GENRE: In Focus

Three major incidents of sexual assault/molestation and abuse grabbed headlines in a span of two months in Bengaluru last year. These incidents also triggered public outrage, protests and campaigns demanding justice. However, the limelight slowly faded away with the passing of time. The demands for justice have faded down, with most of the public forgetting the cases. At this juncture, Citizen Matters brings you a brief note on those cases with latest updates. The three cases that were of significance not just for the incident itself, but also due to various angles attached to it, are: 1. Case against IPS…

Pic: Roopa Kulkarni After eating at a restaurant in Gandhi Bazar with his friends, Raghavendra (name changed), a resident of Basavanagudi, kept two currencies of Rs 500 denomination with the bill. The waiter who collected it returned red-faced and blamed Raghavendra as the notes were fake. “I somehow managed to use my debit card, pay the bill and sneak out of the restaurant,” says an embarrassed Raghavendra. Later Raghavendra dropped into Vijaya Bank ATM in Gandhi Bazar with his ATM slip, where he had withdrawn money the previous night. He was sure the forged notes came from this ATM. Without…

44-year-old Seema Rai died in Fortis Hospital on Bannerghatta Road in May 2010, due to complications after a pancreas transplant surgery performed on her. According to latest orders given by the Appropriate Authority and Appellate Authority, the surgery was done without an informed consent of the patient, and without a valid license. Following a five-year-long legal battle over her husband Major Pankaj Rai’s complaint against the hospital to the Appropriate Authority, the Certificate of Registration granted to hospital in March 2010, permitting it to perform transplantation of liver, kidney and homograft, was cancelled.     KMC exonerates the doctors While these…

The police on May 8th 2015, filed a charge sheet against a former senior official of Fortis Hospital, Bannerghatta Road, Bengaluru and a government officer, with reference to a case of organ transplantation, where the patient died after the transplant. P K Davison, the Facility Director of Fortis Hospital on Bannerghatta Road, Bengaluru, and Dr V Raju, former deputy director (Medical) in the Office of Appropriate Authority for Organ Transplantation, Government of Karnataka are the accused in the case as per the charge sheet. The records reveal that the police have charged them with colluding and committing forgery on Fortis…

In 2008, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) rapped the then-Bengaluru Municipal Corporation, BMP, and pointed out they had not put in efforts to ensure segregation of municipal solid wastes at source, which made processing of the waste difficult. The situation did not change even after six years—CAG repeated the observation in their 2014 report. In 2008 and again in 2014, the CAG report points out that the BBMP has no system in place for waste segregation or scientific processing at landfills, which has led to ecological and environmental burden. Biomedical waste is another area of mismanagement. The CAG points…

SEZ project on Agara-Bellandur lake bed. Pic: Pavithra Ashok Kumar The National Green Tribunal (NGT) issued a historic judgment on May 7th, 2015, on the Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project by Mantri Tech Zone Pvt Ltd and another project by Core Mind Software and Services Ltd. Both the projects were being constructed on the catchment area of Agara and Bellandur lakes. The highlight of the verdict was the Tribunal slapping a penalty of Rs 117.35 crore and Rs 22.5 crore to Mantri and Core Mind respectively, for commencing the project before obtaining Environmental Clearance. The Tribunal has also formed an…

The land abutting Sankey lake where an apartment from Mantri Developers is proposed to come up. Pic courtesy: Google Earth No one will miss the pristine forest area abutting Sankey Tank in Malleshwaram, just next to Aranya Bhavan, the State Forest Department building. The cool water in the lake and the woods nearby make the place a walkers’ paradise, with the chirping birds and thriving vegetation. This sight, it looks like will not last longer, with the Karnataka Government losing its appeal in the High Court against the land transaction and the owner of the land ready with a development…

Lather flowing onto the road near Varthur lake. Pic: Murali Govindraju On Wednesday April 29th, Bengaluru made national headlines once again. The reason: rising pollution in Bengaluru’s lakes, a proof for which was the snow-white effervescence seen in Varthur lake. Despite it being a weekday, many young kids, working professionals and old residents of Whitefield-Varthur area turned up near Varthur lake where large volumes of white lather had risen from the lake. After the rains in Bengaluru over the last couple of days, many lakes have started carrying huge volumes of snowy froth. This froth which would have otherwise been…

Hosur Road tops the chart in fatal accidents. The highway extending from Kudlu gate to Huskur gate near Electronic City, saw the highest numbers of accidents resulting in spot deaths in Bengaluru over the last three years. Citizen Matters tried to understand why the accident rate was so high on Hosur Road and what was being done to improve the situation, and hit upon many interesting facts. National Highway hinders city’s traffic 36 out of the 55 fatal accidents in 2014, have occurred on Hosur Road. The area falls under Electronic City Traffic Police limits. The fence between the service…

Over the past 15 years the population of the city has increased more than 2.5 times, from 4 million to close to 10 million, the per capita garbage generation on an average has doubled, from 0.25kg/capita to 0.50kg/capita, and the composition and fabric of garbage has drastically changed, from about 80% compostable organic waste and a great part of the 20% being recyclable, to less than 60% compostable and a great part of the 40% being rejects, that will have to be landfilled because they are mixed waste. This article has been made possible thanks to support from Aruna Green…