The meeting was convened by Dr A Ravindra, advisor to the CM on urban issues, at the instance of the Bangalore Environment Trust (BET), on the matter of 'road-widening', on 23rd June, at the Vikas Soudha. Along with Dr Ravindra was his deputy Dr Ashwin Mahesh. Though the Commissioner had apparently been requested by Dr Ravindra to be present, along with some of his top officials, only a Superintending Engineer turned up, that too some half way through the meeting.
There were about 20 invitees, largely from Civil Society groups, including Capt Prabhala, Mr Govardhan, Mr Nityananda, Mr Devare from BET, Ms Kathyayini Chamaraj from Civic, Dr Harini Nagendra, a Doctor who is spear-heading the 'Sankey road widening opposition' movement, apart from yours truly representing Praja and Koramangala Initiative.
It started with Mr Nityananda of BET making a presentation, making out a case for widening, where need be, in a more tree-friendly way, citing examples of some specific roads.
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Presentation describing Open Data pilot
Here is a presentation describing the Open Data pilot proposal. Credits to IDS, Shekhar, Rithesh and Sreeram. We have been speaking with a few government officials for their participation in the pilot and expect to 1-3 confirmations ASAP.
Personally, I find the proposal very exciting. There are parallels from UK/US to borrow from, but our government systems are not as digitized yet and not everyone is used to talking transparency using real data (citizens, media or governments), so the work involved should be unique and interesting.