Commute

A panel discussion on "Making Bengaluru Women-friendly" was held on Saturday as part of ‘pEtE maatu', a three-day festival. The panel discussion was organised by Citizen Matters and Just Femme, an online women's magazine at the National Gallery of Modern Art (NGMA), Palace Road, Bengaluru.  From L: Prakash Belawadi, C K Meena, Mithila Jha, Deepika Nagabhushan, Vasanthi Hariprakash, Siri Srinivas, S T Ramesh and Honnamma. Pic: Meera K. It evoked mixed responses from the panelists as well as the audience. Opinions flew thick and fast. Conversation covered safety of public transport, sexual harassment, attitude of police and apathy of fellow…

Despite Bengaluru's cosmopolitan nature, safety in public spaces is still a problem for women in the city. Opinions vary about whether Bengaluru is safer compared to other Indian cities, but most women agree that the city has a long way to go in terms of accommodating women. Citizen Matters and Justfemme present Is Bengaluru women-friendly? A panel discussion Dec 18th, 4-5.30pm @ NGMA Auditorium, Palace Road, Bangalore All are welcome. The Bangalorean panelists (in alphabetical order) Prakash Belawadi, a well-known journalist, theatre enthusiast and a filmmaker. Mithila Jha, an Urban Planner, currently working with BMTC. Suneel Kumar (IPS), is Additional…

A couple of weeks back, bored on a Sunday morning, I set off on small exploration trip. From JP Nagar 6th phase Nandini Hotel stop, I took a 215C to Jambusavari Dinne (JP Nagar 8th phase) -the ride took about 15 minutes for the 5 km stretch. As the bus stopped at Jambusavari Dinne, a bus on route No. 378 passed by with the LED board showing "Electronic City" with reasonable crowd. I enquired with someone standing nearby and learnt that bus had a good frequency. In about two minutes, I noticed another 378 came on opposite side, bound for…

Following are the excerpts from a manual, which BBMP could be preparing for pedestrians: 1) For crossing streets, never assume that you can use the zebra crossings. The primary purpose of those crossings is for vehicles to come to a stop. The pedestrian is only an afterthought. Vehicles have full right to occupy the zebra crossings. Any pedestrian violating these rights of vehicles may be arrested. 2) BBMP has been magnanimous in providing separate signals   for pedestrians in some intersections. Again, please understand that the traffic signals are primarily meant for vehicles. Do not complain that these signals are on…

We suffered for months with bad roads. And my recent article on Citizen Matters got some good comments. One especially good comment was the 'sit in bund' suggested  to galvanise a reaction from the powers that be.  Castle Street now free of potholes. Pic: MN. Then on Sunday morning we were so surprised to see road rollers move in and a group of labourers sweeping off the mud. By nightfall the entire stretch of Castle Street had been done and you can see from the picture which is taken at the same place, before and after, there is an amazing difference. …

Joint Transport Commissioner, Richard V D'Souza has issued an order to set up control rooms to register complaints against errant auto drivers in Bengaluru on a trial basis. The trial will last for two weeks starting December 6th, Monday. The order notes that the complaints against autodrivers have been on the rise and the RTOs have been unable to take action against the auto owners in several cases. In earlier cases of complaints, RTO offficials found out that the autos involved had fake registrations and hence they couldn't trace the owners. To counter this and ensure swift action, ten control…

Castle Street in the heart the city has turned into a nightmare for residents of the road. Almost four months ago, KPTCL dug up the road to lay their lines which took over a month to be completed. Contractors were hired and water and sewage lines of most of the homes on the road were damaged during the digging. Requests for the lines to be repaired fell on deaf ears and finally private plumbers were hired by most residents to repair their lines. Immediately, BBMP issued notices to the residents and in some cases threatened to take them to the…

   I got a reference to this on another mailing list, and have been singing this:http://ingeb.org/songs/daisydai.htmlThere was supposed to be a tandem initiative in Bangalore:http://www.bangaloremirror.com/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=10&contentid=20100909201009090155111273efd521dwhat happened to it? I didn't hear anything more about it.....who stocks tandems in Bangalore, and do they hire them out?How wonderful it would be if we could have someone like Chris Gerli whom I've met often in St.Louis:http://citycyclingtours.com/We could have specially painted cycles and tandems (to prevent theft, like they have in IISc...perhaps they could even have embedded chips for location?) for hire in Cubbon Park and Lalbagh; surely it would popularize cycling? ⊕

  All our IT companies spout about "corporate and social responsibiility" but don't seem to practice what they preach. Along 1st Main Road, J P Nagar 3rd Phase, all the IT companies have built offices that offer very little, or no parking. They all use the public road as a kind of free parking lot. At night, residents in this area are put to great disadvantage by all the call-centre vans and cabs parked along the road, with the drivers often ganging up to pass comments on passers-by.  Residents of the area have been complaining to the IT companies with no effect at…

"The Brigade Millennium enclave brought an impressive range of facilities within one secure, green, well-planned environment. ... The end result is a quality of life that few urban dwellers in India normally have the privilege of enjoying", so says Brigade Enterprises' website on the Brigade Millennium enclave in JP Nagar 7th Phase. Reality, however, is quite different. The main road of this enclave - Millennium Avenue - is no different from a public road - worse, in fact, with both Brigade and BBMP washing their hands off it, this has become a classic 'dhobi ka kutta'. The result - as…