Blogs

Kaggadasapura Lake Encorachment - Commendable work Mr. Mayor

11 June 2010 - 5:19pm — psaram42

From a newspaper report last week:

“Bangalore: Mayor S K Nataraj conducted a surprise inspection of Kaggadasapura lake on Wednesday and ordered for the immediate clearance/demolition of a road that was built across the lake. After the inspection, mayor said: “It was an informal visit to C V Nagar assembly constituency where I was alerted by the local MLA about the the construction of a road in midst of the lake. Instructions have been given to demolish the road and clear theencroachments.”

Further

" ... Kaggadasapura lake is spread across 46 acres of land. While MLA S Raghu said he will fund Rs 75 lakh for fencing of the lake area, mayor vowed Rs 3.75 lakh for upgradation of the lake. Nataraj also visited Benniganahalli lake and Hosakere lake during his visit.”

BMTC invites tender for Hebbal TTMC under PPP!

9 June 2010 - 11:32pm — kbsyed61

Happened to notice a tender notification on BMTC website for the construction of TTMC at Hebbal.

The Tender document states the site overview to be "..The project site is located in the northern part of the city at Hebbal, measuring about 7.95 acres. The site is situated at the intersection of the National Highway 7 (Bellary Road) and the Outer Ring Road. The intersection along with the Hebbal flyover is an important landmark in the city and is strategically located in terms of connectivity to the new airport at Devanahalli and to different parts of the city.

As per the Bangalore Master Plan 2015, the site land use is classified as Traffic & Transport (T&T) category. Currently out of 7.95 acres, about 4.27 acres of the bus depot is operated by BMTC. Depot comprises of maintenance workshop, washing area, fuelling station, stores and administration building. At present, the depot is a base for about 210 buses which includes about 90 Volvo buses..."

Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority Bill

9 June 2010 - 8:35am — shekhar_mittal

With all the interesting Parliament bills that get discussed, scrutinized and thrashed by media and people like us, there are many more which get missed out. Through the PRS site I came across "Pension Fund and Regulatory Development Authority Bill".

Before I try to explain it, here are some fun facts

Only 13% of the workforce is currently covered by pension schemes
Total government (centre+states) pension cost has increased from Rs 6,400 crore in 1991 to Rs 46,569 crore in 2001 and it is estimated that this figure will reach around 80000 crores by 2081-82
A number of states are already defaulting on pension payments. Employee Pension Scheme was reportedly underfunded to the extent of Rs 22,000 crore as on March 31, 2004.

Essentially, the PFRDA bill aims to address all of the above. This Bill provides a regulatory framework for a new pension system (NPS) which will be available to any individual. All the employees who joined the central government on or after 1 January 2004 already come under this new pension system.

Maharajah's 13 acre donation to Bangalore

8 June 2010 - 2:48pm — idontspam

Tracking page for GIM

7 June 2010 - 10:32am — admin

Going by the hype around it, and looking at sharp opinions within the activist community, fallouts of Global Investment Meet (aka GIM) need close tracking. Whether GIM will bring inclusive growth, or create more controversies around corporate greed and disrespect for natural resources depends on how much interest we take in monitoring the specific proposals and demanding transparency.

To make it easy for readers and contributors on this website, we have created a special tracking page for GIM:

admin's blog
Login or register to post comments
Read more

Global warming - building cracks?

6 June 2010 - 8:18pm — hemaraj

I had been to Tirupathi 20 -25 days back, before the fall of sri kalahasthi kopuram.

on my way , I visited sri kalahasthi templeand saw the crack in the gopuram and was thinking about all through my journey.

on my way back I visited my cousin living in Chittoor, they live in an 60 -70 year old house, every time i visited i felt so happy as the building was in good condition even after all these years.

but this time i noticed big cracks in the ceiling, then I recollected the cracks in sri kalalhasthi.

When I visted ,at that point of time the weather was at 44 degrees or more so.

then my thought was that do most building crack fast as the temperature keeps on increasing.

what is the fate of humanbeings, without shelter.

I was deeply concerned about the future generation .

today iread the cracking in the srirangapatna temples gopuram.

Has the journey for the extinct of human beings started.

god made good things we destroyed.we wanted more and more comforts and invented and polluted .

we should follow the principle of roti kapada and then house and then luxury.

The UID debate

6 June 2010 - 8:31am — vmenon

Dear all, attaching a couple of recent files on UID:

a) A "skeptical note" on UID by a Prof ramkumar( form tata institute of social sciences)
b) Minutes of meeting with NGOs /CSOs organised by UID this month.

In other civic forums , the UID debate has gone to the level of "stop UID" campiagns.

The anti UID lobby (currently in the civic space there seems to be more of them or at least more vocal) has a few broad areas of concern and pehaps rightly so

A blessing or a curse?

