PRESS RELEASE

The theme for World Environment Day is ‘Beat Plastic Pollution’ and water bodies face serious threat from plastic waste not only polluting them but also affecting the water inhabitants and ecosystem. Kere Utsava is a citizen centric event and is to create awareness, promote sustainable alternatives to plastic, educate about the impact of plastic on our environment and water bodies. We are expecting over 7000+ people including school & college children to visit the event all through the day from 6am to 5pm. Many NGOs, farmers and social enterprises will attend the event. List of activities: Event: Kere Utsava, Agara…

Mandram, a global platform for people interested in Tamil language and literature, marks the coming together of people from different backgrounds to share their perspectives, journey and success stories for everyone to be inspired. The first ever Mandram was organised in Chennai with speakers from varied backgrounds like science, art and culture sharing their perspectives. The next event of Mandram is being held in Bengaluru on June 9 in collaboration with National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS) at the NCBS campus, Kodigehalli from 3.30 pm- 6 pm. Mandram expands with this event to present the Jigyasa project, where Kannada is…

Human rights activists and eminent members of civil society have come together to raise deep concerns and unequivocally condemn the recent police action against protesters in Thoothukudi (Tuticorin), who had been demanding the closure of a plant owned by Sterlite Industries, a subsidiary of mining giant Vedanta Resources.  Police violence has left several people dead and many more injured. In a public statement, citizens point out that not only was this tragedy totally avoidable, it appears that the police have even given hot pursuit and shot at women and others in fishing hamlets like Theresepuram. The sheer brutality of the…

As a lead-up to World Environment Day on June 5, environmental justice  groups and citizens  are launching  an unprecedented coordinated waste  and brand audits in key cities in India. Scheduled from May 16 to May 30 in the cities of Delhi, Pune, Mumbai, Chennai, and Bengaluru along with various cities in Goa, Kerala, and 12 Himalayan States, the audits seek to highlight the role of corporations in the global plastic waste crisis, results of which will be published on 4th June. “Through these audits, we want to put the spotlight on corporations who have been responsible for the manufacturing, distribution, and proliferation of…

Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC) today released a list of 28 endorsed candidates from 18 Assembly constituencies for upcoming assembly elections, 2018. "A country like ours has a diverse polity and you need multiple skillsets to tackle the issues that confront us today. It was a tough call and after diligent deliberations the committee concluded that each of these candidates had something to offer the voters, and hence, should be supported in their endeavors to represent Bengaluru" - Kiran Mazumdar Shaw  Since 2013 B.PAC has been endorsing candidates for all three general elections namely Assembly Elections in 2013, Lok Sabha Elections…

The Chunavana Android App is developed by the CEO of Karnataka after assessing the need of the public through a specialized KAP Survey is available for the public download now in the Google Play Store. The survey report revealed that out of the people who did not vote 25% was because they were not aware of their polling stations, 17.5 % of the urban voters did not vote because of long queue and avoided standing in the queue and 7.5 % of the urban voters did not vote because they are unaware of their candidates and the constituencies. The Chunavana…

Several hundred pourakarmikas gathered at the BBMP Head Office today to demand four months salary. The BBMP, which is the principal employer of these pourakarmikas decided to pay the workers directly from January 2018, and to rid the contract-system that was prevalent earlier. The biometric system that was put in place to identify the number of workers in the city, so that the BBMP can pay them directly has been ridden with discrepancies, thus creating a situation where powrakarmikas who turn up for work every day were marked absent and had their salaries cut. The State Government and BBMP also…

Our desire is to make a difference to the politics of the state by actively engaging in the perspective building of political manifestos in the coming elections of the state and later aim at working with the state and its agencies in shaping the governance structures. We intend to have quarterly, department-wise interactions with the elected government to follow-up on the promises made by the winning party and the commitments made on our manifesto.   The recommendations that have been raised have been taken from critically viewing the development of the state over the last five years as well as…

Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC) undertook this study focusing on the 27 Assembly constituencies and today released the rating of the MLAs. Bangalore city in spite of being progressive city in several segments, voter turnout in the city is the lowest in the past elections. Bengaluru has voted 47.22% and 58.27% respectively during 2008 and 2013 Assembly elections. B.PAC under it’s Election Habba initiative carried out a range of initiatives/programs. Initiatives Impact One Million New Votes (OMNV) campaign to facilitate new voter registrations 14,830 Registered Forms, 56 Campaigns across residential communities, Tech campuses and educational institutions Myconstituency,MyManifesto toengage with communities…

The American Society of Naturalists (ASN) conferred its prestigious 2018 Presidential Award to evolutionary biologists from the National Centre for Biological Sciences of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, based in Bangalore, India. The ASN Presidential Award honors an outstanding research article from among all the papers published in the society's journal, The American Naturalist, in the preceding calendar year. This is a prominent scientific journal that publishes research papers in frontier areas of evolutionary biology. This year's award was given to the NCBS team for their research paper in the April 2017 issue of The American Naturalist, probing how…