OPINION

Despite court orders and civilian protests, the Ward Committees (WCs) were not allowed to function in Karnataka for a long time. Finally, in a weak beginning, a few wards held WC meetings on 1st December, 2018. There are many systemic issues that would not let the WCs function effectively, or bring good governance in the city administration. The following issues need to be addressed as soon as possible: 1)  The WC members do not truly represent the public in the ward: According to 74th amendment, the ward committee members are supposed to be chosen by the Area Sabhas.Thus each WC…

Silicon Plateau Volume 2 is a collection of essays where contributors responded to the question: what does it mean to be an app user today—as a worker, a client, or simply an observer? Stories about contemporary life in Bengaluru, of conversations spoken and typed, of deliberations and connections, through a simple a tap on our mobile devices find a place in this book.  This is edited by curator Marialaura Ghidini and artist Tara Kelton, and published by the Centre for Internet and Society, Bengaluru. Below is an edited excerpt from the book, from the chapter written by Nicole Rigillo, a…

Translocation of trees has been hitting headlines these days a lot. The recent public statement by the Managing Director of Bengaluru Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) Ajay Seth that BMRCL will prioritise translocation, before deciding to fell any tree, is a ray of hope for citizens, at least along Metro alignments. Before going into the merits of translocation, compensatory planting and other issues, the question to ask is: does Bengaluru have enough trees for its size and population? No physical count of trees in the whole city has been done as yet, so we must look for other sources to…

The recent movie Sarkari Hiriya Prathamika Shale Kasaragod gives an excellent insight into what’s wrong with the government education system. The infrastructure is under stress, teachers are underpaid, and the quality of learning is dismal. With the Right to Education process in place, admission to private schools is being preferred, resulting in limited demand for state-sponsored education. India may be spending 3% of its gross domestic product on education, but the impact of this expenditure is rarely seen. Karnataka government, over the past decade, has implemented many schemes to improve its schools. Through these schemes, spending on school infrastructure and…

It has been two years since the Metro was launched between Mysore Road and Byappanahalli. Since the day it opened, it has been my main transport to get to work. So much so that I can’t think of any other way of commuting to work! The issue since then has always been the last mile, the last 6kms from the station to the office. I decided to go with BMTC and the results have been mixed. On mornings, it would take anywhere between 20 mins and 45 mins for that distance, not considering traffic. Evenings, it took anywhere from 25…

It has been a war between the animal lovers and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in the last few days as the Palike proposed to limit the number of dogs that could be owned in residences. From online petitions to flooding the offices of the Animal Husbandry Department with letters and objections, pet lovers went on an overdrive to stop the administration on their tracks. #NotWithoutMyDog started appearing on social media, while people objected to not letting one person have more than one dog in apartments. The Palike has proposed among other things microchipping for the animals, penalty for not…

Low voter turnout shames India's IT city Bangalore states NDTV and others nod in agreements. The authorities, politicians, noted citizens, all are aflame criticising the citizens for not participating in the elections. Newspaper have used highly derogatory phrases - especially Kannada newspapers - displaying cheap journalism and reporting wrong data. Real voter turnout percentage in Bengaluru has to be more than 70%. If it was to be larger than this with the shamefully poor electoral roll management, we should have grave concerns about illegal votes and rigging. Crude Numbers First In January 2018, District Electoral Officer, Bangalore, (Commissioner, BBMP) published…

Never before in the history of Bengaluru (or even other Indian cities), have we heard of non-partisan groups of citizens reaching out to all their candidates, preparing a bunch of hard questions, and interviewing each candidate on video, and working to share the video with all voters in their constituency so each one of them can make the most informed choice. Mahadevapura’s Million Voter Rising (MVR) team has been working from late 2016 to enroll voters in their constituency. They went to court filing a PIL when they found irregularities in the enrollment process and protested when majority (more than…

Two weeks ago, when B.PAC - Bangalore Political Action Committee, rated K J George and Haris the best performing MLAs, Bangaloreans were taken aback. While this ‘best’ was a relative term, it is obvious most lay citizens aren’t happy with any elected representative, given the state of the city. But how can we really evaluate an MLA’s performance on the ground and in the assembly? The MLA rating project was part of BPAC’s multi-pronged strategy to increase voter participation, from supporting voter enrollment to MLA rating, candidate awareness etc. The survey looked at the following parameters and weightage: 20 -…

Large number of duplicate entries in electoral rolls means lack of truthfulness in statistical observations, and consequent rhetorical statements like "people in cities don't vote." When people say that turnout % in an election is low in Bengaluru, that calculation is based on electoral rolls bloated with duplicate entries and illegal entries like those of dead voters. For the past six years, every time the CEO Karnataka published the electoral rolls, I have been reporting the counts of suspected duplicate entries by category. Whereas the occurrences of duplicate entries have reduced over the years, a lot of duplicate records remain…