Governance

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…

It looks that our BBMP act only after being pulled up by the High Court Appointment of Ward Committees, Garbage Segregation at Source, Scrapping of Signal free corridor from Koramangala to Sirsi Circle, not allowing commercial buildings in residential areas, banning construction activities from 6PM to 8 AM and handling stray dogs are some of the examples.One cannot understand why our elected BBMP cannot understand the civic sense, plan and act, instead of forcing citizens to file PIL. If this is the situation do we need BBMP?⊕

If the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) goes into a government authority's books, you might expect a hundred scams to emerge. This, especially if it has to do with a land authority in Bengaluru. This CA site in JP Nagar 6th phase was designated for a park-cum-playground after many disputes. But, part of the site was encroached for building two temples. File Pic. Bus stands, schools, hospitals, markets and other public amenities in the city usually come up on Civic Amenity sites. Such sites are allotted by BDA to Trusts or government agencies, for development. But many of…

Instead of letting corporators and garbage contractors decide on the garbage problem, public can get directly involved now. High Court has directed that each ward in the city should form a ward committee, which will include 10 residents of the ward and will be headed by the local corporator. The committees are supposed to be functioning by January 21st; you can approach your corporator and suggest that you or any competent person you know, be included in the committee. BBMP is holding a Council meeting on 15th, during which corporators will submit their nominations.The interim order came in a PIL…