4 June 2010 - 10:27pm — psaram42

The Global Investors Meet (GIM) which concluded on Friday the 4^th June 2010, has thrown up a new monitory scale of lakh crore. With the all too common inflation this is no surprise. It can expand to infinity. The Tata nano has started its production line, when there is no parking space in metros like New Delhi, Bangalore etc. Unfortunately the space on the planet earth is limited however much we wish it is not true.

Private public transport - a proposal

4 June 2010 - 4:01pm — ab_calvin

People prefer own transport mainly because they can travel directly by the shortest route non-stop to the school/college/workspot and back.To use public transport, one has to walk in the hot sun to the nearest bus stop, wait for the correct bus, somehow manage to get in, get down and walk again.some people have to take more than one bus.Because of the crazy one way maze, one has to walk to a different bus stop for the return journey.

It is certainly possible to provide a facility almost like own transport.Presently, sharing transport is limited to it/bpo computer savvy sector.But there are lots of other people who are not computer savvy, who do not have the time to log on to a computer ,etc (the bottom of the pyramid, to quote management guru c k prahlad) who would gladly join to form a transport pool.There may be so many people in an apartment complex traveling daily to the same place and back at the same time.They would probably be surprised to see familiar faces in the group and think "why didn't WE think of this ?"

Bangalore's Big Dig Dream?

4 June 2010 - 12:06pm — Ravi_D

This DH Report on 10/May notes: "The State government has long-term plans to build tunnel roads in the City to ease traffic congestion" said ..... Minister R Ashok on Monday.

Consider this against the effort spent reducing the length of Namma Metro Under Ground alignment.

Binny Mills to KG Bus Stand is one such tunnel road being discussed. Fortunately, "the proposals are in preliminary stage and nothing concrete has emerged so far, he said".

BTW, Namma metro's west bound UG alignment is not too far away!

Ravi_D's blog
Login or register to post comments

Solar power proposal to State

3 June 2010 - 3:26pm — reevs

not sure how and where to follow-up on this one....

New BMTC routes - K1/K2/K3

3 June 2010 - 9:23am — Sanjeev

The Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) will be introducing three routes called K1, K2 and K3.

The route K1 will connect St John’s Hospital, Sinivagilu, Domlur, Indiranagar Police Station, Ulsoor, Trinity Circle, Mayo Hall, Shivajinagar and adjoining places.

The K2 route passes through Hebbal, Devasandra, M S Ramaiah Hospital, Yeshwanthpur, ISKCON temple and adjoining roads.

K3 connects Basaveshwara bus stand, Vijayanagar MCTC, Sirsi Circle, Chamarajpet, North Road, Basavanagudi, Shanthi Talkies and adjoining roads.

A release from BMTC said that buses along these routes will be made available at a gap of 15 minutes each between 6 am to 11.15 pm.
http://www.deccanherald.com/content/73099/bmtc-routes.html

Here they should have extended K1 upto Cantonment Station. Also integrating with METRO stations should have been taken care as many places, these buses will be playing close the METRO stations enroot.

The great Indian passport farce

2 June 2010 - 8:43pm — idontspam

My sister visited Passport Service Kendra in Devarabeesanahalli on the 25th for the reissue of passport of her minor child. Needed to travel for a family emergency so she checked the option for tatkal.

First WTF moment. The officer checking the application scratches out her tatkal mark and ticks normal, reason given, another inspecting officer will make the determination after hearing your case and not you.

Second WTF moment. She waits patiently for the interview where the officer says oh you marked normal on your application so you wont get tatkal. He didnt accept the argument that his own officer, who was nowhere to be seen at that time, had changed it. As a solace she is told the passport will arrive in 3 days flat.

So all arrangements to handle the family emergency and postponement of tickets on penalty is arranged. Now comes the whammy its 2nd june and no trace of the passport. Status as of 2nd June is

"Passport will be dispatched within 3 working days excluding the date of submission."

A web query to check the status met with the following response

Real Facts about GIM

2 June 2010 - 12:58pm — vinay_sreenivasa

OPPOSE AUCTION OF KARNATAKA

Demand People Friendly & Environment Friendly Development

The Chief Minister of Karnataka has announced that the 2 day Global Investors Meet in Bangalore will bring 3 lakh crores of investment as well as around 3 lakh new jobs. The promise of 3 lakh jobs to be created by the GIM and the prosperity it will bring to Karnataka does not appear to be true. Read below to find out the real costs and real facts of the GIM.

False Promise of Investment and Job Creation

Praja Commuter Rail ride in the press

2 June 2010 - 10:53am — idontspam

That’s what a group of Bangaloreans, most of them IT professionals, discovered as part of an initiative by Praja.in, an internet community that addresses issues affecting the city.

Five of its members – Muralidhar Rao, Pranav, Manjari, Naveen and Satya – travelled on local trains within the city to experience firsthand the feasibility of the Commuter Rail System (CRS)

Read more at Praja Suburban train ride report covered here by Bangalore Mirror.