Green Spaces

If you’re somewhere around Manyata tech park, you may hear the chirping of birds amidst all the honking and din of heavy vehicles. Adjacent to the tech park, a small internal road will take you to five mini forests, spread across 7850 sq m. All of these have been created by the residents of Manyata Residency nearby. These parks are the only lung spaces in the otherwise traffic-choked, congested area that houses many high-rise apartments and commercial establishments. How it all started As we face the ill-effects of global warming, we need to stop cutting down trees and plant more…

The new chief minister of Maharashtra, Uddhav Thackeray may have granted interim stay pending review on the development of the Metro car shed inside the Aarey forest for now, but the battle to save Aarey – the 4.8 lakh trees that the forest is made up of --  is far from over.  Though work on tree cutting and the Metro car shed inside Aarey was already under a stay ordered by the Supreme Court since the en masse overnight cutting of over 2141 trees on October 5th, the state support for Aarey comes as a huge boost for the Save…

“The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.” This quote from Russian-American author and philosopher Ayn Rand’s bestseller, The Fountainhead, aptly describes everything that happened at Rabindra Sarovar since early morning on November 2nd well into the following day, as an order from the country’s green court -- the National Green Tribunal (NGT) – was brazenly flouted to allow the conduct of Chhat Puja in the Sarovar premises. An earlier story on Citizen Matters had detailed all the precautions and steps that had been taken to protect the national lake from toxic…

The High Court’s recent decision to give ‘itself’ a seven-storey annexe building in Cubbon Park has not gone down well with heritage and environment activists in the city. In an online petition on Change.org, the activists have pleaded to the High Court to revisit its decision and to conserve the lung space of Bengalureans. The petition, started two days ago, has already garnered over 4300 signatures. In a writ petition filed in 2014, High Court Registrar Rajendra Badamikar had sought the court's permission to demolish the Old Election Commissioner's Office in the park, and to build an annexe to the…

Residents and citizen groups of Mahadevapura assembly constituency will stage a protest on Friday 9.30 am, at the Marathahalli Bridge bus stop. The #MahdevapuraDemands protest is called against elected representatives of the constituency for failing to deliver on the promises they had made on restoring civic amenities and making the area liveable. Resignation of elected representatives is one of the main demands of the protestors. The representatives here are Mahadevapura MLA Aravind Limbavali, Bengaluru Central MP P C Mohan, BBMP corporators A C Hari Prasad (Hoodi), B N Nithish Purushotham (Garudachar Palya), S Muniswamy (Kadugodi), S Uday Kumar (Hagadur), Shwetha…

In the far past, afforestation was largely a means to generate income from timber and other products. Today, it is integral to our survival. Loss in green cover and increased concretisation in urban areas has led to cities becoming ‘urban heat islands’, which pose significant threats to not just human populations but also contribute to global climate change. In countries like India that are highly vulnerable to climate breakdown, forests are an integral element towards mitigation. Tree cover of almost 1.6 million hectares was lost between 2001 and 2018 in India - nearly four times the geographical area of Goa -…

A month after it launched the Adopt-a-Street initiative, BBMP has received 35 applications. “Of these, around 17 applications from various RWAs and corporate companies are serious. They are willing to sign an MoU with us and take the initiative forward,” says Randeep Dev, BBMP Additional Commissioner (Solid Waste Management). Adopt-a-Street is a voluntary service initiative under which citizens and corporate houses can adopt specific streets, and maintain them regularly to ensure visual cleanliness. Launched on August 25th, the programme is supported by The Ugly Indian (TUI), an anonymous group of volunteers working for cleaner streets. Dev says BBMP will shortlist…

For the first time ever, the largest of the flamingo species, the Greater flamingos, one of the most widely recognized waders in the world, were spotted in the newly developed Sabarmati river front in Ahmedabad, much to the delight of citizens, especially the birders’ community. “I was delighted when I spotted a huge flock of about 50 flamingos when I went for a walk on the riverfront,” said hobbyist wildlife photographer Vicky Chauhan, a chartered accountant residing just 200 metres from the riverfront. “While we have seen flamingos in areas near Ahmedabad in the Fatewadi area, this was the first…

Many apartment complexes and layouts in Bengaluru have large gardens with flowering plants and trees. A lot of yellowing or dry leaves fall to ground everyday in such gardens, and these are swept away regularly. Hedges are also routinely pruned to maintain aesthetic appeal. This generates significant amounts of garden waste. Many complexes dispose off garden waste to tractor operators, who pick it up, assuring it would be dumped in approved sites. Though these operators charge stiff prices, no one knows where they ultimately deposit the waste. I would like to highlight a better, responsible way of handling garden waste, based on…

“Tiddalick the frog awoke one morning with a great thirst and decided to drink. He drank all the water in the rivers, the creeks, the lakes and the billabongs and there was no water left for other animals. It was only a matter of time before all the animals died.” This aboriginal children’s story from Australia might sound funny and childish. But replace Tiddalick the frog with any of the major cities in the world, and you will get a glimpse of the bleak reality we live in, where we either scramble for a drop of water, or waste it…