CITIZEN JOURNALISM

It has been a decade since the Carlton Towers fire tragedy on 23 February, 2010. On Saturday, Beyond Carlton, a citizens' initiative that was formed after the incident, organised a fire safety awareness programme at the National Gallery of Modern Art to pay tribute to the nine lives lost -  Akhil Uday, Benzie Kumar, Fayaz Pasha, Madan Purohit, Rajesh Subramanian, Savitha R, Siddhartha Padam, Sunil Iyer, and Surabhi Joshi. As part of a series of events to create awareness and prevent fire accidents, we, at Beyond Carlton, had also launched a social media campaign #IamAFireChamp. On behalf of Beyond Carlton,…

During the solar eclipse on December 26, the solar power generated in Karnataka dropped sharply for an hour. At the time, over 18% of the state’s power demand was being met through solar energy. Currently, the Bangalore Metropolitan Area Zone (BMAZ) draws around 20% of the state’s energy. Given this, much of Bengaluru’s energy demand can potentially be accommodated by solar power alone (Bengaluru gets power from the same grid that supplies to the entire state). With the commercial operation of the world’s largest solar park (2050 MW) at Pavagada in Tumkur district recently, Karnataka now has the highest capacity…

Bengaluru may not be the Indian city with the most number of trees, but it certainly has a wide diversity of flowering and avenue trees. Our city also has many species that attain enormous size or height, such as the Akasha Mallige, Silver Oak, Aruacarias, Rain Trees and the African Tulip. Some of these giants simply arrest our senses by their sheer size and majestic bearing as they stand guard over street corners, traffic islands or small lanes. What makes many of them unique is that they are rarely found in cities, and would be more at home in jungles.…

In the summer of 2019, we thought of renting a house within walking distance of our son's new school. Around our home, Sarjapur road traffic was getting worse and he was getting stuck in traffic a lot. The new school was right next to a large, upscale apartment complex in the IT neighbourhood in Bellandur. Hence we considered moving there; maybe we could walk our son to school. In the first few days of our search, we found a flat we liked there, surprisingly, within our budget. The owner said we could move in within a month, as soon as…

In the first part of this series, we looked at the patterns in pedestrian fatalities in Bengaluru. In this part, we look at solutions to the problem. Between 2010 and 2018, over 3000 pedestrians were killed in traffic crashes in Bengaluru. Since 2010, the number of deaths have gone down by around 31 percent, which is an average reduction of 3.8 percent per year. While the city has performed better than other metros like Delhi and Chennai, it is yet to make significant strides in improving pedestrian safety. That a large number of pedestrians continue to die is unacceptable, and warrants…

Pedestrians, as we know, are the most vulnerable road users. Over the past three years, Bengaluru has consistently seen the third highest number of pedestrian deaths among major Indian cities. Between 2010 and 2018, more than 3000 pedestrians have been killed in traffic crashes in the city, and four times as many have been injured. Many of these deaths could have been prevented had corrective measures been taken in a conscious and timely manner. But, beyond just the size of the problem, what do we know about pedestrian crashes happening in our city? Why and when do these crashes occur,…

It was October of 2018. We were on the road from Silchar Airport in Assam to Cachar Cancer Hospital and Research Centre. A distance of 30 kilometres took forever, especially after reaching the dusty and crowded roads of Silchar town. The traffic moved at a snail's pace. And then we sighted the hospital. It was at first sight an unimpressive plain building, parts of which seemed unfinished. The terrain was uneven, we negotiated the slopes and entered the building and were shown into the spartan room of the Director, who received us warmly. He showed us around the facility. He…

Bengaluru’s draft Comprehensive Mobility Plan 2019, published by the BMRCL and DULT, has come under attack for several reasons, primary among which is its reliance on faulty and outdated data. The document is problematic from several perspectives - legal, technical, financial, and also in terms of sustainability. 1) Any successful travel demand model (TDM) must understand the people’s daily travel pattern (origin-destination), and their preferred mode of travel. Past TDM projects have identified the TAZs (Transportation Analysis Zones) without considering the economic strata of the public. In other words, they mix up different sections of the society which have distinct…

This article is part of a special series: Safety of women in Indian cities It has taken seven years and numerous rounds of review in different courts to get justice and closure in a case that shook the country with its brutality and almost became a metaphor for the spiralling sexual violence that women in India have faced in recent years. Why has the system failed us despite both POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences) and POSH laws in place? Is it only the tardy justice system or a total systemic failure? As per National Crime Records Bureau, as…

The BMRCL and DULT have come up with a draft Comprehensive Mobility Plan (CMP) 2019 to achieve sustainability, and thereby improve liveability in Bengaluru. The CMP develops 10 strategies such as augmenting capacity of public transport, promoting the use of electric vehicles, and so on. It further develops three sustainable transport ‘options’ or scenarios, each by grouping a certain set of the strategies. And then analyses the impact of each option on modal share and emissions in the city.  Eventually the CMP identifies several projects, which would be implemented in three phases. CMP has been technically reviewed by Dr Ashish…