Latest news with #Civis
Time of India
6 days ago
- General
- Time of India
Lack of infra for solid waste management key concern among citizens, shows BMC public consultation
Mumbai: The BMC received 2,774 responses during its large-scale public consultation on its Draft Solid Waste Management Bye-Laws 2025, held from April 1 to May 31. The consultation, supported by the Civis Foundation, aimed to capture citizens' lived experiences and actionable suggestions. Key concerns raised by citizens included a lack of infrastructure for waste segregation, irregular garbage collection, insufficient bins, and challenges in high-density settlements. Respondents also flagged underutilised composting systems and demanded decentralised alternatives such as micro-composters. While the BMC recently announced its move to defer the implementation of a user fee for the collection of solid waste, feedback on user fee was sought under the process, and mixed responses were received: 49% supported it, while 43% opposed it, citing fairness and confusion. As for fines in cases like littering or urinating in public spaces, 52% felt these would improve civic behaviour, but 66% wanted these implemented only after toilets and bins were in place. Only 39% of citizens found daily waste segregation practical. Mumbai generates 8,000 tonnes of solid waste daily, a majority of which ends up at the Kanjurmarg dumping ground and a smaller portion at the Deonar landfill. The draft bye-laws, proposed to replace the ones from 2006, were uploaded on the BMC website on April 1. Citizens were able to review the draft and submit their suggestions or objections until May 31 via email or several other means. At 2,418, most responses came via a WhatsApp chatbot, with the remainder through emails, town halls and field interviews. Deputy municipal commissioner for solid waste management Kiran Dighavkar said Civis was appointed specifically for gathering feedback from all sectors of society, from slums to formal housing. "We are looking at finalising the bye-laws in a month," he said. Civis, a non-profit that partners with govts to enable informed public participation in policymaking, is the BMC's official consultation partner for the initiative. It developed a WhatsApp chatbot that allows citizens to understand the solid waste draft in minutes and share their suggestions with the BMC. Civic officials pointed out that many citizens focused on everyday sanitation and waste segregation, but certain topics — such as construction and demolition waste, disaster-time waste handling, biomedical waste segregation, and extended producer responsibility (EPR) compliance — saw limited engagement. Several suggestions received strong public support, including multilingual IEC (information, education, and communication) campaigns for community engagement, school-based civic education, and the appointment of local waste ambassadors. Other suggestions included the introduction of night-time waste collection shifts for markets and arterial roads, replacement of cash fines with QR code-based challans, creation of public dashboards to track ward-wise performance on sanitation, fines and compliance, and the development of pilot zones with strict enforcement and reward systems to create replicable "clean ward" models.
Otago Daily Times
16-05-2025
- General
- Otago Daily Times
Oamaru bid for heritage status no sloppy call
As an enthusiast for Oamaru's historic town centre, Civis was pleased to read about progress toward achieving National Historic Landmark status. The 15 buildings in the Harbour St-Tyne St precinct, and the life around and within many of them, create a unique and impressive New Zealand ambience. They are worth visiting just about every time you pass through Oamaru. Both the visionaries and the hard sloggers who did, and still do, so much to retain and develop the area deserve thanks and praise. The Landmark process began in 2022, and earlier this month, the Oamaru Whitestone Civic Trust gave Heritage New Zealand formal assent to include the buildings in a proposal for Landmark status. If the government approves, the area will join the Treaty of Waitangi grounds in holding this premier standing. Others are also lining up for approval. The Wellington National War Memorial's application is with the heritage minister, and work is under way for the Christchurch Arts Centre and Kerikeri Basin. If too many sites gain landmark status, however, exclusivity will be lost. ★★★ Discussion of the word fulsome a few weeks ago received, dare Civis say it, a "fulsome" response (to use one of fulsome's meanings) from Oamaru reader John Chetwin. He said he found himself shouting in agreement about the unfortunate evolution of the word. John finds the word "impact" causes him as much anguish because it has almost completely usurped the roles of the verb to affect and the noun effect. "As a consequence, we have lost the use of three words in one hit: affect, effect and impact. In this case, I believe journalists have a lot to answer for." Craig Radford, of Dunedin, reported that, while unaware of fulsome's origins, he also avoided the word because of its ambiguity. He eschews "decimate" for the same reason. It was a Roman army punishment; the execution of one-tenth of a unit in response to a mass infringement. Later, as Craig also says, it was used to wipe out a tenth or a significant portion of an army. But now it is widely used to mean the almost total destruction of anything. While Craig notes that shifts in meanings are not new, sometimes the process now happens within a few years. Gay and woke are two prime examples. ★★★ Elly Kennedy