Articles by Ashwin Mahesh

I was at the launch of the Cycle to Work campaign along with the Mayor and the Bicycle Mayor last week. It was very nice to see many cyclists come together, hopeful of renewed efforts

For several years now, I’ve had one theme around which I felt we could push for change – “rather than try to solve problems, we should focus on increasing the number of problem solving people”.

The easiest way to work with government is to solve some of their problems. We often think that the government should solve our problems, but in practice, they have many of their own!! And unless

If there’s a leak in the water line in your building, you’ll call the plumber. You won’t call the carpenter and hope that by a combination of luck, brute force, learning-on-the-job, prayer, etc. he’ll somehow

When a Budget is presented in July, and when a significant new commitment of expenditure is made for a single purpose (as in the case of agricultural loan waivers this year), there is not much

Bangalore’s struggles are not due to lack of expertise or new ideas. We’ve tried those, with only limited success. What is needed instead is faith in the right institutions and processes, and realising that until

In some neighburhoods, citizens are vexed by an increasing number of bars and pubs, and the dramatic change in the surroundings as a result. There have been various instances of conflict between residents and these

Square sections of tar have appeared on various roads, as BBMP and the government scramble to resurface the city. While these will provide immediate relief, they will also become the reason why we end up

Multiple groups are protesting the manner in which BBMP instituted ward committees in about 2/3rd of the wards – ignoring citizen volunteers and public interest groups, and taking only the input of the corporators. Such

BBMP’s proposal to begin charging people to park on the streets can seem like a long-overdue scheme. But while the principle of charging for public space seems reasonable, we should do more than that. We

BBMP likes to create regular, small contracts. This system is informally known as ‘hale kallu, hosa billu’, and is well understood by all the stakeholders !! Take the example of shoulder drains. To begin with,

Wherever BDA shows its Master Plan, there are strong objections to it. People point out that it … (a) .. is autocratic, having been developed with no input from the people of the city. It