OPINION

I was pretty excited and went with a lot of hope to attend a 'Namma Karnataka' development conclave at Vidhana Soudha on February 17, jointly organised by a media house and Government of Karnataka. The event, however, turned out to be a major marketing and propaganda exercise of government’s infamous Elevated Road Corridor Project. Large flex banners highlighting the project had been put up at the venue, and the panel discussion on Bengaluru’s transport issues hardly had any discussion, and there was no question and answer session. Since I and many other invitees did not get an opportunity to voice…

Ravi, all of five, frowns when he is asked which medium he would opt for in his government school. "English, of course," he says firmly. It is a "wish" echoed by all the small boys and girls near him though it stirs fire and brimstone in high circles far away. The February 2019-20 budget session has announced that 1,000 Karnataka Public Schools will start English-medium sections in Class 1, in addition to the Kannada medium. This is in spite of the angry reactions to the 2018-19 budget pilot project plan that aimed to introduce English medium in 2019 for 1,000 lower primary classes, selected…

Suburban Rail as a mass urban transport has a big role to play in controlling Bengaluru’s traffic. This project has been crawling for more than a decade. The proposals for this came well before 2010. During last few years, due to pressure from different corners and follow ups, the project has been taken up seriously by both GOK and Ministry of Railways on cost sharing basis. Unfortunately Government of Karnataka (GoK) is very slow in taking this forward. The priorities of Railways are for intercity trains and goods train movement. So the government needs to go a step further to…

I live on the top floor of an eight story building right behind an airport that is used mainly by the Air Force. As something I discovered recently, I could walk up one tiny flight of stairs and watch the sunset every evening looking at the open airstrip on one side, the looming yet disappearing sun ahead, and a large lake that is lovely from afar. It is all quite beautiful, especially with my back turned to the concrete and glass mass that is the business district. Four days ago, I watched with wonder a helicopter making rounds from the…

The Prime Minister of India had urged people to use public transportation rather than personal vehicles during the Global Mobility Seminar held in September 2018. This would require public transportation to be incentivised and private vehicle ownership/usage to be disincentivised. Public bus transportation in Bengaluru is ailing, with the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transportation Corporation (BMTC) seeking Rs 260 crores from the state government to sustain its existing level of services. Currently the BMTC is running on a loss of Rs 10 for every kilometer that it operates. There have been discussions by the Transport Department to propose a bus fare hike. This…

I want to thank the movement Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB) for pushing me to attend the ward committee meeting in my ward Shanthinagar. I’m glad I went. Kudos to all energetic young people, I now feel there’s hope for Bengaluru! On time, but low on public participation The meeting started on time, which was great. But citizen participation was very low, with only about 15 attending. Hardly anyone from RWAs was present. I thought RWAs exist to push citizens’ agenda, so I was not sure what to make of this. Of the 10 ward committee members, nine attended the meeting.…

Helen was a dog who produced many Labrador pups—a puppy mill mom — who was finally abandoned by her breeders on the streets when she couldn’t do it anymore. Blind, deaf, malnutritioned, she was rescued and adopted by animal rights activist Bismi Anil. Helen stood as a testimony to all that’s wrong with the implementation of animal cruelty laws in Karnataka and in fact most of India.   Dogs are repeatedly bred using rape stands, in the filthiest, tiniest of spaces, often with a sibling or parent and live in small cages with little or no food, medical facilities, human…

The steel flyover project is an ugly manifestation of our unbridled urbanisation mindset. This is yet another myopic economic proposal to exacerbate urbanisation; it seems to us, and is mindlessly espousing the following: Covering the soil which has lower heat conductivity, with an impermeable layer of concrete which has much higher capacity to conduct heat. Replacing life sustaining trees with air conditioners Spewing billions of tons of toxic gases into air by vehicular movements and industrial activities, so as to choke the city. Generating colossal quantities of solid waste to convert the garden city into a garbage city Facilitating concentration…

The Supreme Court has put a stay on the pumping of treated wastewater to Kolar tanks from the wastewater treatment plants in the Koramangala and Chalaghatta valley of Bengaluru, comes the news. The stay means that this volume of treated wastewater will flow in the Dakshina Pinakini, mix with volumes of untreated wastewater and reach Kelavarapalle dam near Hosur in Tamil Nadu. These waters will then be used to irrigate 1085 acres of land to be cultivated by Tamil Nadu farmers. Some amount of the water will also be picked up by farmers in Karnataka through pumps for irrigation. A…

Air pollution has been a cause of worry globally. Economic growth of cities has influenced the spatial patterns of emission sources, directly impacting public health. Bengaluru’s rapid development and changing landscape followed by lack of planning has led to several urban concerns, with air pollution being a crucial one. Contributors to air pollution are unique to each city. Vehicular pollution is among those concerns that contributes maximum to air pollution in Bengaluru. Data indicates that 60-70% of the emissions is said to originate from vehicles. This makes the city the only one in India to be most impacted by vehicular…