CITIZEN JOURNALISM

I thought I was smarter than the rest. Whilst people scrambled to bank ATMs minutes after our Prime Minister’s announcement about demonetization and the carefully framed narrative that followed, for me it was a bit of a waiting game. I had my credit cards and debit cards on me and some 100 rupee notes that had just been withdrawn a few days back before the much-touted surgical strike on black money happened. I informed my maid and cook rather nonchalantly that their salary would be delayed and they manage the ‘small’ inconvenience for the larger national good. It was just…

This Children’s Day when school principals and teachers were on stage creating memories for their students, the volunteers and facilitators at Childrens' Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA) send out a silent kudos to the 5400 plus members they engage with during the Civic Club Programme  across the city. These children of Class 7 and Class 8 are a part of CMCA’s citizenship and life skills programme conducted across a total of 91 private and government schools in Bengaluru. CMCA’s intervention involves a limited number of students in each school every year but the goal is to spread the civic message…

Our lake cleaners Puttaswamy and Ramakrishna had been removing the weeds from the water and piling them on the slope. However, they were not so keen to remove the drying weed from the slope since it was so much more difficult. Where they lay, the alligator weed and salvinia molesta would no doubt enrich the soil but the alligator weed would begin to sprout.   We were therefore keen on removing it while also making space for more weeds. When our CSR partner Robert Bosch Engineering and Business Solutions Private Limited (RBEI) asked if their volunteers could work at the lake, we…

The Akrama Sakrama scheme, which seeks to regularise unauthorized constructions and developments, has been one of the most contentious civic issues in Bengaluru. The scheme was initiated by the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act and Certain Other Laws (Amendment) Act, 2004. This Act amended the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, 1961, the Karnataka Municipal Corporations Act, 1976 and the Karnataka Municipalities Act, 1964.   After this amendment was stayed by the Karnataka High Court in 2007,  having been found to be prima facie against constructional provisions, the state extended the scheme by passing amendments in 2009 and 2013.…

See the map to Identify the 4 major reservoirs in Karnataka : Hemavathy, Harangi, KRS and Kabini. Inflows and Outflows to all 4 reservoirs are monitored and known and this forms the basis of all calculations The river flows into TN and at Biligundlu there is a measuring station that tells you how much water flows into TN from Karnataka The water that flows into the river downstream of KRS and Kabini is measured at Biligundlu, is expected to flow in from about 22,000 sqm and in an average year can contribute about 80TMC. About 740TMC is the total water…

In the first part of the series, the problems faced by the buyers of a famed developer who didn’t handover flats as promised, were explained. Read the first part here: When the developer conned buyers This part will explain how buyers formed a community and tackle the issue. When meeting in groups with the local management of the builder did not help, the residents decided to print banners and sit in protest at their office in June-July 2013. Meanwhile, Nayak suggested that all the buyers get together, form a registered association and fight out the builder legally. As a prelude,…

BDA, under the determined pressure of the citizens' movement against its steel flyover project, filed an affidavit before the Karnataka High Court on November 3, 2016, that it won't commence the project for the moment. This only proves Citizens for Bengaluru's (CfB) consistent argument that BDA had never observed due diligence or due process on the ill-conceived project but was hurrying through it even though it wasn't ready with design and feasibility studies. Even the Detailed Project Report for the project was made available only last month after the citizens' movement gathered momentum. Already set back by the National Green…

Can government schools beat private schools in facilities? Yes, if there are people willing to lead a school in that direction. Head teachers in the schools are those who have such capacity. Here's a case of a school near Devanahalli's Kempegowda International Airport - Government Higher Primary School,  Hunasamaranahalli, Bangalore North - that got State Government's Model School Award in 2015. The head teacher got national award for best teacher in 2012. Padma Priya, a Radio Jockey at Radio Active 90.4 MHz, shares her memories of the school that she studied in, that has become a model now for other…

The longstanding suffering of home buyers at the hands of the builders may be a common occurrence. This is the story of how three of us fought to get our due from the builder. It has been a long battle for my fellow buyers Kartikey Khanna, an RTI activist, and MS Shamasundara, an armed forces employee, and me. We had put our hard-earned, lifetime’s savings in what we thought would be our dream house. Like so many others, we were impressed with the lofty promises of world class living standards and amenities and quick possession (within 36 months of signing…

Recently, Bengaluru was in news for the wrong reasons. While a woman brutally flung eight puppies to death earlier this year, more recently a mass grave with over 30 street dogs was found in a dump yard with a single survivor. There have been repeated calls to control Bengaluru’s dog population by “culling”. These incidents are testimony to the contempt for street dogs in the minds of many citizens. Moreover, they threaten to destabilise the ancient fabric of friendship that unites people and their dogs. Credit: Alokparna Sengupta/HSI As in rest of India, free ranging dogs are a ubiquitous part…