CITIZEN JOURNALISM

  Chief Electoral Officer of Karnataka (CEO-KA) has published the list of applications for inclusion in the electoral rolls, ahead of BBMP elections in Bengaluru. 3,66,640 of 4,65,377 applications are approved. However, a search for voter names (with relative names) as given in the list show that more than 99% of these names are not added to the voter list for the forthcoming BBMP elections. Either the citizens are not included as voters though their applications are shown approved or the names are entered differently from what is shown in the approved list. Of 58,097 applications for deletion of names…

Members of the Indiranagar 2nd Stage Residents Welfare Association met to discuss what they would like to see happening in Ward 80-Hoysala Nagar and Ward 89-Jogupalya. Here is their wishlist for their neighbourhood from corporators aspirants. Their demands are common those of citizens in many other wards in the city - better waste management, safe passage for pedestrians, better sanitation. Here's what they had to say.  Sewarage drains and moris The sewarage drains in the residential layout of Indiranagar 2nd Stage, 10th and the 10th A Main crosses from 1st to 10th have become clogged. The drain pipes are very old,…

Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Bangalore in association with Bangalore-based NGO Saahas, organised its flagship event called ‘Walk-a-Thon’ for creating awareness about Zero Waste on August 9th at LalBagh Botanical Garden. The walk was organised to raise cognizance and sensitise people about this issue which has been plaguing our society for far too long and needs to be addressed immediately. The event was organised by Udyam, the social responsibility cell, in association with Rang, the cultural committee of NMIMS. The day started with a corporate event at the institute, where the guest speakers and participants from the NGO came…

50% women reservation for BBMP council, gimmick or empowerment? Pic: Abhishek Angad Dear Rahul Ji, You breezed in and out of Bengaluru warning the Chief Minister and City Ministers of serious action in case Indian National Congress (INC) loses the BBMP Elections. Good to know that you are talking tough and telling the Ministers who are from Bengaluru City to win or get ready to be axed. There is no doubt whatsoever, that if all the INC MLAs and Ministers from Bengaluru work in the interest of the party, INC will get an absolute majority in BBMP Elections. But at…

Traffic at the Marathahalli-Sarjapur Outer Ring Road. File pic.  It has been two years since I wrote this on the sorry state of commuters and residents along the Outer-Ring-Road. Fast forward to the present, nothing much has changed. It might in fact have gotten worse as more and more bottlenecks have sprung up. In these two years, more people have added their own cars to the roads, more buildings have come up and more companies have moved in to the stretch between Sarjapura Road and Doddanakundi. Ecospace, a word that now mainly conjures up images of traffic jams when heard…

The Bengaluru City Police and Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC) are proud to announce completion of the first phase of the CCTV project where 42 out of the 104 Police Stations have been equipped with CCTV cameras and surveillance in an effort to bring about greater transparency and make citizens, especially women and children feel safe when they visit a police station. The Bengaluru City Police and B.PAC with support from various city-based organisations have worked together for over a year on this project, long before the Supreme Court directed the Central Government and all states to install CCTV cameras…

Hello Dr Saleem, At the outset a big thank you for reaching out to citizens on this serious issue that we face on a day to day basis. Just to give you the context, every day I travel from Jayanagar 5th block to Iblur in 30-40 minutes. It takes me another 20-30 minutes (there have been days when it has taken as long as an hour) from Iblur to Adarsh Palm Retreat in Bellandur. I am guessing a good 3-4 lakh people are employed in IT companies between Iblur and Marathalli junction and another 3 lakh people pass through this…

Ward offices say they don't have the addresses of the voters, which poses a problem when there is a need to print the voter id card once again. File pic. Being a responsible citizen who has not missed a voting opportunity in the last 20+ years, I was horrified to discover recently that my voter id was missing – did I leave it in the bank while opening an account six months ago, or was it in one of the photocopying shops, or was it at the mobile phone outlet…? I went back to all places where I had used…

CIVIC, a non-governmental organisation in Bengaluru has registered its concerns regarding new garbage tenders published in June 2015 by the BBMP. Here is the summary of the letter sent by CIVIC to the BBMP Administrator T M Vijayabhaskar. Overall concerns 1.     Outsourcing of garbage disposal to contractors needs to be discontinued and contract PKs regularised CIVIC feels that outsourcing of garbage disposal by BBMP to contractors should be discontinued as garbage disposal is a “core” and “perennial” activity of BBMP which cannot be outsourced as per the Contract Labour (Abolition & Regulation) Act. CIVIC suggests that the current contract workers…

Pic courtesy: Wikimedia Commons Bengaluru-based Centre for Internet and Society has participated in the Expert Committee for DNA Profiling constituted by the Department of Biotechnology in 2012 for the purpose of deliberating on and finalising the draft Human DNA Profiling Bill and appreciates this opportunity. CIS respectively dissents from the January 2015 draft of the Bill. Based on the final draft of the Human DNA Profiling Bill that was circulated on the 13th of January 2015 by the committee, the Centre for Internet and Society is issuing this note of dissent on the following grounds: The Centre for Internet and…