City: Bengaluru

The Centre's Ministry of Environment, Forest  & Climate Change recently notified the  Plastic Waste Management (PWM) Amendment Rules, 2021, to phase out certain types of single-use plastics by 2022. The ban applies to the manufacture, sale, use, import and handling  of some plastic items. The amendment is in line with Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s commitment of eliminating single-use plastic by 2022. What is single-use plastic? According to the PWM Rules, 2021, ‘single-use plastic commodity’ means a plastic item intended to be used once, before being disposed of or recycled.  The Expert Committee on ‘Single Use Plastics’, constituted by the Department of…

City roads to be audited: Govt State government has decided to conduct a road maintenance audit in Bengaluru to fix responsibility on officials for poor road conditions. Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Thursday informed the State Legislative Council that a detailed audit of main, arterial and sub-arterial roads will be undertaken. Bommai added that administrative approval had been given in 2015-16 for spending Rs 20,060 crore on Bengaluru roads, but not a single road is free of potholes or cracks. Meanwhile, B R Ravikanthe Gowda, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), said that traffic-calming measures like rumblers and surface markers were…

Two years ago, Sobha Daffodils -- an apartment in HSR Layout -- decided to do something about their water footprint. Over 420 houses in the apartment adopted smart water flow meters that monitor water usage in real-time. Since then, Radhakrishna Kurup’s average water intake has dropped by about 20%. Kurup is the President of Sobha Daffodils Apartment Owners’ Association. The use of water globally has increased by roughly six times over the past 100 years, and is expected to rise further. The available freshwater resources have declined by more than 20% per person over the past two decades, according to…

Bengaluru Biodiversity Charche, organised on Saturday, September 18th, was a day-long celebration of the biodiversity of the garden city. It brought together thinkers, activists, journalists and students to explore questions surrounding urban biodiversity, threats faced by various species and how these issues could be brought to light. The event is a culmination of the work Citizen Matters did on the topic over the past year, in collaboration with the environment and conservation magazine Mongabay-India, supported by grants from the Bengaluru Sustainability Forum. Read more: Local residents suffer as Bengaluru lakes no longer offer food, livelihoods Veteran environmentalists spoke Veteran environmental…

Bengaluru is not typically imagined to be a hotspot of biodiversity, and the urban biodiversity here often gets missed in conversations about the environment. The city's water bodies and green spaces, apart from being recreational spaces, are a home to biodiversity as well as a source of livelihood for many citizens. In this set of illustrations, we examine the components of Bengaluru’s lakes, and get a glimpse of what lies beneath the concrete layers and dense human population in our city. Every artwork has elements of household and construction waste that the artist found in her neighbourhood in Bengaluru. Look closely…

City had most cybercrimes, second-highest murders in 2020 According to the ‘Crime in India-2020’ report by the NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau), Bengaluru was the city with maximum number of murder cases in south India last year (179). Among all 19 metropolitan cities in the NCRB list, Bengaluru is second to Delhi, which reported 461 murders. The reasons for the murders spanned from petty quarrels to illicit relationships. Kamal Pant, Commissioner of Bengaluru City Police attributed the high number of cases to swelling population and unbridled growth of the city. Bengaluru also reported the highest rate of cybercrimes; of the…

With construction of the Outer Ring Road (ORR) Metro line starting recently, there has been much discussion about traffic congestion on this stretch. BMRCL has clearly made this line a priority, and has signalled to the companies along ORR to continue encouraging work-from-home. We are also seeing an increase in traffic post-lockdown, as workplaces and institutions open up. Now is a good time to reflect on the overall plan for Iblur Junction, a major choke point along ORR. lblur junction is the intersection of two arterial roads - ORR and Sarjapur Road. An additional road, Iblur main road, forks out…

The Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation (BMRC) proposed the Inner Ring Metro (IRM), a fully underground 34-km-long metro line to be completed by 2031, as phase 3 in the Comprehensive Mobility Plan of 2019. IRM would comprise 23 new metro stations and six interchanges, considering the completion of all other phases of the metro project. This line was suggested as it connects all major commercial and educational hubs, which might help reduce traffic congestion at the city level. Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Transportation Research Lab evaluated this Metro line proposal in February 2020. In a report, they concluded that the…

Since the first case of COVID in January 2020 and the national lockdown from March 2020, there has been a barrage of guidelines, rules and regulations for every sector and every aspect of our lives. Yet, preschools and daycare centres, a lifeline for working parents, were totally overlooked. Preschools have neither figured in any notification nor in any help package. A staggering number of such centres in the city have closed down. The staff, owners, parents and most importantly the children, have all been adversely affected. Informal estimates from discussions with preschool owners indicate that over 4000 preschools and daycares…

Festive rules revised On Thursday, many Ganesha Utsava Mandals held a protest with vehicle-mounted idols, at the BBMP head office. The BBMP’s order on just one public installation per ward was widely opposed. After outcry from pro-Hindu groups over restrictions in festivities, BBMP withdrew its guidelines and agreed to permit festivities over five days, not three as the police had advised earlier. Moreover, reversing the earlier ban, idols can now be immersed in some lakes where it’s customary. Only one public installation per ward is permitted, but temples and private religious institutions can install idols following COVID-appropriate behaviour. Organisers are…