bengaluru

Bevinmara Colony - Before and After. Pic: Team FORCE-GW Bevinmara Colony is a small village in Whitefield surrounded by high-rise apartments and high-end villa communities. The village has about 300 households, 6 shops, 3 temples and 1 church. Residents of Bevinamara Colony needed help in improving the overall condition of the colony in the areas of education, health and infrastructure. Proper Solid Waste Management (SWM) in the village was one of the many initiatives that the Federation of RWAs, Communities and Establishments of Greater Whitefield (FORCE-GW ) wanted to implement in Bevinmara Colony. The residents of the colony were very…

Folks at Whitefield Rising have gone super-creative, by choosing artistic means to express their worries and describe the problems. A rap song released on SoundCloud asks God Mahadeva (Shiva) why the state of affairs in his 'Pura' are in such a  mess, and asks BBMP where the money paid as taxes has gone. Whitefield lies in Mahadevapura zone of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara palike. Apart from this every Friday, people in Whitefield observe Black Friday by dressing up in black. Through the hashtag #WhitefieldBlackFriday on Twitter, they tweet to draw the attention of the authorities and political parties. Here is a…

Come August 22nd, exercise your right to be heard! Vote! Here's something from Whitefield Rising that tells you why you must.  (Click to view larger image)Related ArticlesBBMP Elections 2015: Special coverage by Citizen MattersMahadevapura zone, Bengaluru

Pic courtesy: Information Department, Govt of Karnataka Video conference between courts and jails Acting Chief Justice of Karnataka High Court Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee inaugurated the pilot of high definition video conference between courts and jails at Bengaluru as a part of Digital India Week. The pilot launch includes two courts — City Civil Court and 1st Additional Court Bangalore and district court, Mangalore and six district jails, namely, Mysuru, Dharwad, Kalburgi, Belgavi, Vijayapura and Bellary. The project will provide high definition video conferencing facility to all jails and courts in the state of Karnataka, which is perceived to be…

From the moment I stepped off the plane, it became impossible to forget that I was in Bengaluru; the city demanded my attention. The humidity that alighted on my skin and curled my hair, the sound of new languages being spoken around me - it all seemed to say, “Hey! Pay attention! You’re not at home anymore!” As if I could forget. No sense is left untouched. At all times of day, the sounds, sights, and smells of the city surround me. I fall asleep and wake up to a barrage of horns, the howling of dogs, the sound of…

A Mathematics teacher at Corporation Malleswaram High School teaching a 9th standard class. Pic: Shamsheer Yousaf What can we do to improve public schooling, tangibly? Ever since the terrible PU results came out showing more children failing than passing, I've got a lot of letters asking what can be done about this. To my understanding, we need to do at least the following three things, to have any chance of intervening swiftly in the lives of millions of children. Increase the funding levels for education I know we are perfectly capable of wasting money, but even so, without proper investment…

Traffic rearrangement at Adugodi and Madiwala. Pic: BTP Facebook page The new one-way system around Madiwala market introduced by the traffic police in response to the growing challenges of mobility in the area shows how, when we don't have a macro plan, we end up making a series of small adjustments, maybe out of necessity, but not always connected to each other. Here is the link to the image showing the new plan.  Traffic rearrangement at Adugodi and Madiwala Bengaluru traffic police have introduced a one-way system in Madiwala and Adugodi traffic station limits to avoid the traffic congestion and…

Republic Day is a good time to think about citizenship, and the responsibilities it carries. The basic premise of a democracy is that the people imagine it, create it, shape it and sustain it. There are no 'others'. But in fact, what we find is that most people go about their lives without any of this. There are many reasons for this, but one important reason is misconception about what is needed. A lot of people think doing things for the public good is a 'major' commitment, and that they cannot achieve much by giving a few hours a week.…

If you wondered why there was no special write up from Citizen Matters for the new year, here’s our excuse. Well, we did have a spectacular plan, however all the folks who needed to be on the same page as us, didn’t really come onboard. So this was our plan - to talk to key people involved in city administration and get them to look back on the past year and share with us their wish list for 2015. This turned out to be much more challenging than we thought. We had identified around ten eminent personalities and began a…

The recent tragic story of a three-year-old’s death after receiving dental care under local anesthesia in Bengaluru is heart-breaking. I am a surgeon who treats patients and performs procedures everyday. I am also a father of a three-year-old and an eight-month-old. The aftermath of the incident would have been unpleasant for the doctor and the family. I am sure this incident sent shivers down every patient that walked into a healthcare facility. I have received and delivered health care in India and in the United States. Where is it safer? What does quality mean? What does informed consent mean? How…