Governance

February 23, 2010: Fire broke out at Carlton Towers, Bangalore. 9 dead, 60 injured. January 2008: Burrabazar in Kolkata witnessed the worst of its kind fire accident which raged on for nearly one week destroying several shops and establishments. July 16, 2004 : A school in Kumbakonam is engulfed in fire killing more than 90 innocent children. June 13, 1997 : Uphaar theatre in Delhi catches fire while a show is in progress. Many lives lost in this tragic fire accident. This is what the news a few years from now will read, mere statistics of what happened and how…

BBMP is on a beautification drive, painting the walls in the city in a hue of colours. Since August 15th 2009, about seven lakh square feet of wall along main roads and bridges, mostly in the west zone of the city have been turned into canvases for the BBMP’s Karnataka Vaibhava wall painting project. Scenes from mythology, paintings of the temples at Hampi, Belur and Halebid, the Mysore Palace, historical figures of Karnataka, jungle creatures, and even a few socially conscious paintings of polio vaccinations and the dangers of alcohol related abuse now adorn the public walls of the city,…

Bengaluru has 198 wards spread over an area of almost 800 sq kilometres. Here are the population figures of the city, ward-wise. Also included are the male and female population, Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe population, and area of each ward. This data has been obtained from the office of the Deputy Commissioner, Bangalore district and is based on the 2001 census. Click each image to see the expanded table showing all of the data for each ward. Wards 1-38 Wards 39-79 Wards 80-120 Wards 121-161 Wards 162-198 ⊕Related ArticlesTax collection by BBMPPay Property Tax for the year 2013-14

...to question whyshe needs permissionto answer nature ...to wonder aloudwhy 'adults' oftendiscuss kids' issueswithout consulting them...to inform 'leaders'that their needsare critical too...to remind eldersthat they maybecitizens of tomorrowbut are around now!   Inspired by what I saw and heard from and about the young during the Civil Society Summit 2010, a commemoration and re-examination of 60 years of the Indian Republic and its constitution, held in Bangalore from 24th-26th January. 

The National Urban Transport Policy (NUTP), 2006 framed by Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India recommended setting up of a Unified Metropolitan Transport Authority (UMTA) for every million plus city in India. The Government of Karnataka was the first to respond to this suggestion by creating the Bangalore Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (BMLTA) - the UMTA for Bangalore Metropolitan Region (BMR).BMLTA was created for BMR vide GO No. UDD 134 BMR 2006 (2) Bangalore 09.03.2007 as an executive order.This body is the first of its kind to be set-up in Karnataka to coordinate and integrate all land transport activities…

Watching the Shiv Sena's latest threats to non-Maharashtrians in Bombay, I'm sure a lot of people in various other metropolitan cities are thinking - could it happen here? Could the xenophobia that has characterised the politics of some groups in some parts of the country take hold everywhere? And how about Bangalore itself?This question is interesting for two reasons. One is the usual politics of 'us' and 'them' around which endless commentary has been written.On the other side of this fence too, the noises are understandable. Rahul Gandhi has been ticking off the Shiv Sena quite publicly on its stance,…

The State Election Commission (SEC) has written to the BBMP asking the Assistant Revenue Officers (ARO) to verify the voter lists of their respective wards. This comes a day after a Bangalore-based citizens group on voter awareness, Smart Vote, approached the SEC about errors in 19 polling booths. Smart Vote found that the electoral lists of three polling booths have been duplicated, in what seems to be a human error and not that of the database itself. These have been fixed by the SEC. But there are more such duplications and the SEC says they are looking into it. In…

Cops were wiring me up with two tiny hidden video-cameras, two audio recorders, stuffing thousands of rupees in my pockets and briefing me like a military commander does his cadets prior to an offensive. One pocket had 1,000-rupee notes sullied with detective powder that would turn pink as evidence if dipped in treated water. A cameraman was recording this process. Had it not been for missing flood-lights and makeup artists, it could have been mistaken for a 007-style film shooting.This was on Wednesday, February 3rd. Inside the Lokayukta building, with instructions from Additional Director General of Police Rupak K Dutta…

Governance Should you care about this plan? Read our news report here.1. Create new Bengaluru legislation that supersedes /encompasses all Bengaluru/Municipal body legislations like BWSSB Act, BBMP act etc - Bengaluru Region Governance Act, (BRGA) 2009.2. Establish the Bangalore Spatial Information Centre (BASIC).3. Strengthen the Lok Ayukta Act. 4. Amend the Karnataka Transparency Act.5. The Bengaluru City Report card to be presented by the BMRDA/MPC with Chief Minister as Chairman.6. Launch official city website www.nammabengaluru.gov.in7. Establish the Institute of Urban Planning and Governance (IUPG).  Roads, Traffic Management and Transportation1. Establish ongoing transport demand growth study and research.2. Make a single…

Citizens tend to be skeptical if not cynical of hearing about plans for Bengaluru, especially when even the most elementary projects get caught up in bungles and delays. Recently it was the turn of the Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa's ABIDe task force to release its own grand plan for the city's development. Release of Plan Bengaluru 2020. From right, ABIDe member R K Mishra, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa, ABIDe Convenor and MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar, ABIDe member A Ravindra. Pic courtesy: ABIDe. On January 14th this year, Rajya Sabha MP and Convenor of the Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure Development…