Latest news with #REdwinSudhir
Time of India
4 days ago
- Time of India
Bengaluru goes Yellow with joy
R Edwin Sudhir, a Bengaluru-based journalist and writer, has the interesting privilege of living in a once-sleepy town which has morphed into a city fast-forwarding into a connected world but sadly disconnected with the ground realities of more people competing for shrinking space. The experience is oddly exhilarating yet often mildly alarming for long-time residents who see how technology has transformed a sleepy beantown into a bustling boomtown. And swept its residents too in the headlong rush to keep pace. LESS ... MORE Bengalureans have been twitching with excitement over the past few days, ever since the Yellow Line of the Namma Metro was inaugurated on Sunday. But, that day, some on the subway's Green Line were not exactly thrilled when they found access to a few stations close to the inauguration venue blocked by policemen who directed them to a station about 2km away. Why, when the inauguration was happening on the Yellow Line should the Green Line be affected was a logical question. But, often logic is the first casualty in such situations. Anyway, they resigned themselves to their fate and made their way, mostly by autorickshaws whose drivers had an unexpected windfall, to the first open station located near a prominent college and then made their way to their final destinations on the Green and Purple lines. I, for one, made the delightful acquaintance of a project manager of an IT major on the auto ride. After roundly cursing our luck which led to delayed meetings with our respective friends, we settled down to a genial conversation, comparing notes about salaries in IT companies and why X was better than Y, and how Z trumped both of them. Meanwhile, we updated our waiting friends about our painful progress along the gridlocked roads and assured them we'd be there. Eventually. Thanks to venting my anger to a sympathetic audience, I was reasonably calm when we parted ways at the said college station and left, without as much as a backward glance, to find the trains of our choice. It would have been nice to linger for a longer conversation but our waiting friends would never have forgiven us. The Yellow Line excitement spilled over to the next day when it actually became operational. After many missed deadlines and timelines not worth the paper they were written on, techies heading to Electronic City could finally enjoy the comfort and speed of a Metro commute. They rushed in large numbers, only to find there were fewer than optimum trains assigned to this route. Train sets were expected to arrive soon and help BMRCL increase the frequency. Industry leaders, who had chipped in with large sums of money for the construction of stations, celebrated the occasion on social media and a former foreign diplomat, once based in Bengaluru, even expressed her interest to come and take a ride. The excitement continued till late into the night, when all the action switched to the Green Line — a young man jumped onto the track. Commuters on the halted train at the major interchange were asked to disembark and they milled around, hoping to pick up some scrap of information about what caused the delay. The lack of any announcement by Namma Metro led to rumours doing the rounds. Contrast this with stories of drivers of delayed subway trains in Japan, which in itself is a rare event, coming to apologise personally to stranded commuters. Word filtered through the moving train that the young man had survived his brush with near death. All's well that ends well and Bengalureans are now waiting with bated breath for the Pink and Blue Lines to get the green signal. It may take a while, but Bengalureans have learnt to be patient and hope it'll happen in their lifetime. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
17-07-2025
- General
- Time of India
Let's reclaim our pavements
R Edwin Sudhir, a Bengaluru-based journalist and writer, has the interesting privilege of living in a once-sleepy town which has morphed into a city fast-forwarding into a connected world but sadly disconnected with the ground realities of more people competing for shrinking space. The experience is oddly exhilarating yet often mildly alarming for long-time residents who see how technology has transformed a sleepy beantown into a bustling boomtown. And swept its residents too in the headlong rush to keep pace. LESS ... MORE It's time to wage a war against land grabbers in Bengaluru. This time against home owners who extend their allotted area onto pavements and mark their newly acquired territory with potted plants, parked vehicles or even yellow tape akin to a crime scene. Which, when you come to think about it, is very apt, for grabbing pavement land is a flagrant breaking of the civic code. These land grabbers are all over the city and law enforcement agencies turn a blind eye to the problem. In any case, they're too busy tackling rising crime and traffic cops are barely coping with the gridlocks. Their inaction not only emboldens grabbers to embellish their pavements but also spurs others into doing something similar. The end result of this land-grabbing is that pavements become off-limits to those it's meant for – pedestrians. So, when pedestrians try to negotiate these aforementioned obstacles, it's a lost battle and they're forced to step onto the roads. That's when the risk of getting knocked down by speeding vehicles goes up exponentially. Urban planners of BBMP (the civic agency responsible for the city's infrastructure) are putting in place better roads, parks, streetlights, etc but the pedestrian has been forgotten. While TenderSure roads are a brave attempt to ensure pedestrians have some space to walk on some arterial roads, streets in layouts are a nightmare for them. These pavement-blocks are an obstacle course for pedestrians. Take, for instance, pavements in front of many restaurants. Some eateries brazenly place moveable tables where customers can partake of their idli-vada-dosa and more. Others don't provide such standing options and their customers stand outside, clutching their plates and partaking of the food. Some provide benches and stools for customers to sit down and eat comfortably. BBMP has not bothered to crack down on such restaurants. Local residents' welfare associations don't take up this issue because its members are, most likely, regular customers at these very restaurants and wouldn't want to disturb a regular provider of their food. There may be the odd objector but he's quickly told to 'swalpa adjust maadi' (please adjust). If he doesn't, he runs the risk of being branded a troublemaker and being dealt with accordingly. As a former colleague put it for another problem, 'There's no any hope'. Or, maybe there is hope, after all. If there's a concerted action by civic agencies and law-enforcing agencies to clear pavements of all obstacles, there will be space for pedestrians to walk and not risk their life and limb on roads. The time to reclaim our pavements is here and now. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
