CITIZEN JOURNALISM

A few days ago, a small first step was taken by members of Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust towards a garbage-free Puttenahalli. Before Cleanup Pic: Arathi Manay Yajaman There is a spot on Puttenahalli Road, in front of Brigade Millennium Mayflower Block entrance which has been used for dumping. The cleaning up was assisted by the cobbler Chakravarthy who has a shop behind the dump and is also responsible for some of the garbage in the first place and a few others. The rubbish was enough to fill a large sack which was willingly carried away by the garbage truck,…

As 11 December approaches, leading public figures in the city and elsewhere in the country added their voices of support to Saaku (‘enough’), the rally against corruption, and encouraged citizens to join them in the events this week. A number of civil society and community organisations, as well as individual citizens are partnering for Saaku, creating a powerful and continuing movement for action against corruption. Coalition Against Corruption, Anti-Corruption Committee, Yuva Bengaluru, Daksh, Praja, Loksatta, SmartVote, Forward150, Swami Vivekanada Youth Movement, Sachidananda Nagar Nyayapara Andolana and many others have come together to spread the anti-corruption message, and will work together…

Following are the excerpts from a manual, which BBMP could be preparing for pedestrians: 1) For crossing streets, never assume that you can use the zebra crossings. The primary purpose of those crossings is for vehicles to come to a stop. The pedestrian is only an afterthought. Vehicles have full right to occupy the zebra crossings. Any pedestrian violating these rights of vehicles may be arrested. 2) BBMP has been magnanimous in providing separate signals   for pedestrians in some intersections. Again, please understand that the traffic signals are primarily meant for vehicles. Do not complain that these signals are on…

We suffered for months with bad roads. And my recent article on Citizen Matters got some good comments. One especially good comment was the 'sit in bund' suggested  to galvanise a reaction from the powers that be.  Castle Street now free of potholes. Pic: MN. Then on Sunday morning we were so surprised to see road rollers move in and a group of labourers sweeping off the mud. By nightfall the entire stretch of Castle Street had been done and you can see from the picture which is taken at the same place, before and after, there is an amazing difference. …

Bangalore being a land locked city, many are not aware as to what the Indian Navy is all about. In fact the role and responsibility of the navy is not very clear to the majority of the nation. I still remember an incident, which happened way back in the early seventies when I was coming by train on annual leave to Bangalore. A fellow passenger asked me where I was working, I told him "I work in the Indian Navy". He gave my answer a very serious thought and after much reflection he said, "You people must be getting fish…

As part of the  "How to make Bangalore clean" drive BBMP and Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT) were at Russel Market to educate the vendors at Russell Market, Shivajinagar on waste segregation at source. The drive was launched on November 14th. Built in 1927 Russell Market is still one of the most crowded and famous markets in the city, known for its variety of meat and seafood. Some of the rarest, exotic vegetables, fruits and flowers can also be found in Russell Market. One of the predominant reasons Russell market has lost its charm is the fact is the…

Castle Street in the heart the city has turned into a nightmare for residents of the road. Almost four months ago, KPTCL dug up the road to lay their lines which took over a month to be completed. Contractors were hired and water and sewage lines of most of the homes on the road were damaged during the digging. Requests for the lines to be repaired fell on deaf ears and finally private plumbers were hired by most residents to repair their lines. Immediately, BBMP issued notices to the residents and in some cases threatened to take them to the…

Why don't shark attack lawyers? Professional Courtesy!However lawyers with failing practice are sharks minus the teeth.  Lacking the ferocity, the honourable practitioners of law turn to fictional tales of courtroom victories to rope in unsuspecting clients - RangaTantra"Bandavaalavillada badayi " loosely translates to "Bluffing with no bounds", The  central character of this play is Ahoblu Rao, a practicing lawyer who is, practice challenged.  While his limited courtroom success partly explains his living condition, his is a story affected by a no-nonsense wife, getting nowhere son, assistants who expect to be paid for their services and clients who don't expect to…

You will not notice the Iblur Government Primary School unless you are looking for it. Located on the service road of the main Sarjapur Road just before Iblur junction, the school has classes from I to VII standard with 300 students. The students are mostly from Iblur village and are from the economically weaker section. Till very recently, the school had just three classrooms and the classes were conducted in batches to accommodate everyone. We, from Lions club, HSR layout, adopted the school in the year 2007. We started off by building one classroom, improved a few other necessary infrastructures…

Taking possession of an apartment is so often fraught with its own challenges (late handover, defects within the apartment) for the individual apartment owner, that more often than not building-level issues tend to be ignored.  Further, during the Builder-provided warranty period, occupancy normally tends to be very low, making very few people available for handling building-level issues.  Caveat Emptor: Latin for 'Let the Buyer Beware'. While first-time associations do cover obvious issues (like major defects / incompletion in building construction, basic documentation, handover of maintenance corpus), many other issues are ignored, either due to a lack of awareness or resources…