Category Archives: City

How can we get school dropouts to go back?

I met Kavitha, a chirpy girl with a winning smile, on the first day of the dropout survey carried out by volunteers of Child Rights and You. “School hogthira?” I asked, “Do you go to school?” She looked up and nodded, half-yes, half-no, then shyly turned away. “Tamil teriyuma?” I egged on. It turned out sheContinue reading “How can we get school dropouts to go back?”

Rainwater harvesting in less than a tenth of households

Eight years after rainwater harvesting was made mandatory in Bengaluru, the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board has implemented it in just 72,000 households. This is far less than the number of possible sites as the BWSSB has installed 9.4 lakh water connections in the city. The law on rainwater harvesting applied to all new structures (afterContinue reading “Rainwater harvesting in less than a tenth of households”

With sumps contaminated, residents scrounge for water

With sumps in houses getting contaminated for the second consecutive day, sourcing clean water has become a major worry for residents in areas that were inundated over the last couple of days. Close to 300 residents in Koramangala 4th Block are facing problems sourcing water after the sumps got contaminated twice in as many days.Continue reading “With sumps contaminated, residents scrounge for water”

City council misses window to set up RWH systems in its parks

At a time when water shortage is on everyone’s minds and “water councils” are being held by the civic body to discuss how to ameliorate the situation, one would expect the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to do everything in its capacity to conserve water. However, the civic body missed a good window to conserveContinue reading “City council misses window to set up RWH systems in its parks”

A sure-shot way to get people to segregate waste?

How do you get recalcitrant residents to segregate their waste? A team of waste collectors and design students seem to have hit upon a scalable solution. Using a mobile app, waste collectors geotagged 250 households and rated the level of segregation. Within three months, more than three-fourths of the 250 households had achieved 100% segregationContinue reading “A sure-shot way to get people to segregate waste?”

Four years on, Ejipura residents await their promised houses

The EWS Colony in Ejipura was demolished by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in January 2013, and nothing has changed for the 900-odd families who are still waiting for their houses. While many have shifted to the city outskirts, 22 families continue to live on the pavement near the fenced-off land. According to anContinue reading “Four years on, Ejipura residents await their promised houses”

‘When we ask for our passbooks, they threaten to throw us out’

Twenty-four-year old Shanti looked at the calculator perplexed. According to the trade unionist standing before her, who had just computed her wage break-up, she was supposed to be earning Rs. 17,440 a month as a contract pourakarmika under the city corporation, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP). “Rs. 17,000, not Rs. 1,700?” she asks to confirm.Continue reading “‘When we ask for our passbooks, they threaten to throw us out’”

The Animation Instinct

In barely a few years, Bengaluru has seen a spurt in the number of animation studios based in the city. The number of studios has gone up from just a handful less than a decade ago to nearly 50 today, say industry experts. A 2015 National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) study onContinue reading “The Animation Instinct”