City: Bengaluru

As Bengaluru struggles with an ongoing water crisis, it reports a shortage of about 500 million litres of water every day. The significant water problem in the city is frequently blamed on insufficient rainfall, unregulated groundwater exploitation, and environmental negligence. However, it is essential to investigate water contamination, notably from sewage and industrial effluents, as a major cause of the water crisis. The focus then moves to Shivpura Lake in the Peenya Industrial Area.  Although a key industrial area, Peenya is neglected, as evidenced by its poor infrastructure and pollution issues. Shivpura Lake, in particular, is contaminated by the surrounding…

Almost half of Bengaluru's citizens did not vote in the 2024 Lok Sabha Elections. The city recorded a 57.43% voter turnout this year, not much of an improvement from the previous 2019 elections. The low voter turnout has often been ascribed to apathy, but this alone is not a satisfactory explanation. Several factors have been cited for the low voter turnout, from discrepancies in electoral rolls to the scorching heat. Voter roll errors: Deletions, duplications and deceased names There were complaints that hundreds of voter names were either deleted or missing in Chickpet and Akkipet in Bangalore Central.  In a…

Bengaluru's Lok Sabha Elections 2024 voter turnout Bengaluru voted, braving the searing heat, in the Lok Sabha Elections 2024 on April 26th. Voting started at 7 am and concluded at 6 pm. In comparison to the 2019 elections, the city saw a lower voter turnout. According to a tentative report posted on the X account of Chief Electoral Officer, Karnataka, Bengaluru saw a 53.10% voter turnout this year; in 2019, it was 54.1%. Among the four constituencies, the highest voter turnout was in Bangalore Rural at 67.29% while Bangalore Central saw the lowest voter turnout at 52.81%. Bangalore South recorded…

Does the average voter evaluate each of their candidates carefully?  Like we do every election, Citizen Matters has been publishing voter guides with profiles of key candidates for constituencies in Chennai, Bengaluru and other cities. We summarise candidates’ background, promises, and their interviews. We highlight the parliamentary performance of incumbent MPs – their membership in committees, questions they have raised, debates they participated in etc. We also compile news media reports to track their recent work.  There are various criteria that voters base their decision on. While there are those undecided or open-minded who have found the information in our…

The Cauvery River is located 100 kilometres away from Bengaluru, 350 metres lower than the city’s elevation. The Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB) has to spend approximately Rs. 3 crores per day as electricity charges to pump the water over such long distances. The city’s dependence on Cauvery as its primary water source prompted us to analyse this issue at the recently held 'Bengaluru Water Datajam', held by Opencity.in. Since the extraction of water from the Cauvery is recent (just 50 years ago), how did Bengaluru operate its water needs before the onset of rapid urbanisation? Since, we…

Bengaluru goes to polls on April 26th. As candidates ramp up their campaigning efforts, discussions centre on issues like infrastructure and mobility. Even as political parties have released their manifestos, residents and civic groups from a cross-section of society too have expressed their demands from their MPs. Civic group manifestos include environmental, mobility, employment and healthcare issues. Here is a compilation of a few citizen manifestos from Bengaluru: Bangalore Apartments' Federation (BAF) BAF is a Federation of Apartment Owners’ Associations (AOA) and Residents’ Welfare Associations (RWA) in Bengaluru. Their demands include:  Commitment to lobby for immediate and high priority conduct…

With a long career of 25 years in politics, P C Mohan, the incumbent BJP MP from Bangalore Central constituency, is contesting in the 2024 Lok Sabha elections for the fourth time. At an interaction with residents from Bellandur on Sunday, April 21st, the MP candidate answered questions on infrastructure projects for the locality, solutions for traffic management and decongestion of roads, lack of civic planning in Mahadevapura, among other issues. Here are some excerpts from the interaction: Metro is a long-term project that could take 6 years. From a policy perspective, what can we do to use existing modes…

At Citizen Matters, our election coverage is focused almost entirely on data, long form journalism and in-depth conversations with candidates, not about party politics but their vision and policies for the constituency. Yet the challenge of getting 30 minutes with a Union Minister a few days before the campaign ended was always going to be difficult. We finally managed to get her to give us five minutes in a moving car and here is what she shared with us.  Shobha Karandlaje, the JD(S)-BJP coalition candidate from Bangalore North is one of the better known women candidates in the fray for…

An election campaign in this gruelling summer has been an exhausting exercise even for the most seasoned politicians. Rajeev Gowda, the Congress Party candidate for Bangalore North constituency, admitted as much. But he says, it also highlights the urgency for the measures to combat climate change and his plans for the constituency, should he be elected.  After more than two decades in politics, the former Rajya Sabha MP is all set to fight it out for a Lok Sabha berth for the first time.           We caught up with the former professor of the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIMB) at…

Cities in India are set to host half of the population by 2030, driving the country's ‘growth’ and ‘development’. Urbanisation is now being seen as a key focus area of public policy and ‘solution’ to ‘development needs’ of our country. However, this rapid urbanisation has brought numerous challenges, particularly for the urban poor, working class, and informal workers who struggle to access housing, livelihoods, and basic rights like water, healthcare, and education. Despite contributing significantly to cities, their rights have often been ignored and violated until now. Over the past year, community groups, workers’ collectives, and people's movements with decades-long…