CITIZEN JOURNALISM

The Bangalore police have tried to create awareness on the effects of drinking and driving by placing a car involved in a real life accident outside malls. This one was spotted outside Garuda mall earlier this month. ⊕

A small part of our neighbourhood (Osborne road and nearby roads in Sivanchetty Garden, near Ulsoor lake) has been converted to a garbage free area. This experimental initiative comprises four roads spread over 1 square kilometre. The same strategy will be adopted to covert the entire neighbourhood into a garbage free one. Our applause to the team lead by resident Divya Nahender. The team was formed with volunteers inspired by similar initiatives in Kumara Park locality. They identified the black spots (with garbage) and prepared a sketch of the entire area; Divya and her team invited residents to a meeting…

  The Social Responsibility Committee (SRC) of Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Bangalore, conducted a Biking Awareness Workshop at their campus on the 31st of July in association with Ride A Cycle Foundation, B-Twin, Merida & Bangalore Bikers Club. The event was a continuation of the Go Green Campaign conducted by SRC, SIBM-B. Last year, the campaign focused on sapling plantation. This time around the objective was to sell 'biking' as a cool option which is environment friendly. Bangalore Bikers Club is currently the largest biking club of its kind in the country, with a membership base of more than…

The other day, a friend from Hasiru Usiru got news that some trees were being felled at a construction site near the Indian Express building. A few people including me went to investigate and see if we could do anything about it.  It didn't take us very long to discover the site. When this group reached the spot, we discovered that trees had not been felled as yet, but branches of one tree had been pruned and pruned rather extensively. On asking the contractors if they intended to cut the trees which were in the vicinity, they said that they…

The BDA is in the process of building two flyovers on the Outer Ring road near the Iblur and Agara junctions in south-east Bengaluru as part of their 'signal free' Outer Ring Road project.  This article presents some questions, comments and suggestions regarding both the grade separators, on the basis of the project plans obtained from the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) in response to an RTI request by Citizen Matters. The flyovers have been described in an earlier article in Citizen Matters.  Two dedicated, access controlled, 11.5 feet wide bus lanes on either side of the central median of the…

The seven-year old HSR Layout Sector II Residents Association convened their annual general body meeting on 19th of July at Cambridge Public School located in the vicinity.The meeting was well attended by residents and had a focused agenda. The concerns of the residents included:Bad Roads & silted/clogged Storm water drains: a. Blacktopping of all roads and regular clearance of shoulder undergrowth. b. De-silting of all storm-water drains c. Proper repair of road cutting. (Left to right) Mahesh, Chana Keshava, Bhasker Reddy, Brinda Gaurav, Basava, Kumar, Brig Murthy and Girish - the newly elected committee of HSR layout 2nd sector RWA.…

I was glad when I saw the new link in the BBMP site for online tax payment. However I was disappointed with major issues that exist. First,  I am not able to generate form IV after making online payment of tax.  I always get the message "unable to connect to server". Second, the system displays a message to collect the original signed receipt from ARO. I understand from the local ward office at Lazar Road that ARO has not received connectivity for generating receipts for online payment. This is another disappointment. In another case,  I generated Form IV for another…

On Saturday, June 27th, Meta-Culture Dialogics (MCD) convened the eleventh session of its popular community dialogue series, Bengaluru Speaks.  Held at the Goethe-Institute, Max Mueller Bhavan, the dialogue explored the topic: “Namma Bengaluru? Civic Spaces to Engage, Enhance, Enjoy.” This month’s dialogue session incorporated art as a means of initiating ideas and dialogue among people.Ashok Panikkar, the Executive Director of Meta-Culture, kicked off the dialogue by reflecting on growing up in Kerala; studying in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and living in Bangalore in the 1980’s. All three instances represented times when he connected with people in his community. Ashok then compared and…

The Finance Bill, or the Union Budget as we popularly know it, is one of corporate India's most awaited annual events. Each year after the budget is announced, it triggers widespread debate amongst the masses and the intelligentsia alike. This year after the resounding re-election of the UPA government, the entire nation was looking up in anticipation as to what the budget would hold for us. A week after the budget was announced, SIBM (Symbiosis Institute of Business Management) Bangalore took the initiative to decipher the true meaning of the budget for the common man and what it meant for…

Many of us know that hundreds of trees are  felled all over the city under the guise of road widening often with no prior approval. Traders, home-owners, street vendors and slum dwellers are  dislocated without appropriate compensation apparently for various infrastructure projects without guarantee that these tasks will meet their proposed objectives and deadlines. If these citizen groups hadn’t intervened, BBMP would have implemented its road-widening scheme launched in 2005 (pic courtesy: Hasiru Usiru/ESG) Knowing that we could either accept or question the largely brazen and undemocratic approach adopted in the name of the city's development, some groups such as…