murali772's blog

Every 10th of the month as 'No honking day'

29 April 2010 - 3:33pm — murali772

In a unique initiative to curb noise pollution in the city, Mission Peace, an NGO, has decided to observe ‘No Honking Day’ on 10th of every month. This drive against the increasing noise level has been supported by Karnataka police.

The initiative was unveiled by Justice Manjula Chellur, Justice K Sreedhar Rao, retired Justice A M Farooque and former Justice M F Saldahna along with DG & IGP Ajay Kumar Singh.

The mission of starting ‘No Honking Day’ is to create awareness about unnecessary use of horn and the ill-effects of noise caused by the autos. We will also try to convince the government to bring in laws to control noise pollution,’’ said Sunitha De Sousa, president of Mission Peace.

For the full text of the report in the TOI, click here

A most welcome initiative. I am sure it will have the fullest support of PRAJAGALU.

Muralidhar Rao

"Water and a City" - discussions following the screening

26 April 2010 - 11:58am — murali772

The movie brought out the scenario fairly well, but which most on Praja are quite aware of.

During the discussions that followed, I brought up the matter of the reported 40% odd losses, largely on account of the inefficiencies/ mismanagement in distribution (compared to less than 10% in an efficient system), and followed it up with a suggestion "if the kind of contract entered into between Mysore City Corporation and JUSCO, was not the way to address the issue?".

Prof Mohan Kumar (Civil Engg Dept, IISc) responded saying a study/ survey had been conducted by L&T and Anglian Waters (or, one of the other foreign players - I am not quite sure which) a few years back covering some parts of Bangalore (I thought I heard the name Fraser Town mentioned) at a cost of Rs 32 crores - did he mention World Bank funded?. He did not mention if any work was actually undertaken. But, went on to add that it raised all kinds of technical issues, like "how do you replace the pipes in an area like Avenue road, etc?"

Raison d'être for continuance of the Public Sector

24 April 2010 - 2:07pm — murali772

Is this why they won’t disinvest Air India, kept afloat at massive expense to the taxpayer? In a violation of DGCA rules, an AI aircraft was pulled out of a scheduled flight from Delhi to Coimbatore in order to ferry IPL players, apparently at the behest of aviation minister Praful Patel’s daughter Poorna. It appears the public sector airline fulfils the private and nepotistic purposes of public servants.

For the full report in the TOI, click here.

Isn't this also why the government persists with BMTC/ KSRTC (check this), BESCOM, etc, so that they can further the interests of the Poorna Patels of this world? - all in the name of Socialism; the tax payer be damned.

Muralidhar Rao

34 comments

Dare they talk!!!?

29 March 2010 - 5:37pm — murali772

The poor turnout in the posh areas of the city and the general voter apathy was cause enough for several politicians to spit fire at Bangalore, and to hint that if people did not turn out to vote they had no right to criticise the ruling class. For the full report in the New Indian Express, click here

The Transport Minister in-charge of Bangalore, R Ashok, scolded people for watching films and going to restaurants instead of voting and called for making voting compulsory.“IT is a shame on part of educated people. I don’t know why these people have no time even to come to polling stations to elect a right candidate" he added.

Why I will not vote for JD(S) in this election, or ever.

23 March 2010 - 12:09pm — murali772

With state JD(S) chief H D Kumaraswamy on Monday brazenly saying that he saw nothing wrong in fielding criminals if they looked like winnable candidates, the comfort that Bangaloreans enjoyed, compared to those living in the cow belt, has evaporated. In an exclusive interaction with TOI ahead of BBMP polls, Kumaraswamy said that his criteria for giving tickets to criminals is simple: he/she should have the support of party workers and people of the area and should be able to win. Obviously a case of political arithmetic trumping morals and scruples. But, is it right to bring criminals into politics? “What’s wrong? It’s a chance for them to reform. If they change, isn’t it an achievement and better for the society?”

Report on 'Suvarna Bengaluru Pranalike'

20 March 2010 - 5:28pm — murali772

This was organised by Janaagraha's Jaagte Raho campaign at 6 PM on Friday, the 19th Mar, at the Town Hall, Bengaluru, in the background of the BBMP elections being held on the coming Sunday (28th March,'10)

On infrastructure
From Mr R V Deshpande of Congress to Ms Shabha Karandlaje to Mr Narayanaswamy of JD(S), all made claims of how they were responsible for building up the infrastructure for the city - from the Hebbal fly-over to the K R Puram cable-stayed fly-over, to the signal-free corridors, etc, etc. Towards the end, when a question raised by a participant as to 'where the pedestrian came into view in all of these', was put to them, suddenly, each made a u-turn and started talking about how they plan to make the city totally pedestrian and cycle friendly.

