Governance

In January 2013, over 5,000- residents were evicted from the EWS quarters in Ejipura near Koramangala in South Bengaluru. The eviction was to facilitate BBMP’s new plan -- a developer, Maverick Holdings would construct new EWS quarters for the 1,512 families who were residing in the quarters. It has been five years since the eviction took place. In this series, Citizen Matters will bring to you a reality check on the developments in the project, what the evicted families are up to and what went wrong in implementation. In the first part, we hear from Uday B Garudachar, developer and Managing…

A few years ago, it was the purview of the neighbourhood RWA member (usually a retired old man) to raise civic complaints, from water pipe leaking to potholes. He would trudge down to the nearest ward office, and talk to the engineer responsible. He’d follow up and write letters to the MLA to escalate. But now, average citizens are more conscious and quick to reach out to BBMP to raise issues. If you are stuck with a dead animal in front of your house, you’d call the helpline or use the BBMP Sahaaya app to get it removed. A citizen…

It was in the year 2015 that reports of unwarranted hysterectomies in Kalburgi district of Karnataka began to appear in several media. A number of private hospitals in Kalburgi wilfully provided unscientific misinformation and instilled fear of cancer and pushed thousands of poor Dalit women to undergo medically unwarranted hysterectomies. Two subsequent detailed enquiries, one by the department of health and family welfare and another by the Karnataka State Women’s Commission, squarely indicted the deliberate misconduct by private hospitals. The National Human Rights Commission took suo moto cognizance of the issue and issued a notice to the state government. After…

A new animation shared on Twitter by Bengaluru City police goes thus: “Hey” “Hey. What’s up?” “I need to get my police verification done. Do you know which police station should I go to and whom to contact there?” “I have no clue, but you can Dial 100 to find out.” “I thought we should dial 100 only for emergencies??” “Nope. The newly launched Namma 100 is a ‘point of contact’ for anything and everything related to Bengaluru police.” “I didn’t know, will call 100 and find out. Thank you” In the month of April, in an interview with Citizen…

The city and municipal corporation civic workers who were on an indefinite strike demanding for regularisation of contract workers and payment of salaries, called off their protest on the second day. The BBMP Guttige Pourakarmikara Sangha, along with Karnataka Rajya Nagarapalike, Nagarasabhe, Purasabhe Pourakarmikara Mahasangha and the Safaikaramchari Kavalu Samiti had staged an indefinite strike starting June 12th, 2017. The strike was called off on June 13th , after the Minister for Social Welfare and Backward Classes Welfare H Anjaneya and Minister for Municipalities and Local Bodies Department and Public Enterprises Ishwar Khandre, along with Bengaluru Mayor Padmavathi G, assured…

Remember the plans to divide BBMP into five different city corporations? A committee formed by the Karnataka State government had proposed dividing BBMP into five smaller  corporations and redraw the zones. This was meant to facilitate better administration. The city corporation has not been divided yet, but the Karnataka government has now geared up to implement the other proposal of redesigning the zones. In a notification issued on June 12th, the Urban Development Department has officially divided Bengaluru into 10 zones, from the existing eight zones. The notification says the decision to reclassify zones has been taken to give good…

Your 28 Bengaluru MLAs, the winners Find your candidate Who is standing for elections from your area, their profiles and what residents think. Bangalore South * Basavanagudi Bommanahalli * BTM Layout * Byatrayanapura * Chickpet * Jayanagar * K R Puram * Mahadevapura * Mahalakshmi Layout * Malleshwaram * Pulikeshi Nagar * Rajaji Nagar * Sarvagnanagar Shantinagar Shivaji Nagar Yeshwanthpur Interviews Krishna Byregowda D Venkatesh Murthy: BBMP should be split Yogaiah V C: From RWA to MLA Candidate Michael Fernandes: I will keep working for people Sridhar Pabbisetty: knows policy, can he practice? DR M R V Prasad:Want to cure…

BANGALORE SOUTH » Report on debate between Bangalore South candidates, organised by Smart Vote and News9 » Comparison chart of candidates at myneta.info Ananth Kumar - BJP Four terms as an MP. Served as a Union Minister for Civil Aviation, Tourism and Culture, Youth Affairs and Urban Development. Age: 50 years; Assets: Rs. 122.06 Lakhs; Criminal Record: None since 2004 Citizen Matters' interview of Ananth Kumar Click here for detailed profile. Capt Gopinath - Independent With an MBA and degrees from the NDA Captain has working life that includes 8 yrs service in the Indian Army, 17 years in Farming…

25 years after the 74th Constitutional Amendment (Nagarapalika Act) prescribed effective citizen participation through ward committees, to bring in accountability of the local councillor to the community, an opportunity is at last being given to citizens to get into ward committees.  Till now, if at all the ward committees were constituted; councillors were themselves nominating the individual members and registered associations who would sit on ward committees.  It was not surprising that the ward committees used to be filled with the councillors’ own party-men and cronies, defeating the purpose of the ward committees. The two seats for registered associations used…

Being a Public Policy student from Mount Carmel College and currently working as an intern in Co Media Lab, I got an assignment of talking to a Member of Legislative Assembly (MLA), to understand how MLAs manage their expenses. I chose to talk to Priya Krishna, the MLA from Govindrajanagar constituency. He has been holding this position since 2009, re-elected in 2013 elections. I assumed that an MLA, being a public figure, needs to give an appointment to meet him. Last week of April went in vain, as I was trying to reach Priya Krishna's Personal Assistant (PA), one Mr.…