Civic

  In mid 2013, deeply troubled by the wasted condition of their beloved city, when a group of concerned citizens got together to decode the garbage matrix, little did they expect that less than a year down the line, they would have so much cause for celebration. Their experiment in segregation at source developed into a winning formula, garnering unprecedented popularity as it moved on. Today, this simple formula has translated into saving over 291 trees, 1.4 lakh units of electricity, 1174 liters of fuel and 617 cubic meters of landfill area. Think of how Bangalore could be transformed if…

Pic courtesy: BPAC The Bangalore Political Action Committee (BPAC) inaugurated the second batch of its flagship program- B.CLIP (B.PAC Civic Leadership Incubator Program) amidst the presence of Bangalore’s citizens, intellectuals and political representatives. The inauguration of the second batch of B.CLIP solidifies B.PAC’s commitment in ensuring the creation of a talented and capable pool of leaders for the city. The B.PAC Civic Leadership Incubator Program (B.CLIP) is a 9-month Leadership Training Program that seeks to inspire, equip and mobilize aspiring citizens to engage in the political process leading up to the municipal corporation elections and help improve city governance. The…

Part 1 of Chapter 11: Steal Proofing Part 2 continues... These are the realities of the Indian street that are often ignored by city planners and those who want a better city. Seemingly simple things that work overseas (like trash cans) don’t work well in India. McDonald’s tried its best on Brigade Road, Bangalore – and installed some 30 large fibre-glass dustbins, costing about Rs 2,000 ($40) each, and branded with their Golden Arches logo. They lasted barely a few weeks. Some were vandalized, some caught fire from tossed cigarette butts, many were stolen, and soon none were left. Many…

Placemaking is an approach to the design and management of public spaces that draws upon the strengths and aspirations of the local community. Whereas ‘space’ is a physical entity, a ‘place’ is imbued with memories and evolves as people interact with each other socially and culturally in the public realm. It is a term that Architects and Urban Planners in the western countries began to use in the 1970s to describe the process of creating parks, plazas and streets that could attract people. In India, the street was already a vibrant place with a family celebrating a wedding; the temple deities…

The past 4 days (from Saturday onward) have seen a disruption in the services of HasiruDala, owing to another protest at Karnataka Composting Development Corporation, KCDC (our destination for wet waste). The city is in strife, with the order to close the Mandur landfill site, and internal challenges at KCDC. The KCDC muddle has resulted in the waste smelling in the wee hours of morning and night, and is causing hassles for the peripheral residents. However, the only possible way out is in improving the systems at KCDC, and this is being pushed for in every possible manner. In the…

What do you do when you see a garbage dump near your home or slabs misplaced from the footpath drains, and don’t see any civic agency going anything to solve the problem? Just go out and do it yourself! This is the motto behind a Bangalorean movement called The Ugly Indian. Citizens inspired by The Ugly Indian movement working to fix a drain. Pic: The Ugly Indian The Ugly Indian is an apolitical, anonymous group of citizens who feel strongly about the visible filth in Indian cities. The movement, aimed at solving problems at public spaces with direct action and…

The city of Bengaluru has been festooned with banners, posters and hoardings urging us to vote. The fence facing the BBMP head office was, earlier this week, covered with pennants in Kannada and English, reminding us all that it was our duty to vote. Newspapers carried prominent ads and announcements, reiterating  the same message. Many of us who wanted very much to vote, however, found a wide chasm between what the administration urged and its intentions to facilitate what it wanted citizens to do. I have been a voter for some decades, and exercised my franchise at every election. As…

An INTACH walk took some of us to Avenue road last Saturday with Lathasshree KS, an archaeologist who unearthed for us the Avenue road of old times. We saw that morning a beautiful past that had been preserved for centuries, low-relief deities in the ground or a nandi that was partly submerged. One step at a time, we moved from the contemporary urban chaos to the ancient serene landscape of shrines, snake stones and peepul trees. The axial symmetry of Chikpete If we look at the map of the fort or Pettah area, there are two axes – the N-S…

Bengaluru is very quiet on a Sunday morning. The city centre area wakes up slowly, recovering from a busy Saturday night – even Ramanna opens his tea shop at eight. The mood is relaxed, and everyone is looking forward to a day of rest and relaxation. Many of the security guards, immigrants from the eastern reaches of India, normally work 2 shifts – or 16 hours on the trot, so Sunday morning is a big release. V and X shoot the breeze with this small group, whom they have now got to know fairly well. Hindi is the common language…

  V and X are not the only ones trying to fix Bangalore’s filth problem. Unknown to them, there are several citizens out there, trying – in their own small way – to fix the mess on the streets outside their home or office. We are not talking here about NGOs or civil society organisations, of which Bangalore has plenty, but regular citizens. There is P, a software engineer, working on weekends at defeating an ugly garbage dump right in front of a huge technology park near the Koramangala Forum Mall in which his MNC employer occupies two large buildings.…