Governance

Come this weekend and there are a bunch of interesting events waiting for you! Bangalore film festival, Bangalore book fest and Abhinaya 2013 - Kannada theatre festival are a few of the events to look out for!The 5th edition of Bangalore Film Festival is one such event that nobody wishes to miss. The festival is being organised by the Karnataka Chalanachitra Academy for Government of Karnataka supported by Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce. The festival started on Dec 20th and will go on till Dec 27th. You can register for the event here. Venue: Theatres across Bangalore. From movies to…

The manual ticket counter is functional again at the city railway station, as the e-ticket machines for platform tickets take in only old-five rupee coins, which are not being minted anymore. Passengers have started depending more on the manual ticket counters as majority of them have only new-five rupee coins. This has led to a drastic drop in the printing of tickets by the machines to one or maximum two tickets a week. Pic:author Hariharan Narayanan, who had come to drop his wife at the railway station said: "The city railway station has e-kiosk to dispense platform tickets. It accepts…

If you have not updated your name in the voter list yet, there is time till December 31st. Though the last date for submitting applications for all 28 BBMP constituencies was December 4th, the date has been extended now. A press release on this, was issued yesterday by the Chief Electoral Officer of Karnataka.The draft rolls had been published earlier on November 5th. This list has been revoked. As per the new schedule, the new draft rolls would be published on December 10th, which will be available on the website http://ceokarnataka.kar.nic.in. Public can also inspect the rolls at the offices…

Disabled citizens are struggling to get government issued benefit cards because the offices are situated on higher floors of buildings.  Karvy Technologies has been hired to collect biometric information for the UID project, by the government. One of its centres is located on the first floor of a building at Sampige road in Malleswaram. This centre has no provisions like nurses, elevators or even a ramp to support a wheel chair. Karvy technologies at Sampige Road. Pic: Author Venkatesan has been trying to get an Aadhar card for his physically challenged wife. He said: "I have been in touch with…

The Private Security Agencies Regulation (PSAR) Act, implemented in 2005, does not seem to be fulfilling its purpose. Security guards from a private security firm. Pic: Author According to the Internal Security Division, the licensing authority of the Karnataka government, 1,506 PSAs are functioning in the state. But only 548, or 36 percent, work with a valid license.Applications by 258 security agencies for licenses are being processed, and around 25 applications had been rejected in the six months to Oct. 31.During a one-day conclave organized by the Karnataka Security Services Association (KSSA) on Nov. 24, Bhaskar Rao, he inspector general…

What will we do with all the garbage produced is the biggest question on majority of the apartment residents these days. BBMP's ambiguous statements on the issue is not making it any simpler.While apartment residents are miffed about this treatment meted out to them, they cite practical reasons as to why asking apartment complexes to handle their own waste is not such a good idea. Though, the BBMP website says the waste has to be segregated into six categories, some residents complain that the pourakarmikas simply dump them into just wet and dry categories while collecting. In the core city…

Apartments are bulk generators; we won't collect garbage from them. No, apartments are not bulk generators; we will collect waste from them. BBMP has been going back and forth on this issue for over two months now. As the December 1st deadline, for waste segregation at source is here, there is still no clarity on where the waste from the apartment complexes is going to go. Media reports have quoted BBMP Commissioner Rajneesh Goel saying that apartments are now excluded from the bulk generators list. However BBMP's website has the notification dated October 1st, that has categorised apartments under bulk…

As the fear of bird flu looms over Bangalore, here are some facts that one ought to know: What is bird flu?Flu stands for influenza, a viral infection caused by the flu virus. And bird flu is ‘flu occurring in birds'. Depending on minor differences on the genetic make up of the virus, influenza virus is of type A, B and C. The current outbreak is caused by a subtype of influenza A, known as H5N1.If it is an infection of birds, why should humans be worried?Humans can catch bird flu directly through close contact with live infected birds. It…

Ever since the state Election Commission opened up the voter registration for the summary revision earlier this month, the system has been besieged with problems.With the online registration system available this time too, many citizens opted to submit their applications online. As on November 29th, 2,10,020 citizens registered and 1,40,325 submitted their applications online. Many citizens who registered could not submit their forms successfully. Some of them had registered during the earlier window in June, and complain that their application status still says, "Under process". A bunch of assembly constituencies, part of Batch I and II was open for registration…

Sahaja Rao had shifted to her new apartment in Koramangala five months ago and wanted a new LPG connection for her house. After asking several neighbours for available options and doing several rounds of the distributor for the required documents, she finally managed to get a new LPG connection for her new house. But then, it took her almost two months of repeated visits to the distributors and following up on the status. This is the case with several people who are want a new LPG connections or want to transfer the connections from other cities to Bangalore. Here's is…