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 LA Metro had appointed an Ad Agency and created various ads to promote the use of public transport. As part of Bus Day campaign, can we have similar such ads in local TV and News Paper.

LA Metro: Promoting Mass Transit from EMBARQ Network on Vimeo.

Roads in most Indian cities are a complete mess, literally. When do we see them graduate to some sort of orderliness, if ever ? The reasons for this pathetic state of roads, heavy congestion & poor transport infrastructure are many. Most of us believe that the authorities alone are responsible & lack expertise. However, apart from this, there are many other reasons :

1) City officials are unable to acquire land uniformly throughout a street for maintaining width symmetrically because there are numerous establishments & private parties or individuals that contest such acquisition in courts - army land between Mekhri circle & Rajgopal rd & on ORR on the northwest (near Peenya) are examples, as is the traders agitation along CMH rd.

2) Where roads are of uniform width, 'No Parking' is difficult to enforce or indiscriminate parking is allowed due to the nature of activities on the road, or private vehicles park anyway & usually obstruct movement of traffic - examples are Sampige rd & Margosa rd in Malleswaram, 80ft & 100ft roads in Indiranagar & Koramangala that have numerous retail outlets.

Now it is expected that Railway Overbridge at Kadugodi will be completed soon. It is the time to think about extension of Volvo bus service at least upto Safal Market as lot of residential layout are upcoming in this stretch. Kadugodi bus stand can be relocated somewhere near Safal Market where the land prices are definitely cheaper as compared to the existing location of bus stand.

 This Sunday afternoon I travelled from Mysore to Bangalore on 2008, Mysore-Chennai Shatabdi with new generation LHB coaches. It was a very nice experience. I recently travlled between two cities a lot, mostly on road and it was very boring nowadays with too much traffic on Bangalore-Mysore road. Volvo and car travel as well take minimum of 2 hr 15 minutes from Nayandahalli (Bangalore city tip towards Mysore road) to Mysore.

Amazingly train took just 1 hr 50 minutes from Mysore station to Bangalore station, leaving Mysore at 2:15 and reaching Bangalore(Binny Mill) at 4:05. I had travelled last year in the same train but with older coaches, and it took 2 hr 15 minutes. The new coaches have made a lot of difference. We reached Nayandahalli within 1hr 40 minutes. Unfortunately we were not allowed inside the station, were halted with red signal near Binny mill and left inside only after 10 minutes making the journey 2 hours. Hope railways solves this problem.

Analysis of  last three months discussion and media briefing by Shri MoS K H Muniyappa and CM Yeddiyurappa  shows  that MoS is favouring Circular Rail and CM is talking of Local Trains similar to Mumbai.

Now we will see one more round of study by SWR / Railways for Circular Railway and wasting time on this. RITES study on  Local Trains is not considered by MoS K H Muniyappa and no one is talking of this.

Do any one have the details on Circular Rail what MoS K H Muniyappa is talking.  We from Praja need  to do some serious work so that both proposal Local Trains and Circular Train services are sanctioned for Bangalore.

 My wife and I went yesterday to the Indiranagar RTO to renew her DL.  As soon as we stepped into "the zone" there were touts offering help.  We, of course, ignored them and walked up to the RTO.  

As we walked up we realized that my wife's DL said "RTO BNG CENTRAL" (Koramangala) and we wondered what trouble that would mean.  But we decided to check anyway.

There was a helpdesk there.  It was operational.  We asked the lady there if we could renew the license here.  She gave us the forms and asked us to check at Window 3 if it was possible.  We also realized there was a medical fitness certificate (completely in Kannada) to be got from a doctor.

At Window 3 there was a reasonably helpful lady.  She told my wife that it was possible to do it there.  She confirmed if the address remained unchanged.  She asked us to write a letter requesting that the license be renewed there.   

We paid the Rs.250 fee at the cash counter and my wife went to get her MC done.

Times of India along with Janaagrah launch Bangalore Patrol (starting tomorrow) says the cover page of TOI today. I tried to look for it online but couldnt find a thing about the same. But if you have a TOI around check it out, it is impossible to miss.

According to the Advertisement "Bangalore patrol involves a stringent ward infrastructure and services assessment programme with the singular aim of demanding direct evaluating and accountability from the local administrative and governance system."

They will start with 5 essential civic rights of water supply, Mobility, Sanitation, Environment and Public amenities.

It will measure the same in 198 wards. By doing so they intend to monitor the work of our newly elected representative's in each of the wards. In my opinion the best measure of performance and also at the same time we get a good idea about our city.
According to the article "Progress report will be based on simple objective performance evaluation criteria and will be freely available to the public, empowering them to demand answers" 

I just went across the profile of the candidate whom has won the BBMP election from my ward. I 'shamefully' admit to have voted for this person. Given that I had little info on the three candidates contesting, I just went by the party.

Now, I do realise that this great person is a 2nd PUC failure!!

Do you have any better luck, corporators that you be proud of?

And, considering that we have pushed ourselves in the levels of education since the Constitution was drafted in 1950, and considering that the urban electorate is a little more educated than the semi-urban or rural parts - Isnt it the time for us to review the minimal educational requirements of our candidates, atleast for urban local bodies?

With only such candidates on offer, can we ever expect them to understand the various issues of administration, let alone solve them? Your thoughts, rants, and solutions appreciated!!

-Srivatsava V