Governance

The Electoral Rolls of 27 constituencies of Bangalore have serious errors and omissions. When the authorities did not react to repeated feedbacks and request to correct anomalies, a PIL was filed in the High Court of Karnataka. The Chief Justice agreed with the issues raised in the petition and directed the CEO to correct various data errors and also to restore illegitimately deleted voters. After reported efforts at cleansing the lists, the CEO published a new set of voters' lists on 28th January, 2013. However, soon afterwards, download of the voter-lists was disabled. Prajalytics, a software company, had downloaded the…

Karnataka Assembly Elections 2018 We have collated all the information about your sitting MLA and contestants. Track records, Assembly performance, Funds expenditure, Affidavits, Guide for voters and more. Click here   Here are the list of MLAs elected in the Karnataka Assembly election 2008. • Find out how vocal has your MLA been in the Assembly about issues that concern you and your constituency? • How has he utilised the local area development (LAD) funds to the benefit of your constituency? • Has he been involved in any criminal case or any other controversy that was reported in media? This…

After days of demolition and threats by the police, some 150 residents still remain in the quarters. Even as the police and BBMP officials are forcing them to move out on Republic Day, Maverick’s bulldozers are busy flattening the space. Post the demolishing at Ejipura EWS quarters. Pic: Julie McGuire [www.juliemcguire.com] Maverick’s representatives are reportedly giving Rs 5000 to the residents to encourage them to move out without fuss. These are people who have not found a house at all, or have not been able to pay the full advance amount for their new houses.Elizabeth, over 60 years old, lives…

Aruna Chandrasekhar's phone hasn't stopped ringing since Tuesday evening. Her desperate call for relief for people at Ejipura had actually reached a significant number of people. This, thanks to involved citizens reaching out through their personal and social networks.Aruna, in her twenties, is a freelance photographer and writer has long been involved in social activism, particularly in environmental and mining-related issues. On the morning of January 18th, her friend and activist Kaveri Indira Rajaraman, a post-doctoral fellow at the Indian Institute of Science, called her. Kaveri has been fighting for the rights of those residing in Ejipura EWS (Economically Weaker…

People slept under the very bulldozers that destroyed the community, curled up inside huge circular pipes, while using each other and all of their belongings to generate precious warmth in Bangalore's bitterly cold nights. Some burnt anything and everything expendable to keep tiny fires going. Smoke billowing up from these fires, personal belongings strewn around here and there - the occasional lovely mirrored wooden dressing table lying amidst a sea of rubble, steel almirahs popping out of nowhere like mini skyscrapers - the Ejipura EWS quarters resembled a badly devastated war-zone. Some family's furniture piled together at the demolished EWS…

Subsequent to the judgement on the PIL on December 11th, 2012, the Chief Electoral Officer and BBMP organisations are undertaking intense cleansing activities of electoral rolls of the 27 constituencies of Bangalore Districts.A few steps:They have accepted close to 10 lakh applications for registration and have restored about 1 lakh voters to the rolls by verifying that the deletions were incorrect.They have identified about 12 lakh instances of errors and have corrected about 80% of them.About 65,000 duplicate records have been identified and deleted.More than 30,600 voters who shared their ID with some other voters are now allotted new IDs.Now,…

Thousands of children from the Children's Movement for Civic Awareness (CMCA), will be thanking traffic cops across the city this month. Flagging off the 8th Traffic Police Day thanksgiving in a ceremony at the Traffic Police Park on St. Marks Road on 12th January, children from private and government schools associated with CMCA presented cards, flowers, sweets and messages to traffic police personnel. The children also recited poems thanking the traffic police and interacted with constables, who enjoyed the occasion. The children also cheered and clapped for the traffic police. Children thank traffic police personnel on Traffic Police Day (pic:…

"The High Court order questions our credibility and our commitment to resolve issues in the city” -- so said Padmanabha Reddy, corporator of Ward 29 (Kacharakanahalli) at the special session of the BBMP Council on January 15th.  The agenda of the special session was to discuss the court directive ordering the government to form ward committees, and present the nominations to the ward committee to the Mayor. Though Reddy started his speech by offering full support to the formation of the ward committees, he ended up questioning, “10 members per ward will make it 1980 ward committee members -- how…

A BBMP demolition drive that began on Friday January 18th at Ejipura's EWS slum quarters, near Koramangala in south Bengaluru has driven up tensions and trauma. Around 200 people protested at BBMP head office on Saturday morning. The protesters included around 25 EWS quarters residents, along with residents from slums across the city who came to pledge support, most of them women. Around 30 Dalit organisations supported the protest. The quarters are a ramshackle bunch of tin-sheds. Demolition of a building. Pic: Navya P KYasmeen, 49, with her 4-year-old son, waiting outside their house with their belongings. Pic: Navya P…

I welcome and support the demand from various citizens groups, media and RWAs for transparency in nominations to the ward committees.The demand to constitute the ward committees is a long standing one and residents and other citizen groups have sought this for several years and this had been included in the recommendations of ABIDe chaired by then Chief Minister. It is fortunate that the High Court of Karnataka has intervened when requests from citizens had failed to move the Government and BBMP to act.So, now the BBMP must ensure transparent criteria in appointments of members to the committee and ensure…