05-06-2025
- General
- Time of India
Help wanted: Experienced garbologists
R Edwin Sudhir, a Bengaluru-based journalist and writer, has the interesting privilege of living in a once-sleepy town which has morphed into a city fast-forwarding into a connected world but sadly disconnected with the ground realities of more people competing for shrinking space. The experience is oddly exhilarating yet often mildly alarming for long-time residents who see how technology has transformed a sleepy beantown into a bustling boomtown. And swept its residents too in the headlong rush to keep pace. LESS ... MORE Bengaluru generates humongous tonnes of garbage every day. The city's civic body may give you an official figure but the actual figure could be higher, as it usually is with government data. A lot of it ends up on pavements and street corners and some piles up on overflowing vans parked by the roads. Much of it is carted away by smelly vehicles which do the rounds every morning. Men from them dart across to pick up (mostly) black, (often) biodegradable bags from bungalows or tip the contents of blue, plastic drums from apartments into their trucks. Off they go to one landfill or the other on the outskirts of the city. This exercise is repeated every morning with some regularity, marred by festival days or flash strikes. Some of this garbage is segregated and some is mixed. That's why Greater Bengaluru Authority desperately needs garbologists. Its precursor, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike, tried bravely to deal with the refuse but GBA needs men and women trained in garbology. Sadly, no university in India seems to offer this course and that's where the three Bengaluru universities can be pioneers. There are several models, like the University of Nevada Las Vegas. Our varsities can use the American models to design course content and customise material to local conditions. Students can intern with GBA and once they graduate, they can be absorbed into its solid waste department. It's not rocket science, after all. Collect waste from residents, segregrate it and dispose it as per protocol. Waste-to-energy management is a huge opportunity for entrepreneurs willing to get their hands dirty. Anu Aga's Thermax Ltd in Pune has shown it's eminently possible. Of course, residents need to do their bit, without leaving everything to the SWD. For starters, segregate waste, ensure black spots don't form, don't dump plastic water bottles and empty chips packets into drains, among others. Every bit helps. To circle back a bit, garbologists are not only waste disposers. They analyse a city's waste to look for patterns of how it's generated and look for better ways to clear it. Bengaluru will be going to the root cause of the garbage problem and hopefully find solutions quickly. Lest we are forced to suffer an olfactory assault of rotting waste and suffer the ignominy of going from Garden City Garbage City in the span of just a few decades. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
Time of India
19-05-2025
- Climate
- Time of India
Water wars
R Edwin Sudhir, a Bengaluru-based journalist and writer, has the interesting privilege of living in a once-sleepy town which has morphed into a city fast-forwarding into a connected world but sadly disconnected with the ground realities of more people competing for shrinking space. The experience is oddly exhilarating yet often mildly alarming for long-time residents who see how technology has transformed a sleepy beantown into a bustling boomtown. And swept its residents too in the headlong rush to keep pace. LESS ... MORE Around this time last year, Bengaluru was in dire straits on the water front. There was a crisis of never-seen-before proportions that the government was forced to issue advisories to residents to mandatorily install aerators and banned the use of potable water for gardening and washing cars, among other stern measures. We somehow coped with the situation and survived until the monsoon brought welcome relief. And the trials and tribulations slowly became a bad memory and a story to tell grandkids. Here we are, a year later, proving public memory is indeed short and ignoring multiple warnings that the next world war will be fought over water (that it may well be fought over data is another story). We waste water with not a thought for the future and make no effort to harvest rain water which gushes into the drains, or more often stagnates on the roads. Anyone who has drilled a borewell recently will tell you how they've had to go deeper than ever before to strike water. The water table is getting lowered and it's not getting sufficiently, and rapidly, replenished. A recipe for disaster, and replay of the water woes of the summer of '24 is a distinct possibility. So, why haven't we learnt our lesson and put in place measures throughout the year, not just summer? Perhaps it's because we moan and groan during tough times but don't prepare for bad times. It's a bit like war. As the old saying goes, the more you sweat during peace to remain fighting fit, the less you will suffer during conflict. We waste water, little realising we need to wage an awareness battle for this precious resource. Some are reminded of its importance every day. In Bengaluru, there are water-dispensing kiosks under the government's Bandhava scheme which offers purified drinking water, at a price of course, and those with dry taps at home go there regularly with 5-litre cans. Most come on two-wheelers which means they're also spending on fuel and adding to traffic on the roads. These kiosks are a reminder of the gravity of the problem and that they're only a band-aid solution to a gash that will open up again. We perhaps need another 2024 crisis to shock us out of our complacency and do every little bit to save water. There are some organisations doing commendable work but it's obviously not enough. Maybe if some corporates with deep pockets use their CSR money for this exercise, and maybe if they target children, there's some hope. After all, the kids will be water-proofing their future. Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email Disclaimer Views expressed above are the author's own.
