Civic

NGT committee inspects Varthur lake A surprise inspection of Varthur lake turned out to be shocking for a committee constituted by the National Green Tribunal (NGT), headed by Justice N Santosh Hegde. In contrast to the picture painted by officials, the team found a depleted water body. The lake was encroached by a two-kilometre-long road, near its feeder canal. The committee also found other encroachments, such as pipelines inside the lake. Citizens complained to Justice Hegde that the road and the canal had not been cleared despite NGT's orders. They said that the recently built sluice gates were affecting the natural…

Chennai ready to brace yellow Amidst the election fervor, Chennaites will start bleeding yellow from today as the country catches cricket fever with the commencement of the IPL 2019. Euphoria is high especially in the city as sport-loving Chennaites did not get a chance to witness any matches in a home ground in the last season due to political unrest. The defending champion CSK will take on RCB on the first day (March 23rd). Southern Railway has announced special services between Chennai beach station and Velachery on March 23rd and March 31st. Source: The Times of India Day Zero threat…

On World Water Day, conservation is the buzzword. The Internet is flooded with tips on how to conserve water and the need to focus on water as a scarce resource. Many resident welfare associations in Chennai are organising awareness sessions to educate people about water economics. But, ironically perhaps, World Water Day this year has come just a day after Holi, exposing the huge gaps in awareness and responsibility among many sections of the people, still. Just a day ago, the city celebrated Holi in a grand manner, but wasted gallons of water in the process, creating artificial rain. “The…

Exactly a year back, in March 2018, Beautiful Bengaluru had launched the “Minimum Water Challenge,” which it plans to continue this year. Over the last one year, we have seen many challenges being rolled out across the world, most of which are dares of no significant consequence. But this is one challenge that can have a definite impact on a very real problem the world is facing – water scarcity. What this challenge pushes you to do is to use only as much water as is needed for a particular task, not as much as is abundantly available. That requires…

Pushing a green-coloured tricycle in the blazing humid sun, Raju (name changed), a conservancy worker, blows the whistle at Prashanti Colony of Madambakkam. The high pitched sound is an alarm for the residents to wake up from their afternoon nap and bring their waste out to the tricycle. Men and women rush out of their houses, with at least four bags of rotten waste each and start screaming at the worker. “You haven’t showed up in four days. There are no bins in the locality. What do you expect me to do with the waste,” screams one lady. What this…

On Saturday, March 16th, Bengaluru saw a gathering of thousands of people who came together to demand for cancellation of the controversial elevated corridor and to better public transport, footpaths and safe cycling and a more balanced and sustainable development of Bangalore and rest of Karnataka as well. This mass action was organized by a large coalition of citizen groups’ in response to the awarding of environmental clearance for the controversial elevated corridors project and floating of tender for Phase 1 of Elevated Corridors. Since the govt. announced its intention of taking up 100 km elevated corridors in the city,…

Election commission announces dates for Lok Sabha polls On March 10th, the Election Commission announced the schedule for the poll to elect the 17th Lok Sabha. The exercise is to be conducted across all states in seven phases. The polls will be held between April 11 and May 19. The current schedule makes this election cycle the longest so far, at 38 days. The results for all constituencies are to be announced on May 23rd. Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trails (VVPATs) will be used in all polling stations for the elections to verify the integrity of the Electronic Voting Machines…

Camps for differently abled voters in city Chennai Corporation has set up camps to assist differently abled voters to include their names in the voters' list. As a move to ensure that they do not face any challenges, the civic body has also introduced helplines to make sure that they can cast their vote without any hassle. People can call 9445477699 to request for assistance. The corporation has set up 3,754 polling booths in 913 locations with facilities such as wheelchair, stretchers, Braille and other required features to assist the specially abled people to cast their vote. Source: The Times…

HC asks govt to halt elevated corridor project Karnataka High Court has asked the state government to halt work on the elevated corridor project until it decides on a case related to the Bengaluru Metropolitan Planning Committee (MPC). MPC, the statutory body responsible for city planning and approving major projects like the elevated corridor, has been almost dysfunctional. A few citizen activists from the Namma Bengaluru Foundation and Citizen’s Action Forum had filed the Public Interest Litigation (PIL) after government hurriedly called tenders for the elevated corridor project, without public consultations. A bench headed by the Acting Chief Justice Narayana Swamy…

The last few weeks, Bengaluru's netizens have been having intense discussion about the proposed Elevated Corridors (EC). Having gone through all the available material, I have decided to join the protest group. I took the decision based on the following reasons: The organisers have clearly enunciated the demand: to cancel the tender, and then go for public consultation. The demand does NOT reject the EC, as some people are claiming. The organisers have given first-cut reasons to justify this demand. This is perfectly legal, and in good democratic spirit. I cannot see any ulterior motive (so far). The mega-buck project has…