www.ceokarnataka.nic.in published…

As millions of fans cheered for the Indian hockey team during the 2010 Sultan Azlan Shah Cup tournament, one particular fan in namma Bengaluru decided to show his support for the Indian team in a different way. Manoj Mahala, 27, felt that the team deserved more than the scant press coverage it was receiving during the tournament. To show his support to the team, Mahala started TheFansofHockey.com, a blog to provide news about the Indian hockey team. "The lack of consistent media coverage was something a lot of fans noticed and were discussing on Orkut (the once-popular social media website).…