OPINION

Healthcare has always been in a state of dynamic flux. The good old family physician has been replaced by specialists and super-specialists. The chances of finding a family physician in Bangalore are just as hard as finding a home sparrow. Nursing homes have been swamped by corporate and private hospitals. Government hospitals are patronised mostly by those who cannot afford private treatment. On the other hand medical insurance is plagued by issues related to Third Party Administrators (TPAs) and inflated bills. New concepts in healthcare have emerged: Preventive Healthcare, Corporate Healthcare, and Home Healthcare. Suddenly, there has been a shift…

"Consuming this product, especially early in the morning, may be injurious to your health" - we don't have this warning printed at the top of the front page of our daily newspaper. But they should. Because reading newspaper does make one's blood pressure shoot up. This scam or that rip of, all accusing or implicating VIPs who are supposed to be our leaders, administrators and adjudicators. Involving not just lakhs but hundreds of crores, even lakhs of crores. A day care centre's roof collapse  killing children, a substandard construction causing death, contaminated water causing illness, a woeful, criminal  lack of…

The recent series of popular films starring heroes who are more than fifty years old, desperately trying to appear half their age and paired with heroines old enough to be their granddaughters, has surprised discerning film buffs for its mass acceptance. Robot (Rajani), Manmadhan Ambu (Kamal), Shankar Dada Zindabad (Chiranjeevi), Aptharakshaka (Vishnuvardhan) are some examples. If young Akshay Kumar's antics in Raveena Tandon starring 'Cheez badi hai' song was bad enough, his 43-year old smitten self, prancing around a younger Katrina Kaif in Sheela ki jawani (made 16 years later) is even worse. Such films with old heroes have been…

In the last week of March, while World Water Day was being marked globally with a focus on "Urban Water Management". But our own urban administrators were busy - giving out contradictory statements about metropolitan water management and plans for tackling water scarcity as summer sets in; leaving citizens with emotions ranging from confusion to anger that can be as enervating as thirst. The Karnataka Groundwater (Regulation and Control of Development and Management)  bill passed recently forbids drilling of  borewells in groundwater-depleted areas (and most areas are depleted, with the water table sinking to incontrovertibly alarming levels)  but four days…

Bengalureans have come to expect that at every corner they turn, they will be met with a wide heap of garbage.  They have also come to accept that Pourakarmikas themselves will dump their melange of garbage on the ground. What Bengalureans are not aware of is that this manner of collecting unsegregated garbage and transferring it manually, with the garbage exposed to the environment, is in total violation of the Ministry of Environment & Forests' Municipal Solid Waste Handling Rules of 2000.  What Bengalureans also do not know is that behind this ‘gawd-awful' system of collecting garbage lurks one more…

I was alright with the tokenism of International Women's day. A few political statements, some well intentioned but ill-thought out schemes announced to mark the day - that I could live with. But today's women's day celebrations bother me. In its hundredth year, it has become the biggest gimmick of consumerism. Every single business out there gets set to woo women. ‘Celebrate your womanhood' hoardings scream, mailboxes and phones are flooded with every kind of offer. Beauty salons, cosmetic companies, clothing companies, shoes, lingerie shops, restaurants and even hospitals have offers. What's wrong you say?  All these celebrations are targeted…

Citizens Action Forum (CAF), a federation of Residents Welfare Associations (RWA) in Bangalore, held a meeting on Saturday February 19, at the Central College Senate Hall at which three issues were tabled for discussion – the move  by BBMP to hike property tax by 15 per cent, water supply, and  the garbage problem. CAF meeting. From L: M S Mukunda, B N Vijaykumar, Manjunath, Lalithabai, Ashwathnarayana, Venkat Raju and Govindraju. Pic: Meera K. A full house saw representatives of RWA and concerned citizens voice their opinions on these issues to seek responses from ward representatives and MLAs. What remained at…

Citizens of Sagayapuram (Ward 60) of Bangalore recently prepared their own programme of works for their ward.  They had wanted - among other wishes - community toilets, nursery school renovation and footpaths for 24 lakh rupees, but the BBMP sanctioned 27 lakhs just for street name-boards. This shows the stark lack of community participation in decision-making even 18 years after the passage of the 74th Constitutional  Amendment (74th CAA) or Nagarapalika Act, which  mandated "Power to the People" in urban areas.  Karnataka's Community Participation Bill Amendments that do nothing to strengthen community participation The 74th CAA was to bring in decentralisation, proximity, transparency, accountability…

Birthdays are always occasions for celebration - and so, as the print edition of Citizen Matters completes two years this week, I am looking back on the stories we have had and shared, and find that a few stand out as particularly worthy of mention. "Two J.P.Nagar-ites help city apartments save lakhs of rupees" The report in the issue dated Jan 15-23 this year, was an important piece of reporting, which no mainstream publication bothered to cover, much less splash as a scoop - despite the fact that newspapers are meant to "inform" the readers about issues relevant to their…

12 bus days later, why not sit down to share around some notes on the concept. When some folks first talked about it (back in October 2009), it was meant to be a day to promote public transport. PT day, CyBaNa (cycle, bus, nadi as in walk) day were some variants floating around. The reality for Bengaluru is that, today and for next 5-6 years for sure, PT would mostly mean Bus. The modes Cy and Na are mostly going to hinge around the Bus. Read this Citizen Matters article on the initiation of bus day concept. The Bus Day…