Environment

Government of India has kept a major step towards sustainable waste management, by making it mandatory to segregate waste at source. According to a Press Information Bureau press note, the new waste management rules are stricter than the rules notified in the year 2000. Exerpts from the press note: The Environment Ministry has revised Solid Waste Management Rules after 16 years. Addressing a press conference to announce the revised Rules on April 5, Minister of State (Independent Charge) of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Prakash Javadekar said that the Rules are now applicable beyond municipal areas and will extend to…

Having been living in India, and more specifically Bangalore, for almost three months now, I have grown increasingly more comfortable with the social norms and practices here. For the first month or so these norms took some time to sink in and become common practice. For example, the concept of “Indian stretch time”, at home it is considered very rude to be late, or not needing to say thank you every time someone does something nice for you, an omission of “thank you” in the United States is also considered an offense. The following is a story of how, as…

Bengaluru lets its sewage into valleys, rivers and lakes. Little sewage is processed, while much of it is unprocessed in nature. Navin, a villager from K Channasandra, believes that the Maragondanahalli Lake is the savior for the villagers and their animals. Pic: Perumal Venkatesan Rampura Valley is one of the valley systems of Bengaluru in the north east of the city. This valley gets a mix of treated and untreated water from the raja kaluve (storm water drain) sewage treatment plant, which has 40 MLD capacity and uses Extended Aeration Process. The wastewater from north-eastern parts of Bangalore flows into…

Bangalore, India’s garden city, has slowly become the garbage city - like most major Indian cities and towns. One of the main culprits has been single use disposables like plastic carry bags, plastic and paper cups, plastic and Styrofoam plates, etc. The 'Single Use Plastic Ban campaign' has brought together MLAs and Corporators, BBMP officials, RWAs, citizen groups, activists and social organisations to stop the menace of single use disposables, and implement the waste segregation at source rule in their rspective wards. As of date, more than 20 wards in Bengaluru have already launched this campaign and almost an equal number are in…

Karnataka High Court. Pic: Akshatha M The Karnataka High Court has dismissed the petition filed by plastic manufacturers and traders challenging the State government’s decision to ban single use and non-recyclable plastic products across the State, based on technical grounds. The Division Bench of Chief Justice Subhro Kamal Mukherjee and Justice Ravi Malimath dismissed the plastic manufacturers plea to grant a stay on the plastic ban. The court cited that an alternative legal remedy lies before the petitioners to question the government notification banning the manufacture, supply, sale and use of plastic products. The alternative remedy lies in the form…

Swacha Graha is a citizen-driven campaign initiated by the Solid Waste Management Round Table Bangalore to address Bengaluru’s garbage woes. The campaign challenges you to make you look at the waste you generate as a resource, just by starting three green spots. What are the three green spots? Green Spot 1: Your composting spotGreen Spot 2: Your garden where you use your compostGreen Spot 3: Your kitchen, where you cook with vegetables and greens from your garden How is Green Spot 1 beneficial? Composting is a smell-free, non-messy process which will reduce your carbon foot print. 60% of the waste…

When British entrepreneur William Seighart founded National Poetry Day his intention was to promote poetry and recognize the works of talented poets. In his words,"They (poets) shouldn’t be embarrassed about reading their work out aloud. I want people to read poetry on the bus on their way to work, in the street, in school and in the pub." National Poetry Day became a global phenomena. This year it was celebrated on Monday, the 21st of March. As we learn to appreciate poetry, let us look at the work of poets closer home in Karnataka and how their poems are being presented in…

A map of the area under study. Pic: Biome As part of the participatory aquifer management studies in the Yemalur watershed, we conducted a Vertical Electrical Sounding (VES) survey to get a clear geological profile of the ground below. A description of the activities is given below. Objective The VES or Resistivity Survey is a non-destructive in-situ test which is conducted  by measuring variations in the electrical resistivity of the ground in order to to locate and estimate the characteristics of the aquifer below. Methodology The survey is done by applying small electric currents across arrays of ground electrodes (depth…

The State government has officially gazetted the plastic ban in Karnataka. Here is the gazetted document that has all related details.   // Related ArticlesBengaluru is being swept by citizen-led plastic bansPlastic ban won't affect jobs, say govt, analystsPlastic ban: 25,000 to lose jobs; Industry seeks solutionsWhat Karnataka can learn from plastic ban across Indian citiesSanjay Nagar shopkeepers stop giving plastic carry bags, launch ‘Rent a Bag’

In a discussion on ‘The City in the World’ as part of the IIHS City Scripts festival in Bangalore, K.T.Ravindran, Professor & Head of the Urban design department for the last 20 years at the School of Planning & Architecture in Delhi talked of his three favourite cities – New York, Istanbul & Benares. He suggested that in places such as these, the intensity of the life in the city could change its people, it could make them special, different & quirky. On the one hand, these were cities that could draw people from outside, absorb them into their fold, give…