Civic

A small part of our neighbourhood (Osborne road and nearby roads in Sivanchetty Garden, near Ulsoor lake) has been converted to a garbage free area. This experimental initiative comprises four roads spread over 1 square kilometre. The same strategy will be adopted to covert the entire neighbourhood into a garbage free one. Our applause to the team lead by resident Divya Nahender. The team was formed with volunteers inspired by similar initiatives in Kumara Park locality. They identified the black spots (with garbage) and prepared a sketch of the entire area; Divya and her team invited residents to a meeting…

"The RTI Act is best understood by using it, not just knowing it". – Anand S, ACF BangaloreIt was around 2.15 PM on Jul-25, the last Saturday of the month at Cubbon Park and RTI Clinic’s second session., I was just in time to hear Manohar Ranganathan of the South India Cell for Human Rights Education and Monitoring (SICHREM) welcome the gathering. Nearly 25 people including students, public, private and self-employed citizens, community workers and the two to three co-organisers were present. Sultan, a state government officer joined the interaction later as an observer. Anand of the Anti-Corruption Forum (ACF)…

Sometime in MayBBMP workers had dredged out the storm water drain near my house, and left a mound of filth, muck, crushed plastic cups and assorted debris on the edge of the pavement on  8-F main road, Jayanagar. Each time it rained, some of the muck got washed right back into the drain. It was an eyesore and an olfactory assault. There are posh shops all along this road, hundreds of citizens walk or drive past, even park next to the pile of rubbish. The famous Jayanagar shopping complex is just across the road.I complained about it to the city…

The seven-year old HSR Layout Sector II Residents Association convened their annual general body meeting on 19th of July at Cambridge Public School located in the vicinity.The meeting was well attended by residents and had a focused agenda. The concerns of the residents included:Bad Roads & silted/clogged Storm water drains: a. Blacktopping of all roads and regular clearance of shoulder undergrowth. b. De-silting of all storm-water drains c. Proper repair of road cutting. (Left to right) Mahesh, Chana Keshava, Bhasker Reddy, Brinda Gaurav, Basava, Kumar, Brig Murthy and Girish - the newly elected committee of HSR layout 2nd sector RWA.…

Here's a link to the web album by Nithya, which covers this protest:click here Apparently all that has been agreed to is that BBMP will take "appropriate action"...this may not be enough, and we may have to protest more!⊕References

An open area in the 12th cross of JP Nagar Phase I overgrown with weeds was cleared; footpath slabs were laid on the 13th Main in BTM layout, all this within days of a Janaspandana being held in both these areas.Janaspandana, a state government initiative that brings citizens, officials and elected representatives together to fix civic issues, was held in JP Nagar and BTM Layout on 4th and 10th July respectively.In both the events chaired by the local MLAs, residents of the area voiced their problems in front of officials representing different departments of the government.   Footpath upgradation ongoing at…

Many of us know that hundreds of trees are  felled all over the city under the guise of road widening often with no prior approval. Traders, home-owners, street vendors and slum dwellers are  dislocated without appropriate compensation apparently for various infrastructure projects without guarantee that these tasks will meet their proposed objectives and deadlines. If these citizen groups hadn’t intervened, BBMP would have implemented its road-widening scheme launched in 2005 (pic courtesy: Hasiru Usiru/ESG) Knowing that we could either accept or question the largely brazen and undemocratic approach adopted in the name of the city's development, some groups such as…

As a part of an initiative on good governance, a group of RTI activists and civil societies in the city came up with RTI Clinics for citizens of Bangalore. The Clinic is a joint initiative of RTI activists groups, community-based organizations and grassroots social justice campaigners. The idea behind coming up with RTI Clinic is to create awareness on the Act, provide procedural guidance and assistance to obtain information from government bodies. (Social justice campaigners are people who campaign for the fundamental rights or grievance redressal of the marginalized such as domestic workers, child labourers and internally displaced riot victims,…

"The world is a playground, and life is pushing my swing." - Natalie Kocsis The Revised Master Plan 2015 of the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) designates playgrounds as, ‘premises used for outdoor games’. Bangalore has many such grounds which are managed by the city’s municipal corporation – Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). These grounds have unrestricted access; open play areas with some play equipment and courts, where multiple groups of youngsters are involved in various sporting activities - cricket, football, basketball and some unique hybrid sports. The Akkithimmanahalli playground before the encroachments in June 2008 (pic Rohan D'Souza) These playgrounds…

HSR Layout Sector 2 is witness to numerous unauthorised and filthy garbage dumps with pigs and stray dogs adding to the menace. In tune with their aim of keeping a clean and healthy environment for one and all, we, the HSR Layout Sector-2 Residents Welfare Association, had conducted a garbage awareness campaign during April 2009. Officials and staff of BBMP also participated in the campaign on 18th April 2009.Pigs and dogs frequent garbage dumps in HSR Layout Sector 2 (Pic courtesy: Brig Murthy) Residents of HSR Layout Sector 2 campaign for a cleaner neighbourhood (pic courtesy: Brig. Murthy) The message…