Environment

Air pollution on Outer Ring Road. Pic: Mayur Channagere Air pollution in Bengaluru has become so severe, that it is forcing people with lung problems to even leave Bengaluru. Dr Padma Sundaram, pulmonologist at Manipal Hospital, says that some patients leave the city for months, to get better. She says that cases of asthma and respiratory infections are increasing, and that people with lung problems sometimes need ICU admissions when pollution levels peak, such as during winter smog and Diwali. “People from highly polluted areas are coming for treatment more often,” she says. A lung test on 503 Bengaluru school…

Whitefield Rising hosted an enlightening session on Sunday, September 26, with eminent environmentalist A.N. Yellappa Reddy, who connected the dots among environmental consciousness, waste management, sewage treatment, lake purification, biodiversity promotion, and reconnection with nature. Held at the serene campus of Ecumenical Christian Centre, the session titled ‘Increasing Urban Greenery to Promote Healthy Living’ was attended by more than 60 citizens of all ages from different parts of the city. Yellappa Reddy addressing the residents of Whitefield Mr Reddy explained the various ways in which citizens could make a difference—through the choices they made and by questioning the administration. He told…

With consumerism at its peak and humans wasting more than utilising, it’s time to relook, to reflect, to repair. Repair Café is based on the very idea of sustainable living, to promote the judicious use of natural and personal resources in a bid to save this planet. Thanks to Whitefield Rising, the concept came alive recently near Hope Farm, set in the lap of the serene The Ant's Store– a perfect venue bathed in natural charm. People learning to repair electronic equipment at Repair Cafe event in Whitefield. A team of volunteers comprising a teenager, a banker, a techie, a homemaker,…

  GM-Free Karnataka and the Karnataka Alliance for Safe Food have announced a 'Sasive Satyagraha' event in Bangalore on October 2, 2016, to be held at the Gandhi Statue at  Anand Rao Circle, Bangalore from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. This is primarily a citizens' awareness and call-to-action campaign to protest against the approval of the commercial release of genetically modified varieties of mustard (GM Mustard) in the country. The fight against genetically modified food has just been revived with renewed vigour around the country, with activists and experts raising strong opposition to the introduction of GM Mustard. The commercial…

Bengaluru is growing, but at a much faster pace than expected. With such rapid urbanization, peri-urban areas are concurrently growing faster beyond the planned rates of infrastructure development of local ecosystems. The random expansion of cities by dissolving or merging the boundaries of nearby cities, towns and villages in a disorganized manner without any foresight poses various social, economic and environmental risks. In Bengaluru and its vicinity too, this has predictably led to an imbalance in terms of growth versus maintenance, witnessed by increasing slums, growing threat of newer and virulent epidemics, and poor access to basic services such as…

He has an air of spirituality and wisdom that is beyond his 29 years. As he sits in his office and tells me about the journey of Environment Foundation of India, I cannot but help wonder what I was doing with my life when I was his age. Nothing important comes to mind. And here I am, face to face with this young man, who has already helped save and restore over 39 lakes and 54 ponds in the country! Arun Krishnamurthy is one of the world’s youngest awardees of the Rolex Award for Enterprise. The award recognised his contribution…

Ten weeks have flown by and my internship with Citizen Matters has come to a quick end. Tomorrow, I will board a flight, but I will not be leaving India just yet. I am looking forward to three weeks of travel around the subcontinent to see what else this country has to offer. The author on the beach in Goa. Pic: Kate Clark But soon enough, I will be struggling to nap on 16-hour flight back to Dallas, Texas. When I picture exiting the Dallas Fort-Worth airport, driving a few miles toward my parent’s house in suburban Texas, I can…

We launched the crowdsourced Blackspot Mapping Project (garbage dump mapping project) in the last week of August, 2016. Two weeks into the project, we are already nearing 200 spots. As we reached out to people for help, we also faced many questions: Why are you doing this? What’s the intent? What will this data be used for? So many apps to map garbage and other issues - why should we contribute data to this project? In this article, we try to explain it all in detail. Why are you doing this? What’s the intent? Our cities suffer from multiple problems.…

Sometimes dry, barren-seeming patches of land have so much of interest in them. Recently, my friend Manivannan S spotted, in a small empty lot, this Painted Grasshopper. The wiki entry on this gorgeous-looking creature says that the grasshopper feeds on the poisonous plant Calotropis gigantea. Certainly, these grasshoppers had stripped all the Calatropis (milkweed) plants nearby. Striking in appearance... The mature grasshopper has canary yellow and turquoise stripes on its body, green tegmina with yellow spots, and pale red hind wings. The wiki also mentions the interesting fact that these grasshoppers, when squeezed or handled, upon slight pinching of the…

‘Swacch Bharat!’ We have seen a lot of hype about this programme in media but what is the reality? Of course, many things are happening in little pockets around the country, about which we read or hear. It does give us some hope that some day, maybe after half a century, we may see some difference at least in certain localities. However, as an individual, my experience has been a bit disappointing. Firstly, the once beautiful garden city of Bengaluru is turning into a city of concrete, garbage, polluted water bodies and chaos at a very fast pace!  Cleaning up…