Civic

Bembala is a Bengaluru-based organisation – an initiative of the citizens group, Whitefield Rising– is a free and confidential volunteer-run support center for women and children who face abuse or violence. The alarming rise of violence against women and children is of critical concern for Bengaluru today. A group art show “Oorja” will be held at The Art Corridor Taj West End, Bengaluru from 23rd Feb to 2nd March 2020 in association with Mr. M G Doddamani. “Oorja” or Energy in Sanskrit is the defining expression of the human spirit, that energy or life force which inspires and unifies us to reach…

Makeover for city’s streets under the Mega Streets project The Corporation of Chennai has adopted the Complete Streets Framework under which close to 110 kms of the city’s arterial roads are set to get a makeover. The project aims to upgrade the city’s streets to aid better walking, cycling and improve access to public transport. Through these measures the civic body hopes to create accessible public spaces for all. The project will revamp roads spread across 426 sq km of the city. There will be greater importance to various forms of non-motorized transport and making streets fit for the same.…

Arvind Kejriwal all set to take oath as Delhi CM After registering a resounding victory in the Delhi Assembly Elections 2020, Arvind Kejriwal will be taking oath on February 16th along with his other fellow cabinet ministers. AAP won 62 seats out of 70 in the elections, while the remaining 8 were won by BJP. India’s oldest political party, Congress, could not win any.  The party has claimed that since its win in the Delhi elections, over 1 million people have joined the party. Data collected by Axis My India poll analysis agency through a survey conducted immediately after the…

While the pedestrian plaza and smart bike projects are well underway, there are many other plans for Chennai under the Smart Cities Mission, all at at various stages of progress. While Chennai started its smart city projects a couple of years after other cities did, it has caught up with the latter now, feels Raj Cherubal, CEO of Chennai Smart City Limited (CSCL). A few exciting projects in store include the restoration of the Mambalam Canal. The restoration efforts will not only focus on cleaning of the canal but also the creation of usable public spaces around the same, with…

Debashish Mondal looked vacantly at the broken walls of his home. All that remained of the house he was born in 35 years ago was broken bricks, chunks of cement and a shattered roof. On November 11, the colony he lived in, under Tallah bridge in north Kolkata, home to around 60 families, was reduced to rubble. The local municipal authorities and personnel from the Public Works Department (PWD), along with a posse of cops, came around 10:30 that morning. They had brought along labourers for the demolition, and two days later also called in bulldozers for some of the…

Apprehension loomed large in the mind of homemaker Geetha Dhananjaya, when she first accompanied the Bengaluru City Police (BCP) to their night rounds in Kumaraswamy Layout, in mid-September. Now however, the 45-year old, sporting a salwar kameez, says she has become a regular at the night rounds. Geetha is part of the Neighbourhood Watch Committee (NWC) of the city police. “Being a homemaker, I was not used to being around cops though all of them were women. So initially I had agreed to accompany them with a bit of reluctance,” Geetha says. Geetha is among the 45 NWC members at…

Bengaluru is a globally recognized city for its IT and startup industry thus providing livelihood for millions of people across the country and also has been the growth engine of the state. Ironically, the civic condition of Bengaluru is in a mess, inadequate infrastructure, traffic congestion, air pollution, water crisis are all the issues that needs to be addressed and fixed. When we ask tough questions then everybody is passing the buck to the other.  Someone has to address the elephant in the room. B.CLIP Alumni Association has conceptualized “BANGALORE 2.0” a campaign towards building a “Better Bengaluru” through which…

The third edition of Janaagraha’s annual Bengaluru Civic Fest, held in association with Cisco, showcased how Gen Z is taking initiative to bring change in society. The one-day fest was held at the Bangalore International Centre, Domlur. It was a culmination of the IChangeMyCity Challenge, organised from August to December 2019, in which students were tasked with identifying a civic issue that affects their neighbourhood and to come up with an innovative solution to address it. Over 14,000 students from Classes VI to XII across India participated in the challenge through the IChangeMyCity Challenge portal, co-created by Cisco. Twenty-five teams,…

Did you know the pedestrian plaza was conceptualised at least eight years ago and precedes the launch of the Smart Cities Mission? Many projects that have grown under the Smart City umbrella, such as the rejuvenation of water bodies, stem from ideas that were incubated and nurtured for years before they saw concrete action. While citizens only monitor the visible progress of work on projects, the behind-the-scenes engagement by officials and processes involved, such as preparation of detailed project reports and consultations with stakeholders, are vital to the success of the efforts at a later stage, though often time-consuming.  Raj…