Articles by News Desk

Hyderabad floods: 50 dead; damages worth thousands of crores As the account of horrifying stories were circulated across social media, the death toll reached 50, following the heavy downpour which started on 13th October in Hyderabad. Relief operations were initialized across the city and some other parts in Telangana. More than 60 relief camps have been set up in the city. The government also said that about 1.5 lakh food packets have been distributed to people so far. The government is also utilizing the Annapurna Subsidized Canteen services for people stuck in inundated areas. The Chief Minister has written to PM requesting sanction…

The Patchai Maadi project, an initiative of the Chennai Resilience Centre (CRC) and supported by The Adrienne Arsht Rockefeller Resilience Centre (AARFRC), is part of a three-pronged strategy to improve the green cover of Chennai and encourage urban horticulture. The Patchai Maadi project envisions a garden over every rooftop in Chennai. The project aims to rope in RWAs and schools and other institutions to create urban gardens that can thrive in the right conditions. The vision is to reach six lakh households by 2030.  To this end, the CRC called for citizens to pitch in with ideas on how the…

COVID-19: Second serosurvey begins; fever camps near workplaces The second seroprevalence survey in Chennai to assess the extent of spread of COVID-19 will be carried out over the next 68 days by the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC). The survey will take place in random streets across slums in the city. The first serosurvey, which was done three months ago, revealed that one in five residents of Chennai had contracted the novel coronavirus.  Senior authorities at GCC stated that the number of people visiting the fever camps is down to 51 persons from the daily count of between 70-80 personsduring the…

Delhi air quality begins to worsen; government announces strategy Delhi's air quality turned 'poor' for a brief period on the morning of 7th October, with PM10 levels in the Delhi-NCR region hitting the highest in three months, according to CPCB data. The air quality monitoring system blamed unfavourable meteorological conditions and farm fires in Punjab & Haryana for the dip in the air quality. Lower temperatures also resulted in the settling of pollution particles in the air, as per the system. The situation is expected to worsen as winter approaches. The Delhi government, meanwhile, is preparing itself on war footing…

Suburban rail project approved The Centre has approved the Bengaluru suburban rail project, estimated to cost around Rs 19,000 crore. The 148-km-long rail project is aimed at decongesting the city. The project will include 57 stations. Five proposed stations - Srirampura, RV Road, Jalahalli, Cauvery Nagar and Bommasandra - lost out on the opportunity to be part of Phase-I of the network. These stations are likely to be included in Phase-II. Meanwhile, the city's third railway coaching terminal is set to be commissioned at Baiyappanahalli before mid-November. Its facade is modelled after the Kempegowda International Airport terminal. With the commissioning…

In Part 2 of this series, we looked at the kind of documents you need to scrutinise while buying any property in Bengaluru. In addition to these documents, you need to verify some specific documents while buying different types of property such as apartments, BDA sites, land with agricultural past, etc. In this article, we look at these requirements. Documents for scrutiny before buying apartments i. Joint development agreement & GPA In recent times, the most popular method for building apartments is by way of a Joint Development agreement (JDA). This is an agreement signed between the landowner and the…

Hathras protests spread far and wide; sanitation workers' unrest creates crisis in Agra The horrific murder and suspected rape of a young Dalit woman by four upper-caste men in Hathras of Uttar Pradesh has led to widespread protests and condemnation across cities, with politicians, activists and even lay civil society members joining these. Hundreds gathered at Jantar Mantar to condemn the deterioration of law and order in the state under the leadership of CM Yogi Adityanath and expressed their outrage not only over the crime but also over the human rights violation by the state police in the days following…

COVID: Post-COVID care centre at Omandurar, Covishield vaccine trials enter second phase On October 1st, 1,289 fresh COVID cases were registered in Chennai. The day also saw 1,000 recoveries and 18 deaths. Infographic summary of Covid-19 cases in Chennai as on October 2nd. Graphic: GCC/Twitter In a bid to offer post-COVID care for recovered patients, the state health department inaugurated an exclusive facility at the Government Medical College Hospital, Omandurar Estate. The centre will have the following facilities: automatic body mass index machine, spirometry for assessing lung function, a six-minute walk test to detect SPO2 (oxygen saturation) levels, a CT…

As COVID cases rocket, authorities plan to increase fine amounts for not wearing masks, and criminal prosecution of repeat offenders. Pic Credit: Wikimedia Commons Bengaluru topped in cybercrime in 2019: NCRB data Bengaluru has recorded the maximum number of cybercrime cases (10,668) among all metros in 2019, according to data released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB). The overall crime rate in Bengaluru for 2019 saw a marginal increase when compared to the previous year. While the crime rate was 470.4 per lakh of population in 2018, it went up to 492.5 for 2019. The number of cases registered…

Drone shot of a Metro station. All transport projects including Metro should be reviewed in light of COVID-induced changes, says a letter from three civic groups to the Centre. Pic: Siddharth Sriram This September 16, Hardeep Singh Puri, Centre's Minister for Housing and Urban Affairs, said no time limit could be specified for the sanction of the ORR-Airport Metro line (from Silk Board to airport). He further said that Metro projects are cost-intensive and hence require extensive inter-ministerial consultations. In this context, members from three civic groups - Bangalore Environment Trust, Praja-RAAG and Citizens for Citizens - have written to…