Upset at the major tree cutting to begin along the road to Yeshwantpur from the city, a citizen shot off a Youtube video asking 'Why this Kolaveri for trees di?' of BBMP.

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Whenever a child is the victim of an accident, the blaming starts. But if we take a step back, can we prevent these mishaps and save lives?

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Yes, we all do. After all, malls are nice places to be in. They are structured spaces, they have clean toilets, swanky floors and always running escalators. People dress nicely to ‘go to the mall’.

Even the outsides of malls are paved nicely compared to our very dusty streets. So much so that youngsters - girls and boys - just love to ‘hang around’ and have fun.

Everyone in our malls is usually polite. Ever seen a desi street fight break out in a mall? In the mall, we become a ‘mall public’, i.e. more civil, even as on the streets our more agressive dog-eat-dog side comes out.

But most of all, malls have well maintained sanitation. Ask the women, they’ll tell you. For years they have accustomed themselves to moving around in public without having to expect a clean toilet. 

So yes, why would we not love malls? They are the…

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Every year, Mothers Day comes and goes on May 7th just as Womens Day on Mar 8th. But the unwritten and unaccounted subsidy that capable, productive, educated, women provide to public life is usually forgotten.

Most often, our elders get care at home from homemakers. Second, domestic help and cooks and their unpredictable schedules are 'managed' at the cost of our homemakers' time. Third, everything from receiving LPG cylinders, couriers, mail, to daycare and pre-school centre timings are run today around the premise of homemakers' availability.

These assumptions about life itself will breakdown locally if more women pursued full-time work by their own choice, instead of being taken for granted as homemakers. On Mother's Day (May 7th) and Women's Day (Mar 8th), it is best to remember this.

It is an established trend in democratisation itself that nations do better when women have and excerise the choice of working full-time. As the…

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BBMP's 2011 garbage tender draft is a scam.

Complaining about garbage is easy. Collecting it and transporting it is tough. Citizen Matters expose of one contractor who handles a part of Bellandur ward has shown this: Contractors continue to severely and illegally underpay garbage workers and cook the books. Collection is very irregular and some areas are left out completely. New residents are ignored.

With no other choice, citizens, who are themselves not very civic minded, start dumping garbage in vacant sites and outside roads, unwilling as they are to chase down a contractor with no name and no face. Other citizens mistake roadside garbage heaps as 'collection points' and dump there further! Contractors ignore construction debris even though they are supposed to transport this out. BBMP officials know all this, but aside from making partial payments, they do little else, because of 'pressure'.

Compound this across the city through…

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It was a preventable fire that took nine lives and injured scores of others. On February 23rd, the Beyond Carlton trust, co-founded by a parent of one of nine who died in the Carlton Towers fire, conducted its memorial service at Manipal Hospital Auditorium.

Shankar Bidari should have attended this memorial service. Not just in honour of the people who lost their lives, but in honour of the high-minded notification he issued in March 2010, just a week after the tragedy.

Bidari in an exercise of police power unseen in Bangalore till then, had asked owners and leasers of all four-storeyed or taller buildings in the city to respond with their full status of compliance on fire safety and building plan rules. He even wrote in the notification that “disobeying these directions will be liable for prosecution and penalty”. He cited the Karnataka Police Act and the Indian Penal Code…

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The January 30th print issue of Citizen Matters hit the stands and homes in south Bengaluru exactly two years after our first issue of January 30th 2009! That maiden issue we had covered the HSR Layout Agara Flyover digging work, for those of you who may recall our cover.

We still remember that very first early morning. It was 5.55 am, and our team was handing out copies to homes in JP Nagar-BTM. Users of the 3rd Phase mini-forest and parks walked up to us.

“Is this a political stunt? Will you support one party or one MLA only?”, one gentleman asked. The launch issue had a cover pic of B N Vijaykumar, Jayanagar MLA, and that was enough to stir up suspicion! “No”, we had answered then. “We’ve launched this to bring the best and independent local news to Bengaluru, and we’re not going to…

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Mugging incidents along the Outer Ring Road-Sarjapur Road are back. The modus operandi is similar to earlier: Commuters driving alone in a car are stopped by con men on bikes. The men claim money on the pretext that the car has hit their bikes by showing their damages. They threaten the commuter (often these are residents of the Sarjapur Road area), damage the car and speak in loud voices in Kannada. They snatch the mobile. They persuade the victim to pay thousands of rupees for the “damages”, taking him to an ATM.

