murali772's blog

There is worldwide acceptance of the need for a paper trail in conjunction with EVMs. Electronic voting was introduced in many countries. But serious doubts were soon raised about the security, accuracy, reliability and verifiability of electronic elections. In October 2006, the Netherlands banned the use of EVMs. In 2009, the Republic of Ireland declared a moratorium on their use.

ASI Nagarajappa and constables Venkatesh, Veerabhadraiah and Nagappa attached to Sanjaynagar police station were suspended, pending a departmental inquiry. On August 2, they barged into an apartment where a birthday party was being celebrated and illegally detained some persons and demanded money for their release.

A week from now, a woman police officer will be manning Bangalore City  west division traffic, with 21 traffic police stations and four sub-divisions under her purview.

In a crude show of political might, labour minister B N Bacche Gowda and his gunman physically assaulted a family which dared to overtake the minister’s vehicle. When Bharat (the driver of the vehicle) questioned if he had committed any crime by overtaking the minister’s vehicle, Gowda allegedly stepped out of his car and physically assaulted Bharat.

HCL Infosystems' led consortium with Accor Services and Virgo Softech has bagged a contract from Madhya Pradesh government for implementing food coupon-based targeted public distribution systems (PDS) in the state.

A 21-year-old man was almost crushed to death when the hydraulic doors of a BMTC bus closed in on him on Sunday evening. Prannoy David Rao hurt his shoulders and chest but what hurt more was the reaction of those around: The bus conductor yelled at him and some passengers guffawed at his plight instead of rescuing him.

When the KSPCB sent us a notice for the first time in May, '07, I, as the then President of the association, raised a query with them as under:

Ours is a high-rise apartment complex comprising 126 dwelling units, situated at the above address. The only waste we generate is the sewage from toilets which is discharged into the BWSSB sewage line running below the main road adjoining our complex, for which BWSSB is levying us a 'sanitory charge', as a part of the monthly water bill. As such, please advise on what basis your organisation should be levying any annual 'consent fee' on our complex.

Even as BWSSB, KPCL, KPTCL, BESCOM, etc are desperately strapped for cash, there is another government agency that's just rolling in money, viz the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB). A cursory glance at the financial statements, provided on its web-site ( http://www.kspcb.gov.in/ - though not quite in a reader friendly way as one would have liked it, which but is quite the norm with most government agency web-sites), shows the revenues at Rs 190 cr for total expenses of just Rs 23.54 cr, a mere 12% of the revenues, with the direct costs being just 5%. And, it's not as if they are being very frugal in their practices or anything like that.