GENRE: LN

The BDA tender makes it mandatory to leave some space to make the skywalk path visible from beneath the road. Pic: Shree D N The Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) wants to improve pedestrian experience on Outer Ring Road by building 25 skywalks. However, the plan has hit a deadlock, after there were no bids or expressions of interest put up by anyone for the tender to construct 23 of these. Jayashankar Reddy, Executive engineer, BDA, told Citizen Matters that no applications were made for the tenders the BDA had called for, to construct pedestrian these pedestrian skywalks. The BDA plans…

High Court asked the LDA to come up with a plan for restoration of both the lakes, and hold meetings of authorities, builders and the residents. Pic: Shree D N Koramangala 1st Block Residents Welfare Association who had filed a writ petition against Bellandur-Agara Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project at the Karnataka High Court, have withdrawn the case on Wednesday. However, the division bench of the High Court has given petitioners the liberty to refile the case, after a similar case which is before the National Green Tribunal (NGT) is disposed. Nitin Seshadri from Koramangala 1st Block Residents Welfare Association…

A background Schools play an important role in keeping our environment clean. One important step in this process is educating students and the wider community about reducing the amount of resources consumed, so that we do not needlessly throw used material into garbage bins.  For this waste ultimately lands up in street corners, lakes, forests, outskirts of the city and in village grazing pastures and farmlands causing massive pollution and creating major public health hazards. While each of us can do a lot in making schools less wasteful, better results are achieved when the whole school makes a commitment to minimizing…

World over, June 5th is celebrated as World Environment Day. It’s that time of the year when people across the world come together to talk about the environment and how we need to make a change today, so we can help nurture the planet for tomorrow. In Bangalore, nothing could have said it better than the Parisara Habba. Organised by the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), the Parisara Habba, or the Festival of the Environment, is a two-day event held on June 5th and 6th at Kanteerava Indoor Stadium. While KSPCB does organise the event almost every year on…

Bellandur Buzz… Issue # 37 Date: 5th June 2015 This newsletter is brought to you by the citizen group bellandur-forum@googlegroups.com   Eventful Green weekend   Protest against Mantri and Coremind Projects Venue: Footpath next to Ayyappa temple on Sarjapur Road, opposite Agara lake Date: June 7th, Sunday Time: 9:30am – 11:30 am Please turn up in large numbers and show that you care about the biggest lake and the lifeline of Bengaluru. Sign the petition and read the history of the project at https://www.change.org/p/karnataka-govt-please-stop-agara-sez. Please bring your own water and hats. Parking next to Agara lake service road on ORR. Please take…

  For many of us, ‘concern for the environment’ is that green bulb  which our schools effectively fitted at the back of our heads. It glows whenever we urinate under ‘Do not urine here’ murals or someone goes ‘thoop-splat’, staining a wall with red paan. Maybe when someone asks us to segregate, and we think that it is the most challenging thing to do, or when we walk past a water tanker which has water spilling out. This will in all likelihood continue happening, until one day the bulb fuses and the most convenient thing to do will be to…

On June 1st, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) unveiled a new washing machine for its buses. Built in-house at the Bangalore Central Division (Shanthinagar) depot, KSRTC claims that the new machine is the first of its kind in India. The machine was inaugurated by KSRTC Managing Director, Rajender Kumar Kataria. As per the press release shared by KSRTC, the new washing machine offers quite an upgrade on the earlier washing process.   The new system comes fitted with six brushes on either side, for improved quality of washing. Only two brushes were used to wash the vehicles in…

Almost before one knows it, the face of the city changes, and many things belong to the past, and then to history. Here are a few facts that I remember from the late 80s and early 90s; it was still pre-IT Bangalore, a sleepy town, rather than a city (in fact, two towns, the "English" Cantonment and the "Kannada" areas like Basavanagudi, Malleswaram and Jayanagar)... the quality of life was excellent. In Langford Town, there used to be an auction house, it was run by a Mr Pacheco. It closed down by 1988 or 1989... probably because the owner emigrated…

Sampath Ramanujam (fifth from left) and Lingaraj Urs (second from right) alongwith other members of BWRCA. Pic courtesy: BWRCA FB Page Two residents of posh homes in two Gram Panchayats in Whitefield area are gearing up to actively participate in the GP polls scheduled for June 2nd, 2015. This would not have been news, but for the notion that elite people living in gated communities pay least attention to local affairs. With only ten days left for the polling day, two members of gated communities in Whitefield area have filed their nominations to contest the election from Seegehalli and Kannamangala…

Consultation on Draft Waste Management Rules-2015. Pic courtest: ESG. The stakeholders consultation on Draft Waste Management Rules 2015 which was arranged by the Ministry of Environment and Forest (MoEF) in the city on Friday, was called off as the public who were present raised objection over Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) sponsoring the consultation programme. The programme witnessed heated arguments between the public, officials from MoEF and office-bearers of CII. Leo Saldanha from Environment Support Group (ESG) took exception to the CII sponsoring consultation of a draft proposed by the government. “As per the constitutional provisions, the programme should have…