EDITORS' PICK

An old saying goes “it is better to side with the devil you know than the devil you don’t”. To me that seems the only reason for Bengaluru’s voters resisting whatever wave swept the rest of the state. Only in Bengaluru did BJP retain the 2018 number of 16 seats, even as it got washed away everywhere else. There are analyses aplenty in the media and the internet on how and why the BJP lost the state so badly. You can draw your own conclusions from them. Maybe India needs a new Long March revolution to get out of the…

Anyone who has visited a government office to obtain certificates or documents is aware of the daunting process it entails. With the aim to cut out long queues of disgruntled visitors, e-sevai centres were launched across the state in 2006 to provide IT enabled-services to the public. This came long before the formulation of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP). Despite the pioneering move, government-run e-sevai centres in Chennai face myriad issues that prevent their effective functioning.  Working of public and private e-sevai centres in Chennai According to the Tamil Nadu e-governance agency, around 92 different kinds of services are provided…

By now you may have cast your vote and got back home. Did you find it easy to make a choice? I did not. The other day, my friend Sanjay Vijayaraghavan, a long-time voter in Bengaluru, looked at the list of candidates in his constituency and groaned, "None of them look inspiring." He was not alone. There were groups discussing the pros and cons of NOTA due to the lack of appealing choices. Frustration with the quality of MLA candidates The quality and rhetoric of campaigns over the last few elections have not improved. Rather than presenting long term and…

Political pundits always insist that voting is our sacred duty, and all voters must vote. They say that if the voters turn out in large numbers, it will force the political parties to promise more in their manifesto, and also strive harder to fulfill those promises. Complete coverage on Karnataka Assembly Elections 2023: Information that you will need to make an informed choice This view is too simplistic, and does not look at the democratic process beyond the election.   Firstly, just the existence of a nice-looking manifesto does not automatically result in a vibrant democracy. There are no self-correcting forces…

An analysis of BBMP's work order data over the last five years shows 74% of funds were meant for roads and drain works. From "Remodelling of stormwater drains, culverts-bridges and allied works" to "White Topping on selected roads" - the packages range from a few lakhs to many a crore. Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), Bengaluru’s city government, administers an area with a population of around 12 million and has a budget of around Rs 11,000 crore as of 2023-24. In spite of its massive expenditure on civic works, BBMP is often in the news for all the wrong reasons,…

It had been more than a decade since I had travelled by myself in an MTC bus. I was able to do so on my own with my wheelchair when low-floor buses were trialled in Chennai in February. As per a Madras high court direction, low-floor, accessible buses were taken on a trial along various routes in Chennai. The buses that run on Chennai streets at present are not accessible for any persons with disabilities. Almost all the buses are three feet in height, with a four-step approach. This meant that no person with disabilities was able to access the…

Health was in much focus for the last three years due to COVID-19. The governments seemed to take some initiatives towards providing some care for the people during the pandemic. But if there was some hope that the political class would give healthcare enough attention, then this has been belied with the political class going back to business as usual. COVID-19 will not be the last pandemic, given the extent of environmental destruction and increase in human-animal conflict. But, sadly, we, as a society, have not learnt our lessons from COVID-19 and have not invested in the health of the…

Waste activist Odette finds streets littered and garbage piles everywhere during her morning walks in Domlur. Nagraj, also known as Plog Raja ,continues to organise weekly clean up drives. More than 12 years after the SWM PIL got BBMP to start implementing decentralised waste management, why does Bengaluru still have garbage piles everywhere? Why do we continue to rely on illegal dumping grounds? What has the state government done in the last five years? A recap of solid waste-related developments in the recent term: Mushrooming black spots across the city (service roads, below flyovers, lake beds, storm water drains )…

The Merriam Webster dictionary’s definition of the word ‘manifesto’ is “A written statement declaring publicly the intentions, motives, or views of its issuer”. Do the manifestos released by the four main political parties contesting the May 10th Karnataka assembly elections fit that definition? The intentions are somewhat spelt out, the motives are unknown. And its views on issues like decentralisation, of urban governance in particular, finds no mention at all. The tradition of issuing “manifestos” began with the first election in 1952. But those were different and simpler times with one major party, which faced no worthwhile opposition. But today’s…