development

Students from Azim Premji University, Bengaluru gathered at their campus on September 17th to extend support to the struggle of Narmada Bachao Andolan (NBA). What is happening to the 178 villages in Madhya Pradesh, waiting for rehabilitation even as their lands and homes have been submerged while Sardar Sarovar Dam filled to its full reservoir capacity, is one form of structural violence caused by the State. The student-led meeting was held to show solidarity with the project-affected families, who held a rally in Madhya Pradesh’s Barwani district, demanding opening of the dam gates and rehabilitating the oustees. As Prime Minister…

I do not know which agency thinks that adding concrete structures to every small patch of greenery we have, is "developing" the park. This is in the Mini Forest, in J P Nagar 3rd Phase. The section of the park was looking perfectly all right, when the path was dug up, these concrete platforms getting added, and some kind of construction coming up. Why can we not leave even the tiniest of green patches alone? And where can concerned citizens complain about such unilateral decisions on "development"?

On a road trip to Mysore, I spotted this beautiful old house being demolished:   One can see the beautiful facade of the building (a porch was demolished some years earlier)...and the deer above the window. We seem to be destroying so much...trees, our micro-climate, our water resources, our quality of life, in the mame of "development" which only seems to denote more roads for more motorized transport,or more buildings with glass and air-conditioning. I wonder when we will reach the tipping point?  

Would we choke off our lungs to “develop” ourselves? Certainly, in Bengaluru, we seem to be doing so. One lung is our green spaces, and the other is our lakes. Both are under threat and have shrunk so much in the past few decades that the quality of life in our city has been seriously impaired. Let’s leave trees and greenery aside for a minute, and concentrate on our lakes (or lack of them). From about 1,790 + lakes, we seem to be down to a hundred, and the greed of real estate sharks (fuelled by the very real need…

Residents Welfare Associations across Indira Nagar have been working towards getting rid of the commercial enterprises in the residential streets of their neighbourhood. Members of the RWAs in Indira Nagar 1st Stage and 2nd Stage had filed RTIs last year to figure out if the commercial establishments in their neighbourhood had a valid trade licence, as the Karnataka High Court order states that:  “The BBMP shall not permit or grant any change of land usage in the following areas: Malleswaram, Richmond Town, Vasanthnagar, Jayanagar, Vijayanagar, Vishweshwarapuram, Rajajinagar and RT Nagar. In addition thereto, residential areas mentioned and shown in CDP…

Tinsheds at the EWS quarters in Ejipura were razed to the ground in January 2013. Pic: Karthik Ranganathan The Karnataka Slum Janara Sanghatanegala Okkoota has organised a public hearing on the 28th of January. 12 slums from six districts across the state have been identified to highlight the socio-economic and cultural antecedents of slum evictions, and the untold human cost of evictions especially on children, women and the aged.  Date: January 28th 2016 Time: 10 am to 5.30 pm Venue: Gandhi Bhavan, Shivananda Circle Overall, there will be cases of 12 slums, each with a slum profile, the life experience of…

On the one hand, we have organisations like the Department of Kannada and culture, promoting the use of Kannada, and trying to avoid its being interspersed with words from other languages. On the other, we have the everyday Kannada language, a vibrant and constantly evolving means of communication. However, one wonders if it is Kannada at all, sometimes... here's a message I saw in Adiga's on Kanakapura Road.  Only  two of the words in this message are Kannada? It made me laugh!

Since they have been asked, let me put down my answers to these questions for the record: Why Modi? Why this self-inflicted - and, presumably, on others - two-month personal campaign? Why FB? How did it go? What next? But first, why me? I'm political. I'm consciously political while in conversation, staging a play, writing for the screen or my newspaper column, and even inside the classroom. This means my social life is completely boring to normal people, by normal standards. I keep meeting the same friends of a small personal group, which is often fragmented because even these friends…

Prakash Belawadi. Pic courtesy: Abhinaya Taranga Prakash Belawadi is an artiste and a multi-faceted person who has been working in the fields of arts, culture and media. He is active in the intellectual circles of Bengaluru. He was in the Lok Satta party and contested BBMP elections in 2010. In 2014 Parliamentary elections, he was seen supporting BJP through his Facebook posts. Citizen Matters spoke to Prakash Belawadi, to explore what he, as a supporter of the party in the power in the centre, would expect the government to do. Here are the excerpts: What should be the priority of…

Electronics City on the fringes of Bangalore may be better known as the Silicon Valley of India - home to the likes of Infosys and Wipro - but what fewer people recognise is that it is also a shining example of growth that brought inclusive development in its wake.Governments of the world, NGOs, economists, civil society, school-children, college-professors, and the UNO are all busy trying to figure out a way in which development can take place without marginalizing certain sections of the populace. They've all tried to solve the pertinent puzzle of how we can acquire land for development, and…