These incidents happened earlier mid 2010 and the HSR Layout Police had nabbed some culprits. They are now back. It also appears, again, that people not speaking the local language are being targeted.
Here’s the question to police commissioner Shankar Bidari and his colleagues at the HSR Layout police station: Mugging is condemnable, like all crime. But…

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Sometime back, we noted that the government had renamed Karnataka’s Urban Development Department as The Great Bengaluru Land Scam Department. Since then, developments have spiralled further and deeper into the mysterious inner workings of our system, and behold: another name change is being announced at the fag end of the year.

BBMP is being renamed U-TURN-MP on January 1st!

Surprised? You should not be, actually. Here’s the evidence:

After repeatedly insisting that a link road was a must through forestland in the prestigious University of Agricultural Sciences’ GKVK campus in north Bangalore and cutting over 680 trees in 2009, BBMP is now, at the end of 2010, saying the road is not necessary so they won’t proceed.

BBMP got going to build an underground parking lot at the Indira Gandhi Musical Fountain Park, very close to Raj Bhavan. Tenders were floated. However, opposition emerged, and BBMP now says it will recall the tender and…

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Almost as if in response to rising Bangaloreans' concern against the BBMP and BDA's permissions for commercial buildings in residential areas and large format apartments on narrow roads, a zoning review committee of the state government had acted last month.

On Oct 15th, the committee, headed by former chief secretary and ABIDe member Dr A Ravindra sent to the government a major set of revisions to the CDP's zoning rules.

If the government accepts it, it will become harder for the most blatant of illegal buildings to crop up around the city, and easier for citizens to monitor. The redrafted rules also bring down FAR (floor area ratio) allowed for builders to force a market for TDR (transfer of development rights) and also restrict TDR to major roads. See our report on this here.

However, the real question is this: is this 'reformist' re-draft going to bite the dust…

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Even as the BJP government totters this weekend, yet another scam in the government's favourite playground - Bengaluru city - stands exposed.

For over three years now the spectre of the Akrama Sakrama Bill has been hanging over the city. The bill is meant to 'regularise' illegal buildings in return for owners paying penalties. The premise of such a bill is that the BBMP will otherwise put all measures in place to bring the percentage of violations down to the single digits (some percentage in every society will flout the law) with stiff penalties. Regularising illegal buildings is therefore imagined as one-time amnesty measure, and that is all it should be.

Not so. In an ongoing investigation, Citizen Matters has exposed that the BBMP's attitude to illegal buildings in the city has only taken a turn for the worse. BBMP quietly shut…

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We all are familiar with the various facets of our religious festivals, going to temples, churches or mosques, or celebrating at home, eating traditional food , wearing new clothes and visiting family and friends.

One other thing many of us, just observe in passing, occasionally grimacing at the noise, is the public functions and cultural programmes in the weeks following.

Often organised by groups of young men, mostly from poorer neighbourhoods, these functions provide avenues for them to prove that they can "do something". School and college students have their culturals, those working in corporates have similar opportunities too. Residents welfare associations organise get-togethers in club houses or community halls.

These young people, they use public spaces.

Some aspects originated in village traditions. Some of these youngsters may be driven by faith, some feel an ownership of their community; some may admit they…

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The state government is doing a rethink on the Transfer of Development rights (TDR) scheme and announced a panel last week to be led by ABIDE-member Dr A Ravindra, according to the DNA. A public workshop is also going to held soon. This follows much citizen angst and resentment about roadwidening and BBMP's offering of TDR as compensation. (ABIDE is the chief minister's task force - Agenda for Bengaluru Infrastructure Development)

This is a welcome move. Citizens will hopefully find their voices heard at this meeting.

But the real issue is not TDR, as much as the state government may now concede or may want to you to think they have conceded. Even if the TDR scheme was made more amenable, roadwidening is not going to be the solution to easing traffic.

The issue is growth. Proposing to widen roads without at the same time settling on a…

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Santosh Hegde's resignation, Road widening distress, auto rickshaws refusing rides and tampering meters: push Bangaloreans hard enough and they will hit back.

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Transfer. A piece of paper with an order written on it. In the stroke of a pen, Bharat Lal Meena was lifted from the top of BBMP and placed atop the BDA. Another stroke, and BDA Commissioner H Siddaiah takes his place.