Well, to symbolise the entire polity's commitment to this changed approach, can a consensus be possibly arrived at to demolish the totally useless National College fly-over, apart from of course dropping the Tagore circle underpass and such useless projects?

On corruption

Padmanabhanagar doomed - rest of Bengaluru too?

20 March 2010 - 2:05pm — murali772

The following is the report by Sri N S Mukunda, Convener of Abhyudaya, a federation of RWAs in Padmanabhanagar, on the debate they organised between the BBMP Corporator candidates on 19th March. The prospects for the ward look pathetic. And, like Mr Mukunda has pointed out "I am sure that the expecrience is similar except in the degree of disappointment in other constituencies as well", and offered the possible way out as "like many of our colleaguews have done in this election only jump into the fray and contest and try to win - time we start thinking of far beyond this tokenism".

We from Abhyudya in ward 182 Padmanabhanagar, had a debate with the candidates of Congress (Sri Murali), JD(S) (Sri Anjanappa). The BJP candidate Sri L Srinivasa, the ex corporator did not turn up, in spite of being invited. The debate took place yesterday evening at 5.30 PM and went on till 7.15 PM.

Protecting trees - Indiranagar

17 March 2010 - 5:25pm — murali772

Knowing me to be a tree lover, members of the local coomunity keep calling asking to know as to what is to be done when they notice trees being felled in their neighborhood, the latest being the above massacre of 4 full-grown trees (very similar to the one that has been spared - seen at the extreme right of the picture) on the 100 ft road in Indiranagar (just North of the pedestrian over-bridge at the end of the fly-over).

Now, if the process is still under way when you come upon it, what you need to do is detailed in the ESG web-site, which may be accessed here. I have myself followed this a couple of times, and succeeded in limiting the damage considerably.

But, if the damage has already occured, like in the above instance, you could perhaps file a query under the RTI Act, on the lines of the one I am going to be filing pertaining to the instant case, as below, and forward a copy to ESG.

Private Universities

13 March 2010 - 6:32pm — murali772

Amid protests and dharna from the opposition Congress and the JD(S), the Legislative Assembly on Friday adopted the Azim Premji University Bill, 2010, thus paving the way for the state’s first private university aimed at improving the quality of primary and higher education by providing training to teachers. The Alliance University Bill, 2010, another private university Bill, was also passed in the Assembly.

Both the Bills were adopted through the voice vote as the opposition parties staged a dharna in the well of the House, insisting on a joint select committee (JSC) of the house for a thorough deliberation on the Bill before getting it passed by the legislature. Opposition leader in the Assembly expressed fears that the passage of the Bill would open the floodgate for private universities in the absence of any set of regulations to govern them. Instead of placing a Bill for an individual university, the government should bring in a comprehensive private university Bill while listing out elaborate guidelines, they demanded.

Step-by-step privatisation of Air India likely

10 March 2010 - 1:33pm — murali772

Faced with accumulated losses of Rs 7,200 crore, national carrier Air India's deteriorating condition has forced the government to push for privatisation of the carrier. While the UPA government does not favour strategic sale, the civil aviation ministry and the Air India management are likely to consider a piecemeal approach to privatisation.

Fixing the great mistake

8 March 2010 - 4:17pm — murali772

"Fixing the Great Mistake" is a new Streetfilms series that examines what went wrong in the early part of the 20th Century, when our cities began catering to the automobile, and how those decisions continue to affect our lives today.

Liberalize the railways

25 February 2010 - 12:07pm — murali772

The Indian railway system continues to be in a crisis since it has kept the winds of liberalization at bay, said Lok Satta Party President Dr Jayaprakash Narayan said here today. When Delhi let go its stranglehold on airports and sea ports and permitted States to promote them, the country has witnessed a dramatic growth in the two sectors.

EC/ SEC - symbol of incompetence, incapacity, apathy, lack of accountability, all put together

16 February 2010 - 11:38pm — murali772

During the Koramangala SmartVote exercise, this is what the members chanced upon "We introduced the software mainly to enable voters to start an easy search for their names on the voter lists online. However, in the process, we found that a number of names were exactly replicated.

Railways to privatize

9 February 2010 - 10:57am — murali772

Attempting an image makeover after opposing most major projects in her home state of West Bengal, railway minister Mamata Banerjee seemed to be going over the top in a bid to privatize every sector of the Indian Railways.

Flag-pole politics

8 February 2010 - 5:18pm — murali772

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