GENRE: Explainers

The long-pending Peripheral Ring Road (PRR) has turned controversial for its environmental impacts and lack of transparency. The project would lose Bengaluru over 33,000 trees, including in the Thippagondanahalli Reservoir catchment and in reserve forest areas. On Wednesday, September 23, the Deputy Commissioner of Bangalore Urban District will hold a public consultation (webinar) on the project's environmental impacts. BDA (Bangalore Development Authority) is implementing the project, and its Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) report is available online. Here are details of the public hearing and how you can attend it. Do the environmental impacts of the PRR justify the project? Will…

Sample this: In a few years, people living in busy, congested neighbourhoods like Velachery, Mylapore, Tondiarpet will have safe and vibrant streets with spaces demarcated for walking, cycling, sitting, playing and street vending. Yes, this is how the Mega Streets project will reportedly transform our city. Six consultants have been roped in to redesign selective locations in Phase I of the project. But what is the project all about? Here is what we know about it till now. What is the Mega Streets project? This project aims to transform all the arterial and sub-arterial streets in the neighbourhood with three…

Translated by Sandhya Raju சென்னையில் செயல்படும் வீட்டு வேலைக்கு ஆட்களை அனுப்பும் ஒரு நிறுவனத்திடம் ₹4500 செலுத்தியுள்ளார் வெட்டுவாங்கனியை சேர்ந்த அஷோக் ராஜ். பணம் செலுத்திய பிறகும், ஆள் வராததால் தொடர்ந்து நிறுவனத்தைஅழைத்தும் பலனில்லாததால், தான் ஏமாற்றப்பட்டுள்ளதை உணர்ந்தார். இதே போல் பல ஏமாற்று வேலையில் இந்நிறுவனம் ஈடுபட்டு வந்ததை அறிந்த அஷோக், தன்னைப் போல் ஏமாற்றப்பட்ட பிறரை தொடர்பு கொண்டார். அனைவரும் ஒன்றிணைந்து, அந்நிறுவனத்தின் மேல் மோசடி / மோசடி குற்றச்சாட்டுகளின் கீழ், ஜே8 நீலாங்கரை காவல் நிலையத்தில் புகார் அளித்தனர். இது ஒரு "கடுமையான குற்றம்" என்று கருத முடியாது என்பதால் புகாரை பதிவு செய்ய அதிகாரிகள் முதலில் தயங்கினர். இதனை தொடர்ந்து அடையாறு துணை காவல் ஆணையரிடம் அஷோக் புகார் அளித்தார். Justdial.com நிறுவனத்தில் பதிவு செய்திருந்த குற்றம் புரிந்த அந்நிறுவனத்தை துணை காவல் ஆணையரின் வழிக்காட்டுதலின் படி, கைது செய்தனர் நீலாங்கரை காவல் துறையினர்.…

Representational image: Ramesh Meda/(CC BY 2.0) Reviewed by Prabhakar Shetty, practising advocate at the Karnataka High Court Before buying any property, you need to investigate all documents provided by the current property owner, and authenticate these with the agencies issuing the documents. There are two kinds of documents to check for — primary and secondary documents of title. Primary documents of title are the most essential as they show the ownership history of the property being sold. Some of the secondary documents of title help corroborate the information mentioned in the primary documents. The other secondary documents help the buyer…

If you are considering buying a home or a flat, always check that the land it is standing on has been classified as 'for residential use'. This simple check can save a lot of hassle later. Pic: Rameshng/Wikimedia Commons Reviewed by Prabhakar Shetty, practising advocate at the Karnataka High Court Buying property in Bengaluru can be confusing and risky - there are multiple authorities for land use approvals, obscure rules, and the finer details are often missed out. In this article, we explain what buyers and investors should know about different land types and the authorities regulating each. Following are…

A dog snuggling up to you, craving belly rubs, can be a real stress-buster, especially when you are working from home and managing multiple fronts. Of the different trends witnessed during the pandemic-initiated lockdown in Chennai, a notable one is an increase in the demand for puppies. “The demand for apartment dogs such as Labrador, Husky and Golden Retriever has increased by more than fifty per cent during the past six months. People from all walks of life are showing interest in buying or adopting a dog,” says Gokulraj Dharmalingam, a dog breeder.  But how many of us know how…

Five months after Metro services were stopped, the BMRCL (Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Ltd) resumed services this Monday, September 7. Metro has undergone many administrative and operational changes on account of COVID-19, but are these enough? What are the learnings from other cities across the globe? Several cities like New York, London and Hong Kong have been successfully operating their mass transit services, with a slew of safety and hygiene measures to curb COVID transmission. New York and London saw passenger numbers in subways plummet when COVID cases rocketed there in April-May. Though cases are still reported from these cities,…

The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report of 2019 indicates that every day, 35 people die due to fire accidents in India, with over half being home fires. Fires in high rises are not very common, but they almost always make it to the media headlines because of the damage they cause. Fire safety in apartment complexes is usually not on the list of priorities of either the builder or the flat owners. This is because fire safety systems do not impact our day-to-day lives, unlike water pipes, lifts, lighting, landscaping, garbage, drainage, etc. When a fire breaks out beyond…

Waterlogging in Mumbai is an annual affair, met with cynicism and apathy. The city’s insufficient drainage system, unsustainable urbanisation, reduction of green cover and natural barriers are enlisted among the top reasons for the floods.  But this information is often too dense or inadequate to understand why citizens can’t spend one monsoon without wading through (and living in) murky rainwater mixed with sewage and solid waste. Citizen Matters explains:   Let’s begin with the topography of the city. Welded together through land reclamation, the city is shaped like a saucer. It has low lines of hills on either sides: Malabar Hill…

“Biomedical waste management was already a big challenge before COVID, and now it’s an even bigger one. One of the most common queries we get from member-apartments is on COVID waste management,” says Vikram Rai, General Secretary of the Bangalore Apartments’ Federation (BAF), a collective of over 500 apartment RWAs (Resident Welfare Associations) in the city. Bengaluru has struggled with waste segregation for long. But improper and irresponsible disposal of COVID waste endangers other citizens, more so waste collectors. If you are in home quarantine or isolation, how should you deal with solid waste? Should you segregate waste, and whom…