But why were they transferred? No reasons given.

These are top officials with responsibilities. Their current roles have a relevance and power that citizens understand. The same state government that seeks so much publicity for its much acclaimed accomplishments (see the posters of B S Yeddyurappa and R Ashoka on Volvo buses this week), does not even bother to issue a press release.

People have a right to know. So tell them. That is all. Set an example, a precedent for other governments to follow.

The result of not being open? All kinds of speculation in the daily newspapers on Thursday July 1st, the day after. Some reports wonder if MLAs…

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It's a classic case of putting cart before the horse and getting away with it. The Jayanagar Traffic and Transit Management Centre - a fancy name for a new bus stand located in a multi-storey building - was inaugurated in August 2009. The cost was around Rs.12 crores. It was a classic sarkari ceremony with the chief minister cutting the ribbon, transport minister attending, and the works. The media was happy to report it too.

The centre has space for offices in the second and third floors and a swanky terrace parking lot for the public on the fourth level. They forgot one thing - no elevator. Yet, the contract for the terrace parking lot was given in late 2009. See the brief report on page 5, as well a more detailed story online.

What's worse is this: when Citizen Matters asked a BMTC official why the elevator was not in…

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Film actress Ramya has come out in favour of extending deadlines of restaurants and pubs to 2 am (DNA, May 20). Minister Renukacharya raised the issue this year. Extending pub deadlines is one regular topic that comes up every year.

But does rest of Bangalore have to shut shop so early?

Nothing is open post dinner here! Outsiders term this a sleepy city, where nothing opens before 10 am and everybody closes by 8 pm.

Retailers may say there is no crowd after 9 pm. But there are more and more working-couple families who will find it convenient to shop late. They are always rushing to office, rushing back and dropping/picking up children from school or tuition classes. For them, weekday evening or weekend shopping becomes a chore. Parking spots are full, shops are crowded, the checkout lines are long.

Big retailers and shops in shopping complexes must experiment with later timings. Keeping…

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Once upon a time, Bengaluru had over a 100 lakes, of which many were used for water supply. Other lakes fed groundwater, which was again used for fetching drinking water through wells.

And then the city grew, first slowly, and then faster. Amenities were needed. Housing was critical. The city's growth skyrocketed in the last two decades as the IT revolution came in. Apartments mushroomed.

With all this came piped water supply from the Cauvery, a 100 kms away. Lakes were quickly forgotten, by everyone - from politicians to citizens.

Land became precious. It turned into gold. Everyone, literally everyone - politicians, bureaucrats, builders and citizens capitalised on this.

Scores of the city's lakes gave way to colleges, sports stadia, playgrounds, markets, golf courses, bus stations, and most importantly residential layouts. Remember Sampangi lake? It changed to Kanteerava Sports Complex.

Likewise Shoolay lake,…

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The election season that concluded in Bengaluru had some very well attended debates and interactions. That's good news. But it also exposed one key reality that has hardly received attention.

At these meetings, citizens communicated in ways that made it very difficult for the organisers to give a fair chance for everyone present to engage the panelists.

At Q&A time, it is expected that citizens keep to their time allotted (usually a minute or so) and frame crisp questions for the panelists. This protocol is not outlandish, and is required. One, organisers understandably want as many people as possible to have a chance to raise questions. Otherwise the most articulate or the loudest tend to dominate these events. Second a single, clear question forces the candidate respond only to that, and the audience then has a chance to assess.

Here is what actually happened in a number of debates and election interactions -…

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For over ten days now, Citizen Matters has followed the hectic election campaigns of candidates around the city. A mixed reality has already come out from our talking to candidates, their campaigners and voters. Some, for e.g. in Koramangala ward, have told us this: historically middle and high income groups (‘English-educated avaru’) won’t come out and vote on election day, so we cannot count on them for actually winning the race. We’ll stick to the ‘slums’.

Others have done the opposite. Depending on the ward itself, many mainline party candidates have taken out door-to-door campaigns canvassing in higher income neighbourhoods and apartments. Their visits may only have been for a momentary ‘namaskaara’ and not necessarily to ‘sit down and discuss testy issues’. Yet, it indicates that they are not taking a chance with the better-off’s presumed nonparticipation this time.

Furthermore, in specific wards where reformist party candidates are campaigning in particular,…

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