Series: Lessons from bengaluru podcast

https://soundcloud.com/citizenmatters/ep4-lessons-from-bengaluru-cm In the concluding episode of our podcast series 'Lessons from Bengaluru', we explore how Bengaluru came to have a unique, vibrant citizen activism scene. While activism was a preserve of the few earlier, this changed since the 2000s as the city started facing more challenges. And now we have citizen activists holding authorities accountable on anything from infrastructure projects like steel flyover, to ward-level governance. Pravir Bagrodia and Srinivas Alavilli from two citizen collectives - Whitefield Rising and Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB) respectively - discuss how their groups came into being and what they have been working on. While…

https://soundcloud.com/citizenmatters/ep3-lessons-from-bengaluru-cm Look at Lalbagh Botanical Garden and Cubbon Park, and it’s easy to see why Bengaluru once claimed the title of 'Garden City'. Rapid, unplanned urbanisation has drastically reduced the city's green cover. Raj Bhagat, who works at the World Research Institute office here in Bengaluru, explains the history of the city's loss of natural vegetation as seen through data. Though Bengaluru still has several thousands of trees, these are mostly alien species. Natural vegetation, which is critical in terms of transpiration cycles, weather patterns, etc is completely absent here except for some sections of protected forests, says Raj. Several…

https://soundcloud.com/citizenmatters/ep2-lessons-from-bengaluru-cm Over the past few decades, Bengaluru has witnessed its lakes turn intodumping grounds. In some cases like that of Puttenehalli lake, neighbourhood groups have successfully worked with government agencies to revive lakes. But the work comes with challenges too, says Nupur, a member of Puttenahalli Lake Neighbourhood Improvement Trust (PNLIT). She explains why many other neighbourhood groups are unable to sustain their work on reviving and maintaining lakes over the long term. We also hear from Vishwanath Srikantaiah, an urban planner and civil engineer, who has worked on reviving Jakkur lake. But why should we care so much about…

https://soundcloud.com/citizenmatters/ep1-lessons-from-bengaluru-cm If you live in Bengaluru, you just cannot avoid the city's waste management problem. Footpaths that are stinking and littered with waste are a common sight. This first episode of 'Lessons from Bengaluru' podcast series explores Bengaluru's waste management problem, and what citizens are doing to address it. Sandhya Narayanan of the Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT) describes how the city's rapid growth from the early 2000s worsened the waste management problem. SWMRT has played a key role in identifying solutions to the issue and holding civic authorities accountable. Lalitha Mondreti, also part of SWMRT, explains the 2…

https://soundcloud.com/citizenmatters/trailer-lessons-from-bengaluru-cm 'Lessons from Bengaluru' is a special, limited-series podcast from Citizen Matters, exploring four different issues that Bengaluru faces and what citizens have been doing about those. The city, in the last few decades, has seen a new phenomenon in urban governance. Its rapid development has rendered existing modes of governance ineffective, and numerous citizen groups have emerged, aiming to bridge this gap. Bengaluru is a unique city where such citizen groups are more active and have engaged with matters ranging from misallocation of funds to environmental causes. This, in turn, has engaged a larger number of people in policy…