Governance

The Citizen Action Forum (CAF), a federation of RWAs will be sharing their inputs on Bangalore’s Master Plan 2035 with BDA. On May 7th, BDA had quietly begun a process of revision for Bengaluru's city master plan, and invited suggestions from public. This plan will be for the years 2016 to 2035. CAF along with Namma Bengaluru Foundation (NBF) and various individual RWAs will respond at a federation as well as individual level. Inputs to this process can be at two distinctive levels, at a micro and macro level. At a micro level, i.e. the rules and regulations governing various…

N S Ramakanth  and Dr Ashwin Mahesh interacted with residents of HSR Layout  on June 24 and a wide range of topics were discussed at length including Khata, solar power, solid waste management and reviving lakes. Balasubramanian Thirunavukkarasu, active citizen and resident of HSR Layout, was instrumental in organising the One Bengaluru meeting.  One Bangalore meeting. Pic: Balasubramanian Thirunavukkarasu One Bengaluru The meeting is the first such one as part of the One Bengaluru initiative. One Bengaluru is a platform to bring together people interested in public problem solving. Thirunavukkarasu said, "There are lot of well meaning citizens in our…

Respected Chief Minister, I write to you with considerable sadness, that a liked and respected politician today stands accused of unlawfully obtaining a G category site from the government. It is extremely unfortunate that we have reached this moment. I have known the Minister to be a good person, and I hope this allegation is not true. I hope there is a fair and tenable explanation to rebut what is said. At the same time, I urge you to take some steps to remedy the situation that has brought us here, so that we may not come to it repeatedly…

Sometimes it is good to step back a few paces, to get a better view and perspective. So it was, that earlier this week I accessed the online editions of the city’s papers while travelling out of the country and got a stark perspective that hit harder than when I see the same cityscape in person. Under the lead items on June 20th, there was a video strip showing pictures taken around the city. One was of the homeless, huddled along a pavement, and another was of a swanky flyover with vehicles whooshing along a curve. The contrast between the…

At the busy Sarakki junction, early morning traffic jams come with an additional problem - garbage piled up by the informal market set up by vendors. The vehicles coming from JP Road, Kanakapura, Banashankari go through this junction.This informal market has been operational at this junction for thirty years now. It is set up every morning at around 6am and is shut down by around 9am. It has survived despite the fact that Sarakki has two other designated market areas. Garbage piled up in Sarakki junction. Pic: Sankar C G When the vendors wind up for the day, they leave…

Residents Welfare Association of Padmanabha Nagar, under the aegis of Abhyudaya, arranged a platform for citizens to interact with Mayor  D Venkatesh Murthy and Deputy Mayor L Sreenivas at Carmel School, Banashankari, on June 2. Mayor D Venkatesh Murthy and Deputy mayor L Sreenivas, with residents of Padmanabha Nagar. Pic: Sankar C G BBMP corporators H Suresh (Kumaraswamy Layout), A H Basavaraju (Banashankari Temple ward), V R Sharma- President Abhyudaya, N S Mukunda- Secretary Abhyudaya, V V Ramakrishna-Joint Secretary Abhyudaya and activist N S Ramakantha were also present.Abhyudaya wanted to congratulate the Mayor and the Deputy Mayor on being elected…

In this year’s graduate constituency MLC election for Karnataka, the three mainstream parties BJP, Congress and JD(S) won the first, second and third places respectively. The surprise result was that of Andhra Pradesh-based Lok Satta party, which came fourth.Legislative council elections use the preferential voting system, by which voters can rank candidates in their order of preference. Initially first-preference votes for each candidate - wherein they were ranked ‘1’ - are counted. Then candidates with the least first preference votes are removed one by one, and the second preference votes marked by their voters are transferred to the respective candidates.…

Chikkanna, aged 40, a traditional handloom weaver from Chowdeshwari Nagar, Kanakapura road has decided to quit weaving after things turned worse due to debt and poverty. Three years ago when profits from his handloom died down, he took a loan to purchase a powerloom. The loan came at 12 percent interest. But he failed to repay the loan due to high interest, increasing power costs and day to day expenses. A Handloom weaver from Sarakki. Pic: Sankar C G Using a powerloom, one can make one or two saree per day. But the cost of one power loom is one…

On 8th May, BBMP issued a notice meant as a final warning to unlicensed health units to obtain trade licenses. But this was not the first time; BBMP had issued the notice thrice before - first on 5th December 2010, second in February 2011 and the third in June 2011.Despite these notices, 937 health units out of a 2648 hospitals surveyed by BBMP were unregistered as of March 2012. Early morning at 6, the bi-medical waste collectors-Maridi at work. Pic Abhishek Angad The notice makes it mandatory for health units to have an up-to-date receipt of tax payment, an authorisation…

On 3rd June, Sunday afternoon two people pretending to be BESCOM officials talked R Nagarajan and his wife Swarnalatha, residents of  BTM second stage, into buying fake CFL bulbs. R Nagarajan and his wife Swarnalatha. Pic: Abhishek Angad According to Nagarajan, one of the posers identified himself as a Junior Engineer, Srinivas. The poser then convinced Nagarajan that BESCOM was distributing CFL lamps to senior citizens to use in place of the regular incandescent bulbs. Fake CFL bulbs. Pic: Abhishek Angad Nagarajan says, “they gave us 12 lamps for free and another 12 for the cost of Rs 2400, which…