CITIZEN MATTERS
Bangalore’s own interactive newsmagazine Speak up, it’s your city!
Dear Reader,
Season’s greetings!
It’s going to be Deepavali this weekend. While the festival of lights brings in joy and celebration, it’s also the time when pollution peaks, and crackers only add to it. Is anything being done to create awareness among children on harmful effects of crackers? Ponder over this: Deepavali in the city: can it be safer and ecofriendly?
The Steel Flyover Debate
Weekends in Bengaluru these days are a witness to a citizen movement that the city never saw in recent days: a human chain to protest a steel flyover, a no-vote collection and more. What’s happening in Bengaluru? Why is the ‘Steel Flyover’ being opposed?
Human chain near Chalukya circle. Pic: Shree D N
Bengaluru has the most active citizenry any city can dream of. A flyover planned from Chalukya Circle to Hebbal at the heart of the city has united many citizens in the city in protest. Not following the due process has irked many, while the BDA helped fuel the controversy by refusing to share the data publicly. Read: How BDA botches up the steel flyover issue by hiding information
While a set of people are opposing the steel flyover project, Balaji Ganesan, a techie and a volunteer for civic initiatives, argues why the flyover will help take away fast-moving traffic that goes towards Hebbal and ORR. Read: Is Bengaluru’s civil society scoring self goals?
What documents are online?
We compiled the documents the BDA released, on Eprocurement website and on its own website.
Citizens of Bellandur get together to find a way to remove the huge advertisement displays. Meera Nair describes the drive and the learning. Read: Getting illegal ad display boards out of sight.
Welfare schemes and urban poor
The United Nations observes October 17th as the International Day for Eradication of Poverty. But for the BPL families in Bengaluru, the welfare schemes of the government continue to be far from reach. Read:So many social welfare schemes, who benefits?
Begging scam on the rise
Some strangers on the street approach you and say they have been cheated and ask you for money to go home. But you should never give money. Why? Because a begging scam is rampant on the streets of Bengaluru city, writes citizen journalist Shweta Taneja.
Citizens for the City
From a dark and dreary underbridge area to a bright and lively public space, here is the story of transformation of the railway underbridge near Shivananda Circle. Read: This railway underbridge has a story to tell.
On October 17th, Whitefield Rising launched a car-pool platform in partnership with PoolCircle o enable shared commute. Read more about it here.
Finding hidden birds
Walks are a great way to explore the hidden treasures in the city, including birds. Deepa Mohan narrates the story of one such walks in Lalbagh. Read her blogpost: Finding the hidden birds in urban green spaces.
Citizen diaries
Our writer Deepa Mohan figures out that the figures in the bill are misaligned and one can not really get proper information about their monthly bill in the piece of paper given by Bescom. Read: BESCOM’s instructions and why they are tough to follow.
Freelancer Deepa Mohan lost her driving licence. She shares her experience of the hurdles that she faced in the process of getting a duplicate licence, in this blog post.
Also read this photo featureby writer Deepa Mohan of spotting Yakshagana artists on the airport road.
How does a young Bengalurean perceive the ongoing US presidential election campaign? In a lighter whine, blogger Ritvik Mandyam makes a commentary on Donald Trump.
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A useful compiler for residents of Zone 8, comprised of areas such as Anna Nagar and Shenoy Nagar as they get set to vote on February 19th.
Zone Snapshot: Wards- 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108 Population- 757273 (2013) Polling Stations- 572 To locate your polling station – https://tnsec.tn.nic.in/tn_election_urban2021/find_your_polling_station.php To locate your ward and zone – https://chennaicorporation.gov.in/gcc/citizen-details/location-service/find_zone.jsp Issues in the Zone: In January of 2021, the waste collection in 11 out of 15 zones were handed over to private companies. Zone 8, was one of the zones where a waste collection contract was handed to Ramky Enviro Engineers (a private envrionmetal services company). The company absorbed around a 100 workers, and the rest (who were employed under the…
A useful compiler for residents of Zone 13, comprised of areas such as Adyar, Thiruvanmiyur and Velachery, as they get set to vote on February 19th.
Zone snapshot Wards -170, 171, 172, 173, 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182 Population - 490767 (2013) Number of polling stations - 471 To locate your polling station - https://tnsec.tn.nic.in/tn_election_urban2021/find_your_polling_station.php To locate your ward and zone - https://chennaicorporation.gov.in/gcc/citizen-details/location-service/find_zone.jsp Issues in the zone: Traffic congestion at Madhya Kailash Junction is a key issue that affects commuters. Those looking to travel to the airport or southern parts of the city face long hours of commute during peak hours in the area due to traffic jams. Overflowing sewage and old sewage pipes are an issue in Adyar. The old pipes leak…
