Civic

Yes, it has been an exciting weekend. Your own interactive news and analysis website, Citizen Matters, won the Namma Bengaluru Award in media category, at an event organised by Namma Bengaluru Foundation in Freedom Park, on Saturday, March 15th, 2014. Accepting the award, Citizen Matters co-founder Meera K noted that even though the team was tiny by normal standards of newsmagazines, in reality, it is hundreds of thousands strong, because of direct participation from citizens. "It is the citizens of Bangalore who share their news, community activities and events, the citizens who send leads for our professional journalists to investigate,…

The press note from Namma Bengaluru Foundation states: The winners of the prestigious Namma Bengaluru Awards (NBA) for 2013 will be announced on 15 March, 2014, at Freedom Park, Bangalore. We invite you to be a part of the award function, to applaud and help celebrate our true heroes. Each one of the award winners is a crusader, fighting for justice and saving our city from vested interest. Anna Hazare, who has been spearheading the anti-corruption movement, will be the guest of honor at the awards, stressing our singular vision of breaking the nexus between unethical, dishonest, and illegal forces…

That was a typo. We are not here to save you! We are only saving ourselves. As you see, the hot air balloons have lifted off ;). Seriously, more balloons are rising, just hop on. As we celebrate one year since the day 50 of us first gathered, we have no time to reminisce. We are infact shocked to get a call from Namma Bengaluru Awards that we are a finalist. They had 71,000 entries. (Yeah all those zeroes are there). We are not even sure we should be compared with or win against others that are all doing good…

V and X had done a simple exercise the previous week – something done by thousands of Bangaloreans everyday. They took a walk from Cauvery Emporium on the Brigade Road – MG Road junction to the famous Koshy’s cafe, along the length of Church Street. This is probably one of the most well-trodden paths of Bangalore’s entertainment, food, book and beer seekers, and takes in all the well-known landmarks – Cauvery Handicrafts, the Levi’s store, the Magazines store, Nando’s Chicken, Matteo Cafféa, several icecream and dessert parlours, the popular Queen’s eatery, Shrungar Shopping Centre, the venerable Indian Coffee House, the…

This is a fortnightly newsletter shared by bellandur-forum@googlegroups.com Metro on Sarjapur Road, in some years    Namma Metro Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) has begun the spadework for a 133-km Phase III.  Engineering consultancy firm RITES is preparing a Detailed Project Report (DPR) for the 33-km line from Central Silk Board to Hebbal, one of the five routes proposed under the new phase. The Central Silk Board - Hebbal line will cover vast stretches of the ORR, linking areas such as Sarjapur road, Marathahalli and Mahadevapura. The four other routes: * Nagawara - Kempegowda International Airport (KIA): 25-km line*…

When a seven-km stretch of the road takes 45 minutes to cross, it calls for an action. When the area is near a prominent IT zone like Whitefield in Bengaluru, it is likely to affect the image of the city too. Bruhat Whitefield Residential Community Association (BWRCA) from Whitefield will submit a memorandum to the Kadugodi Traffic Police demanding to solve the traffic problems near Whitefield. The three major issues that the memorandum highlights are: Enforcing ‘no entry’ for heavy vehicles at Kadugodi Rail Over Bridge, during peak hours; Better traffic management at Hope farm circle Prohibiting parking of vehicles…

The Karnataka government is trying to increase tourism in the city of Bengaluru. Recent news reports say that they are planning to extend the 11.30pm closing time for bars and restaurants in the city to 1am. A few days ago the paper had a report of the city introducing a tourist 'Big Bus' with a hop-on, hop-off service which goes to the tourist attractions of the city — Lalbaug, Cubbon Park, Vidhan Soudha, Bangalore Palace, Tipu's Palace, Bull temple etc. However, these tourist attractions are all quite old. Most predate independence and the formation of Karnataka and are at least…

On Sunday morning (February 16th, 2014), I was rudely woken up at 5.15 am by a group of people who were making religion* loudly outside my apartment block. I’d heard this cacophony before and had dismissed it, assuming incorrectly on two separate occasions that it was a funeral procession and a Jain family taking sanyas. Even though the religion was happening loudly on both occasions, I thought this was an aberration that can’t be outraged over because these were one-time events. However, what took place on Sunday changed all that. At 5.15 am, about 15 people, armed with a dholak…

In his book, ‘Sidewalk’, Mitchell Duneier describes the lives of people who “work the street”, the book vendors, the magazine vendors and the ‘men without accounts’ who guard the door to the ATMs on Sixth Avenue in New York. It is an intensive ethnographical study of the social structure of street life in the city. As I read the book, I’m reminded of my interactions until now with the street vendors outside Russell market in Bangalore. They also “work the street” some becoming entrepreneurs out of necessity and others by choice, in many ways living the same lives as the…

The Ugly Indian (TUI) is an inspired community in its truest sense. One of the forerunners of large-scale citizen movement to clean up the streets of Bangalore, they have inspired large groups of people to take ownership of their locality and do their bit. It was only a matter of time before it picked up. Now the movement seems to have touched most of the educated elite in Bangalore. Several TUI-inspired spotfixing groups are getting formed across various localities of Bangalore. The groups that are currently in operation are: Whitefield Rising: All areas from Kundalahalli to ITPL Banaswadi Rising: Kammanahalla-Kasturi…