City: Bengaluru

Bangalore has a large number of NGOs doing enormous work in various fields like leprosy eradication, caring for schizophrenics or dyslexics, protesting against felling of trees and so on. But there's also a group of volunteers who prefer to remain just that, and quietly go about their work without evangelism. They belong to Clean and Green, an organisation instituted for the specific purpose of keeping Bangalore that way. One of the volunteers briefing the others about using the rakes and sacks. Pic: Author. Clean and Green was born in February 2006, when a group of six came together and decided…

Going by the good responses photography workshops elicit, most people, having invested in a good camera, seem to feel the need for learning the basics right to become better photographers. So when Kalyan Varma, a naturalist and wildlife photographer (www.kalyanvarma.net) advertised a two-day digital photography workshop on his blog kalyan.livejournal.com I decided to attend. This was Kalyan's first-ever photography workshop, and he held it on 10-11 May at hotel Nandana Grand in Koramangala. The content was broadly divided into four sections distributed over the two days. On day one, Kalyan had scheduled the basics of photography and composition, purchase and…

Throughout their election campaigning, two of the major political parties in Karnataka, the Congress and the BJP said they will review the Capital Value Scheme (CVS) for taxing properties in Bangalore. Their representatives said so in various meetings held with different citizens' groups. Screen shot of a section of the home page of the BBMP website's www.bmponline.org. A message on paying property taxes runs from right to left on top of the screen. "Most of the parties have come out against the scheme," says Col. Mathew Thomas, general secretary of Citizen Actions' Forum (CAF). However, "Only the BJP has made…

Ever wondered what happens to the used batteries, CDs and outdated television sets that we throw into the garbage bins? These are hazardous e-waste, containing substantial quantities of lead, cadmium, chromium and flame-retardant plastics. They reach scrapyards on the outskirts of the city - such as the ones at Rajarajeshwari Nagar, Jnana Bharathi railway station -- where children are made to work. Pic: Saahas. Inhaling or handling such substances and being in contact with them on a regular basis can damage the brain, nervous system, lungs, kidneys and the reproductive system. According to the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board, Bangalore…

A common scene from Hindi movies is where the hero comes in as the good man in power (often as police) and throws out all the culprits. This arose in real life last weekend (May 17) when the Bangalore Developent Authority (BDA) Commissioner H Siddaiah threw out a doctor practicing for three months in a shop in the BDA Shopping Complex (commonly known as the 'BDA complex') on the Inner Ring Road, Koramangala. The shop that was closed; signboard on the right. Pic: Supriya Khandekar. Dr Jalal Farooqui was termed an encroacher by the BDA as he had no papers…

This report captures a range of developments from hooch smugglers smashing street lights to a government school being demolished for road-widening. Also, state officials appear to be thwarting attempts to amend the state civil services law to give more teeth to the Lokayukta. Thursday, May 22 Kannada Prabha Ever wondered why the streetlights on P S K Naidu road in Cox Town never light up? Because hooch smugglers smash them to carryout their operations under cover of darkness. And what's more, they are indirectly helped by the BBMP in their efforts. Fed up by constantly replacing the smashed lights, the…

The ongoing process of constructing and implementing Namma Metro has been fraught with conflicts over property. Citizen Matters has been reporting about the litigation filed by Indiranagar's CMH (Chinmaya Mission Hospital) Road traders against the BMRCL (Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited). Traders are asserting their right to stay on CMH Road and continue their trades.The media have also recently briefly highlighted court cases being fought over properties at M G Road, Vijaynagar and Yeshwanthpur between private property holders, traders, residents associations and the BMRC. Pramila Nesargi, legal counsel for the traders association, had earlier suggested that as the Metro starts…

In Metro vs Traders: legal test coming up, we explained how land acquisitions are being carried out under Bangalore's Namma Metro project. The acquisitions are premised on the notion of eminent domain and public purpose. The experiences of eminent domain cases in other cities across the world help us understand the nuances involved when the state decides to take away private properties in the name of public purpose. The Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius first explained the term eminent domain. According to him, the state has the right to take away private property for implementing projects that will serve public purposes,…

Access to information using the RTI Act may have changed for the worse. The Government of Karnataka under Governor Rameshwar Thakur's administration has added a new rule, #14, which places a restriction on the subjects and the number of words to be contained in an application asking for information under the RTI Act. The rule was in the form of amendment (GO) to RTI rules 2005 and signed by the Under Secretary, Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms on behalf of President of India and published in the Gazette of GOK. It is now in force. The rule allows only…

On Sunday, the 27 April, 2008 at 8 AM, a group of eleven people met up in front of the Apsara theatre at K R market and embarked upon what could well be called Bangalore's first ever PhotoWalk. As the name suggests, a PhotoWalk is all about people walking and taking pictures of whatever they find interesting along the way. They walk along as a group and click photographs, while sharing their information related to photography, to the buildings they pass by, or about anything else they find relevant. This concept as first mooted and implemented in Chennai by blogger…