City: Bengaluru

There’s no doubt that Bengaluru is one of the most pet-friendly cities in the country. Over the years, it has seen a large number of people come together to speak for the animals, especially dogs, and care for them beyond their capacities. The pandemic saw a new trend. More families welcomed new puppies to their homes during the lockdown. It gave them an opportunity to spend time with the puppies and train them to be a part of their families. This trend also saw a rise in pedigree puppies as most people fancied dogs that looked as good as they…

Over the years, we have noticed that giving people tips on water conservation often does not translate into practice, especially over the long term. A recent study by researchers at IIM-B shows that behavioural interventions could be a solution. The researchers, Vivek, Deepak Malghan and Kanchan Mukherjee, conducted the study at a 120-unit affluent apartment community in the outskirts of Bengaluru. Each flat in the complex had individual water meters installed already, so each household’s consumption could be measured. The researchers divided the households into four groups: The T1 group were given weekly reports on their per-person water usageT2 group…

BBMP to reduce govt-quota COVID beds BBMP has decided to reduce the number of government-quota COVID beds to about 1,800, due to the decrease in demand. Some of the CCCs (COVID Care Centres) have been closed. However, the civic body is keeping the city's health infrastructure ready for a possible third wave, BBMP Chief Commissioner Gaurav Gupta said. According to BBMP's data, of the 6,446 government quota beds available, over 6,000 were unoccupied as of Thursday. However, the COVID second wave is not over yet, according to sources from the Karnataka’s Technical Advisory Committee. According to them, the next six…

With the severe water scarcity in Bengaluru, a large number of residents have to buy water, more so during summers. And due to indiscriminate digging of borewells in the rush to find water, the city's groundwater has been overexploited. But the efforts of many Bengalureans in rainwater harvesting (RWH) already show the way ahead for the city. Currently, Bengaluru is the Indian city with the second-highest number of RWH installations (1.55 lakh), next only to Chennai. Highlighting such efforts, and discussing how to amplify these, was the focus of a webinar jointly organised by BWSSB (Bengaluru Water Supply and Sewerage…

Hunger has stalked Maiduna Begam and her four children for the past 16 months. Except for a brief period after the first unlock last year, Maiduna’s husband, a mason’s helper, has been jobless for most of this period and lost his mother as they could not afford proper medical treatement.  “We manage two meals a day with difficulty,” says Maiduna, who hails from Raichur. “We have not paid rent for three months, and our landlord is threatening to evict us”. Two weeks ago, she found work as helper at a tailoring shop, but the job pays only around Rs 4,000…

72% COVID patients have new variants About 71.7% of 1,018 patients in the BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) and Bengaluru Urban district limits had the latest variants of SARS-CoV-2. Out of the 2,774 samples received for genomic sequencing, 1,738 were processed. This includes 525 patients with the Delta variant, 116 with Kappa, 88 with Alpha, and one with Delta Plus. In all, 730 patients have the new variants. A member of the state genomic surveillance committee said that the BBMP should be acting on the data. Quick tracing is crucial. It is important to check if patients with the Delta…

Monsoons are here and who doesn’t have happy memories of the fragrance of the first rain bringing along with it the much-needed relief from the weary heat of the Bengaluru summer. But then, along with memories, rains also bring inconveniences like localised flooding in urban areas and increased commute time!  In recent years, we see many Bengalureans struggling to access water during the summers. And one wonders where all the excess water from the rains disappeared.  Data shows that Bengaluru typically receives the highest rains in the months of August, September, and October. With August not too far away, now…

In Part 1 of this series, we saw that tree transplantation is an arduous process, and could fail if not done properly. Transplantation is now becoming popular in Bengaluru for Metro and road widening projects, but how cost-effective is this? How expensive is the process, and do the trees really make it? We explore this in Part 2 of the series. Cost of tree transplantation: Thousands to lakhs The cost of tree transplantation depends on several factors - the tree's trunk size and perimeter, the number of trees to be transplanted, the distance between the old and new sites, and…

On May 20, Karnataka government announced COVID lockdown relief of Rs 2,000 for domestic workers under its Seva Sindhu scheme. But due to the tedious application process, only a tiny fraction of workers have been able to even apply online for the relief. As per a report in the Times of India, Karnataka is estimated to have 10 lakh domestic workers, but as of June 23, only 1.4 lakh of them had applied on the Seva Sindhu portal. There were only 23,552 applications from Bengaluru Urban district. To apply, domestic workers had to upload their passport size photo, BPL ration…

They run into multiple pages. The “lockdown relaxation” notifications that greet citizens of Karnataka every week or other. But even with this prodigious verbiage, they fail to impart any clarity on what is sought to be conveyed. This lack of clarity can be observed in local WhatsApp groups being full of questions like “But does this mean I can’t do this ?” in the days following publication of the notification. Graphic credit: Anirudh Koushik (Click to view full image) The problems in these notifications can be divided into four main categories: The "Spock" category ("Illogical, Captain!" for Star Trek fans)The…