City: Bengaluru

The Karnataka government's Akrama Sakrama scheme to regularise illegal construction has been opposed by much of Bengaluru's civil society over the years. They had taken the issue to court and got a stay on the same. Even as it looks like the state government is planning to revive the scheme, most civic groups are keen on not letting violators go scot-free. The history of BDA's controversial scheme - Akrama Sakrama As illegal construction in the city became rampant and successive governments and BDA came under increasing criticism for failing to curb this, the Karnataka government announced the Akrama Sakrama scheme…

50 km away from the Airport, and 30 km away from Bengaluru’s Central Railway Station, Sarjapura is one area that poses a daunting choice of address! Located in the south-eastern part of Bengaluru, Sarjapura Road is a long stretch that ends all the way near the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border. This mighty 20 km stretch begins at St. John’s Hospital in Koramangala and ends at the actual village of Sarjapura that the road is named after. St. John's hospital in Koramangala, beginning of Sarjapura road. Pic: Vikas Gotla Sarjapura is often wrongly used to describe wards/villages that lie on Sarjapura road.…

I-Day rush on BMTC On Independence Day, Namma Metro recorded the highest-ever ridership of 8.25 lakh, mainly due to the ‘freedom march’ organised by the Congress, as well as the visitors of the Lalbagh flower show. BMRCL (Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited) officials said that 4.02 lakh passengers travelled on the Green Line connecting Nagasandra in the northwest to Silk Institute in the southwest; 2.05 lakh on the Purple Line linking Baiyappanahalli in the east with Kengeri in the southwest and over 1.65 lakh using the interchange station at Majestic. BMRCL ran close to 170 trips on Monday, which was more…

Amidst a cacophony of chants of “ond maaru nalvattu" (one measure Rs 40), every morning the city's Krishna Rajendra Market wears a vibrant cloak of reds, orange and yellow. The removal of all COVID restrictions has made the flower market even more colourful and cacophonous, as this year's festival season gets underway. Amidst negotiating a kucchu (bunch) of fully bloomed chrysanthemums from Rs 140 down to Rs 100, Naveen Kumar, a flower seller in KR Market for 17 years, is seeing an uptick in his sales during the weeks leading up to Varamahalaxmi, Dussehra, Ganesh Chaturti and Ugadi. “I earn…

Much before the Right to Information (RTI) Act was passed by parliament in 2005, Karnataka had a pioneering sunshine law. The Karnataka Right to Information Act, 2000 (KRIA) was passed in December 2000 and notified in 2002. “Before KRIA, the Official Secrets Act, 1923 (OSA) was in place and that was used to deny all information to citizens,” says Kathyayini Chamaraj of Citizens’ Voluntary Initiative for the City (CIVIC), Bengaluru. At the time, Karnataka was one of few states, like Maharashtra and Rajasthan which had enacted their own laws on citizens’ right to information. KRIA was a landmark piece of…

15th August 2022 is our 75th Independence Day as well as the 25th Anniversary of BMTC. In light of this, BMTC has announced that all buses, including Vajra (AC) and Vayu Vajra (Airport Service), will be free. Recently, some of us passionate bus lovers came together as “Friends of BMTC”, with the aim to create more awareness about bus services in our city. We noticed that many in our city shy away from using the bus due to a lack of information. Many want to use the bus instead of their car, but find it difficult to figure out which…

Who owns Bengaluru's playgrounds? Do the city's urban planners and developers see free access to open spaces such as playgrounds as basic rights of citizens? Are playground spaces set aside as dedicated areas for public access? In the public space discourse, why do parks get more attention than playgrounds? More importantly, as the city's population has exponentially grown to about 13.1 million people in 2022, has the city planned its public spaces to accommodate playgrounds? The Open City Data suggests that many wards - Kempegowda, Chowdeswari, Kuvempu Nagar, T Dasarahalli, Nagavara, Kacharkanahalli, Kadugondanahalli, Kushal Nagar, Gangenahalli, Peenya Industrial Area, Malleshwaram,…

Gearing up for 75th I-Day The government is paving the way for the 75th Independence Day celebrations at Field Marshal Manekshaw Parade Ground, in which a hundred COVID-19 warriors, including healthcare professionals, frontline workers and 25 recovered patients are special invitees. To celebrate the silver jubilee of the BMTC (Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation), it has decided to give free services of all types of buses on Independence Day.  Meanwhile, authorities scramble to meet their flag sales targets two days before the Har Ghar Tiranga programme. The BBMP has been asked to sell 15 lakh machine-made polyester national flags, each for…

If Bengaluru wants to maintain its last remaining lakes and trees, citizens need to take an active interest in preserving them. If the last decade is any indication, collaborations between BBMP and citizen-led groups have led to the revival of many of its lakes. Here is how a group of dedicated activists/citizens have been maintaining their neighbourhood lake along with the trees in the surroundings. First the lake, then the trees Lower Ambalipura Lake is a seven-acre lake with two acres of wetland. The water body is surrounded by apartments - SJR Redwoods, SJR Park Vista, Mantri Flora and Trinity…

The objective of the digital initiative was laudable. A national portal that would enable the 411 million workers in the informal sector (as per the estimates by the Periodic Labour Force Survey 2017-18) to access national and state schemes, offering such workers health, employment and social security benefits. The country had been a mute witness to the devastating impact of the pandemic and unprecedented lockdown on these workers, especially migrant workers, as they faced sweeping job losses, loss in income and hunger. With the objective of preventing a repeat of this human tragedy, the Union Ministry of Labour and Employment…