GENRE: Voices

RJ Asha from Radio Active 90.4 MHz talks to Jayalakshmi, a cab driver from Go Pink, Bengaluru’s women-only cab service, about the hardships drivers face during lockdown. Jayalakshmi ferries passengers to and from the Kempegowda International Airport through Go Pink, Bengaluru’s women-only cab service. The sudden implementation of the nationwide lockdown had taken her by surprise. Cab drivers across the city were unprepared for this and are now finding themselves in deep financial trouble, she says. Employees of the IT/BT sector have the privilege of working from home and getting paid, but workers like Jayalakshmi are left in the lurch.…

People with disabilities face additional challenges during COVID-19 lockdown. RJ  Manjula from Radio Active 90.4MHz talks to Srinivas Murthy, a first division clerk in the Forest Department who has vision disability, to bring these issues to light. Srinivas Murthy says that the sense of touch plays an important role in the lives of people with vision disability - be it for moving around or doing daily chores. Now, due to the COVID-19 outbreak, they need to be extra wary of the people they approach for help since the latter might be carriers of the virus. While people with disability who…

RJ Padmapriya from Radio Active 90.4 MHz discusses child abuse and mental health during the lockdown with Ashwini N V from the Muktha Foundation, an organisation committed to ‘prevent abuse and promote mental health’. During lockdown, everyone is primarily focusing on social and economic problems, but it’s important to bring issues related to mental health and abuse to the forefront, says Ashwini. Poor mental health of parents, unavailability of alcohol during lockdown, poor economic conditions, unemployment and frustration over not being able to step out are some of the reasons for the spike in child abuse during the lockdown. Parents tend…

RJ Usha from Radio Active 90.4 MHz talks to Azima, a resident of Banashankari, on the effects of water shortage during COVID-19 lockdown. Azima says shortage of drinking water is a key concern in her locality within Banashankari ward. Drinking water is available only once in about three days, and when water is released from the public tap, people crowd to collect it. This sometimes ends even in fights. Residents of this area do not have any other source of drinking water as they have to travel around a kilometre just to buy a Bisleri bottle.  Azima recounts that she…

[In Part 1 of this analysis, I discussed budget figures for 2020-21, and how resource mobilisation of the BBMP can be bettered. This concluding part is on suggestions to improve the finances of the civic body and how that can translate to efficiency.] A major source that the BBMP should tap for revenue -- after property taxes and leasing advertisement hoardings -- is to monetise its real estate through lease and rentals. Revenue from lease and rentals BBMP reportedly owns more than 20,000 properties across the city and most of them in prime locations. The rentals fixed are abominably low…

There is a specific pattern to the spread of COVID-19, one that’s tied to the way in which global supply chains have been built over the last few decades and where people live and work. If the 1918 “Spanish Influenza” epidemic in the past was spread by soldiers returning home from World War 1, urbanisation and globalisation have had a huge say in how COVID-19 has spread across the world. It is also for this reason that it has proved hard to tackle – global supply chains, industries and cities (where more than half of humanity lives) cannot simply be…

Once the lockdown lifts, how do we facilitate Bengalureans’ travel across the city? With the economy coming to a complete standstill due to the lockdown, transport needs as well as options have temporarily reduced to almost nothing. While several companies in the IT and services industry are looking at work-from-home as an option going forward, that will not be the same with manufacturing, bio-technology and establishment sectors.   However, if you look at the employment distribution industries, establishments and street vendors account for about 85% of the total employment in the city.  The big question is once the city opens how…

RJ Radha from Radio Active 90.4 talks to Sreedevi from the Bangalore HIV Forum and Prabhanand Hegde from the Centre for Advocacy and Research (CFAR) and highlights the problems faced by the People Living with HIV (PLHIV) community in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. They discuss solutions being implemented to help the community cope. Sreedevi says the main difficulty for PLHIV is the inability to step out and buy necessary medication during lockdown. To add to this, the people of this community find themselves out of work due to the lockdown, and the prices of the tablets they need…

While I have not witnessed anything like this in my lifetime, as a social scientist and as an entrepreneur I can see that the phobia has gone to another level. And I believe this is because we live in an 'Information Age' where every piece of information is a hyperbole, with global implications. We are overloaded with information, it's driving us insane. It's reducing our sense of wisdom, patience, kindness and empathy. It's making us all information addicts. But that said, the physical reality of it is far scarier. For instance, I stay in a huge, beautiful, green society in…

Karnataka’s Urban Development Department, through the Directorate of Urban Land Transport (DULT), has prepared a draft Parking Policy for Bengaluru city. Citizens can send their feedback on the policy to DULT until May 15. DULT says the policy has been formulated to achieve the following goals in a systematic and time bound manner: Move from chaotic parking to well-organised parkingMove from free parking to paid parkingMove from government-driven parking supply to market-driven parking supply and managementMove from passive and weak enforcement of parking regulations to active management of parking demand. Comments on the proposed parking policy The policy aims to…