GENRE: LN

One of the older and more populous neighbourhoods, T Nagar is at the focus of several initiatives under the smart cities mission in the city, with many of smart city projects dedicated to its improvement. However, in a case of what is called missing the forest for the trees, a skywalk proposed to decongest the busy Ranganathan street may merely end up creating new infrastructure that most residents deem unnecessary. A  safety hazard in the making When one talks of encroachment of public places, T Nagar stands as a prime example. Ranganathan Street which is a 30-feet road, has been…

In Part 1 and Part 2 of this series, we looked at the conflict between the BBMP and the state government on allowing advertisement hoardings in Bengaluru. While the former is pushing for a blanket ban on commercial hoardings, the latter wants to allow hoardings. In this part, we explore whether the hoarding ban proposed by BBMP is justified. What is BBMP's revenue from ad hoardings? As per the advertisement scam unearthed by K Mathai, former BBMP Assistant Commissioner (Advertising), the BBMP had lost advertisement revenue of around Rs 2000 crore between 2005 and 2015. This was mainly because of…

In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the tussle between BBMP and state government on allowing advertisement hoardings in the city. Last year, the BBMP Council passed draft bye-laws that ban commercial hoardings. But the state government's UDD (Urban Development Department) recently framed its own Rules that allow hoardings. It's still unclear which of these laws would prevail. The High Court recently upheld the BBMP bye-laws at a PIL hearing, but the final judgement is pending in the case. And the UDD continues to insist on implementing its own Rules. In this part of the series, we look…

For a while, Bengaluru has been sporting skeletal metal frames where glossy advertisement hoardings once stood. The city had been stripped of its hoardings after the BBMP Council passed a resolution last year, banning these. The Council also passed the draft Outdoor Signage and Public Messaging Bye-laws, 2018, that would ban all commercial hoardings. But the state government wanted to allow hoardings in the city, which led to a tussle between the government and BBMP. State government's UDD (Urban Development Department) even published a separate set of laws - the BBMP Advertisement Rules, 2019 - this July 15th. These Rules…

City to get air purifiers  About 500 air-purifying devices will be installed at various traffic-heavy junctions in the city, to reduce vehicular pollution. A memorandum of understanding was signed by the BBMP with the software firm aTechTron, which will begin to install the purifiers from the second week of September. About 100 air purifiers will be installed over three months in the first phase. The entire project will be completed within the next year-and-half. At more traffic-heavy junctions such as Silk Board, Marathahalli and Bellandur, more than one device will be installed. The devices are made with patented technology. They…

Did you know Crazy Mohan and Kamal Haasan met for the first time in a cemetery at St Mary's Road?  Can you even imagine that the Tamil Nadu capital had freezing temperatures during summer in 1815 due to weather changes that happened after Mount Tambora erupted in distant Indonesia? Only five localities in Chennai have a conducive environment for sparrows.  An establishment in Ebrahim Sahib street prints the cardboard tickets once used for travel and they are shutting down soon.  These are just the some of the facts around which questions were posed to participants in a quiz conducted recently…

There are indications that air pollution is contributing to premature deaths from cardiovascular disease in people under 40, said Dr Rahul Patil, interventional cardiologist at the Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research. Dr Patil was speaking at the India Clean Air Summit 2019 (ICAS19). “Inhalation of particulate matter is leading to thickening of blood, with patients often showing clinical behaviours of a smoker although they are non-smokers,” he said. ICAS19 was hosted by the Centre for Air Pollution Studies, CSTEP, in partnership with the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB) and the state government's Department of Forest, Ecology and…

Protest against garbage dumping at Bellahalli landfill On Wednesday morning, residents around Bellahalli landfill stopped BBMP's garbage trucks from dumping waste there. Since the last three years, Bengaluru has been dumping waste here. The landfill has become a serious threat to the health and well-being of residents nearby, especially during monsoons, the protestors said. As the protest continued, BBMP used police force to resume waste dumping on Thursday afternoon. D Randeep, BBMP Special Commissioner (Solid Waste Management), said that the protestors had blocked over 300 garbage-laden trucks. Later, BBMP's entire fleet of 450 trucks was sent on a second trip to collect…

BBMP has, for the first time, drafted bye-laws on Solid Waste Management (SWM). Aiming towards complete waste segregation, the bye-laws define eight different streams of waste - wet, dry, sanitary, non-recyclable, non-biodegradable, domestic hazardous, construction and demolition waste, and slaughterhouse waste. It defines specific strategies for processing each of these. The draft bye-laws also prescribe steep penalties for offences such as burning or not segregating waste, for violating the plastic ban, and so on. D Randeep, BBMP Additional Commissioner (SWM), says the penalties have been increased by five times. The bye-laws also have new provisions such as door-to-door collection of e-waste,…

Globally, air pollution reduces life expectancy by one year and eight months, on average. This loss ranks just below smoking, but above unsafe drinking water and lung cancer (State of Global Air report, 2019). Emissions from increasing vehicular population, and residential and commercial activities, are polluting even the air far from the source, and affecting the health of millions of people. Lack of scientific methods to assess pollution, inadequate data and analysis have further hampered policy efforts to improve air quality in Indian cities. The Center for Study of Science, Technology and Policy (CSTEP), a leading research-based Indian think tank,…