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Residents' Initiative To Turn The City Green

28 December 2007 - 6:15pm — GVK

Tabloids are not just about scandals, glambiz and other trivia. Bangalore Mirror and a local private trust have clubbed up to promote tree planting in their city. Mrs. Janet Yegneswaran, who founded the trust a couple of years back in memory of her husband, has been engaged in encouraging Bangalore residents and neighborhood communities to chip in their bit in her endeavour to make a difference to the city’s green cover.

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Cooking Gas From Kitchen Waste

18 December 2007 - 8:48pm — GVK

Left over food and vegetable waste discarded in a dump near our apartment complex raise a stink. Apartment residents hold their breath; and curse the municipal waste disposal staff, as they pass by the roadside dump. We could do something about it, if only we are so inclined, thanks to the work

done by Pune-based Appropriate Rural Technology Institute (ARTI) in developing a household biogas plant that feeds on our kitchen waste.

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How do you react?

18 December 2007 - 12:37pm — silkboard

Before I start on a long rant with my reactions, thoughts and ideas, tell me this. How should one react or behave on seeing things like these? And what should change to prevent these drivers from resorting to these shortcuts?

Robbing The Hungry - the racket called PDS

16 December 2007 - 7:48am — murali772

With even the likes of Medha Patkar critical of the system, perhaps the only ones who would be opposed to it's being dismantled would now be just the racketeers and a few pseudo-socialists. Isn't it a crying shame that the country continues to allow as massive a loot as an annual Rs 10,000 crores by this lot?

text of the letter sent to the New Indian Express:

Commuter Rail can make our city better

14 December 2007 - 7:43am — sivanandas

CTTP has all the details for improving transport facilities in Bengaluru through various options. While the Metro / Mono take their own sweet time for completion, making use of the existing railway network on a limited scale on a few routes can be an immediate solution. I understand that the railway lines cover only a certain portion of the city, and local train transport with feeder bus services will have a great impact for that portions. The Kengeri-Whitefield route can be a pilot route as it is already an electrified double track. With the BMTC & private industrial managements, including software tech parks providing feeder services from their respective places to the nearest terminals, this can be a very effective solution in the immediate future. Our daily traffic situation is only growing worser day-by-day and i believe if this is implemented in a small way, our city can become better.

SEC's muddle

12 December 2007 - 6:39pm — murali772

Isn't it time that as important a task as preparation and maintenance of the electoral roles (and issuance of EPID cards), on which the success of the entire governance system rests, is out-sourced to professional agencies?

School vans (Omnis) - a disaster waiting to happen

12 December 2007 - 12:33pm — s_yajaman

When I go to drop my boys at school and pick them up, a familiar sight greets me - Maruti Omnis with about 12-15 kids in each of them. There is not even space to keep their bags inside the Omni and so they are on the roof. Many of these are with white boards and so possibly illegally being used for this. If this overloading is not enough, the way they are driven is horrific. I have seen them go at full speed, jumping lights, taking turns without slowing down, etc. Sadly it seems a matter of time before something serious happens.

Better Bussing For A Green Bangalore

12 December 2007 - 12:25pm — murali772

There's no denying that the tree cover in Bangalore is being lost largely due to road widening. Road widening is necessitated due to unchecked growth and usage of private vehicles. To address this problem, you have to have excellent public transport services. METRO may be a solution. But, it is extremely expensive, and at best a solution in the long-term. BMTC cannot cope up with the needs, however much they may appear to have become efficient, which they are not and cannot be, as long as they continue to enjoy a monopoly status. The simple answer is to facilitate the entry of TVS kind of companies (my first exposure to TVS was as a bus service provider in the city of Madurai) into the fray. The present rules do not provide for that. It facilitates only the 'Sharma' kind of operations, which in turn only helps provide fodder for the die-hard opponents of the private sector.

Let us meet - Sunday Dec 16, 9 AM, Lalbagh West Gate

11 December 2007 - 11:36pm — admin

We have been talking about it - what more can we realistically do besides sharing our ideas and frustrations via discussions. We also want to decide on the future course for the website itself, for Praja aims to leverage the site as the platform. So how about we meet and talk all this?

Date: 16 Dec, Sunday morning, 9 AM Venue: Lalbagh, West Gate

Resources - complaint/suggestion websites, emails or phone numbers

11 December 2007 - 9:39am — admin

Let us start building a "citizen's resources" section at Praja website. Many members know websites, phone numbers or email addresses for various local government bodies or public service providers. Let us start listing all such 'self-help' resources.

Eventually, this new section here could have the following:

1) Self help: as mentioned above

2) RTI and PIL guidelines: how to file a RTI application. Or even a PIL. And member's success stories

3) Contacts of helpful NGOs and RWAs (resident welfare associations) that members have experiences with