Governance

We have heard the CM of Karnataka and are disappointed with his response. However that doesn't change what was seen, heard and felt by thousands  on the road on Sunday - #SteelFlyoverBeda. There are thousands who are against this flyover – old and young who lined the streets in the Human Chain on Sunday, Oct 16. We believed that 8000 people on the streets would most certainly lead to a dialogue and re-examination of the project and cancellation of the project as well. The 219 people or 73% of 299 responses does NOT represent the public sentiment evident on the…

A huge commercial advertisement hoarding towering above the Adugodi police quarters in Koramangala features in the list of unauthorised advertisement hoardings prepared by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). Questions may naturally be raised over why this was not torn down by the BBMP when it initiated its drive against illegal advertisement hoardings in the city. But, in fact, it was. During one such drive, BBMP staff under the supervision of the Assistant Revenue Officer (ARO) of Koramangala had removed the advertisement display of the commercial hoarding in Adugodi recently. But in less than a week’s time of removing it,…

A few weeks ago, I’d just come out of my gym in RT Nagar when a couple with a child, looking as if they hailed from somewhere rural, approached me. Both of them asked me if I spoke Hindi and told me how they’d come to Bangalore on train from some place in Bihar, was summoned for a job by a contractor who had then cheated them. Now they were without money and couldn’t go back to their village. The man had tears in his eyes and the woman looked sad. It was late evening and they begged me to…

The Central and State governments announce new schemes and programmes for the benefit of the poor every year, but how many of these schemes reach the bottom of the pyramid in reality? According to a news report, in August 2016, the Karnataka government changed the rules for BPL card holders, reducing the number of eligibility conditions to be fulfilled for obtaining the card from 14 to just four. According to estimates the total number of BPL card holders in the state today is 90 lakh. The new rule with simplified guidelines for considering a family as BPL may have helped…

The floods of December 2015 have made the various departments of the Government think beyond conventional solutions for Disaster Management. As part of a long term plan, the Tamil Nadu Urban Infrastructure and Financial Services Ltd (TNUIFSL) is currently floating a tender for an Early Warning System, that would typically predict the areas and levels of inundation depending on the rain forecast. This will take into account the level of moisture in the soil, which will increase the accuracy of the prediction. This is expected to take about 2-3 years. LiDAR mapping, a remote sensing method that uses light in…

Railway Under-Bridge near Bengaluru's Shivananda Circle is no longer an ugly, stinking, dangerous thoroughfare for pedestrians. It has been transformed in five steps: Step 1 (June 2016): Railways staff + citizen volunteers de-poster, remove garbage and transform 80% of the RUB over three days. The Ugly Indian poster-repellent design was used, with striking bright colours, to brighten up an otherwise dark and dreary under-bridge place. See the album of Spotfix no 1 here: https://www.facebook.com/theugl.yindian/photos/… Step 2 (July 2016): BBMP fixes the footpath and repairs the pathways, including installing lights Step 3 (July 2016): Railways fixes the leaking roof and trims…

Have you wondered about the advertisement boards that we see on our roads and medians? Most of the time we curse them silently for spoiling the skyline or worse, blocking our line of vision while crossing the road, and then move on. We assume that some official body gave them an ill-conceived permission. When the number of such boards in Bellandur ward became too much to bear, to the extent that they were causing fatal accidents, we met the Special Commissioner for Property tax and Hoardings - V Rashmi Mahesh on March 27, 2016. And guess what we learnt? Of…

A few months ago, on my other blog, I wrote a post about Donald Trump, making less-than-gentle fun of the man. At the time, he didn't seem like much of a threat. I was fairly confident that Donald Trump had about as much chance of becoming president as a lemur had of learning to fly an aeroplane. It looks, however, as though it may be time to invent seatbelts for lemurs, though, because The Donald is looking like a serious presidential candidate. After several years of threats, Donald Trump has finally decided to run for presidential election. I don't know…

In well-planned cities, the government makes the plans and the builders respond to that with project proposals - to build residential communities, commercial facilities, and so on. In our cities, the builders and individual plot owners make their proposals first, and the city then scrambles to figure out how to plan the city around that. The order in which we do things is itself wrong. Within this error, looking for solutions to 'manage' the way things are done is pointless. Which is why making the planning body for the city work - as per law - is important. People sometimes…

In the May 2016 elections, while Tamil Nadu recorded a polling percent of 73.85%, Chennai recorded only 60.5%. The pattern was similar in other metro cities. It was around 54% in Mumbai (2014) and Bangalore (2015), roughly 12-13% lower than the state average. The media, analyst and activists put the blame on urban citizens. But should we really judge by these figures? And even where turnout is in fact low, what are the real reasons behind the phenomenon? The problem of duplicate entries Vote Smart, a Bangalore based NGO run by PG Bhat, analyzed the electoral rolls using software. They…