City: Bengaluru

In recent years, Bengaluru’s usually year-round pleasant weather has seen unusual scorching summers and intense rainfall and flooding during monsoons. What’s causing this, and is there anything we can do about it? Responding to these questions in an interview with Citizen Matters is Dr J Srinivasan, Distinguished Scientist at the Divecha Centre for Climate Change, IISc. He has been associated with IISc since 1982 and had helped establish the Divecha Centre at the IISc in 2009. He was chairman of the Centre from 2009 to 2016.  A Ph D from Stanford University, Prof Srinivasan has been a lead author of…

Cabinet nod for Peripheral Ring Road project The state cabinet gave administrative approval for the Bengaluru Peripheral Ring Road (PRR) project, which has been hanging for over a decade. PRR would be 100-metre wide, stretching a length of 73.5 km. The project, estimated to cost Rs 21,000 crore, will be done in the PPP-DBFOT (public-private partnership - design, build, finance, operate and transfer) model. The private firm will be able to collect toll from users for 50 years. Meanwhile, the High Court of Karnataka on Wednesday permitted the BMRCL (Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Ltd) to fell 680 trees along the…

The existing state of urban biodiversity, environment and natural heritage in Bengaluru is a matter of urgent concern. The impacts of ecological degradation is already felt in the city - for example, monsoons are often accompanied by the grim news of many areas getting flooded. Many of these vulnerable sites are found in large layouts and real estate projects that are built in valley zones and adjacent to lakes/rajakaluves (primary stormwater drains). A favoured market for the real estate sector, Bengaluru has witnessed an increase in built-up area that has replaced its green cover and wildlife habitats. Built-up area has…

Sprawling, manicured lawns in neighbourhood parks, golf clubs, hospitals, and the airport may seem like oases of greenery. But the fact that they are green deserts -- negatively impacting soil fertility and displacing food crops such as finger millet, pulses, paddy -- is often overlooked.  These are some of the findings in a 2018 study by Dr Seema Purushothaman, Sheetal Patil, Raghvendra Vanjari, A R Shwetha and Dhanya Bhaskar, from Azim Premji University, titled  ‘The Other side of Development – Green Carpet or Green Desert?’. The study was conducted in the rural peripheries of North Bengaluru. About why the study focused…

Night curfew lifted, other restrictions remain City police commissioner Kamal Pant issued orders withdrawing the night curfew, on Monday. But the prohibition on rallies, dharnas and congregations will remain. Three hundred guests in open places and 200 in closed places will be permitted at marriage functions. Fifty per cent occupancy will be allowed in cinema halls, auditoriums, swimming pools, gyms, sports complexes and stadia. The order will remain in force till 5 am on February 15. Those violating the order will be booked under the Disaster Management Act, IPC Section 188, and under Karnataka Epidemic Diseases Act. Source: Deccan Herald…

Can the government modify or usurp public spaces as to wishes to? Or should it be the people's decision? This question has been the crux of the multitude of protests to protect Cubbon Park since the 1990s. The park, which spread across 300 acres at one point, was portioned for government buildings along with some private ones over the years. As per a state government notification of 2015, after excluding the land used up for various establishments, the park area now stands at 197 acres. The Karnataka Government Parks (Preservation) Act, 1975, mandates the government to maintain parks as horticultural…

“Sun’s out, snakes out!” exclaimed Shuayb Ahmed, and Yatin Kalki as they jumped to action. Ahmed, an independent snake rescuer, had received a frantic call from a woman who spotted a snake – claimed to be a juvenile spectacled cobra – in her house in Bengaluru. The team quickly geared up for the ‘rescue’ – an empty pillow case, a snake hook, a hollow pipe, and a flashlight. “Timeliness is key,” Ahmed said, as he hurried to the vehicle. On reaching the house, Kalki went about locating the snake, while Ahmed checked for access points from where the snake possibly…

A few years ago, if you were to drive off the airport road towards Bettahalasur, 30 km away from Bengaluru, you would find mounds of garbage littered around. The village did not have a functioning system of waste management. Littering was common practice and waste management was practically unknown. Garbage from approximately 2500 households, totalling about 53 tonnes per month, was dumped or burnt in the panchayat, causing air, water and soil pollution. Kuduregere Cross in Bettahalasur Gram Panchayat earlier. Pic Courtesy: Pinky Chandran But all this changed in June 2016, with the launch of the EcoGram Project, by the…

COVID cases dipping  Bengaluru continues to report a dip in COVID cases. On January 26th, the State Health Department reported 38,083 fresh cases, of which 17,717 were in Bengaluru. The city had 1,89,853 active cases, and test positivity rate of around 22% on the day. Health minister K Sudhakar said 185 new Omicron cases have been confirmed in Bengaluru, taking the tally of the variant in the State to 1,115. BBMP Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta directed officials to control the spread of infection in areas with higher numbers of cases. “Case trend over the past week across all the eight…

Bengaluru’s water supply is met either by pipelines that draw water from the Cauvery river several kilometers away, or by pipelines that are sunk several feet underground. It wasn’t always like this. In the past, Bengaluru’s water needs were quenched by the many lakes built across the city. Lake water was used for drinking, agriculture, washing cattle and other purposes. But in recent years, the city’s lakes have become infamous for catching fire, frothing, and becoming dump sites. Many lakes are heavily polluted as the city’s sewage, industrial contaminants and untreated wastewater enter them via stormwater drains, rendering them unusable.…