Policy Citizen Matters, Blogs

Workshop on gendering the smart city

August 22, 2019 News Desk

A day-long workshop has been organised on how we can envision alternatives to the smart city and challenge the top-down and exclusionary nature of such policies. The workshop includes a number of speculative and participatory

The logic, decision & actions of a street vendor: a study in Russell Market

October 11, 2018 Kiran Keswani

While there have been attempts to formally plan the growth of a city, this has not proved to be successful in many parts of the world. Informality does play a significant role in several cities,

Conflict of Commercialisation – How does it stop?

February 13, 2018 Ashwin Mahesh

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

The many things that are wrong with Akrama Sakrama

January 28, 2014 Ashwin Mahesh

Akrama Sakrama is a complete fraud. There are many things wrong with this scheme. Sadly, Congress, BJP and JDS appear to be united in their attempts to destroy the city. Regularisation may be unavoidable, given

Footsteps for freedom

December 31, 2013 Pushpa Achanta

How about starting 2014 with a walk for gender minorities? Praja Rajakiya Vedike along with other organizations is conducting “Freedom Walk – End Violence on Sexual Minorities” tomorrow (Wednesday, Jan-1-2014). This is an effort to

Priced private parking can only congest Bangalore

July 16, 2013 Ashwin Mahesh

Our urban planning framework has totally misunderstood the management of parking. Starting with building bye laws to on-street parking to off-street, pretty much EVERYTHING we do around parking is wrong. And the examples that people

Kill the Akrama-Sakrama bill, because it’s a farce

June 18, 2013 Ashwin Mahesh

The Governor has once again returned the Sakrama Bill. In any event, given the court case that is going on, any attempt by the government to circumvent the court was bound to land in trouble,

Political parties: United in agendas?

June 13, 2013 Ashwin Mahesh

When it suits their dodgy interests, the political parties actually cooperate with each other, even though they are theoretically opponents in the electoral and other arenas. Yesterday (June 11, 2013) we saw a very good

What the chief minister can do

May 10, 2013 Ashwin Mahesh

There are a number of things that the CM can do, to clearly signal a break with the failures of the past. As the new Chief Minister takes office, many Bangaloreans must be wondering what

Freedom – what’s that?

November 11, 2012 Pushpa Achanta

"Freedom is another word for nothing left to lose", said someone. But, for many people who often lose the little that they have, freedom is another wor(l)d. And that wor(l)d did not appear on 15th

Public Affairs Centre Colloquium on Citizen Voices in Environmental Governance

August 21, 2012 Arathi Manay Yajaman

"With economic growth, development and climate change, how India decides to govern its environment in the age of rapid transitions is of paramount importance. How individuals, societies and the state confront the myriad trade-offs involved

Meeting of lake teams

August 6, 2012 Arathi Manay Yajaman

A meeting of lake teams in Bangalore was organised by Arekere Neighbourhood Improvement Trust (ANIT) together with OneBengaluru on 5th Aug 2012. The meeting was well attended by more than 125 people from 20-odd different