GENRE: In Focus

Cubbon Park is one of the last lung spaces left in the city, where one can find fresh air and green area. Pic: Shree D N Disappearing lakes, chopped trees and encroachment of open spaces are the unfortunate reality of today’s Bengaluru. This means, in a few decades, Cubbon Park may well be among the last vestiges of greenery in the city. However, given the frenetic pace of ‘development’ and the varying combinations of unethical nexuses that thrive in Bengaluru, who knows, one day, as Bimal Desai, who waged a 20-year legal war against the authorities to protect the park,…

A few rickshaw drivers in the auto stand on Mohankumar Nagar Main Road point towards a shelter for homeless children in Pampa Nagar, when asked where the night shelter in Yeshwanthpur is. No one in the locality of Mohankumar Nagar seems to know that there is a night shelter for the homeless in their area. This is not without reason. After asking around and finally spotting 3rd cross road on Google maps, we manage to find a nondescript building that has ‘16, 3rd cross, Mohankumar Nagar’ written on it, but there is no mention of it being a shelter for…

For Bengalureans, who were getting soaked in frequent evening showers during last fortnight, unbridled load shedding came as a shocker. Load shedding that began with two hours of power cut everyday, was revised to four hours. Load shedding has been withdrawn as of now and people are yet again enjoying non-stop power supply, but the apprehension continues to loom large. Long time residents of Bengaluru felt that it was almost after a 5-6 years they were facing such an inordinate power cut in the city. Normally, monsoon season, that is, June to September, is considered as pressure-free period due to…

Bangalore Development Authority Headquarters (courtesy: BDA) A large scam emerged in the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) with finance members investing money in equity mutual funds and trying to cover this up across different organisations. There were mysterious arrests of ex-BDA officials and a BDA cashier, alleging their involvement in the multi-crore scam. What is it all about? Whose money went where? The money was allegedly invested in mutual funds, which is recoverable. Why is this still called a scam? Here's some insight. Apparently, Sandeep Dash, former finance head of the BDA and the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation (BMRCL) was a…

A room filled with bunk beds in the dilapidated Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) building in J C Road is the home for daily wage labourers Yesu and Raj Kumar since four years. Be it sun or rain, this dingy structure provides shelter to them and many such homeless people when they return tired from work. The story of Yesu and Raj Kumar is interesting for it reflects the sad state of night shelters for urban homeless in Bengaluru. In 2012, when BBMP handed over the responsibility of operating J C Road night shelter to an NGO, the organisation hired…

Sides are covered on Mysore Bank circle skywalk. The narrow footpath forces pedestrians to walk on the road. Pic: Shamala Kittane Subramaniam This is the skywalk at the Mysore Bank Circle on Kempegowda Road in Bengaluru. It has an elevator and is well-lit. However, the sides of the skywalk path are covered, so the insides are not visible from the road. People who need to head from or towards Kandaya Bhavan struggle to cross this part on the footpath, because a large part of the footpath is occupied by the skywalk base. Harish, an employee at Kandaya Bhavana does not…

 Editor's note: Analysing 590 affidavits from three major parties is a gigantic task. We could analyse only 240 of them. Here are the highlights of our partial analysis. If you have analysed affidavits and have noted anything of importance, do mail us at edit (at) citizenmaters (dot) in.Majority of the candidates contesting this BBMP election from three major political parties - BJP, Congress and the JD(S) have one thing in common. A large number of them are less educated, but are stinking rich. When Citizen Matters looked into the affidavits of candidates from BJP, Congress and JD(S), from 84 wards…

Citizens of Mahadevapura and East zones, including Bellandur and Whitefield area are up in arms against the system that surrounds them. They pay taxes every year, but the infrastructure around them is broken. They have to fight with the system everyday for everything: good roads, clean water, garbage disposal, pollution, traffic problems and more. There is a good amount of citizen activism in the area where there is a presence of well-educated people employed in various corporates. However, the issues don’t get sorted as quickly as they should. This brings us to the question: how did a part of the…

Pic: Subha Priya On June 29th 2015, a performance audit on Conservation and Ecological Restoration of Lakes under the jurisdiction of Lake Development Authority (LDA) and Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) in Karnataka by the CAG of India was tabled in the Assembly. The report brought into focus many of the ignored facts about lakes in the city and the state. This 75-page-long performance audit covering the period 2009 to 2014 highlights the deterioration in ecological health of lakes as well as issues among the institutions of management and governance of lakes. This audit scrutiny covers 56 lakes selected by adopting…

Talk about the Bangalore’s environment issues and most fresh on our minds are incidents involving lakes in the city, unabated and one after another. Be it the National Green Tribunal (NGT) pulling up companies for large scale construction between two lake beds, Bellandur lake on fire, foam build up on polluted Sarakki, Bellandur and Varthur lakes or actions like clearing ‘encroachments’ on lake beds; the state of the lakes and the environment makes us wonder how our city reached such new lows. Various studies have shed light on the fact that while urbanisation led to environmental degradation, the rate has…