GENRE: Explainers

Having missed every opportunity to get one, I finally went to get my Aadhar card along with my daughter today. For a while now, I've been trying to find the centres where the Aadhar card work (collection of application forms, verification of details, collection of biometrics) is still being done. After having found that a number of centers do not do it any longer, I heard from several people about Karvy (on no website did I get this information, alas!) in Basavanagudi.   The full  address of t Karvy Consultants is: +(91)-80-26621192, 41204350  18004258282  No.51/2, Tkn Complex, Vanivilas Road, Basavanagudi, Bangalore…

The city faces urban floods every year, in rainy season. Here are the numbers you will need to get help, to clear the floods, to clear the fallen trees and to catch the reptiles that lose base and start scouting around in your locality. BBMP Control room numbers Centre nameNumberIPP Centre22660000BBMP office22221188, 22975595South Zone26566362East Zone22975803West Zone23561692Dasarahalli28393688, 22975904Yelahanka22975936Bommanahalli25732447, 25735642Mahadevapura28512300/01Rajarajeshwari Nagar28601851, 28600954 The names and numbers of snake catchers / BBMP wildlife volunteers Sl.  Name Zone Phone No 1Sharath Babu R West 98801088012Druvakumar R South 98862864613Surya Kumar M South 98451252314Mahesh Kumar Bommanahalli 99169689595Shashikumar M South 98450204986Arjun M South 99026004427Yatish U South 99166764208Akshay Kumar M South 98457355199Adil Arif Dasarahalli 988051082410Sreeram V South 966301500011Sanjeev P South 974208433512Vijayababu S South 997248799113Guru South 994515982914Deepak S West 988617939615Nagabhushan Mahadevapura 934124048216Shivaraj S R.R. Nagara 984412378817Spoorthy P East 984453003318Kumar R.R. Nagara 990279471119Saleem Hameed East 998621001520Abhishek S Byatarayanapura 963205050321Arun Kumar Byatarayanapura 900871956822Mohan K Dasarahalli 984508090323Manjunath P Bommanahalli 994523933724Rajesh Kumar M West 903611100725Jayaraj…

What do you generally do when it rains? Curl up on a chair with your favourite book and watch the tiny droplets trickle down the window? Or are you fighting a battle to not reach into your pocket to find that lighter to light a cigarette? Well, if you’re the second kind, we’re here to tell you why you should kick the butt for good this World No Tobacco Day. What’s your reason? “I’m a social smoker”, says Venkat (name changed on request), a 23-year old college student. Smoking gives you a sensation, this becomes addictive”, adds Ashwin Aravind, another…

Real-time information displayed at ITS control room in Shanthi Nagar. Pic: Akshatha M On May 25th at 3 pm, the day Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) launched its ambitious Intelligent Transport System (ITS), the screen at ITS Control Room in BMTC head office was brimming with statistics. One particular screen was displaying a graph with following figures: Buses skipped the stop - 1,470 Deviation - 83 Early arrival - 401 Schedule not departed - 414 Late departure - 852 and Over speed - 644 One click on the “over speed” graph and there pops up another window. It has information…

A huge tree inside the Government high school compound in Malleshwaram. Pic: Shree D N Sanjeev is a musician by hobby and a researcher at Indian Institute of Science, that is full of variety of trees, but he knows the rest of Bengaluru is not a match to his campus and more trees need to be planted everywhere. Amogh Sharma is a native Bengalurean, now working in Chennai. He visits Bengaluru every weekend and feels Bengaluru needs more trees, but does not know what needs to be done for that to happen. Ajay is an engineer working in Bengaluru who…

What is an Occupancy Certificate? A certificate of occupancy is a document issued by a local government agency or building department certifying a building’s compliance with applicable building codes and other laws, and indicating it to be in a condition suitable for occupancy. Obtaining an OC is a requirement under the Karnataka Apartment Ownership Act, 1972. The law says one cannot legally move into a building unless the developer gets an occupancy certificate from the BBMP or BDA. The corporation can ask apartment owners to leave such illegally occupied flats or impose heavy penalties. Occupancy certificate is also required when the buyer applies for…

BBMP Property tax payment cycle is underway. Here's a guide that explains the process and lists the problems, along with the changes introduced this year. Note: This article was originally published on April 18th, and has been updated on May 6 2016, to reflect the BBMP's rollback of zonal classification. Finally BBMP has fixed the system to file property tax. This year there are changes: 1. Change in tariff 2. Change in zonal classifications (Rolled back on Apr 28th) The first one is a regular hike, which had to be done after expiry of every BLOCK period of FIVE years.…

“Don't forget! May 16!” scream the posters. They are quite hard to miss, plastered as they are onto every vertical surface in the vicinity of any government building, local corporation school, bus shelters, trees or any random wall left standing. Election fever has the state in its grip and the media is full of the campaign trails of the main parties contesting for the 236 seats in the TN legislative assembly. The results will be declared on May 19th and the party that has won a majority of 118 seats will take charge of the state legislative assembly. For old…

This document details about the struggle an apartment community had to face and eventually how they got the khatha. It also list out few suggestions for getting khatha faster and in a transparent way. The apartment falls in Mahadevpura constituency and Bellandur Ward in Kasavanahalli area. ARO office for the apartment complex falls in Marathahalli BBMP office and JC/DC office falls in Mahadevapura BBMP office. May 2015 i.We did the groundwork of understanding the khata process from Citizen Matters post, BBMP site and Sakala website. Below are the links that I referred. Citizen Matters article: Citizen Matters BBMP Site: http://bbmp.gov.in/khatha-services Sakala…

Swacha Graha is a citizen-driven campaign initiated by the Solid Waste Management Round Table Bangalore to address Bengaluru’s garbage woes. The campaign challenges you to make you look at the waste you generate as a resource, just by starting three green spots. What are the three green spots? Green Spot 1: Your composting spotGreen Spot 2: Your garden where you use your compostGreen Spot 3: Your kitchen, where you cook with vegetables and greens from your garden How is Green Spot 1 beneficial? Composting is a smell-free, non-messy process which will reduce your carbon foot print. 60% of the waste…