City: Bengaluru

Residents of Bengaluru are now hiring private surveyors to measure their property, which is marked for road widening by BBMP. This is because the BBMP's Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) notices do not provide detailed information on how much land will be required for acquisition.In April this year, residents of Golden Corner Apartments on Sarjapur Road received a notice from the BBMP, informing them about acquisition of a portion of their property for road widening. The notice says the road is to be widened by 45 feet and that the Apartment Association should submit land records using the Transfer of…

Adarsh S Vansay, 38, a resident of JP Nagar has been saving more than 50% of the his monthly BESCOM bills from the past two years. He had installed solar cell plates and a windmill at his house in JP Nagar, 7th Phase. The windmill installed in his house can produce one unit of power and the solar cells can produce around two units of power in a day. 1 unit can light a bulb of 100 watts for 10 hours. He invested around Rs 3.5 lakhs and saves around Rs 600 every month on electricity bills. "Even though it…

Bullet fired at Art of Living campusAn incident last Saturday at Sri Sri Ravishankar ashram saw a gunman firing a .32 calibre pistol. The lone bullet is reported to have injured a devotee. Security has been increased for Ravishankar, who also invited the gunman to his satsang.IT Investment Region near DevanahalliIT and BT minister Katta Subramanya Naidu says the first phase of an integrated IT city, with 2,500 acres will be completed in two to three years.Mahindra buys out RevaMahindra & Mahindra have bought a 55% stake in Reva Electric Car Company (RECC), the Bangalore-based manufacturer of electric cars. General…

Water purifier in JP Nagar ParkA water purifier attached to a 300 litre water tank has been installed in JP Nagar Dhanvantari Park on May 27th. This was an initiative of Canara Bank, JP Nagar Branch, in association with JP Nagar Citizens Association. Children drinking water at the park. Pic: Chetan Boray. BBMP South Zone Horticulture Superintendent, Nagappa Atturkar says “Even though we have water facility in all the parks there is no water purifier. It is costly to invest on water purifiers, so we so encourage such initiatives.” He also confirmed that this is the first time, a water…

R B Shivakumar, 36, a resident of Rajajinagar has been collecting surplus vegetarian foods from social and private functions in and around his residence for the past three years and distributing it to around 150 low income families in his locality. He employs six people to assist him. On May 22nd, Shivakumar says he distributed lunch to more than 20,000 people. The food was collected from five different kalyana mantapas located in and around Rajajinagar. And the food was distributed to slum dwellers of Gopalpura and Chamundi Nagar. Babu, one of the recipient from Chamundi Nagar says, “It is a…

Rainbow Drive Layout, Bhoomi Network for Sustainable Living and Biome Environmental Solutions had together organised a talk by Dr Chandrashekar from Vision Earthcare on May 30th 2010 at the Rainbow Drive Club House on Sarjapur Road. Dr Chandrashekar articulated the limitations of existing STPs and how an ecological method which is Soil Biotechnology (SBT) based STPs, researched for over two decades at IIT-Bombay, provides clean river quality water at a lower cost. Vision Earthcare, incubated in IIT Bombay, has licensed this method for deployment globally. Attendees of the talk included ex-panchayat leaders, active citizens from several layouts, chemical and environment…

The Karnataka High Court dismissed the petition against the proposed national military memorial to be constructed at the Indira Gandhi musical fountain park. The verdict, pronounced by a division bench comprising of Justices Manjula Chellur and Mohan Shantagoudar, on June 4th, said that the proposed war memorial is in the interest of the public and a matter of pride for the citizens of Bengaluru. The bench also said that the National Military Memorial Trust, under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister, will take care of the project. Work at the war memorial site was halted in May this year, after…

Take today’s news (June 3, 2010). Two reports are highlighted, one about Bangalore’s horrendous road fatalities (second highest in the country after Delhi, with over 860 deaths annually, and over 6,100 injured) and the other about a wall collapse that killed a 17-year-old girl. The compound wall had been built by the BBMP just three months ago. The girl had taken shelter next to it as it was raining, and the wall collapsed, crushing her underneath. Bad enough. But what is outrageous is the lack of accountability – the BBMP had parcelled out the work of erecting a short stretch…

In the special BBMP council session on water more than two weeks ago, Chickpet corporator A N Shivkumar (BJP) complained about the number of unauthorised water connections in his ward. He requested Mayor S K Nataraj (BJP) and BWSSB Chairman P B Ramamurthy to look into the matter. Is the Cauvery water you use metered? Pic: Vaishnavi Vittal This complaint comes well in time as just last month on April 16th 2010, the state assembly* passed an amendment to the BWSSB Act, 1964. Section 108 (a) of this Act is with regard to theft of water which is a punishable…

In response to a Right to Information (RTI) application that was filed by RTI-activist M V K Anil Kumar, the state government's Department of Town and Country Planning responded to a question on what the procedure is to appoint various town planners in the town planning department, BDA, BBMP and other civic bodies.These rules are as per the Karnataka Town Planning Department Services (Recruitment) Rules, 1996. For the post of Director of Town Planning, the method of recruitment is only through promotion from the cadre of Joint Director of Town Planning. For this a person must possess a post-graduate degree…