INTERVIEWS

Councillor Murugesan was born and brought up in Semmanchery. His political journey began in 1996. He started off as a Youth Wing Leader with the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). Then he climbed up the political ladder and became a Panchayat Councillor of Semmanchery in 2006 when the area was not part of GCC. This is his second stint as a councillor, representing Ward 200 of GCC. "Yes, very glad to hear that," says A Murugesan, the Ward 200 Councillor of Greater Chennai Corporation. He was on a call when I entered his office. "We won the court case and now…

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Uday Garudachar made his foray into politics in 2008 in Bihar, where he unsuccessfully contested a Rajya Sabha seat. An established name in the real estate and construction business, Garudachar then shifted his political gaze to his home state of Karnataka; in particular to Bengaluru’s Chickpet assembly constituency. As BJP candidate, he lost the 2013 election to R V Devraj. But managed to win in 2018 and now is once again the BJP candidate in Chickpet. His political career has not been without controversy. In October 2022, Garudachar was sentenced to two months imprisonment, the appeal against which is pending,…

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H Nagesh, the Congress candidate from Mahadevapura Constituency, shares why voters should choose him. Hanumappa Nagesh, 64, is the MLA of Mulbagal (Kolar district), winning his first election as an independent candidate in 2018. He says he has performed well in Mulbagal and would like to repeat that in Mahadevapura, where he is originally from. H Nagesh: Government official-turned-politician Nagesh supported the Congress-JD(S) coalition government and became Minister of Skill Development, Entrepreneurship and Livelihood (September 2019 – February 2020).  In 2019, he withdrew his support to the coalition government, along with 16 other MLAs, which then fell. He switched support to…

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As a career bureaucrat, Bhaskar Rao has donned many hats, including that of Commissioner of Police, Bangalore City. He started his political innings with the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in 2022, but after just 11 months switched sides to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). In return, he was given a ticket to contest the Assembly Elections from the Chamarajpet constituency against Zameer Ahmed, a four-time sitting MLA, who also started in Janata Dal (S) before moving to the Congress party.  The Chamarajpet Constituency with seven wards - Padarayanapura, JagajeevanramNagar, Rayapuram, Chalavadipalya, KR Market, Chamarajpet and Azadnagar - houses some of…

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"I came into politics to serve the public," says KV Thilagar, the Councillor of Ward 92 (Mogappair East) in Chennai. Thilagar's family has been in politics for generations. Even before becoming the elected representative, he has been helping the public address their grievances. "I have helped over 2,000 people in my area get their community certificates in the past. It has aided many youngsters in pursuing higher education," says Thilagar. He was a member of the Indian National Congress (INC) but made the decision to contest the urban local body elections as an independent candidate when the party decided to…

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Krishna Byre Gowda, from the Indian National Congress (INC), has been the MLA of Byatarayanapura since the constituency was formed in 2008. As part of his campaign to win the fourth term, he interacted with representatives of apartment associations in his constituency on April 9th. The MLA spoke about his achievements and answered key questions from the constituents. He also shared with Citizen Matters his plans for the next term if elected and his stance on certain important issues. The INC team and KBG, as he is popularly called, stressed multiple times on the MLA’s image as a clean and…

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Indian National Congress' Dinesh Gundu Rao and the incumbent Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) of Gandhinagar met with apartment owners in Gandhinagar on April 8th to listen to their grievances. He promised to devise solutions for the same. The former state Minister of Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs and president of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, has won from Gandhinagar five times in a row. He had called out the ruling party for the crumbling infrastructure in the city and criticised the inaction over pothole-ridden roads. He holds a B.E. in Electronics and Communications from BMS College of Engineering.…

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"I know my identity is much more than bipolar disorder. It is just one part of my life”. Those are the words of US-based scientist Dr Yamini (name changed), who has continues to live her life with conviction, while living with Bipolar. On the occasion of World Bipolar Day (March 30), Citizen Matters interviewed Dr Yamini on how she has coped with life and her illness. And how others can learn to cope with similar conditions. Dr Yamini graduated in Engineering from one of India’s top Indian Engineering institutes, and moved to the US where she completed her PhD. She has…

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Indian cities have long suffered the absence of coherent and consistent policy-making on urbanisation. As a result, they are plagued by governance deficits, inadequate infrastructure, poor land management, unequal access to clean drinking water, repeated bouts of flooding, severe densification of some areas and poor quality of air and public spaces.  For Devashish Dhar, a former public policy specialist at NITI Aayog, these are evidence of Indian cities being a blind spot in planning and policy. In India's Blind Spot: Understanding and Managing Our Cities (Harper Collins India, 2023), Dhar examines historical processes that led to haphazard development of Indian…

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Chennai saw the flood of the century in 2015. Four years on, in 2019, the city came to a standstill as the main reservoirs ran dry and Chennai hit 'Day Zero'. The city's fraught relationship with water has affected the lives of millions with no permanent solution in sight. In an interview with Citizen Matters Chennai, Dr S Janakarajan, the President of the South Asia Consortium for Interdisciplinary Water Resources Studies (SaciWATERs), Hyderabad and former Professor and Director at Madras Institute of Development Studies (MIDS), unpacks the issues with water management in Chennai that has led to both flooding and…

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