City: Bengaluru

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.…

Disposing of pet poop/pet waste is one of the most sensitive issues in a neighbourhood or apartment community, and there has been an increasing pressure on pet parents to be responsible by picking up after their pet. While one of the easiest solutions to dispose of pet waste is by bagging it, imagine the amount of plastic (fossil-fuel-based or plant-based) tied with dog poop that will be sent to landfills or incinerators.  An internet search around disposing pet waste throws up multiple options:  Bag it and disposeScoop and flush itScoop and trash near plantsScoop and bury, which basically promotes composting Let's…

The first doctor to report the Omicron variant on November 18th, 2021 was Dr Angelique Coetzee, National Chairperson of South African Medical Association. “On that day, I saw seven patients with similar symptoms of myalgia, headache, fatigue who tested positive for COVID-19 with rapid tests at my consulting rooms,” Dr Coetzee said in an email interview with Citizen Matters. “Their symptoms were different from Delta and I alerted the South African Ministerial Advisory Committee on Vaccines of which I am a part. It took our scientists six days to announce to the world that there’s a new variant.”  Subsequently, on…

Citizens from different wards of Bengaluru were joined by those across the country to participate in Janaagraha’s #CityPolitics webinar, titled ‘MyCityMyBudget Phase 2 – Are Ward Committees using budget allocated to them’, on Saturday, January 22nd. The webinar discussed how Bengaluru’s ward committees have been utilising the budget allocated to them. Last August, BBMP set precedent by allotting Rs 60 lakh to each of its 198 ward committees. The decision was taken after over 9,000 citizens submitted inputs on how ward budgets need to be spent, in response to the #MyCityMyBudget (MCMB) campaign (jointly launched by BBMP and the NGO…

Weekend curfew lifted On Friday, after a two-hour meeting chaired by Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, the government decided to lift the stay-at-home order on weekends. The decision came as the government was under pressure from the public, trade and business establishments. However all other curbs such as night curfew and 50% occupancy in restaurants, have been retained. Schools and colleges in Bengaluru Urban district, where the positivity rate among children is high, will remain closed for Classes 10, 11 and 12 (pre-university). However, if the rate of hospitalisation in the State crosses 5%, the weekend curfew would be reimposed, said…

Bengaluru is a finalist in a nationwide competition to implement and scale kid-friendly neighbourhood design over the next two years. Pilot projects formulated and implemented by the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT) and Bengaluru Smart City Ltd (BenSCL) aim to enhance access to transit, open spaces, maternity hospitals and anganwadis. There are ten winning cities in the Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge, a national initiative to shape neighbourhoods across India that support healthy early childhood development. The challenge was launched in November 2020 by the Smart Cities Mission, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), in collaboration with the Bernard van…