CITIZEN JOURNALISM

“In your opinion, what is the most prevalent problem faced by the residents of your area?” three of us from the non-profit IT for Change, asked the youth of Old Baiyappanahalli a few months ago. It didn’t take long for the youth to unanimously respond – the traffic at the railway gate, which had been the bane of their existence. “It’s becoming impossible by the day!” they said in exasperation. Further discussions revealed that Baiyappanahalli road was underserved by the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC). This stretch connects Swami Vivekananda Road metro station (along Old Madras Road), to Maruti Seva…

One of the older and more populous neighbourhoods, T Nagar is at the focus of several initiatives under the smart cities mission in the city, with many of smart city projects dedicated to its improvement. However, in a case of what is called missing the forest for the trees, a skywalk proposed to decongest the busy Ranganathan street may merely end up creating new infrastructure that most residents deem unnecessary. A  safety hazard in the making When one talks of encroachment of public places, T Nagar stands as a prime example. Ranganathan Street which is a 30-feet road, has been…

Madras week has not only been a celebration of heritage but also of the people who made the city. Over the years, many who called the city home have achieved remarkable feats in various fields to put Madras on the global map. One among  them is the mathematical genius, Srinivasa Ramanujan – The Man Who Knew Infinity. A walk through the Ramanujan Museum was organised this Madras Week by Rajith Nair a travel curator who regularly organizes heritage and cultural trips in Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Pondicherry. The walk was a celebration of the life and times of Ramanujan, who…

Is ‘culture’ and its representation through art galleries ‘public’? This question came to my mind when I recently dropped by the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA) Bengaluru after a gap of 6-7 months. When I attempted to walk in, a security guard stopped me at the gate, and asked me to buy a ticket. Surprised, I enquired if the gallery had started charging a parking fee, and pointed out that I was on foot. He said, “No, no, it’s entry fee. Everyone entering the compound has to pay.” Though he replied promptly, he seemed a bit annoyed. Perhaps other…

Did you know Crazy Mohan and Kamal Haasan met for the first time in a cemetery at St Mary's Road?  Can you even imagine that the Tamil Nadu capital had freezing temperatures during summer in 1815 due to weather changes that happened after Mount Tambora erupted in distant Indonesia? Only five localities in Chennai have a conducive environment for sparrows.  An establishment in Ebrahim Sahib street prints the cardboard tickets once used for travel and they are shutting down soon.  These are just the some of the facts around which questions were posed to participants in a quiz conducted recently…

" City - A city is a large human settlement. Cities generally have extensive systems for housing, transportation, sanitation, utilities, land use, and communication. Their density facilitates interaction between people, government organizations and businesses, sometimes benefiting different parties in the process." (vocabulary.com) Bengaluru has many things to cherish - its beautiful climate, cosmopolitan atmosphere, major IT companies, gardens, lakes and more.  But this article is about another side of Bengaluru, or rather, the real side of Bengaluru. The Bengaluru that has poor traffic management, unplanned layouts, and roads where two cars cannot go at a time. Panathur road exemplifies this side of…

It all started when a Facebook user Sandhya was browsing multiple online gifting sites for Rakshabandhan this year, and came across a website that sold ‘combo’ gift items for siblings. All that was fine, of course, except that there were some products designed and marketed in a way that specifically addressed one of the siblings as an adopted child, and in a manner that many found to be derogatory.  At a time when the concept of adoption is still not very well accepted in our society, the last thing we need is people making fun of an issue that has…

In Part 1 of this series, I narrated how our citizen group surveyed 439 streetlights in Vasanth Nagar this June-July, and identified defective and missing lights. Using our data, we convinced BBMP to take action. BBMP has already fixed nearly half the defective streetlights here, and is expected to complete the rest in another fortnight. Given the condition of streetlights in many parts of Bengaluru, you may want to replicate the survey in your neighbourhood too. During the survey, you can map streetlights either on a Google Map online, or list the details manually in an Excel sheet. I prefer…

It was in April 2018  that a bunch of enthusiasts banded together to make an increasingly chaotic Adyar, a more livable place. This led to a programme called 'Azhagiya Adyar' conducted last year at the KNRA Hall in collaboration with the Namma Ooru Foundation (NOF). The event was a big success and it encouraged the bunch to take the movement to higher levels.  It was around the same time that the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) announced plans to implement source segregation of waste, door-to-door collection and proper disposal by GCC of such segregated waste through composting, bio-methanation, recycling etc. We sensed…

Recent incidents of chain snatching as well as petty theft in our Vasanth Nagar neighbourhood made us realise we needed to do something. There were many dark spots due to the lack of uniform streetlighting -  random gaps between adjacent streetlights, and tree branches covering the light. So, Citizens for Citizens (C4C), a self-help citizens’ forum, decided to carry out a ‘streetlight survey’ in Vasanth Nagar. How are street lights maintained? BBMP has ward-wise contractors to maintain streetlights. If the contractors come to know of a defective streetlight, they may do repairs, but this system is unreliable. BBMP can also…