City: Bengaluru

"Currently, district or city-level disaster management departments are predominantly concerned with rescue and recovery, rather than resilience and preparedness, which is what they have to focus on," says Jaya Dhindaw, Program Director of Integrated Urban Development, Planning and Resilience at World Resources Institute, India. Masterplans for the city are made for longer spans but cities develop at a much faster pace in comparison to these planning processes, researchers say. "The National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) does not have the agency to make plans for cities," says Garima Jain, Gilbert White fellow at the Arizona State University, who works closely with…

Anti-conversion Bill passed The Karnataka Legislative Council passed the 'anti-conversion Bill' in spite of loud opposition from parties such as Congress and JD (S). The Karnataka Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Bill was passed in the Assembly last December. But it had been pending as the ruling BJP was short of a majority then. The government promulgated an ordinance in May this year to give effect to it. Earlier, while tabling it in the Council, CM Basavaraj Bommai defended the Bill saying that it was not intended to target any community but to prevent illegal religious conversions.  Home…

"The house feels like a furnace during summers. We live in a very congested space which makes it difficult to sit inside the house and even more difficult for me to cook due to the heat. I get headaches and my kids experience skin problems too," says Guna, a resident of Jyothipura, an urban poor settlement in Bengaluru. Heat stress is not a new concept given the realities of rising local temperatures in India. But Guna’s plight, faced by every family living in tin-roofed houses in informal settlements, reflects the inequitable realities of heat stress in urban India. Houses of…

On paper, Bengaluru has a decentralised framework for disaster management that puts urban local bodies at the helm of such efforts. But the recent floods in several parts of the city left residents of even high income gated communities in knee deep water for days. But residents of the city's low income settlements, especially informal settlements, were left largely to their own devices. "When we ask the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), they say they're waiting for the water to recede to visit the residential settlements and survey the damage," says Nalini Shekar, co-founder of Hasiru Dala, questioning the municipality's…

As a first-time apartment buyer in Bengaluru, in 2016, I heard of many instances of builders/developers simply walking away without creating/forming an "Owners' Association" and handing over the apartment's assets in a systematic way for various reasons, including The lack of bandwidth with the builder to create/form an ad hoc-committee of the Owners' Association and take them through the association formation and registration The extent of deviation from "sanctioned plan" to "as constructed" exceeding 5% (allowed deviation)The builder's desire to retain control of the property and sometimes even plans to add additional built-up area. Improper calculation of undivided share (UDS)…

Floods in Bengaluru make for big headlines. The plight of monkeys rarely does. In this case, the particular species named Bonnet Macaques, which can usually be seen in the vicinity of the city's temples. As the city's urban sprawl spreads inexorably, natural habitats of many species are getting overrun. Monkey habitats are one such. Causing what some Bengalureans call the monkey menace. Meaning when they spot a monkey sitting outside their apartment's kitchen window in search of food. A Scroll report, citing the work of Mewa Singh of the University of Mysore and HN Kumara of Salim Ali Centre for…

City reels under post-rain distress Since June 1st, the city has received 1,032 mm of rainfall against the average of 661mm. The slums in Munnekollal, Brookfield, Palyam, Whitefield, and BEML Layout have been severely affected. Even four days after heavy rains, the migrant labour colony in Munnekolal was still flooded, without any means to prepare food or sleep. Those who live in tents alleged that they had received little help from the government and were being provided food, water and other necessary items through NGOs and other CSR initiatives only. Some migrant workers in Whitefield said that work and daily wages had stopped…

Acquiring private land and property for major infrastructure projects like the Bengaluru metro has always been controversial. Especially the amount and manner of compensation to those whose land/property is acquired. Various laws and court verdicts have laid down norms for such acquisition. But the Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) has drafted its own rules on this issue, as it speeds up work on Phase 2, or what it calls the Blue Line, a 57-km stretch that connects Central Silk Board to Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) via KR Puram. Slated to be completed in 2024, this project linking the Outer Ring…

Bengaluru’s Namma Metro has one major advantage. It does not get caught in the city’s notorious traffic jams. The ground reality however is, metro construction is today a major cause of these traffic jams. Which the humble Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) bus does get caught in. At the drawing board stage, the metro was touted as the solution to Bangalore’s two key issues. One, getting private vehicles off the roads, thus reducing traffic congestion and vehicular pollution. Two, as being a much greener, affordable and accessible commute alternative as compared to to other options such as the city bus…

"At midnight on August 30th, we woke up to thigh-high water flooding our homes," recalls Bheemesh, a resident of an informal settlement located in Tigalarpalya, adjacent to Brookefield's BEML Layout. "We rushed outside, barely having had the time to collect our things. When we came out, we found out that the entire settlement had been submerged". The last few weeks have been difficult for citizens across various regions in the city. Several bouts of heavy rainfall has inundated roads and flooded residential layouts. The Indian Meteorological Department (IMD) said this was Bengaluru's second wettest August with 369.9mm of rainfall. The…