Civic

  Museum Cross Road, a residential street at the heart of Bengaluru, used to be a road like many others in the neighbourhood. The maintenance was neglected. The old pavement was uneven, and tree roots were breaking through, cracking the pavement and creating bumps. It was an eyesore. Worse than that, it posed a danger to the residents. There weren’t even street lights to illuminate the road at night. This was the fate, until residents of the street, which is colloquially known as Museum Cross Road because it is located just off of Museum Road, decided enough was enough. The…

If you ask people about their local RWA or apartment association, they'll tell you a lot of uncharitable things. Words like 'bickering,' 'clueless,' 'no communication' etc. will dominate the response. And if you stop to think about it, you'll realise that there are a lot of parallels between this and how they think about politics and governance of the country itself. What's going on? First, solving public problems isn't the responsibility of a few people. For legal and practical reasons we have formed these things - RWAs, industry associations, religious trusts, ward committees, city councils, state legislatures, parliament - but…

Graphite India, present in Whitefield, processes graphite daily in huge quantities which releases a large amount of fine graphite soot into the atmosphere. This is fine enough for it to not be very visible, yet is breathed by, not just the Graphite India employees, but, all the daily commuters, residents and businesses around the vicinity of Graphite India. And with ITPL and other business parks in the area, daily commuters are ever increasing (with the current numbers close to almost 1.2 Lakhs per day using the road in front of Graphite India). All these citizens are exposed to this soot.…

The recent cleanup of the pedestrian subways near Cubbon Park and K R Circle at the heart of the city of Bengaluru allowed citizens to enjoy what the city’s music and art scene had to offer at a new public venue. The Bangalore Underground Festival conducted on August 17, 2014, ushered in a new trend of  public spaces being maintained by the public, for the public. The festival also brought to light an obvious, yet neglected, hence not used, pedestrian pathway around K R Circle. Art and photo exhibition was held in one of the subways, while another subway hosted…

Stop talking. Start doing. That’s the mantra more and more citizens in Bengaluru are adopting these days. The fever has now spread to corporates too. The new initiative launched on Independence Day, Adopt-a-Mile, aims to drive the cynicism towards government, into a movement of bringing in change. “I used to come to Bangalore during my summer vacation. The city was so beautiful then, but today, it has lost its beauty. We want to give back our city its beauty,” says Ananth Ramachandran, an executive working with a technology firm. The movement, started by five such people from different companies, will…

How do we build a society? The routine passage of time, and politics, makes us think that the primary post-independence goal should be to build the country. Yes and no. The nation provides a rallying point for 'us' to think about where 'we' want to be. But underlying that intent, there has to be an idea of what kind of society we want to build. Ultimately, the country's prospects will depend almost entirely on that. This is a daily, continuous question. Hoisting flags on Independence Day should ideally be a kind of milestone in that passage, not a continuous promise…

Let’s escape the din and chaos of the Bengaluru streets. Let’s go underground! Sounds nice? But who would want to go underground in Bangalore? Do you have such places which are not dark and dingy? Short answer is, yes! Sometimes it is right in front of you... but you tend to ignore it. The project Bangalore Underground aims at exploring creative and better use of the public spaces like subways. And here is the slogan: Let’s escape chaos; Let’s go underground! Curious? On August 17, just walk into one of the pedestrian subways near K R Circle, with friends and…

And we do it yet again. Your own community magazine for Bengaluru has got another award. Citizen Matters has won the Manthan South West award in the e-news and journalism category. This is the 5th award for the team, in six years.  In a packed award function at Pune on August 7th, Ganga Madappa, Citizen Matters’ Staff Journalist and Community Manager, received the trophy. The event was organised by Digital Empowerment Foundation, which has instituted the award, and Your Public Interest Registry. Ganga Madappa from Citizen Matters receiving the Manthan Award South West India - Winner, e-News & Journalism Category…

This is a series of photographs that documents the visual evidence of territoriality at the morning flower market in Bangalore. Within this periodic marketplace, a metal fence appears repeatedly at various locations demarcating vehicular and pedestrian zones. The flower vendors seem to use the yellow fence to both mark and defend their territory. The fence is randomly positioned - sometimes to place flower garlands and sometimes to create small enclosures within the large expanse of this urban space.  The boundaries are both physical and non-physical drawn both by the vendors as they sell flowers and by the public as they…

Part 1 of Chapter 11: Steal Proofing Part 2 of Chapter 11: Installing garbage bins can be a design challenge for city planners! Part 3 continues... Before and after photo of a spotfix in Banaswadi. Pic: The Ugly Indian X took some photos of the Spot, got them printed at another Spot neighbor, Tru-Images, a digital studio down the road, and created a small portfolio of five photos – one photo of “Before”, one photo of “After” and three photos of “During SpotFixing” (featuring the Wipro employees, the drivers, and Veliyamma). The studio owner was very happy to see the…