CITIZEN JOURNALISM

  Pic courtesy: https://www.flickr.com/photos/nostalgia2009/4833664924 Since a couple of years, I have been seeing how transport infrastructure in Bengaluru has been deteriorating. I thought of putting my GIS knowledge to some good use, to present potential opportunities to improve and provide alternatives to planning and infrastructure of the city. If you have specific datasets that you wish to share for Bangalore city, please do share it with me. My prime focus now is on K R Puram Junction. My travel from home to Whitefield is exactly 15 minutes in car, but it now takes more than 2 hours due to traffic…

Children from government school in Kaikondrahalli walking back home. Pic: Shree D N The anger of not just parents in Bengaluru, but that of all adults concerned with the safety of children plays out through media and talk shows, through demonstrations and protest walks. As outraged parents and civil society groups meet government officials and senior police officers, school administrators and lawyers, there is deep satisfaction that everybody is taking this incident with the seriousness it deserves. The parents have put forth a 40-point charter for child safety standards which they want schools to follow. It includes trained security staff, CCTVs…

Residents of the eastern part of Bengaluru would have found it difficult to ignore the omnipresent banners that have sprung up on road dividers, announcing the launch of “signal free corridor road from Domlur to Murugeshpalya.” I want to assess the implications of this project to the city transport’s most neglected users - the pedestrians. One of the banners on the Old Airport Road announcing the launching of the signal free corridor The principal-agent problem At the first glance, projects that solely promise faster moving traffic are illustrative of the classical principal-agent problem in governmental issues. On one side, there…

A map of Bangalore from 1920s that shows planned localities including Chamrajpet area. Pic courtesy: Wikipedia One of the most iconic and beloved movies in Kannada while growing up was ‘Ganeshana Maduve’. In the opening scene, you have the director giving a voice over set, with a complete sense of irony, to the tune of Punyakoti, a long poem you had to memorize when you were barely nine. The voiceover introduces a vataara, or a colony, based in Ranga Rao Road, which straddles Chamarajpet, Shankarapuram and Basavangudi with the iconic Brahmin’s Coffee Bar, set at a corner. One of the…

For reasons beyond my conviction, I have stopped traveling by train and interstate bus. Maybe these experiences could be a few of the reasons. One morning my aunt was travelling to Chennai by the Shatabdi and the expected time of departure (ETD) of the train was 6 am from the Bangalore City station. It was drizzling a bit, so I cautioned that we leave the house at 5 am, though we were just about 8 kms from the train station. I know the roads and traffic with small rains have perfectly predictable outcomes – road blocks and traffic jams, even…

There has been renewed hope among some circles in Bengaluru after the Union Railway Minister Mr. Sadananda Gowda made a mention in the Rail Budget about the much delayed Suburban Rail System. The project also found a mention in Siddaramaiah state budget last year. A Special Purpose Vehicle was formed as well by the State Government. This was without the involvement of Railway Board. Praja RAAG, an online forum, has been pushing for implementation of CRS for the last few years. Unfortunately, they have found little support from political circles or from citizens for this project. This is not surprising…

July 15 was the deadline for the public to send in comments and suggestions  to the government’s ministry of labour and employment, about the proposed amendment to the law on child labour (prohibition). An NGO, Walkfree, working on child labour abolition had put out alerts, urging the public to sign the petition to the government, but at last count just before the deadline, there were only around 2,300 signatures. In a country of 1.2 billion people, this hardly qualifies as “popular involvement.” I haven't seen any involvement on this in Bangalore. We need deeper thinking, especially among the citizenry (rather…

I was recently required to set up a new bank account. The entire process took all of one week and I really didn’t have much to complain about. During that week however, one employee decided to become my self-appointed relationship manager — getting my number off company records and whatsapping me repeatedly after 8 pm at night, with delightful ‘Hi’ texts. Nothing irks me more than a genius who thinks a text that starts and ends with ‘Hi’, makes for a good start to anything. Maybe it was the fact that we were both Malayali and he thought we had…

In my last article, I responded to the indignation against an elitist school refusing an underprivileged kid admission on grounds of social disparity. My response was focused on considering the impact on that kid if he were to get admitted into such a school. Many people who responded to this article were concerned about my choice of focus, and made suggestions towards a solution. While some people stated that they wanted a solution, and we should not let such social discrimination remain in schools, others went on to suggest means to remove such discrimination. They claimed that by measures such…

Every day there are illegal constructions coming up in various places in Bengaluru. Are the authorities blind? Can't they see these as they drive past them? Why is this going on even when laws strictly prohibit them? While illegal constructions should in most cases be demolished, there would be important considerations. These are spelt out in a Supreme Court judgement on the Delhi demolitions. This has been mentioned and explained in the CAF PIL against Akrama - Sakrama, which was signed by me on behalf of CAF, when I was its secretary. The substance of the PIL was that in…