Civic

World Environment Day 2021: India to promote increased ethanol blending On June 4th, the eve of World Environment Day, the union government announced the launch of the country's roadmap for ethanol blending, with PM Narendra Modi releasing the 'Report of the Expert Committee on Road Map for ethanol blending in India 2020-2025'. The government issued the E-20 notification directing oil companies to sell ethanol blended petrol from April 1st, 2023. Ethanol quantity will now be 20% as per the notification. In this regard, PM Modi will be inaugurating three ethanol stations in Pune. The objective is to cut down on…

COVID: Government mulls phased unlock, sero-survey to be conducted Following the two-week strict lockdown to bring down the COVID spread, the state government mulls over phased unlock. The number of cases in the city has almost halved in this time, with the measures working to control the spread. Data from the civic body shows that there is an active reduction in the number of containment zones in Chennai in just a week. A street is marked as a containment zone if it has more than 10 active COVID cases. On May 31st, there were 365 containment zones whereas, on May…

Lockdown continues, level wise unlock to begin While announcing that COVID-19 restrictions will remain in place till June 15, the government eased some of the conditions on Sundays, allowing shops of essential items to remain open till 2 pm instead of 11 am. Maharashtra has decided on a 5-level unlock strategy as COVID-19 cases in the state slowly recede. Lockdown can be lifted completely in districts categorised as Level 1, which includes Thane. Mumbai has been categorised as Level 2. Level 5 has been deemed as Red Zone and will continue strict enforcement of a complete lockdown. Source: Times of…

Lockdown extended On Thursday, the Karnataka government announced extending the lockdown across the State by a week, from June 7 to June 14. This is in accordance with the Technical Advisory Committee's recommendation that the lockdown should be continued till the case positivity rate drops to 5%. The CPR presently is around 11%. On Thursday, Bengaluru Urban recorded 3,533 new cases of COVID, 7,672 discharges and 347 deaths. The State government also spelt out a second relief package of Rs 323 crore to give ASHA, Anganwadi workers, weavers, film and TV industry workers, Muzrai temple priests, Maulvis and fishermen Rs…

With ever growing and rapidly changing Indian cities, the gamut of issues that are affecting them are not only growing, but are becoming very specific to the local context. Decision-makers and designers are rethinking urban design to make cities more liveable and public spaces more accessible and safe. Tactical urbanism is gaining popularity as a method to tackle these issues. What's tactical urbanism?  Tactical urbanism is all about action. It is also known as DIY urbanism, Planning-by-Doing, Urban Acupuncture, or Urban Prototyping. This approach refers to a city, organisational, and/or citizen-led approach to building neighbourhoods by using short-term, low-cost, and…

States-Centre disagree over vaccine wastage data States have refuted the numbers on vaccine wastage shared by the Centre. After Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh also said the data was incorrect and asked the union health ministry to revisit the data. The Centre said vacccine wastage in MP was 10%, whereas the state’s health department claimed in its letter to the Centre that wastage was around 1.5%. The department said there was a possibility of some communication gap between the state and centre. Similarly, Chhattisgarh refuted the center’s claim of more than 30% wastage in the state and called it politically…

Testing sewage to detect clusters Karnataka will begin testing sewage water to identify potential coronavirus clusters and mutant variants of the virus. The surveillance teams which will be in 45 wards, will cover over 75% of 90 lakh residents by generating over 90 data points per week, the Urban Development Department reportedly revealed. This could be a cost-effective early warning system to assess the increase in cases before the number of official cases actually go up. Officials hope it will avoid city-wide lockdowns by focusing on micro-containment zones. Samples would be pulled from 45 wards every day for the next…

COVID-19: Lockdown extended, TPR decreases Over the past few days, Chennai has witnessed a downward trend in the total number of new COVID-19 cases in the city. On May 26th, the test positivity rate (TPR) stood at 12.1%. To bring down the numbers further, the Tamil Nadu government has extended the total lockdown till June 7th. In a bid to vaccinate people with disabilities, the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) has initiated special camps and door-step services. As on May 27th, 118 persons with disabilities have been inoculated in Chennai. The home visits enable those who cannot visit the centres to…

Bank fraud case furthered by Enforcement Directorate The ED has attached Rs. 166 crore worth properties in the Varron Group fraud case. These 20 immovable properties are located in Mumbai, Pune, and Ratnagiri. Varron Group had allegedly submitted fake bills to banks in order to accrue Letters of Credit. The Group then defaulted on its payment. In 2017, the CBI filed a charge sheet against the company and its director, officials from Bank of India and Canara Bank of forging bills worth Rs. 300 crores. Source: India Today, MoneyLife Read more: The sad story of Mumbai’s first “slum self-development project”…

To understand and document the impact of COVID on Bengaluru's crematoria and burial ground workers, two members and a volunteer from the All India Central Council of Trade Unions (AICCTU), Karnataka, visited 26 crematoriums/burial grounds between May 4 and 8, 2021 and interviewed workers. Based on these interviews and other publicly available information including circulars issued by the government regarding COVID related deaths and burials/cremations and visits to each facility, they have brought out a report titled ‘Dignity Disposed’. Here is an overview of their findings: Bengaluru has 42 crematoriums and 58 burial grounds according to newspaper reports. Additionally, there are temporary…