Governance

...so said a friend, partly in anguish, partly in jest, referring to the Principal Secretary of the Government of Karnataka, Department of Health and Family Welfare, IR Perumal! I happened to witness this gentleman speaking at a press conference recently. He was talking about swine flu. He was there to dispel the myths about swine flu and reduce the panic among the public. The one thing about him that would strike you (or anyone) is the capacity of his vocal chords. He's loud! And animated! Well, that's not a bad thing at all. At this particular press conference he was…

Young, spirited and raring to go. Bangalore's politics has probably never seen so many young faces. Some hail from political families, some young guns running their own firms, a marketing executive, a financial expert, a film producer, some self-made first timers who have worked their on way, and some are students. 2009 may be indeed the year that sets the trend from national to local. Citizen Matters spoke to a number of ‘gennext' politicians and political campaigners on their heeding the call of politics and their outlook for the upcoming council elections. Your future corporator or even MP may be…

Riding on its recent success in Andhra Pradesh, the Lok Satta Party now plans to expand in other states focusing on urban voters in particular. Among the elections the party is looking ahead to is the contest for the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagar Palike council, due in a few weeks. In a recent visit to Bengaluru Jayaprakash Narayan founder and President of the party introduced Lok Satta Party to the city. Dr. Jayaprakash Narayan, founder of Lok Satta party. Courtesy: Wikimedia "Lok Satta Party is here to bring a new political culture," said Narayan, widely known as JP, adding that the…

Ramalinga Reddy hails from Anekal and did his schooling at the government school at Hombegowdanagar in Bangalore. He completed his B.Sc. from Government Science College in Bangalore after which he began pursuing an L.L.B. at the University Law College. He got into politics before he could finish the Law degree and has been associated with the Congress party in important capacities since that time, in 1973. Even as a student, Reddy was active in Youth Congress and was a city level office bearer while still at college.  He was elected to the city corporation in 1983 and became President of…

I was glad when I saw the new link in the BBMP site for online tax payment. However I was disappointed with major issues that exist. First,  I am not able to generate form IV after making online payment of tax.  I always get the message "unable to connect to server". Second, the system displays a message to collect the original signed receipt from ARO. I understand from the local ward office at Lazar Road that ARO has not received connectivity for generating receipts for online payment. This is another disappointment. In another case,  I generated Form IV for another…

R Ashoka, Karnataka's cabinet minister for transport is known for introducing Volvo services for Bangalore International Airport and supporting the expansion technology into Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation. He boasts of making public transport available and desirable by both the rich and the poor. He was the health minister in the previous JDS-BJP government. This is his fourth term in the Vidhana Soudha and he was elected from Padmanabhanagar constituency. In the last three terms he was elected from Uttarahalli. Katriguppe, Ilyasnagar, Kaverinagar in his constituency are neglected. R Ashok’s 2008 declaration of Rs. 10.06 crores in total assets reflects a…

On 30th September 2008, Sahakara Bhavan, a government building got an elevator through an RTI application. This despite the fact that a provision for two lifts was made for this building at the time of its construction in 1975. But the provision remained on paper. Sahakara Bhavan is a multi-storeyed building on Cunningham Road housing several government offices. The building has offices of Coir Board, Karnataka State Co-operative Market Federation(KSCF), Press Information Bureau, Bangalore Urban Additional District Consumer Disputes Forum and Karnataka State Consumer Redressal Forum.S N Subramanya, an RTI and Consumer Rights activist and a senior citizen visits Sahakara…

I sat on a plastic chair at the party office, waiting for the MLA at the BJP’s temporary office during campaigning at Yelahanka New Town. In the portico outside, under the shamiana there were some party workers clad in the traditional white, friends of the MLA waiting for him,  and a ubiquitous chai-wallah.  When the MLA came, he was surrounded by a horde of workers, colleagues and well wishers. It looked like he had a busy schedule and I was doubtful of getting any questions answered. However, he was courteous, prompt and gave pertinent answers. S R Vishwanath is a…

BBMP has introduced new application forms IV and V  for the year 2009-10 and updated the online calculator in their website.  I have found the following anomalies in both and wrote to the Commissioner, DC Revenue and other officials . So far nobody has replied; none of the  mistakes have yet been corrected. The anomalies are going to affect the entire public in the BBMP areas as the rules and columns in the forms and calculator are contradictory.            #1.  The Instructions to the Tax Payer at S.No.2 in the Forms state that "Depreciation cannot be claimed for 2009-10 and 2010-11…

Now that most of us have paid the property taxes for the year 2008-09 by filling the appropriate form (From I-for properties with PID no./ Form II-for properties having only KATHA no./ Form III-for properties with neither PID nor KATHA no.), it is time to start paying the taxes for the current year. A small quantum of forms have reached the Help Centres and are of two different types – White (Form IV) in bilingual & Blue (Form V)For properties, where there is no change in any field – either in CATEGORY (rented out/non-residential), or DIMENSIONS (Any addition/deletion to the…