CITIZEN JOURNALISM

Contemporary Bangalore or Bengaluru is typically seen as a modern ever-expanding city. Its boundaries stretch in different directions based on intense clusters of development. For e.g., Sarjapur road, Whitefield - Varthur, Devanahalli, Yeshwanthpur - Peenya - Magadi and Kengeri. One such cluster to the city’s north-west is Yeshwanthpur. And often like the other clusters named above, it is seen as “greenfield development” i.e. development of agricultural but uninhabited land. Loss of such land is not seen to be of much value or rather such land is not considered to have any socio-cultural significance or history worth recording. But such an…

Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) has come out with the draft plan for Bengaluru, and has displayed the Revised Master Plan-2031 (RMP-2031) in its website. It's time for interested citizens to understand and decode the RMP and comment in it, raise objections or give suggestions. For starters, read all the chapters – www.bdabangalore.org/TPMRMP2031.html , or http://www.bdabangalore.org/RMP2031.html. The pages are in the high triple digits and it is heavy reading – so it will take time. But it is a necessary first step so that unlike the protests about Padmavati, we are commenting based on knowing about what’s contained in the document. I…

Clause 60 of The Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act of 1976 (KMCA) lists down the power and functions of the Mayor. The powers include: presiding over BBMP council meetings; conducting inspections and directing BBMP Commissioner to implement any resolution passed by the Corporation or the Standing Committees and produce records. Other sections of the Act also delegate more powers to the Mayor like barring a councillor from voting and casting a vote in case of tie while passing a resolution. However, the interesting aspect to note here is that the Mayor does not enjoy any executive powers and is mostly a…

The standard of roads in Chennai city is something that the common citizen is all too familiar with. Newly laid roads last a year at the most, after which some patch work has to be undertaken. Otherwise, a total relay is called for within 2 to 3 years, by which time the whole road surface is battered badly. Thus the lifecycle of a road in Chennai usually stretches from one monsoon to the next. World standards indicate asphalt roads last anywhere around seven years; why, then, are roads in Chennai of significantly lower quality, needing constant repair and frequent relay?…

In May 2017, members of the Sarjapura Residents Welfare Association (SRWA) initiated a project that turned out to be India’s first crowd-funded tree transplantation exercise. Since the initial months of 2017, scores of huge old trees – some even centuries old, were being axed to clear space for roads to be widened from Dommasandra to Sarjapura and beyond. Local residents couldn’t protest against this road widening, since getting good roads for their travel was indeed crucial for them. However, they could not bear the pain of losing these grand old trees and total annihilation of the lush green cover around.…

I was following the articles posted about Mayors of other cities outside of India, and how as Mayor of their city they could achieve a lot. Of course, the lingering question is, are we really comparing apples to apples? Does the Mayor in our country have the similar responsibility and authority like a Mayor in a Philadelphia OR New York City? So here are my practical reasons why I would NEVER want to be Mayor of Bengaluru, it is almost as close or worse than being the Chief Minister of Delhi! There’s a saying in kannada, ಆಟಕ್ಕೆ ಉಂಟು ಲೆಕ್ಕಕ್ಕೆ ಇಲ್ಲ…

Two years ago, many of us came together with an idea - to save the local lake that we lived near. The situation was dire. Rachenahalli Lake located near Srirampura Cross, Jakkur, Bengaluru, like many other water bodies in the city, is part of an interconnected system both upstream and down. Though the Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) had spent a substantial sum of public money to rejuvenate it about eight years ago, it had turned into a drain for the sewage water being released by the upscale apartments that surrounded it. The situation had taken a turn for worse because…

Last Friday, my visit to a friend’s place was reminiscent of a typical journey that most of us are so accustomed to in Namma Bengaluru. Meandering through the famed Brigade Road in order to connect to Bannerghatta side of the city, it took a good 15 minutes just to cross the stretch of 200m. As we crossed the signal, we couldn’t see an apparent reason for the delay in moving across the street. There are no feeder streets coming onto this road to cause any conflict in the flow. On further introspection it can be realised that the real culprit…

The four empty plots behind the Rathnagireeswarar Siva Temple near RBI Quarters in Besant Nagar had become an eyesore for residents of the locality. Owned by the Government Officials Cooperative Housing Society (GOCHS), these lay vacant for years and had been reduced to wasteland, prone to misuse by miscreants, creating a pain for those living in the area. In August 2015 a set of senior citizens, all members of the GOCHS, led by Colonel Krishnaswami, the President of the Society, decided to pool in funds from individuals and use those plots to create a citizens’ park. It was said that…

If I were the Mayor, I would let data and metrics shape the future of the city. The city has grown exponentially and beyond the expectations of everyone to a point where it is becoming unmanageable. Well, as Peter Drucker famously said: You can't manage what you can't measure. If you can't measure it, you can't improve it. The above would be my mantra to improve this city. Everybody has been saying there is no planning, but the intent to improve it has been very few. Unfortunately,for long amounts of time, there is hardly any data that is made available…