Governance

Time is now ripe for bringing in systemic changes and strategies to take Bengaluru on a road towards a sustainable solution for handling and processing of solid waste according to the MSW Rules 2000 notified by the Ministry of Environment & Forests. As an important step towards managing Municipal Solid Waste Management (SWM) as well as to evolve and implement strategies and action plan for Bengaluru getting back its glory as a clean and green city, the Government of Karnataka, Urban Development Department constituted an Expert Committee (EC) under the Chairmanship of Commissioner, BBMP and seven other experts to advise…

The Governor has once again returned the Sakrama Bill. In any event, given the court case that is going on, any attempt by the government to circumvent the court was bound to land in trouble, so there's not much point in the Governor also getting embroiled in it. Let's face it - this Bill should be killed. It's a bad idea, always has been. But more than that, we should now be thinking about a scarier proposition - we have reached the stage in our politics where it is difficult to do good things because our representatives are being elected…

On 11 June 2013, Suvarna News 24X7 and TV9 news had reported that the Mayor, Venkatesh Murthy, asked for the concessionaire agreement between the Maverick Holdings and the BBMP, related to Ejipura Economically Weaker Sections Quarters. However, chief engineer Rangaraju, who took over from erstwhile chief engineer B T Ramesh, said that the file was missing. Citizen Matters' effort to try to know why the Mayor wanted the files did not receive any reply, as the Mayor asked us to talk to the BBMP Commissioner. The Commissioner, Lakshminarayan, remained unavailable over phone for any clarifications. But here is the ‘missing’…

When it suits their dodgy interests, the political parties actually cooperate with each other, even though they are theoretically opponents in the electoral and other arenas. Yesterday (June 11, 2013) we saw a very good example of this in the Karnataka Legislative Council. Some years ago, the Supreme Court handed down a judgment that was intended to free the police forces from direct political interference. The court ordered the establishment of an appointments Board in each state that would manage the postings of lower level police staff (below the rank of DySP). This Board is filled with members of senior…

A news item, dated June 5, 2013 said: “Wall pulled down to alter minister’s chambers.” A partition wall connecting two rooms allotted to Forest Minister Ramanath Rai was demolished in order to make the minister’s chambers bigger. Minister Sir, it was not just the wall that was demolished, it was the wall of hope that the people had erected, about better governance, when they elected your party to govern the state last month. Just last year, the then chief minister’s political secretary had ordered demolition of walls in his office to make it bigger – and this same Congress that…

There are a number of things that the CM can do, to clearly signal a break with the failures of the past. As the new Chief Minister takes office, many Bangaloreans must be wondering what lies in store for our city. We are all hopeful that along with a new government, we will get a new direction too. We've had enough of irresponsible apathy and outright criminality of the political leadership over the last decade. The city is virtually gasping for a new politics, focused on solving problems and being accountable to the public. There are a number of things…

As residents of Bangalore, many of us know that the transport situation in the city is far from ideal. And considering the status of progress of various transport initiatives, the road to an efficient urban transportation strategy is fraught with obstacles. The process is bound to be messy and appears to be expensive in terms of time, money and the effort it will demand. However, the cost of not doing the integration is far higher than that of avoidng it. Radha Chanchani, an urban planner working with the Indian Institute of Science, said, "Urban planners consider transportation as an important…

Plenty will be written, said, read, and heard over the next few days around the return of the Congress to Karnataka. Plenty will also be said about how the incoming chief minister plans to fix Bengaluru, the ailing capital city. As if this party did not have opportunities in the past. At the end of this article, I’m going to summarise what this verdict means to me. I will also add a few key areas where I would like to see real change. But before that, let’s take a deeper look at the context under which our elections are being…

Election reporting is an interesting area. One gets to see the real faces of candidates and their followers, besides coming across a bunch of funny experiences. Here's a collection of such experiences from the Citizen Matters team.It was about 6.30 in the evening. Around 40 people were going around shouting slogans for Shobha Karandlaje, in Rajaji Nagar. She would reach there in another half an hour.Except a handful of middle-aged men leading the pack, no other supporters seemed as loud or dramatic as supporters usually are. About half of them were women. The men seemed young and sophisticated, some with…

When I dropped by the office to see if I could help Citizen Matters with election coverage, I had no idea what to expect. Half an hour into our conversation, I’m asked if I want to interview Uday Garudachar, standing for elections in Chickpet on a BJP ticket. "Does your phone record calls?" Here was a man whose company’s chequered history I'd been following for the last three months while volunteering at Ejipura. And here was the one chance I had to speak to him on record; but my phone had no internal memory for a voice recorder app. I…