OPINION

There are no gates and watchmen in most of the government schools in the city. Pic: Nikita Malusare What is the difference between Vibgyor High school and any government school? Aren't the officials supposed to check and ensure safety in government schools? Not long ago, in February 2014, a man attempted to rape an 11-year-old schoolgirl from a government primary school somewhere in Bengaluru. The girl had gone to attend nature's call at 12.30 pm in the open when the man pulled her aside. The girl shouted for help and the assailant escaped from the spot. The girl was luckier…

There has been renewed hope among some circles in Bengaluru after the Union Railway Minister Mr. Sadananda Gowda made a mention in the Rail Budget about the much delayed Suburban Rail System. The project also found a mention in Siddaramaiah state budget last year. A Special Purpose Vehicle was formed as well by the State Government. This was without the involvement of Railway Board. Praja RAAG, an online forum, has been pushing for implementation of CRS for the last few years. Unfortunately, they have found little support from political circles or from citizens for this project. This is not surprising…

July 15 was the deadline for the public to send in comments and suggestions  to the government’s ministry of labour and employment, about the proposed amendment to the law on child labour (prohibition). An NGO, Walkfree, working on child labour abolition had put out alerts, urging the public to sign the petition to the government, but at last count just before the deadline, there were only around 2,300 signatures. In a country of 1.2 billion people, this hardly qualifies as “popular involvement.” I haven't seen any involvement on this in Bangalore. We need deeper thinking, especially among the citizenry (rather…

In my last article, I responded to the indignation against an elitist school refusing an underprivileged kid admission on grounds of social disparity. My response was focused on considering the impact on that kid if he were to get admitted into such a school. Many people who responded to this article were concerned about my choice of focus, and made suggestions towards a solution. While some people stated that they wanted a solution, and we should not let such social discrimination remain in schools, others went on to suggest means to remove such discrimination. They claimed that by measures such…

Every day there are illegal constructions coming up in various places in Bengaluru. Are the authorities blind? Can't they see these as they drive past them? Why is this going on even when laws strictly prohibit them? While illegal constructions should in most cases be demolished, there would be important considerations. These are spelt out in a Supreme Court judgement on the Delhi demolitions. This has been mentioned and explained in the CAF PIL against Akrama - Sakrama, which was signed by me on behalf of CAF, when I was its secretary. The substance of the PIL was that in…

Lobbying with the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to fix your road should not be fundamentally a different experience from shopping for a car. After all, you paid your taxes; you are simply asking for the tax money to come back to your locality. You pay for your car, you take it. You pay your taxes, you get your road. But it ain’t so in Bengaluru. Once you pay your taxes, power transfers to the government. That’s fine, if we have a benevolent dictatorship, but what we have is an incompetent corruptocracy (if there’s such a word). Thus speaking to…

  How efficient are the organisations working in the government sector, in Bangalore specifically? How easy is it for an individual to get something done - perhaps get a driving license or apply for an electricity connection? If we have to go by what some of our readers have had to say, it looks as if it is not at all easy. Why, sometimes even information is hard to come by. Time and again, we hear from our readers who share their woes about the city. Someone is fleeced on a BMTC bus, another has to make multiple trips to…

Today at 6.30pm Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike will interact with Spain on best practices for managing waste. I am not sure which adage passed my mind when I read the latest news report on BBMP and our garbage mess. “Grasping at straws” for seeking help from sister city San Francisco or “Making hay when sun shines” for possibly sending officials to Dubai to study waste management. Wasted BBMP trips on managing waste When Sharadamma was the mayor, a BBMP team led by her had visited Pune. In 2012, a team led by then-deputy S Harish went to Israel to study…

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…

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…