CITIZEN JOURNALISM

It’s the end of a long week. My wife and I decide to relax by eating out, and visit a famed joint in South Bengaluru. We are in for a major disappointment as soon as we land at the joint. There is a long serpentine queue and the waiters are ushering in hungry customers into the waiting room after making them wait for a period of one hour. The crowd at the joint is swelling by the minute and the support staff is really irascible now. This is the scene at most of the old joints in Bengaluru that are…

Dear Chief Minister of Karnataka, With great urgency, in your very first budget, you have announced an undebated ‘Elevated Corridor’ project that has not had public consultation, and followed no due process. Another project is an untested technology called ‘Pod Taxi’, again not following any due process or transparency! These are listed neither in the master plan for Bengaluru, nor in any integrated mobility plan for the city. These will impact the 1.2 crore residents of the city in many ways. The Elevated Corridors project will cost the exchequer Rs. 34,000 crores, 151 acres of land, and almost 4000 trees.…

I used public transport for the first time in the city this July, as I had to travel to Kempegowda Bus Station (Majestic BMTC City Bus Depot). As a complete newbie bus commuter in Bengaluru, I had an internship assignment to look at BMTC’s communication, and their interfaces and evaluate the overall usefulness. My mentor, from Co Media Lab, had suggested I use all mediums of communication available to me whether it be the BMTC app, Google Maps, or even physical brochures. A new perspective, he said, probably had a better chance of picking out certain gaps in the system,…

Election Commission of India (ECI) approved a proposal of a programme for Special Summary Revision of Electoral Rolls, by the Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka (CEO-KA). Of the nine listed activities in the letter, we the citizens should note the following: 1. House to house visit by BLOs 16 Jul to 10 Aug 2018 2. Rationalisation of Polling Stations 27 Aug to 15 Sep 2018 3. Publication of integrated electoral rolls 10 Oct 2018 4. Period for claims and objections 10 Oct to 20 Nov 2018 5. Disposal of claims and objections by 20 Dec 2018 6. Final publication of electoral…

Narrow, crumbling roads, buildings on either side, cars and pedestrians navigating the maze. I glance at the navigation app on my phone. Less than 100 metres now. But it’s still nowhere in sight. Asking people doesn't help. And then, seemingly out of nowhere, a sharp turn. The GPS says I’ve arrived: I'm inside the congested urban village of Panchsheel Vihar, in front of Ramditti J R Narang Deepalaya Learning Centre. The Narang Trust formed by the family-owned Narang Steel, has donated the use of their building to Deepalaya—an NGO—rent-free, for close to forty years. It is within this building that…

We fondly remember Bangalore as the garden city - tree-lined streets, an incomparable quality of life, and the glorious weather. Many of us, who had the opportunity to leave the city and our neighbourhood, came rushing back. That was how deep our love for the city has been for generations now. But today, when Kaggadasapura residents step out of our four walls of homes and offices, our hearts bleed. Why? Because Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) deems it fit to use the centre of Kaggadasapura - a central and populous residential area and home to diverse demographics and age groups…

Dear Sir, Sub: Multiplied pedestrian problems after you chose to make your personal residence in J P Nagar 3rd Phase your official residence. I am an 82-year-old resident of J P Nagar in Bengaluru. I shifted my residence from Yelahanka to JP nagar 3rd Phase, closer to the current Chief Minister's house. Due to security protocols around the Chief Minister’s home, the police are forced to clamp restrictions on vehicle movement and parking in the surroundings. This is causing  severe problems to pedestrians, particularly senior citizens, persons with disabilities, school children and mothers accompanying school children. Footpaths are clogged with…

Sixteen years after the Karnataka High Court ordered the closure of all abattoirs within Bengaluru city limits and instructed the state government and the municipal authority to construct alternative facilities on the outskirts of the city, the first steps in that direction are visible. According to Dr K P Ramesh, official working at the Animal Husbandry Department in the Bangalore Bruhat Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), a new abattoir is being built on a 40-acre site within the KSIDC industrial estate at Harohalli, 34 km from the city and is expected to be commissioned by mid-2019. Not only this, concrete steps are…

It was 5.40 pm on a Monday evening. I had just swiped out of my office and walked briskly towards the Vydehi hospital junction in Whitefield, Bengaluru. The traffic was heavier than normal and the entire route towards Graphite India junction had come to a grinding halt. The wait at the BMTC bus stop would invariably be five to ten minutes to catch the buses going towards Big Bazaar and Metro. I remembered reading on Facebook about the new train feeder to Metro, that leaves Whitefield at 6.15 pm halting at Hoodi at 6.25 pm and then reaching Baiyappanahalli at…

Widening of Sarjapur Road was put on hold because of the delay in land acquisition, and people refusing to take Transferable Development Rights (TDR) as an alternative to money for their land. The problem here lies in the Karnataka Town and Country Planning (Benefits of Development Rights) Rules, 2016. TDR or Transfer of Development rights is a big non-starter in Municipalities like Bengaluru, given the loopholes. First of all, TDR providing 2X compensation in FAR won’t solve the problem as people holding rights are not able to get fair value or even sell it due to lack of demand. Real…