bangalore journal

The last couple of months have been exasperating for citizens who wanted their names in the voters' list. There have been random name deletions, false names and addresses in the roll. Now the High Court has ordered the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Karnataka, to ensure suo moto that errors in the list should be fixed. Court ordered on December 11th, that CEO should publish the final corrected list on January 28th.As per this, public will not have to run around to get their details corrected; election officers will have to verify the entire list themselves.The order came in a PIL…

Last Friday, December 14th, there was an event announcement from BBMP. My apartment association got a printed letter (enclosed). The subject of the letter was "citizen participation in improving civic amenities", and it was signed by the Assistant Commissioner (Admin and Tax), with a request to the President of the RWA to attend a meeting. The note said:Bangalore has earned fame as garden city and has attracted attention of the world. A meeting is organised in Town Hall on 15-12-2012 at 11:00 to discuss with the Commissioner of BBMP on how we can make Bangalore a city with the best…

There's a slight nip in the early morning air these days; For me, this holds the anticipation of the winter garden - carrots, peas, cauliflower, cabbage, oranges, apples, guavas, strawberries, tomatoes and much much more - either from your own little patch of green or from the nearest organic store. This season, not only am I keen to try out various recipes that use these different vegetables, I am also happy to rediscover the joy of preserving and drying many of these winter fruits and vegetables so as to savour them through some part of next year too! Tomatoes. Pic:…

Even as the Mandur landfill region is threatening to erupt into yet another conflict zone, the AP-headquartered Lok Satta political party has organised a walk 'Dumping SAAKU' on Saturday, December 22nd. Lok Satta party cartoon released for the walk. Lok Satta party, active in Bengaluru politics since 2010, has organised the walk from Mandur village (north east of the city) to Bengaluru to raise awareness in Bangaloreans about incessant dumping of garbage at rural-area landfill sites outside the city. The party does not have an elected representative in the state yet.Mandur is located in the northeastern rural fringe of Bengaluru,…

By now you've probably read, discussed and formed your own opinion about the case of the Indian couple arrested in Norway and sentenced to 18 and 15 months jail respectively. Their crime? Of physically abusing their son by beating him with a belt and burning him with a hot spoon as punishment. It seems the child was ‘hypersensitive' according to newspapers here. The psychiatrist treating the child has termed it Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder(ADHD). If the reports are true, instead of understanding the condition, his parents resorted to beating the child and threatening to send him back to India. Pic:…

After my husband got our constituency and ward details from our neighbour, he filled in the voter registration form online. The last instruction of the online process was to post a copy to the Election Office located at the BBMP Headquarters. He did not trust the BBMP to mail us back our acknowledgement so I was to take the forms to the BBMP office. Though I anticipated a long queue and quite a lot of running around, I agreed, if I had to convince people to vote I had to be on voter's list in the area of our new…

In January this year, the High Court of Karnataka had ordered that commercial activities should not be allowed in residential areas in Bengaluru. But even after this, BBMP continued to give sanctions in violation of the verdict. Many shops had come up without any BBMP sanctions at all also. Citizen Matters had reported on these violations earlier. Pic: Sudha Narasimhachar However, in a hearing on November 22nd, the court ordered BBMP to submit the list of all such sanctions that it gave in residential areas after the January order. Surprisingly, BBMP informed court that it had cancelled all such sanctions…

Saroja, a domestic worker staying in Ambedkar slum in Ejipura, spends much of her time waiting near a public tap every day. There is no individual water connection to her house, and the only sources are two public taps nearby. The tap gives water for 2.5 hours everyday, but this could be at any time during the day. Saroja checks up on the tap every now and then to collect this water, even though she knows that it is mixed with sewage. Both she and her 24-year-old daughter Mangala, are responsible for collecting water for the household. This story is…

In recent times, there has been frequent leadership change in BMTC. It's new Managing Director Anjum Parwez took charge only about two and half months back. Parwez, 43, is an IAS officer of ‘94 batch. Parwez joined as BMTC MD in September end. Pic: Navya P K Before BMTC, he had been posted in various departments like Urban Development, Land Revenue and Rural Development. In this exclusive interview with Citizen Matters, Parwez talks about BMTC's new plans, and also explains the rationale for starting new services, limiting Volvos to certain routes etc. Here are excerpts from the interview: What are…

"Please, please, mera change vaapas keejiye, please sir." She was in her thirties, nicely dressed in a blue churidhar with a gold-ish lining, spectacled, and worried.Furiously issuing tickets, the uniformed BMTC person she was pleading with was in the far upper corner of my favourite red monster 500 C. The bus had already stopped at  Marathahalli and departed. She panicked that she had not gotten her change back and had missed her stop.This conductor, middle-aged, spectacled, unusually chubby-cheeked, had not even heard a word of her plea. One of us fellow passengers called out to him. In the meantime he…