GENRE: Voices

Part 1 of Chapter 11: Steal Proofing Part 2 continues... These are the realities of the Indian street that are often ignored by city planners and those who want a better city. Seemingly simple things that work overseas (like trash cans) don’t work well in India. McDonald’s tried its best on Brigade Road, Bangalore – and installed some 30 large fibre-glass dustbins, costing about Rs 2,000 ($40) each, and branded with their Golden Arches logo. They lasted barely a few weeks. Some were vandalized, some caught fire from tossed cigarette butts, many were stolen, and soon none were left. Many…

During the week that the newspapers carried reports about proposed curbs on lavish weddings, coincidentally, Jaya and Valli came to me announcing weddings of daughters in their families. Jaya works as cleaning maid at two commercial establishments in south Bengaluru. Valli is a roadside flower seller. Both are of course, indigent, leading a hand-to-mouth existence. Jaya’s 16-year-old grand daughter Asha used to work in a clothes shop but when her mother (Jaya’s daughter) was diagnosed as suffering from kidney failure and it was clear she would not survive for long, Jaya decided that Asha should be married off while her…

The past 4 days (from Saturday onward) have seen a disruption in the services of HasiruDala, owing to another protest at Karnataka Composting Development Corporation, KCDC (our destination for wet waste). The city is in strife, with the order to close the Mandur landfill site, and internal challenges at KCDC. The KCDC muddle has resulted in the waste smelling in the wee hours of morning and night, and is causing hassles for the peripheral residents. However, the only possible way out is in improving the systems at KCDC, and this is being pushed for in every possible manner. In the…

X and V are not finished yet. The basic rescue act is over and the initial impact has been made. Their mission is to find a permanent solution to a decades-old problem, not just beautify a street corner for a feel-good photo-op. It would be a failure if the dump just shifted to the next orphan spot, to the next point of least resistance. V & X are very conscious of this, and have worked out a plan. For a start, they have made friends with all the security guards in the area. All commercial areas have security guards – who are…

Traffic on Mysore Road. Pic: Google Maps I am an ordinary citizen of Bengaluru who travels all the way from Rajarajeshwari Nagar to Sarjapur Outer Ring Road for work every day. I almost travel 50 kms each way. On the way, I see that more than 50% of jams are purely because of someone flouting the rules. I thought I must present my thoughts to see whether some problems can be solved. 1.       For example, the Rajarejshwari Arch bus stand on the Mysore road is at a traffic trisection, which creates so much of confusion, at all times of the…

Since they have been asked, let me put down my answers to these questions for the record: Why Modi? Why this self-inflicted - and, presumably, on others - two-month personal campaign? Why FB? How did it go? What next? But first, why me? I'm political. I'm consciously political while in conversation, staging a play, writing for the screen or my newspaper column, and even inside the classroom. This means my social life is completely boring to normal people, by normal standards. I keep meeting the same friends of a small personal group, which is often fragmented because even these friends…

Property tax rates are very low. Yes, I said low  I know it is not a popular thing to say, but it's the truth. In Bangalore, we pay about 0.06 per cent of the value of a residential property in annual taxes, slightly more in some cases. In Seattle, just to pick a random point of comparison, the tax rate is between 0.8 and 1.1 per cent per year. That's 14 to 19 times higher. Council tax in the UK is in the same range, maybe even higher. There's an old saying that if you pay less (peanuts) you'll get…

Prakash Belawadi. Pic courtesy: Abhinaya Taranga Prakash Belawadi is an artiste and a multi-faceted person who has been working in the fields of arts, culture and media. He is active in the intellectual circles of Bengaluru. He was in the Lok Satta party and contested BBMP elections in 2010. In 2014 Parliamentary elections, he was seen supporting BJP through his Facebook posts. Citizen Matters spoke to Prakash Belawadi, to explore what he, as a supporter of the party in the power in the centre, would expect the government to do. Here are the excerpts: What should be the priority of…

Media has been asking what Bangalore BJP MPs can do in new government, especially since the MPs are from the ruling party. Two things come to mind.(a) Make the Commuter Rail project happen. This has been pending for so long, and for such flimsy reasons that it is a shame that we are the only metro without suburban rail connectivity. Over half a million people will benefit daily, and it will also lessen the load on the city. If we also figure out how to create a second airport in the south (between BLR and Mysore) and a new railway station…

  Elections are over, and every political leader is in an introspective mode. Citizen Matters spoke to Prithvi Reddy, leader of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) from Karnataka, to understand his views on the results and the way forward for the party in Bengaluru. What is your take on the election results? I don’t think there is much to be said. It has been nothing short of a tidal wave or tsunami. It just washed away everything in sight, and that includes bad politics and good politics. And I think we need to recognise it and first congratulate the BJP-led NDA.…