Articles by News Desk

The News Desk at Citizen Matters puts out Press Releases, notifications and curated information useful to the urban reader.

Twitter vs Indian government: Supreme court issues notices to both In response to a petition filed by a BJP leader calling for curbs on the seditious and hate content on Twitter and other social media forums, the Supreme court issued notices to Twitter and the Union government. The petition talked about checking content on Twitter and advertisements spreading hate and also instigative messaging by fake accounts. The petitioner had asked for some kind of screening mechanism in order to check hate and seditious content. After issuing the notice, the Supreme Court tagged the petition with other similar pending petitions seeking…

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MTC to be impacted by scrapping policy? The Central government has announced its old vehicle scrappage policy, according to which commercial vehicles that are over eight years should clear a fitness test and pay a green tax which is likely to be 10% to 25% of the road tax. This policy is applicable to government vehicles only. The state-owned Metropolitan Transport Corporation (MTC) owns 3,100 buses of which one-third are over eight years old and have crossed the 10-lakh kilometre mark. It is stated that some of the old buses are not road-worthy as they meet with accidents frequently. The…

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Surge in COVID-19 cases The Mumbai Metropolitan Region reported 1,075 new Covid cases on Wednesday—a 55% surge from 693 cases recorded on Tuesday, according to a report by The New Indian Express. Many wondered whether the higher cases are because of resumption of local train services. “The cases have increased but it cannot be attributed to local trains. We have increased the number of testing at airports and other destinations as a result of which the number of cases may increase,” a BMC official told The New Indian Express. Source: The New Indian Express Restrictions on travel from Kerala After…

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Pay to park outside your home Parking a vehicle in a public space in the city, including on a residential street, will be charged. That is the norm under Parking Policy 2.0 approved by the Urban Development Department. It will come into effect once the Directorate of Urban Land Transport and Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike prepare area parking plans, six months to one year from now. Almost all places including commercial and residential areas will be covered under the pay and park system. The new parking policy introduces a permit system to park outside one's home as well. The annual…

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On-street parking in 32 spots In a bid to streamline parking management, the civic body rolled out the on-street parking project in Chennai last week. The project has been in trial since 2019 in 32 places and was inaugurated formally in Anna Nagar, T. Nagar and Besant Nagar.  With this project, the civic body has collected Rs 1 lakh a day and has created 9,200 parking lots which can be booked with an application designed to allow users to find vacant spots.  Source: The Hindu | The Times of India Read more: Street parking to be charged soon in city:…

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Third national sero survey conducted by ICMR As per the third national sero survey conducted by ICMR, more than 21% of Indians might have had COVID-19. The survey was conducted between 7th December last year to 8th January 2021. The survey highlighted that a large proportion of the public was still at risk of catching the infection. Urban slums showed the highest prevalence of the COVID-19 at 32% followed by urban non-slums at 26%. The survey was conducted across 21 states. Source: NDTV Classes 9 and 11 reopen in Delhi After ten months, school for classes 9 and 11 have…

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School teachers as COVID-warriors Primary and Secondary Education Minister S Suresh Kumar has requested the Prime Minister and Union Health and Family Welfare Minister to consider school teachers as COVID warriors and ensure that they are vaccinated on priority. He said teachers have worked on the frontlines and also in containment zones. They played a crucial role in preventing the spread of the virus. They even visited households to collect data and create awareness among the public, he said. Source: The Hindu 'Save Turahalli' gets louder Even as environmental groups started a campaign to leave Turahalli forests untouched, people in…

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Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation Unveils Budget  The Mumbai civic body presented an ambitious budget of Rs 39,038.38 crore. BMC has experienced a dip in its revenue due to COVID-19 induced lockdown. But its budget was 16.74% more than last year’s Rs 33,441.02 crore budget. BMC’s capital expenditure is also increased by a whopping 71% at ₹18,750.99 crore. BMC plans to earn through property tax, sewage tax, interests from investments, state grants, among others. Although capital expenditure has gone up by around Rs 5,000 crore, BMC has slashed its garden and parks budget by 50%, Mumbai Mirror reported.  Source: Hindustan Times, Mumbai…

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Long before it was called the commuter rail or the suburban rail, it was known as the circular rail. When it was first talked about in the 1980s, it sounded like simplicity itself: Bengaluru has railway tracks on three sides -- East, North and West. Build tracks on the Southern side and voila, we will have a circular railway that goes all around the city. Well, that was the plan. Let alone its name, even the concept of a circular railway was forgotten. Years later, when several mass transit options were considered to meet the growing city's transport needs, the…

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NGT slaps local body with Rs 8 lakhs fine The Tamil Nadu Pollution Control Board has slapped the Chitlapakkam Town Panchayat with Rs 8 lakh fine for improper waste management. Taking note of the flouting of Solid Waste Management (SWM) norms, the National Green Tribunal (NGT) formed a committee to conduct a probe and recommend solutions. The body has directed the TNPCB to impose fine.  The under-fire Panchayat was found to have rampantly violated the regulations as bio-medical wastes and domestic wastes were frequently disposed along the roads. The Panchayat stated that the face-off between the self-help group that has…

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