CITIZEN JOURNALISM

Respected Sir, Sub: Imperatives for Smart Power for Smart Bengaluru BESCOM, as also all the other ESCOMs, have been claiming improved performances over the past few years. Even as that may be true, Sir, you'll appreciate that if Bengaluru, and the other Karnataka cities, have to be identified as "smart cities" of the future, the performances of these service providers have a very long way to go. And, it is totally doubtful if they can measure up to the task, given the constraints they are operating under, largely because of government ownership. The biggest problem they are facing today is…

Trinity Woods and Acres is a 7.5 acres residential community, near Sarjapur Road. As part of Rainwater Harvesting implementation, it was decided to dig a 6ft diameter and 40ft deep recharge well at one of the lowest points in the layout that is near their currently yielding borewell (which is adjacent to Sarjapura Road). Dewatering with a bucket does not work out. Work proceeded uneventfully till we struck water at about 9ft. The water had no odour, looked clean, with pH 7.5 and TDS 1100ppm. The water seemed to continuously flow in at about 6-10 litres per minute. 6ft of…

Editor's note: Citizen Matters had published an article regarding the controversy amongst residents of Prestige Shantiniketan apartment, regarding managing the trees planted on the podium in right way. This is a clarification issed by the Prestige Shantiniketan Management Committee president, in which the concerns and possible way forward has been detailed.  Roots of trees protruding from the soil on the podium. Pic: Prof K B Reddy The discussion on removing the trees growing on the podium had been on, within the Prestige Shantiniketan residents group, for the last year and a half. The decision if any is not going to…

Traffic that needs to take a right turn at Windsor Manors causes roadblocks for airport traffic. Pic: Google Earth. Namma Bengaluru used to be a very beautiful city. There were beautiful circles, tree-lined avenues and lots of greenery to complement the wonderful weather. However, in the last few years a lot of the beauty has been destroyed in the name of development. First the circles were removed - owing to the misplaced notion that its better for traffic to have a four or five way intersection. Then the trees were removed - owing to the misplaced notion that widening roads…

Editor’s note: This article is published in response to an earlier article published on October 1st 2014 - Red Bull’s flight competition leaves Sankey lake premises garbage-ridden. 300 Feet Eco Solutions, the firm in charge of waste management at the Red Bull event, got in touch with Citizen Matters. They clarified that they had cleared out the waste from the Sankey Lake premises. Aditya Seshnath and Preetham Murthy, co-founders of 300 Feet Eco Solutions share the details. Like most large events, the “Red Bull Flugtag” event that took place over the past weekend generated a considerable amount of litter. 300…

There are several issues - short term, medium term and long term, that I see with the RedBull FlugTag event held at Sankey Tank premises in Malleshwaram, Bangalore. 1. Short term From the photographs I have seen of the aftermath, the areas around Sankey Tank appear littered with rubbish, with trash all around the lake and in the lake as well, including non-biodegradables like thermocol. The impact on the fish, birds and other lake wildlife that ingest this thermocol can only be imagined. During events like this, the noise and bright lights also add to the disturbance to urban wildlife.…

A demonstrator shouts slogans during a protest on July 19, 2014. Pic courtesy: Reuters Some time ago, a couple of days after the rape of a school girl in a leading school, there was this very striking image, published on the front page of a leading newspaper; it was that of a visibly angry young woman who was part of a protest group appearing to shout at someone, maybe at someone in the school (we will probably never know). That face and that anger which was so palpable, in essence captured the anger of a whole lot of people, be…

Today KCDC has around 300 vermi-composting pits. Pic: Nikita Malusare I had ended my first blog on garbage (you can read this blog here) with the observation that the Karnataka Compost Development Corporation was not making a great deal of money from the business of producing compost from city garbage, even though we had a long waiting list of satisfied customers and no marketing problem on our hand. We had two problems with compost production. The first was that in a city that produced plenty of garbage - it was estimated to be around 1,000 tons per day then and…

In the recent past, there have been quite a few instances where the courts have intervened with respect to civic projects. The recent one was when the Karnataka High Court directed civic agencies to widen the Hulimavu-Begur road- a case where the BBMP and a real estate company were at loggerheads. In another case, the Karnataka High Court directed the BBMP to get rid of encroachments on footpaths – this order was passed in response to a petition filed by an individual to make footpaths accessible to pedestrians. Yet another case was when the High Court ruled mixed land use…

Anyone who has lived in Bangalore for some time will fondly remember the pleasant climate, flowers blooming and the city roads covered with flowers of all hues and colours. Alas, it is no more like this today, and the city is competing with Kolkata and Chennai in summer temperatures, and vast stretches of our water-starved city are left to the mercy of water tankers. Rapid urbanisation, unplanned development and a free run to land mafia has led to massive encroachment of lake land, raja-kaluves and large-scale exploitation of underground water. Today, 85-90% of lakes have turned dry and are sitting…