City: Bengaluru

Unlike previous years, BBMP held a meeting with NGOs this time to get their suggestions for the 2012-13 budget. The meeting, held on May 26th, had over 15 representatives from NGOs such as CIVIC, KRIA Katte (Karnataka RTI Act Forum), Hasiru Usiru, Citizens Action Forum (CAF) etc. About 25 people representing various NGOs attended the meeting. Pic: Navya P K The Chairman and three members of BBMP's Taxation and Finance Committee - which prepares the budget - attended. Chairman of the committee, Munendra Kumar (Jakkur Corporator, ward no.5), said that the budget draft has not been prepared and that public…

How can I find my name in electoral roll?Here is the final voter roll published in the website of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Karnataka: http://164.100.80.163/Teachers_Grd/a1.htmlWhere are the voting booths?The names of all voters and their respective voting booths are available at http://ashwinmahesh.in/mlcvote.htm. (Lok Satta compiled this list with data from CEO office.) In another tool http://mlc2012.herokuapp.com/, on entering your name, you can get the address and map to your booth. What is preferential voting?In the preferential voting system, voters should rank candidates in their order of preference. You have to put ‘1' against the name of the candidate you prefer…

R K Misra is a member of the ABIDe task force for Bengaluru and urban reforms campaigner. He's a card holding member of the BJP. And yet, here he is supporting a Loksatta candidate, Ashwin Mahesh, in the coming Sunday's Graduate constituency election. This support is part of his online campaign Bangalore28 that he has started on Facebook. Bangalore28 is a campaign to field ‘good candidates' for Bangalore's 28 MLC and MLA seats for the 2013 elections. He feels this will in turn impact the 2014 national elections. Citizen Matters asked RK (as he's popularly known) some hard questions on…

On the last episode of Satyamev Jayate, the topic raised was healthcare in India. I felt that in this episode many facets related to healthcare in India were aptly handled. One of the issues raised was of the exorbitant cost of medicines and the need to make generic medicines available within the reach of all. I admire Dr. Samit Sharma who has helped in setting up many of these generic medicine shops with the help of Rajasthan government in Rajasthan. I do hope that this initiative can be taken to other states as well. Many of us are aware of…

There was a citizen’s piece recently on Citizen Matters that talked about what BBMP should look at in the upcoming council budget. I would like to suggest adding bins. In fact, how about a vigorous, mass, ‘Bengaluru-centred ‘bin beku’ movement , along the lines of TeamHazare’s mobilisation  last year ? Lane outside BDA complex Koramangala. Filepic: Anisha Nair We need garbage bins. Urgently. I don’t know whose idea it was, to do away with roadside garbage bins, in the name of  “door-to-door collection” but  the city has now become one huge, continuous pile of rubbish, from one end of each…

Bengalureans celebrated World environment day by contributing towards tree planting and getting an eco-friendly cloth bag in return. Citizen Matters in association with Prakruthi, an NGO focusing on ‘eco centric infotainment’ held this event at Jayanagar shopping complex on 5 June 2012. Organisers and celebrity with the eco friendly bag. Meera k (from right) Co-founder of Citizen Matters, M S Prasad, co-founder of Prakruthi, Prakash Mendoth Jayanagar Trade Association President, Vasundhara das actress and singer. Pic: Sankar C G The green event got a touch of glamour with actor-singer Vasundhara Das, actor, Bhavna, actor - singer Sunil Raoh and actor…

June 2012 Of voter’s list, voting booths and preferential voting:  a guide to voting booths and how to find your name in the electoral rolls for the election on June 10th. Also a note on how the preferential system works. Sixteen candidates will battle it out in the Bangalore graduate constituency MLC election on June 10th. Campaigning in graduates MLC race intensifies, contrasts break through. Follow the progress of the Election campaignWho is running for office? Read the in-depth backgrounder on Ramachandra Gowda, Ramoji Gowda, A Deve Gowda, Ashwin Mahesh, Nagalaxmi Bai and K S Lakshmi. All about the MLC…

There are a three weeks to go for the Bangalore’s graduate constituency election - the one in which only graduates can vote. The candidate elected from this constituency will become a member in Legislative Council (MLC), the upper house of Karnataka's state legislature. With election scheduled for June 10th, candidates are campaigning intensely. In addition to the three mainstream political parties that usually participate in this election - BJP, Congress and JD(S) - the Andhra Pradesh-headquartered Lok Satta party has entered the fray this time. There are also independent candidates. An overview of the major candidates -Ramachandra Gowda, Ramoji Gowda,…

We have a lot of birds around us in the city. Some eat seeds, some fruits and some eat live prey. We’ve all seen sparrows pecking at the grain in the market areas, or seen parakeets pecking at ripe fruit...but some birds are predators.Even in the city, we have several predators; the most common, of course, is the crow, which will often raid the nests of other birds to eat up their eggs. But there are two common birds that actually help human beings in our city....and at least one does not deserve the bad reputation it has. Barn Owl.…

Today on 5th June, a team of around 20 youngsters will celebrate World Environment Day, at Narsipura lake, in Vidyaranyapura, Bangalore North. Children from local schools will join and sing Kannada songs on nature and biodiversity. They will also plant some saplings. Original five who grew into Pancharathna plus. Courtesy: Jayalakshmi Chatterjee The youngsters in the age group 7-17 yrs have been working since mid-April to preserve the biodiversity of Narsipura Kere.There were initially five children -  Viraja, Adityan, Anand, Akash and Boomika (thus Pancharatna or five gems in Sanskrit) who started to take an interest in the birds, this…