Articles by Bhanu Sridharan

Bhanu is a Senior Reporter at Citizen Matters, Bengaluru. She previously worked an independent journalist and primarily covered environmental issues. Her work has been published in Mongabay India, the Wire, Caravan and Citizen Matters. She is interested in issues of justice, equity, access to nature and how Bengaluru's growth impacts nature and people.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has proposed building a four-lane elevated expressway through the Bannerghatta National Park, the only protected area within Bengaluru Urban district. The NHAI is working on a 280 km long expressway called the Bengaluru Satellite Town Ring Road (STRR). The road, which is part of the Bharat Mala Pariyojna scheme, will connect towns like Hosur in Tamil Nadu to satellite towns around Bengaluru, like Anekal, Sarjapura and Doddaballapura. Read more: Why a shrinking Bannerghatta forest should worry Bengalureans NHAI claims that the expressway will divert all commercial traffic, like trucks, that currently pass through…

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[Part one and two of this series traced the history of Kannada signage rules in Bengaluru and the history of the Kannada movement, respectively. Part three looks at what the government is doing to promote Kannada] Rupa migrated to Bengaluru from Jharkhand a year ago. She works at a petrol station in North Bengaluru. She doesn’t speak much Kannada, though she can manage a few words. She is trying to learn Kannada by talking to locals around her, but it is not easy. The protests calling for implementing Kannada signage in Bengaluru has once again opened up conversations and resentments…

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[Part one of this series explained the history of the Kannada signage issue] The protests by Kannada groups, led by the Kannada Rakshana Vedike last month, demanding that Kannada signage rules be implemented has sparked a debate in Bengaluru. Kannada groups point out that as Bengaluru is the capital of Karnataka, important communication in the city, including information on shops and businesses, must be done in Kannada. Imagine, they say, a Kannadiga coming from any other part of the state and feeling lost in a sea of English signs in Bengaluru. At the same time, the attacks on businesses and…

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The Karnataka government introduced new rules on the use of Kannada on signboards in Bengaluru last week. The move follows protests by the group Kannada Rakshana Vedike (KRV), on December 27th, during which shops without Kannada signboards were vandalised. But this is not the first time that Kannada activists have demanded Kannada signage nor is it the first time that the government has tried introducing rules regarding Kannada. Signage rules in 2008 Activists promoting the Kannada language have repeatedly noted that the majority of Karnataka speak, read and write in Kannada and the people of the state deserve signage in…

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The Gruha Lakshmi scheme was supposed to be the crowning glory of the Congress government's five guarantees scheme. But for lakhs of women in the state, the scheme has not yet borne fruit. Under the policy, female heads of household in low-income families can receive Rs 2,000 per month to supplement their income. The scheme was formally launched in August last year, but several women had not yet received the benefits. Who are eligible? Women who are heads of their household and have a BPL (below poverty line), APL (above poverty line) or Antyodaya card issued by the Karnataka Department…

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Bengaluru ranked third in the country for crimes against women, according to the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data for 2022. While the data is not clearly indicative of whether crimes are reported more or occurring more, it does beg the question, which areas in the city are safe? Safe Yelli?, a citizen-led initiative, is hoping to answer this question. Safe Yelli? is an online tool that allows citizens to report personal experiences of sexual assault and harassment in Bengaluru. These experiences are then used to create a map of unsafe locations in the city. Mapping harassment The initiative started…

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Here is the deal with water and Bengaluru, and it makes no sense. We have had a year of poor rainfall and there is water shortage. Our reservoirs are running low, and our groundwater is already over-exploited. We have had a rainfall deficit. Also, overall, the city is experiencing much more rainfall. And, every time it pours, it floods. But when there is no rain, we start needing tankers. We are the land of lakes and the land of lost wastewater potential. By now my editor will be groaning, so I will stop. But to make sense of my stream…

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A recent report by the Environmental Management & Policy Research Institute (EMPRI) finding heavy metal contamination in vegetables sold in Bengaluru markets has sparked concern among the city’s residents. The report, which was written in November 2022, was featured by the Deccan Herald in October this year. The report found that 10 common vegetables, including tomatoes, onions and spinach, were found to have unsafe quantities of heavy metals. We look at the main findings of the study. What are heavy metals? Heavy metals literally refer to metals that are dense or heavy in terms of their atomic weight. These metals…

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A once iconic bird in Bengaluru’s lakes is now a rare sight. Spot-billed pelicans, which are fish-eating water birds, were common, especially in large lakes across the city. Huge flocks of over a hundred birds would occupy lakes like Madiwala, Hebbal and Jakkur. But today, birdwatchers celebrate even sighting a handful of these birds. The decline in the city is linked closely to mass deaths of the species in their breeding sites in the Mysuru-Mandya region. But the exact reason is a mystery. Spot-billed pelicans or Pelicanus phillippensis are one of eight species of pelicans in the world and are…

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Can Bengaluru be water resilient? Urban water researchers Rashmi Kulranjan and Shashank Palur from WELL labs have previously outlined how the city can reduce its dependence on Cauvery water, reuse groundwater and allow lakes to act as flood control systems. However, the first step to building water resilience is understanding the different sources of water in the city, how much water is used and how much remains. WELL labs released Bengaluru's first water balance in October this year, co-authored by Rashmi Kulranjan, Shashank Palur and Muhil Nesi. Here are the key insights from the report. Water management in Bengaluru Rashmi…

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