GENRE: LN

In January this year, the High Court of Karnataka had ordered that commercial activities should not be allowed in residential areas in Bengaluru. But even after this, BBMP continued to give sanctions in violation of the verdict. Many shops had come up without any BBMP sanctions at all also. Citizen Matters had reported on these violations earlier. Pic: Sudha Narasimhachar However, in a hearing on November 22nd, the court ordered BBMP to submit the list of all such sanctions that it gave in residential areas after the January order. Surprisingly, BBMP informed court that it had cancelled all such sanctions…

The manual ticket counter is functional again at the city railway station, as the e-ticket machines for platform tickets take in only old-five rupee coins, which are not being minted anymore. Passengers have started depending more on the manual ticket counters as majority of them have only new-five rupee coins. This has led to a drastic drop in the printing of tickets by the machines to one or maximum two tickets a week. Pic:author Hariharan Narayanan, who had come to drop his wife at the railway station said: "The city railway station has e-kiosk to dispense platform tickets. It accepts…

It isn't often that you hear voices on the radio talking about Bengaluru's public matters, concerns for the city and the interesting changemaking work going in the city. Even on occasions where you hear a little, it is not at the level of depth you will read in a newsmagazine. Vasanthi Hariprakash.Pic courtesy: NBF. On December 2nd, Sunday, between 9am-10am, M A Saleem, the city's traffic police commissioner and P Manivannan, the head of BESCOM were on the air. They were speaking and responding to questions from noted radio and television journalist Vasanthi Hariprakash. Vasanthi has been hosting this series…

If you have not updated your name in the voter list yet, there is time till December 31st. Though the last date for submitting applications for all 28 BBMP constituencies was December 4th, the date has been extended now. A press release on this, was issued yesterday by the Chief Electoral Officer of Karnataka.The draft rolls had been published earlier on November 5th. This list has been revoked. As per the new schedule, the new draft rolls would be published on December 10th, which will be available on the website http://ceokarnataka.kar.nic.in. Public can also inspect the rolls at the offices…

Feb 2013 The poor rainfall of the past year has resulted in several dry lakes in the city. Speaking to Bangalore Mirror, environment and lake expert Dr Yellappa Reddy explained why lakes were drying up: "All of us are aware that the monsoons failed this time and there is hardly any inflow of water to the lakes. However, lakes situated inside and adjacent to urban localities could have maintained the inflow with recycled water." The lake beds of Dasarahalli Lake and Herohalli Lake have completely dried up. There are only traces of water at Hebbal and Kengeri Lakes. Water levels…

Disabled citizens are struggling to get government issued benefit cards because the offices are situated on higher floors of buildings.  Karvy Technologies has been hired to collect biometric information for the UID project, by the government. One of its centres is located on the first floor of a building at Sampige road in Malleswaram. This centre has no provisions like nurses, elevators or even a ramp to support a wheel chair. Karvy technologies at Sampige Road. Pic: Author Venkatesan has been trying to get an Aadhar card for his physically challenged wife. He said: "I have been in touch with…

The Private Security Agencies Regulation (PSAR) Act, implemented in 2005, does not seem to be fulfilling its purpose. Security guards from a private security firm. Pic: Author According to the Internal Security Division, the licensing authority of the Karnataka government, 1,506 PSAs are functioning in the state. But only 548, or 36 percent, work with a valid license.Applications by 258 security agencies for licenses are being processed, and around 25 applications had been rejected in the six months to Oct. 31.During a one-day conclave organized by the Karnataka Security Services Association (KSSA) on Nov. 24, Bhaskar Rao, he inspector general…

Project Cinema City, a multidisciplinary art exhibition recently concluded at the National Gallery of Modern Art, Bangalore (NGMA) on December 2nd 2012. This project began as an effort to chart the relationship between cinema and Bombay/Mumbai and chronicle the imaginary space where the two converge. It is also a chronicle of Bombay's metamorphosis into Mumbai.I was fortunate to be able to attend a walkthrough conducted by Madhushree Dutta on November 24th. Madhushree is the executive director of Majlis, a rights discourse and inter-disciplinary arts initiative based in Mumbai. As the curator and producer of this project, she has been working…

Ever since the state Election Commission opened up the voter registration for the summary revision earlier this month, the system has been besieged with problems.With the online registration system available this time too, many citizens opted to submit their applications online. As on November 29th, 2,10,020 citizens registered and 1,40,325 submitted their applications online. Many citizens who registered could not submit their forms successfully. Some of them had registered during the earlier window in June, and complain that their application status still says, "Under process". A bunch of assembly constituencies, part of Batch I and II was open for registration…

They began as wishful lamentations that soon turned into hushed whispers transforming eventually into convincing rumours. With all those regular claims about being home to culture, heritage and genteel intellectuals, how is it that Bangalore was missing a multiple day, A-Lister- filled literary fest?The optimists amongst us knew it was only a matter of time. When news of it finally came, Bangalore's very own literature festival, unlike those preceding it, emerged to find a ready audience. Where other literary events have had to slowly build audiences, BLF suffers a large crowd bouncing excitedly on its feet, waiting to be let…