OPINION

The first trains on the Metro are about to run in the next six to nine months, so this is a good time to ensure that a few other steps are taken to make the new infrastructure more effective. This is particularly because the world over, Metro systems are usually not financially viable, and this has to be overcome by some tie-in arrangement in the real estate market, through capital grants from government and through other control measures that benefit the transit system.Bangalore Metro is no different. Over the course of a decade and more, the state has been willing…

"In Mexico an air conditioner is called a politician because it makes a lot of noise but doesn't work very well." - Len Deighton (English writer, b. 1929) Lack of participation and involvement, personality clashes, petty politics taking precedence over real issues and an inability to come together to address pressing problems effectively. Sounds like the Indian Parliament or State Legislative Assembly? Guess again. This could be a lot closer to you than you think. Apartment Owners Associations are statutory bodies comprising all the owners of apartments in a particular building / complex, and tasked with running the day to…

Take today’s news (June 3, 2010). Two reports are highlighted, one about Bangalore’s horrendous road fatalities (second highest in the country after Delhi, with over 860 deaths annually, and over 6,100 injured) and the other about a wall collapse that killed a 17-year-old girl. The compound wall had been built by the BBMP just three months ago. The girl had taken shelter next to it as it was raining, and the wall collapsed, crushing her underneath. Bad enough. But what is outrageous is the lack of accountability – the BBMP had parcelled out the work of erecting a short stretch…

"The next world war will be over water" - Ismail Serageldin, former Vice President of the World Bank. As with any problem, the proper way to manage water is to adopt a holistic approach along the lines of reduce, reuse and recycle and ensure active participation by both individual residents as well as the Apartment Owners Associations. The Central Public Health and Environmental Engineering Organisation (CPHEEO) guidelines state that the average water consumption per person, in megacities is 150 liters per day (lpd). For an average household of 4 persons, that works out to 600 lpd. Try to figure out…

Simply put Urban Commons refers to spaces in a city that a broad spectrum of people use and depend upon. Agara Lake located south east of the city is one such space. Like most other lakes in the city, Agara is an irrigation tank that dates back to the 9th century. Apart from irrigation, and water supply the lake is also home to a wide variety of flora and fauna.D’Souza’s study is an attempt to understand the effect of urbanisation on what began as a solution to irrigation of agricultural lands in the area. Agara turned out to be the…

It was a short-lived campaign for the BBMP elections with little sound except for the occasional auto rickshaw blaring loud music and unintelligible squawks alternately. There were fortuitously none of the usual cut-outs, banners or buntings which end up ultimately as so much garbage. The only signs which indicated that a campaign was on, were the colourful pamphlets strewn on the roadside, muddied by the footprints of passers-by.After all the hype and excitement drummed up by the media, the State Election Commission says that only about 44 per cent of Bengalureans voted. But given that the electoral rolls are such…

If there was one clear sign at the end of counting yesterday evening, it was this: the electoral victories that the BJP sustained in 2008 by plucking 17 of the 27 state assembly seats from Bengaluru, has held sway on March 28th as well.The premise of this report is this: party identities and allegiances have broadly held sway in the March 28th city polls, not individual candidate credentials. With individual stature not being a factor in bulk of the wards, voters - whichever way you assume their votes were got -  have stayed with three major parties. For the most,…

Yet again, on the day after the city polls of March 28th, both State Election Commission (SEC) officials and the city’s dailies are crying hoarse about low turnout in Bengaluru. Official estimates are reportedly putting the number at around 45 percent and several dailies today have sermonised in their editorials that Bangaloreans did not take this election seriously enough.Really? Let’s look at the numbers again. According to the SEC, the total number of voters for all 198 wards of Bengaluru is 69.7 lakhs. Let’s stop right there. Is this number even possible? Graphic: Meera K. Even after amalgamation of towns…

As most of you know, the Bangalore Elevated Tollway from Electronic City (E-City) upto Bommanahalli was inaugurated by the Union minister, Kamal Nath, last week. The government hailed it as a successful project completed in record time. I have been using it since last week, and this is what I observed. The elevated highway in use. Pic: Thejesh G N. Even though my travel time from E-City to Silk Board junction has reduced by 20 minutes, I clearly see the bottleneck shifting to St Johns, north of Silk Board and to E-City Phase I main entrance in the south. The…

Recently, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and his band of Ministers, R Ashoka, Katta Subramanya Naidu and S Suresh Kumar, laid the foundation stone for a housing complex in JP Nagar. The housing complex will come up where a low income neighbourhood (slum) now exists with over 1000 houses. For now, around 100 houses have been razed and the families shifted nearby, in tin sheds.Speaking to these residents, they complained about the water problem, lack of toilet facilities, families of five were living in a cramped space, the tin sheds scratched them, they were sleeping on mud floors. Many refused…