GENRE: Voices

The proposed Karnataka Apartment Management Bill, 2026 is an important step towards simplifying apartment governance in the state. By replacing the overlapping provisions of the Karnataka Ownership Flats Act (KOFA) and the Karnataka Apartment Ownership Act (KAOA) with a single legislation, the government has an opportunity to create a more transparent and efficient legal framework for apartment communities. Many of the proposed provisions are likely to benefit homebuyers, apartment associations and developers alike, by reducing legal ambiguity and providing a common framework for the management of residential communities. However, one provision deserves urgent reconsideration before the Bill becomes law. Formation…

In an earlier article, we explored how rural areas surrounding Bengaluru are affected due to the city's expansion. Here, we look at how Bidadi's transformation from a quiet agricultural area to an industrial hub affects the people who call it home. Nestled along the historic Bengaluru-Mysuru corridor in present-day Ramanagara district lies Bidadi, a town whose very name carries echoes of its past. Derived from the Kannada word “Bidara,” meaning a resting place, oral histories recount how the Maharaja of Mysuru once paused here during long journeys between the two cities. In those early years, Bidadi was defined not by…

From the medieval bazaars of Baghdad to the intellectual debates of Paris, to the warmth found in Delhi’s winters, poets, artists, writers, and aficionados have long captured what it means to be in a city, amid thousands of people, synchronising their lives to a rhythm entirely different from their rural counterparts. Life in the city is distinct. It is hard, exciting, liberating, and fast. Regimes are born in cities. Revolutions are ignited in them. India’s history, too, has played out against the backdrop of her many urban centres: Prayagraj, Gangaikondacholapuram, Pataliputra, Hampi, Shahjahanabad, Surat, Meerut, Kolkata, New Delhi, Navi Mumbai,…

Rabindra Sarobar, affectionately known as the "Lungs of South Kolkata," is at a critical turning point. As a designated site under the National Plan for Conservation of Aquatic Ecosystems (NPCA), Kolkata's living ecosystem requires dedicated protection. Authorities are not supposed to use the lake as a commercial revenue generator for municipal expenses. However, the Kolkata Metropolitan Development Authority (KMDA), as the custodian of the lake, has failed to safeguard this beautiful green oasis in the heart of the city. Many Public Interest Litigation (PIL) matters remain pending before the Kolkata High Court and the National Green Tribunal (NGT). Yet, KMDA…

I have my vote in Mahadevapura constituency in Bengaluru. And like the average Indian who has spent a lifetime collecting, photocopying, attesting (self-attesting now), laminating, scanning, uploading, re-uploading and then still being told “sir, one document is missing”, I approached the ongoing SIR exercise with the enthusiasm of a goat being walked past a butcher shop. Government procedures scare me. Not because I am trying to hide anything. Not because I am not sincere. Not because I don’t keep my papers properly. They scare me because no matter how much I try, there is always something wrong. One document will…

Stepping off the Thirumangalam metro at 6.45 pm, the train ride seemed effortless. It was cool, fast, and on time, taking just fifteen minutes from the office. Now comes the hard part. Standing at the station exit, finding a ride home is a struggle, as I switch between three apps to book an auto. The metro feeder bus only runs every 40 minutes and has just left. By the time I reach home, the "fast" metro trip has cost an extra half-hour and ₹120 in surge-priced rides, a last-mile problem the metro itself was built to solve. This is the…

There was a time when Harrington Road was exactly what it was meant to be: a quiet, tree-lined residential avenue, one of Chennai’s older and more established neighbourhood corridors. Families chose to live here because it offered something increasingly rare — space, calm, and a sense of community. Today, that same road tells a very different story. Along an approximately 800-metre stretch now stand eight schools, where there used to be three — three hospitals, three auditoriums, eateries and commercial outlets. Individually, each serves an important purpose. Collectively, however, they have created a level of activity that the road and…

Mahesh* owns a small paan and beedi shop near 90 Feet Road. His family has lived in Mumbai’s Dharavi for 50 years. Over the years, they added additional storeys above their home, a common practice in Mumbai's slums. The rent from these upper floors helps Mahesh care for his ageing parents. Redevelopment would cost him both his shop premises and this vital supplementary income. The Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA) has given the go-ahead for the bioremediation of solid waste at the Deonar dumping yard to free the plot for housing “ineligible” residents (those lacking documentation) of the Dharavi…

Fifteen lakh trees. A place in the Guinness Book of Records. The Bengaluru Development Authority (BDA) has been on overdrive, promoting its new project to plant 15 lakh trees in spaces created in its new layouts. 240 acres have been earmarked across BDA’s faraway layouts. The saplings are to be planted across lake and nala buffer zones, parks and public spaces in new neighbourhoods like Nadaprabhu Kempegowda Layout, Banashankari 6th Stage, and Dr Shivarama Karanth Layout, according to the BDA Chairman N A Haris. While such massive tree plantation exercises are by themselves questionable, there is also the question of a…

Selomi's text arrived at 7 am. "Let's leave by 8.30. The traffic will be brutal otherwise." We both live about 10 kilometres from the government office we had been going to every day for the last two weeks. The nearest metro station is four kilometres from our homes, which means forty minutes to reach it, twenty on the metro, and twenty-five on foot from Vidhana Soudha to the office. An hour and twenty minutes each way, assuming nothing goes wrong. In Bengaluru, something always does. By the end of the second week, we had the routine down. Coffee in a…