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This article is supported by SVP Cities of India Fellowship How many people in Bengaluru use Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Company (BMTC) buses, which are perceived to be the lifeline of the city, everyday? BMTC figures say the ridership is 51 lakh. This means BMTC, with its 6650 buses, sells 51 lakh tickets daily from the 70,892 trips it undertakes. Each bus undertakes an average of 5-6 round trips per day. There are demands for increasing BMTC buses. But will more buses help? Look at the city’s roads - the traffic crawls at such a low speed that even walking can…

When Heather Ramaswamy, a resident of Bengaluru, decided to construct her house three years ago, rooftop solar PV was the first thing on her mind. Following days of research over the Internet, Heather zeroed in on an American company. Committing to an upfront cost of Rs 4 lakh, Heather got four solar panels installed on her slanting rooftop and thus began her series of never-ending ordeals. “You think that you did something good for the environment till it backfires on you. We got an off-grid unit, which was supposed to meet our power requirements. We had the on-grid system in…

A recent survey by the Information and Resource Center for Deprived Urban Communities (IRCDUC) has shed light on the precarious living conditions and lack of access to basic services by a majority of homeless children in the city. The city's homeless have long been relegated to the fringes and left to fend for themselves. Efforts to increase the number of night shelters and other services available to them has moved at glacial pace. Understanding the services available and availed by the urban homeless, especially children, becomes vital to improve facilities and service delivery. The IRCDUC survey examined eleven parameters including…

It has been six years since Bengaluru’s waste management mess was brought to the notice of the High Court of Karnataka through a Public Interest Litigation, by Kavitha Shankar and the Solid Waste Management Round Table team. While the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) has undertaken many measures to help manage waste better, there is lots more that remains to be done. When the PIL began in 2012, the city of Bengaluru was producing about 3,500 tonnes of waste per day, with no waste segregation in place and all waste going to landfill. All mixed garbage from the city was…

This article is part of a special series: Air Quality in our Cities M Karthik, Chennai-based software engineer was mighty pleased when he purchased his 350cc Royal Enfield Classic from a showroom in Anna Nagar. But his excitement was considerably muted when he found out that his make of vehicle was among the highest polluting two-wheelers available. Deeply environmentally conscious, Karthik says, “Had I known that my vehicle emits such a lot of greenhouse gases, I would have changed my decision.” But how would he know? Is there really a way for vehicle owners to gauge the emissions from the…

The Union government launched the Smart Cities programme on June 25, 2015 with the objective to "promote sustainable and inclusive cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of ‘Smart’ Solutions". Chennai was one of the 20 cities selected in Round 1 of the smart cities mission in January 2016. Chennai's smart city projects are funded by a Rs 500-crore allocation from the Centre and an additional Rs 500 crore from the state. Chennai Smart City Projects But for all the hype, the Corporation of Chennai…

With Urban India alone generating a gigantic 1.5 lakh metric tonnes per day of Municipal Solid Waste, waste management has grown to become a huge burden in urban India. Despite the existence of strong laws -- Solid Waste Management (SWM) Rules, 2016 and Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016 -- cities are stuck at the implementation level. Now, a new report shows that while smaller cities have done a good job of complying with the major clauses of key environmental legislation, larger cities including Bengaluru and New Delhi are yet to satisfy the basic mandate of waste management: source segregation, or in…

Elections held in 222 of the 224 assembly constituencies in Karnataka on May 12, 2018. https://opencity.in/data/karnataka-assembly-elections-2018-all-state-mla-winners-list-live-update Assembly wise results: Karnataka Assembly Elections 2018, All State MLA Winners List

Citizen Matters and Open City, our open data initiative has been sharing information and data about incumbent MLAs with their track record, candidates and details of past elections. This map gives you an easy way to check your constituency and candidates contesting elections.  A quick analysis of Bengaluru Assembly Constituencies Candidates shows: Total 431 candidates in Bengaluru Hebbal has 28 contestants, and an average of 16 candidates per Bengaluru constituency 51 parties and 191 independents contesting. Bharatiya Janata Party and Indian National Congress contesting all seats, JDS in all but Anekal One of the newest parties All India Mahila Empowerment Party is…

It is that season in democracy when every politician talks about "clean politics", and paints oneself clean. But how does the voter know whether one is really clean? One yardstick is to look at the legal cases slapped against them. The existence of a case on a person doesn't mean he or she is tainted or guilty. Sometimes they drag for years. Sometimes cases are slapped for frivolous reasons, and sometimes they are slapped for political reasons. Some cases might get withdrawn, or get decided in favour of the candidate. However, there are serious cases too, which might result in…