wholeheartedly agrees about the superiority of curved sinks over the modern square variety. She believes many new inventions are more awkward than they need to be. She prefers the old method of manual dialling to the modern approach of punching in numbers, and she laments that so many things are designed to be thrown out rather than fixed. Janet, no surname supplied, still regularly uses the Kenwood mixer she received in 1974 as an engagement present. Civis suspects many even older Kenwoods are still chugging away. ★★★ Words have a way of quickly becoming fashionable. Recently, Civis read twice about "slop" within five minutes from two different news sources. Civis heard the word again just before writing this column. Two of the three uses referred to AI slop. The third was "slop" as the stream of disposable objects consumed. Peak use of slop as a noun was about 1910. It's quickly on the rise again, aided no doubt by sloppy uses of the word. ★★★ Civis' gripe a few weeks back with "American" to mean from the United States came to prominence last week. TVNZ's news was not the only outlet to proclaim the election of the "first American Pope". Also "sloppy", perhaps. Where the heck did Pope Francis come from if not Argentina, part of South "America"? Some outlets corrected themselves to the first North American Pope, although they might have wanted to specify the United States. civis@
Indian Express
21-04-2025
- Politics
- Indian Express
Draft Solid Waste Management bylaws 2025: BMC receives over 370 suggestions, objections from people
The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has so far received 370 suggestions and objections for its draft Solid Waste Management (SWM) bylaws 2025, which were put in public domain three weeks back. First drafted in 2006, the SWM bylaws are a set of regulations under which SWM operations are carried out in Mumbai. In what marks the first revision of the existing bylaws in the past 19 years, the BMC on April 1 proposed a revised set of SWM bylaws for the city. In the proposed set of regulations the BMC has introduced user fees for SWM charges — announced by Mumbai's municipal commissioner Bhushan Gagrani while presenting the civic budget earlier in February. Besides, the BMC has also increased the penalty for littering, garbage disposal, defecating, urinating and bathing in public spaces. Ahead of implementing the revised bylaws, the civic body opened the draft to suggestions and objections from the public until May 31 following which a public hearing will be called. Data furnished by the BMC shows that the proposed revisions have drawn at least 376 suggestions and objections until Monday morning. Of the total responses received, the civic body has received 50 responses through email while nearly 326 responses have been registered by residents using the civic body's WhatsApp chatbot, Civis. According to officials, several suggestions pertain to the proposal to levy an additional tax for SWM services under the new bylaws. Previously, the proposal had also drawn flak from politicians across party lines. Besides, residents have also submitted suggestions to improve sanitation across the city ranging from installation of additional dustbins, increased cleanliness drives as well as stricter enforcement of the existing penalties. Amid the ongoing initiative, Kiran Dighavkar, deputy municipal commissioner (SWM), is set to convene townhall sessions with citizens from Wednesday (April 23) onwards.
New York Times
01-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Fisher Center at Bard Announces Civis Hope Commissions
Hope may seem daring in this age of angst and uncertainty, but it is at the heart of three major new works coming to the Fisher Center at Bard, including a musical adaptation of 'Yentl the Yeshiva Boy,' the performing arts center announced on Tuesday. With a $2.5 million gift from the Civis Foundation, matched by Bard College for an initial endowment of $5 million, the Fisher Center said it would create the Civis Hope Commissions, a program to support 'contemporary artists who will examine, interrogate and transform American artifacts, archival materials or artworks from the past to imagine a more perfect, just and hopeful future.' Gideon Lester, the Fisher Center's artistic director and chief executive, described the program in an interview as 'a rallying cry for the possibility of art.' 'Art can describe things as they might be,' he said, 'and see things not only as they are framed by the current news cycle. Great art has the ability to shift our consciousness and show us what we might become if we were really inhabiting our best selves. That's what these commissions are really about.' The Civis Hope Commissions are intended to continue in perpetuity, but the Fisher Center announced three projects to start: 'Jubilee,' a new musical with a libretto by the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks, based on Scott Joplin's opera 'Treemonisha'; Courtney Bryan's first opera, an adaptation of Tennessee Williams's 'Suddenly Summer'; and the 'Yentl' musical, which will be the celebrated director Barrie Kosky's first project developed in the United States. These commissions had already been in the works at the Fisher Center, but were chosen for the Civis program because they fit its mandate, Lester said, adding that working under the Civis umbrella allowed him and the artists 'an opportunity to think about them in a new way.' Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times. Thank you for your patience while we verify access. Already a subscriber? Log in. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
