CITIZEN JOURNALISM

There has been a sudden interest in this whole idea - before I got to wonder why - I read somewhere that BBMP has made rain water harvesting compulsory. I am glad I was able to attend this session on Rain Water Harvesting (RWH) by A R Shivakumar, Executive Secretary and Principal Investigator – RWH, Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology (KSCST). This was held at Mantri Classic Hall, ST Bed on May 15th.  Around 30 people attended the session.It was a very good session and BWSSB is willing to conduct such sessions on request. All you need to…

Apart from the traffic snarls in Chikkallasandra, the residents of this area are exposed to another hazard. Garbage collected from nearby localities are sorted out daily on a bridge built over an open drain right on the 18th Main Road, about 100 yards from the Chikkallasandra junction. This route is extremely busy as it is the shortest way from junction to Devegowda petrol bunk junction.Pic: S Srinivasan After collecting garbage from the nearby localities using hand carts and three-wheeler vehicles, the paurakarmikas dump it on the side of the bridge. They sort out the garbage before loading it into the…

By mid-April I was becoming allergic to the calendar. “Don’t look at the date”, I told myself. The April 30th deadline for paying property tax was approaching. "There are no forms available at the Sanjaynagar centre yet", said a friend.  "I downloaded the form but they refused to accept it because it doesn’t have the acknowledgement form," said another (Why doesn’t it have an acknowledgement form? Good question.)With just a week left, I decided to pay up, and “be done with it”. That morning’s newspapers said some Assistant Revenue Officers (ARO’s) were being authorised to collect property tax. So I…

We wish to introduce ourselves under the aegis of the "Save Sankey Road and Park Forum". We comprise of people from all walks of life - doctors, advocates, civil servants, software engineers, business persons, house wives and students and so on. Sankey Park Walkers Association, Sadashivanagar Residents Welfare Association, Lower Palace Orchards Residents Welfare Association, Malleshwaram Swabhimana Initiative, Hasiru Usiru, Sadashivnagar Working Professionals Group and Gayatridevi Park Residents Welfare Association came under one roof for the cause of preserving the existing green cover of Sankey Road. It is under threat from unscientifically planned road widening.Mission- To engage in a constructive…

In the times when there is general apathy amongst citizens towards issues like lack of civic amenities, environmental degeneration, etc, Bangalore has seen a rise in the number of active Residents' Welfare Associations (RWAs) in different parts of the town.One such RWA is Uthkarsh, in LB Shastri Nagar. Their vision is to make the residents of LB Shastri Nagar proud to live in the locality. With a vision like this, the association takes up work in various areas to - influence and improve the state of the civic amenities, increase the participation of the residents in the civic administration, promote…

BBMP has installed an Organic Waste Converter (OWC) in  Malleswaram Market a couple of weeks ago as part its project to renovate the market. The market now has a system that manages all waste that is generated within the market. The OWC cost around Rs 22 lakhs. OWC can process one ton of waste every day. Pic: Vani Murthy. The OWC is a machine that processes wet organic waste by employing aerobic microbial decomposition. The organic waste is churned into a homogenised; odour free output through a bio-mechanical process. This output is left to cure in baskets for stabilisation where…

Brookfields/Whitefield-Informer & Shopper (BWIS), a community neighbourhood yellow pages based in Whitefield in partnership with the Rotary Club of IT Corridor, Bangalore and Sahyog, an organisation working on social and legal issues, came together for a cause on a Sunday morning of April 25th. Their messengers were on wheels seeking hidden treasures.This initiative was a call to pledge your eyes by the Sankara Eye Bank, Sankara Eye Care. The message was clear: Miracles cannot cure the blind. You can, by pledging your eyes. Bhaskar Rao (second from right), flagging off the event. Pic credit: I-Light studio. The participants covered a…

On April 21st late afternoon, there was a very heavy downpour with hailstorm and very gusty winds. On my way home at Vijayanagar at about 5.30 pm, while it was still raining, I found the skyline near my home looking different I looked up to see a few trees were broken in the middle and fallen over houses.Right in front of my house, two trees had fallen. On the main road behind, I found eight electric poles and three trees had fallen on 11 KVA power lines. This caused the complete stretch of electric poles and trees fall flat on…

"The next world war will be over water" - Ismail Serageldin, former Vice President of the World Bank. As with any problem, the proper way to manage water is to adopt a holistic approach along the lines of reduce, reuse and recycle and ensure active participation by both individual residents as well as the Apartment Owners Associations. The Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation (CPHEEO) guidelines state that the average water consumption per person, in megacities is 150 liters per day (lpd). For an average household of 4 persons, that works out to 600 lpd. Try to figure out…

On a day when there were low-intensity explosions near the Chinnaswamy cricket stadium, here are photographic examples of what emergency-readiness and security was like within the stadium on April 17th 2010.One of the emergency exits on the day of the match, meant for spectators who enter through Gate No. 6, is locked. In addition you have a turnstile just in front of the gate and a standee as well, besides some bottles and trash. In case of an emergency, would they have enough time to access the person who has the key, remove the turnstile and other obstructions in front…