Governance

Bengaluru was about to have its first Slut Walk - rechristened 'Gejje Hejje' - on Sunday, December 4. The walk was to protest against victim blaming in cases of sexual assault, wherein women are held responsible for inviting assault by "dressing provocatively", travelling at night etc.But not only were they not allowed to hold the walk, a few who had dared to assemble at the venue were arrested by the Bengaluru police. Police had given permission for the walk earlier, but cancelled it on short notice - on Saturday night, bowing to threats from right wing groups. Pic: Navya P…

LPG (cooking gas) has a foul smell (to enable leaks to be quickly detected, for safety). The real foul smell however, now comes from the government's sordid handling of the rules on the supply of LPG to the public.While announcing the latest petrol price hike on 16 September, a proposal was also mooted for "limiting" the availability of cooking gas (LPG) to those paying income tax, owning a house or two wheeler. The plan was shelved "for the time being" due to opposition from users as well as opposition parties. On the one hand, the middle class are threatened with…

Citizens enrolling for Aadhaar (UID) card might be unwittingly sharing personal information with third party organisations in the near future. A key step of the enrollment process, is for data operators to ask for consent of the enrollees on whether they would like their personal information to be shared. However, operators are not always asking citizens for this consent. Citizen Matters observed this at the enrollment centre in Jakkasandra Government School, Koramangala. Srinivas Reddy and Anjali Devi, just after their enrolment. Pic: Yogaraj S Mudalgi Apoorva L J, Audit Manager for Wipro which is the enrollment agency, says that the…

On November 1st, KSPCB released a guide on Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs). In this exclusive interview with Citizen Matters, KSPCB Chairman A S Sadashivaiah talks about how the guide will help, and clears the air on many issues that resident associations have been raising on STP maintenance. Most apartment complexes today have their own Sewage Treatment Plant(STP). According to KSPCB rules, any large apartment (more than 5,000 sq m in the outskirts or more than 20000 sq m in core areas) need to have STPs. The new guide has illustrated explanation about the working and engineering features of STP, and…

A week after Bengaluru's police department said that the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) for Karnataka did not exist, the Home Department says that the authority does exist. It turns out that in December last year, the state government quietly setup the body through a government order. The PCA is meant to be a state-level independent authority to inquire into public complaints against police officers. On November 11, civil society group IAC (India Against Corruption), Bengaluru, had submitted a petition to the city Police Commissioner's office, demanding setting up of a PCA. Additional Commissioner of Police Suneel Kumar, who had accepted…

Last week Amulya Somashekhar, her mother Asha and a friend were charged for allegedly assaulting a Banaswadi traffic police inspector. Asha Somasekhar is a volunteer with the Bangalore chapter of India Against Corruption (IAC). Two days later, the case took a new turn with IAC getting involved in the issue. IAC, as readers will know is the organising group behind the Anna Hazare-led movement for the Jan Lokpal bill. Intervening in the matter, IAC representatives met the Additional Comissioner of Police Suneel Kumar (IPS) and gave the police department a petition for the constitution of a Police Complaints Authority. "IAC…

An announcement from BBMP in newspapers a while back has asked for citizens to write in with objections if any, to the proposed changes in road names. It is not just roads but also areas that have been renamed (among them Frazer Town, which everybody still refers to as Frazer Town rather than as Pulakeshinagar.The rationale for name changes is that the old names are relics from a colonial past and that we need to commemorate our own, indigenous heroes and  leaders (from Kittur Chennamma to Kempe Gowda, to former judge, governor and freedom fighter Nittoor Srinivasa Rau) which is…

For M Abdulla Saleem, his recent appointment as Additional Commissioner Police (Traffic) is a return to familiar turf. He succeeded Praveen Sood a few months ago. "I am basically a traffic man," proclaims Saleem and it is not without justifications. Pic Courtesy: DCP (Traffic) Office The 1993 batch IPS officer previously served as the Deputy Commissioner of Police, Traffic East Division, Bangalore and in 2010 completed a PhD in Traffic Management from Bangalore University. He has held various posts across the state including Assistant Superintendent of Police, Gulbarga, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) and Inspector General of Police,…

The media is abuzz with reports of jailed Chief Minister Yeddyurappa's group snubbing national BJP leader L K Advani in Bangalore yesterday by boycotting his anti-corruption rally. It appears the BJP's political roundabout of contradictions and snubbing has also broadened into civil society anti-corruption movement. Advani declined to meet Karnataka's India Against Corruption group, who had lined up a series of demands for him. It appears the senior BJP leader, whose national anti-corruption campaign is widely seen as a way to upstage the UPA, is doing a tightrope walk in Karnataka. The state has been plagued with its own series…

The papers reported that all fireworks and crackers activities should cease between 10 pm and 6 am. KSPCB and the police were supposed to be doing rounds and enforcing the curfew. It's 11 pm in the night, and near Nagarbhavi, some random crackers keep going off at regular intervals. Dealing with continuous fireworks is one thing, but sudden bursts at random points in time is too much to deal with.The dogs, not accustomed to rackets other than their own, start howling everytime one goes off. Aged parents at home, struggling with flu-like symptoms thanks to the weather, exacerbated by the…