GENRE: Voices

Sudarshan Nityananda gives the following contact numbers:   South  Bangalore comes under Mr Ranganathswamy,DCF-BBMP.His number is 9480683842.   His senior is Mr N D Sudarshan who sits in the BBMp premises.His number is 9480684566.   The third person is Sathyanarayana who sits in Utility Bldg,MG Road.His number is 9480683146.   Please contact any of these people if you find trees being cut down in Bangalore.

On the fourth of every month I need to commute from north to south Bengaluru, to unlock my gate for the BESCOM meter reader and collect my monthly bill. The fourth of each month also happens to be designated as bus day by BMTC to encourage citizens to take to public transport to ease traffic snarls on our jam-packed roads. Although I know the rationale underlying the bus day initiative, this is why we commuters abhor bus rides. 1) We waste time, lots of it, and today time is precious. Just covering 14 km, from Sanjaynagar in the north to…

It has been five and a half months since the third time corporator from Congress, B N Manjunath Reddy took charge as the Mayor of Bengaluru. With BBMP budget round the corner and news of property tax hike after seven years making the rounds, the Mayor speaks about some of the issues in BBMP and clears his stand on certain things, in an exclusive interview with Citizen Matters amid his busy schedule. Just six months are left for your term to end. So what is that one thing that you would like to be remembered for as a Mayor of…

While the jury is out on the third Union Budget by Finance Minister Arun Jaitley, one aspect stands out: it brought little news, either good or bad, for cities. However it is important to note that budgets are not essential for the city level expenditures. The provision relevant for cities such as public health, land tenures, local government, etc fall under the State List of Indian Constitution. In the case of Bengaluru, it is the Karnataka State budget or the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike budget that has more impact on the ground than the Union Budget. Having said that, the…

T N Seetaram is a well-known name in Kannada literary circles, and popular for his TV soap operas that had progressive outlook and strong women characters. He recollects a time in Bangalore’s history, when there was no traffic and chaos, and there was no BDA too. BDA was formed on January 6, 1976 - exactly 40 years ago. In the seventies, I was living in my friend's house, as a tenant, in Swimming Pool Extension near Malleshwaram. The owner of the house, the father of my friend Krishnamurthy, never used to collect rent from me, more because of his affection…

If the dogs of Whitefield could talk, they would have quite a story to tell. Every night, over a hundred dogs in the area lie in wait to be served dinner. Rice, chicken bones, mutton fat and turmeric, sometimes vegetables - all cooked together to make a delectable meal. Perhaps with the addition of a few spices, dinner could actually pass off as biryani, ready to be served to humans too. And it doesn't stop at food alone. An injured dog can expect to be nursed back to health. Unspayed ones are neutered and set back on the streets. What’s…

On a highway leading to a cold, cold city, a two-wheeler rider was mowed down by a speeding lorry on a hot morning. He pleaded for help, without even realising that his body was torn into two pieces. That he donated his organs even in such a painful situation while he counted minutes for his own death, is history now. How do we know all these? Because we had most conclusive proof—a video, circulated over internet and on TV channels. The incident happened in Nelamangala highway. Reports say the ambulance reached him in eight minutes, and he was alive for…

There isn't any water left in river Cauvery to draw, for the use of ever-expanding city of Bengaluru. How do we, then, get water to drink? Here is a plan - creating another Cauvery for the city. Matthondu Cauvery Related ArticlesNo Cauvery water, no water problems. But that was thenWhy Cauvery Stage IV water has reached Bangalore, but not your home

"Better than nothing" is not progress. It's just better than nothing. If we set our metrics so low, we can never develop. Take the example of buses. The city needs about 13,000 to 15,000 buses to reach the kind of service levels that are seen in places with excellent bus service globally (1,250 buses per million of population). Also, each year, as the population grows, the fleet strength has to grow by about 200-300. That's the need. The actual fleet strength now is 6,500. And each year, 600 buses are scrapped, so these need to be replaced to keep the…

Dear Government of Karnataka, Of late, there has been a lot of hand wringing over the traffic congestion. Various solutions are being proposed by citizens claiming to be experts, advisors and well wishers. Most of these solutions revolve around adding extra asphalt, at grade, overhead and underground. India's Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari summarised this predicament clearly when he said, in a recent event “I added 55 flyovers in Mumbai thinking it will solve traffic congestion, but it hasn’t solved anything”. Recently, however, there has been a growing realisation that Public Transport is the most efficient way forward. So the focus…