CITIZEN JOURNALISM

Railway Under-Bridge near Bengaluru's Shivananda Circle is no longer an ugly, stinking, dangerous thoroughfare for pedestrians. It has been transformed in five steps: Step 1 (June 2016): Railways staff + citizen volunteers de-poster, remove garbage and transform 80% of the RUB over three days. The Ugly Indian poster-repellent design was used, with striking bright colours, to brighten up an otherwise dark and dreary under-bridge place. See the album of Spotfix no 1 here: https://www.facebook.com/theugl.yindian/photos/… Step 2 (July 2016): BBMP fixes the footpath and repairs the pathways, including installing lights Step 3 (July 2016): Railways fixes the leaking roof and trims…

Have you wondered about the advertisement boards that we see on our roads and medians? Most of the time we curse them silently for spoiling the skyline or worse, blocking our line of vision while crossing the road, and then move on. We assume that some official body gave them an ill-conceived permission. When the number of such boards in Bellandur ward became too much to bear, to the extent that they were causing fatal accidents, we met the Special Commissioner for Property tax and Hoardings - V Rashmi Mahesh on March 27, 2016. And guess what we learnt? Of…

Cattles die from eating plastic. While plastic may seem almost indispensable in our daily lives, we tend to remain oblivious to the harm that we cause to animals and the environment by using this material in almost every aspect of our lives. Plastic is not bio-degradable in that it cannot be decomposed into simpler chemical constituents. It remains in the environment for thousands of years, endangering various life forms. Therefore, this year, the state government of Karnataka took the momentous decision to ban the use, sale and distribution of various items of plastic across the state. As per the notification,…

October 2nd was Gandhi’s birth anniversary and a reminder of his vision of Clean India. Our Prime Minister Modi revived the dream two years back on this day by launching Swacch Bharat Mission. We at Bellandur ward were fortunate to have passionate citizens to form Kasa Muktha Bellandur who introduced the 2bin1bag concept in 2012. Later, with the support of hundreds of volunteers across the city and solid waste managment round table, it became a law in December 2015 by the Karnataka high court. I am a new kid on the block in Waste management and had the privilege of diving deep…

Indira, wastepicker from Bengaluru, made a passionate plea to world governments for recognizing contributions of wastepickers in ‘New Urban Agenda‘ during an event organized on the sidelines of United Nations (UN) Habitat III Prepcom at Surabaya, Indonesia. She emphasized on the fact that wastepickers keep the city clean. They save municipal corporations and local governments lot of money by channelizing waste for recycling. According to her, if an area generates 2 tons of waste, waste pickers take at-least a ton of waste from the same. They sort and sell it to the industry as raw material. This reduces the generated…

One of the things emerging from the Cauvery crisis is the complete absence of communication from all parties regarding data on the basis of which decisions are being made or are being requested to be made. For instance why has the Supreme Court now asked that 6000 cusecs of water be released for six days from October 1st to October 6th? This amounts to 3.55 TMC of water. What is the reasoning here? Is it pro-rata proportional distress sharing? How did the Supervisory Committee make its recommendations on the release of a certain quantum of water? What was the logic…

As I was sitting in my drawing room, binge-watching a TV show, my mother sat right across the couch focused on her (almost full time) hobby – scrolling through Facebook. She announced, “Hey! there is a photo of you celebrating Diwali at Chitra aunty’s place. You are in that cute paavadai that you loathed back then, Look at your scorn”. I hate them, true! My mom had this stern belief that I would grow tall every single day and hence she would religiously buy dresses at least three sizes ahead of my actual one.  I ended up having frocks that…

Encouraged by the success of Neighbourhood Watch (NW) initiative in Whitefield, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South East Division), Dr Boralingaiah M B has announced the extension of the programme to other areas of South East Division, ie, Kadugodi, Varthur, HAL and (Old) Airport. In an event organised by Whitefield Rising (WR) on August 20, 2016, at Ecumenical Christian Centre (ECC), the DCP launched the NW4 Group within Whitefield PS limits to cover residents of ECC Road. The first such group was formed near Forum Value Mall in March, and two other groups followed.   As over 50 citizens from different…

N Manjunath Prasad, Commissioner of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), believes in minimum contact but maximum governance. He is from 1994 IAS cadre. In an interview with Cherry Agarwal, a student of Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media (IIJNM), he talks about a wave of digitisation to put information on public domain, the long term plans of the BBMP, the challenges he faces and more. BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad. Pic courtesy: BBMP Commissioner FB page How has your journey been since 1994 to being the BBMP Commissioner? In 1994 after getting into the IAS I was allotted the West…

What should Bengaluru - institutions and its citizens - do in the immediate run and the long run, considering the Cauvery dispute and the limits to water scenario? Just remember that only a third among us, or maybe half, are in the Cauvery basin, the rest are not part of the Water Tribunal process. This city has been built on a ridge and in the basin of two rivers, though many of us may not even be able to name the rivers into which Bengaluru empties its sewage. Consider this – we are pumping 1400 million litres of water per…