CITIZEN JOURNALISM

Opening a hornet’s nest among the community, the city corporation has declared recent construction by fishermen around Thiruvanmiyur beach in Chennai as encroachments. Several additional structures have been constructed close to the beach, by the fishermen residing in the fisher-colony near Kuppam Beach Road, in the interest of better mobility and livelihood. “We received a lot of complaints from the residents of Thiruvanmiyur,” says K.B. Vijayakumar, Regional Deputy Commissioner at Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC), Adyar. “When we enquired, we found shanties with temporary roofs and a road built within 200 metres from the sea belt, which comes under Coastal Regulation…

63-year-old Kamalamma (name changed) was peacefully walking with her husband at 5.30 am in a quiet locality in Bengaluru. Little did she know that fate had a terrible plan for her. Two youngsters on a bike sped past them, close enough to brush against her. Her life changed forever! She fell down, hit her head against the curb, and has been bed-ridden for the last 10 years. My dear friend lost her 17-year-old son in a road accident, when he and a friend set off on a bike to wish their friends on a new-year eve. Both of them had…

Prof. Jayant Narlikar, an astrophysicist and Professor Emeritus at Pune University, once said, “The reason for the decline of science in India is the lack of experimentation as part of learning science.” Indeed, India’s education system has maintained status-quo for over many decades now, and no revolutionary attempt has been made to upgrade the quality of content or its delivery.  However, once in a while, one does come upon heartening instances, such as at the Legacy School Bangalore (LSB), where students of Grades 9 and 10 have been exposed to a novel learning experience since 2014. Bindu, a teacher of the school has collaborated with the…

The convenience that app-cabs provide to citizens has brought with it the unfortunate reality of harassment and molestation cases involving cab drivers. With newspapers publishing such cases every day from all over the country, there have been many suggestions, apps, safety instructions for operators, commuters, etc. but at the end of the day, there is only so much that apps can do. The rising number of such cases tends to lead one to believe that cab rides may be unsafe. One should keep in mind that not all drivers are bad. They have been trained by the operators and verified…

A major railway station, a Metro station and a national highway (Peenya Road) are all located close to each other in the Yeshwanthpur suburbs. But these transport modes are not well-integrated, causing major hassles in using public transport here. 2.3 km from old railway station to Metro The map below shows the distance from the old entrance of the railway station (marked YPR (OLD)), where Platform 1 is located, to the Metro station. This roundabout stretch is about 2.3 km long. The distance from the new entrance (YPR (NEW)), where Platform 8 is located, to the Metro station is shorter.…

Devesh Patil from Mumbai had an option to stay in a hotel when he was travelling to Chennai but opted for a homestay as he had heard so much about it. Today, he swears by it. This is a trend that has caught the fancy of the millennials as they say it is less expensive, has the "home away from home” feeling and is often more locally situated compared to a remotely located budget hotel. Homestays, as they are called today, are not really new in India. As the age-old saying, “Atithi Devo Bhava” (Guests are God) indicates, a traveller…

In the early hours of October 23rd, nearly a hundred trees and shrubs were mowed down at Kotturpuram Tree Park (KTP) - ostensibly a "mistake" by a misinformed earthmover operator, who could not have been working there without instructions from the Public Works Department (PWD).  Tree lovers in the city and beyond were horrified and heartbroken. We wrote an anguished piece on the state of trees in Chennai, many other publications also covered the "accident",  and even the Madras High Court took suo moto cognisance of the incident. Shaken by the hullabaloo, PWD officials quickly admitted to the mistake and assured…

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, I looked at the strategic issues and practical issues respectively, in implementing the bus priority lane (BPL) project in Outer Ring Road. In this concluding part of the series, I discuss solutions to these problems: Ban slow-moving vehicles in ORR If a slow-moving vehicle is allowed on the general lanes of ORR, the entire traffic will slow down painfully. Hence BBMP must ban the entry of all slow-moving vehicles in the corridor. This includes hand-pushed carts, pedal-rickshaws and animal-driven vehicles. Do not allow BPL to cross the path of private vehicles…

Bengaluru's bus priority lane (BPL) project was to be launched in Outer Ring Road (ORR) today, but has been postponed yet again. In the first part of this series, I explored issues with respect to the overall strategy of the project. What's also clear is that the BBMP and BMTC have not thought through many practical difficulties in implementing it. Here are some of those: BPL is actually Bus 'BMTC Priority Lane'! Presently the BPL is only for BMTC, and not for other forms of mass transport such as: State transport buses from all states Private intercity (long-distance) buses  Private buses…

Tomorrow, BMTC’s bus priority lane (BPL) will be fully operational on a 27-km stretch of Outer Ring Road (ORR), from Swami Vivekananda Road to Silk Board. The project was to be launched on November 1st, but was postponed to 15th, as BBMP was unable to complete the infrastructure work due to rains. There is much optimism about the project, but it has strategic and planning issues that should have been addressed beforehand. In the first part of this series, I look at the strategic problems around BPL. BPL is not contextualised in terms of the city’s transport needs The project…