EDITORS' PICK

Power can be taken, but not given. The process of the taking is empowerment in itself. - Gloria Steinem. Until T.N. Seshan became the Chief Election Commissioner of India, the public did not know much about the Election Commission and the powers it had. We’ve seen individuals infusing life into public institutions that were seen as ‘weak’ or ‘ceremonial’. I will draw inspiration from such stories to leverage my one year term as Mayor of this great city Bengaluru. My strategy would be to elevate the stature of the Mayor’s office, take up a small but significant set of things…

It was a heartrending sight. People sat or stood in groups watching their belongings being moved into lorries from the houses they had occupied for generations. The houses were being destroyed before their eyes, one by one. On Monday, November 20th, residents of the Thideer Nagar Slum on Greams Road had to vacate their houses under orders of the Corporation, the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board (TNSCB) and the Chennai Rivers Restoration Trust (CRRT). They are among the 603 odd families being moved to TNSCB’s new shelter at Perumbakkam as part of the Cooum River Eco-restoration Project. The TNSCB has…

Contemporary Bangalore or Bengaluru is typically seen as a modern ever-expanding city. Its boundaries stretch in different directions based on intense clusters of development. For e.g., Sarjapur road, Whitefield - Varthur, Devanahalli, Yeshwanthpur - Peenya - Magadi and Kengeri. One such cluster to the city’s north-west is Yeshwanthpur. And often like the other clusters named above, it is seen as “greenfield development” i.e. development of agricultural but uninhabited land. Loss of such land is not seen to be of much value or rather such land is not considered to have any socio-cultural significance or history worth recording. But such an…

Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) has come out with the draft plan for Bengaluru, and has displayed the Revised Master Plan-2031 (RMP-2031) in its website. It's time for interested citizens to understand and decode the RMP and comment in it, raise objections or give suggestions. For starters, read all the chapters – www.bdabangalore.org/TPMRMP2031.html , or http://www.bdabangalore.org/RMP2031.html. The pages are in the high triple digits and it is heavy reading – so it will take time. But it is a necessary first step so that unlike the protests about Padmavati, we are commenting based on knowing about what’s contained in the document. I…

Clause 60 of The Karnataka Municipal Corporation Act of 1976 (KMCA) lists down the power and functions of the Mayor. The powers include: presiding over BBMP council meetings; conducting inspections and directing BBMP Commissioner to implement any resolution passed by the Corporation or the Standing Committees and produce records. Other sections of the Act also delegate more powers to the Mayor like barring a councillor from voting and casting a vote in case of tie while passing a resolution. However, the interesting aspect to note here is that the Mayor does not enjoy any executive powers and is mostly a…

The standard of roads in Chennai city is something that the common citizen is all too familiar with. Newly laid roads last a year at the most, after which some patch work has to be undertaken. Otherwise, a total relay is called for within 2 to 3 years, by which time the whole road surface is battered badly. Thus the lifecycle of a road in Chennai usually stretches from one monsoon to the next. World standards indicate asphalt roads last anywhere around seven years; why, then, are roads in Chennai of significantly lower quality, needing constant repair and frequent relay?…

It’s been close to two years since the first 20 cities were selected under the much talked-about Smart Cities Mission (SCM) of the Government of India, but progress under the mission has been slow. Let us just look at the top five cities. Selected in January 2016, these cities - Bhubaneswar, Pune, Jaipur, Surat and Kochi - are supposed to complete the proposed projects under the SCM by 2021-22. But most of these cities appear to be lagging behind schedule, both in terms of the number of projects completed as well as the works under progress. Surat leads, with works…

In May 2017, members of the Sarjapura Residents Welfare Association (SRWA) initiated a project that turned out to be India’s first crowd-funded tree transplantation exercise. Since the initial months of 2017, scores of huge old trees – some even centuries old, were being axed to clear space for roads to be widened from Dommasandra to Sarjapura and beyond. Local residents couldn’t protest against this road widening, since getting good roads for their travel was indeed crucial for them. However, they could not bear the pain of losing these grand old trees and total annihilation of the lush green cover around.…

Rainwater Harvesting (RWH), an effective solution for flooding and water scarcity, is collapsing in the state that pioneered this conservation model in the country. RWH structures have a nominal presence in many households in Chennai, but rarely ever follow the guidelines that advise harvesting water from the rooftop as well as setback area (around the building). A Rainwater Harvesting Audit carried out by the Akash Ganga Trust for the Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority in 2015 exposed the reality of rainwater harvesting in the city and it’s not something we can be proud of. A majority of households lack RWH structures…

Metro rail projects are fast progressing in many Indian cities, and more are to come. They have been projected as the best solution to cities reeling under traffic jams. Currently eight cities have metro rails, covering a span of about 370 kms. The longest line of 217 kms is in Delhi, and next comes Bangalore at about 42 kms. In these and five other cities, 537 kms of additional metro lines are being constructed. Even more is in the planning stage. This also means huge public spending, as metro projects require investments of thousands of crores. Yet, many studies have…