Ban is Bizarre

Ban is Bizarre
Vasumita S
Prominent Bangaloreans gathered together to voice their concern about the problems plaguing the City

With traffic chaos, infrastructure problem and pollution in the City getting worse day by day, citizens have begun to take the initiative to voice the many concerns they face and also what steps the government should take.

And none other than the Maharaja himself decided to be involved in the initiative. Janswara, a people’s initiative for the betterment of Bangalore was launched by Srikanta Datta Wadiyar at the Bangalore Palace recently. The event saw fashion guru Prasad Bidapa, along with well-known Bangloreans, like Stanley Pinto and Ruby Chakravarthy and others, speak about what needs to be done for Bangalore.

A 20-point programme for Bangalore was released, which dealt with a wide range of issues from infrastructure, power, roads, satellite towns, education and poverty elevation programmes. “The initiative is for the long term planned development of Bangalore, so that knee-jerk reactions to problems can be avoided,” said Wadiyar. “This is supposed to be the voice of the people and we want the citizens, NGOs as well as other important people to join us to see what can be done,” he added. The event also saw the participants strongly object to the 11.30 pm deadline and the ban on live music. “The nightlife is not restricted to a few elitist groups. Thousands of youngsters come to unwind after a hard day’s work. Many work in BPOs and can’t find anywhere to eat because the City shuts down after 11.30 in the night,” said designer Ruby Chakravarthy. Stanley Pinto added that Bangalore has gone from bad to worse and the governments have done nothing to address the issue. “The situation now is a government which is completely overwhelmed by the chaos in the City,” he said. Prasad Bidapa too demanded that at least the 11.30 deadline be relaxed during weekends, and restaurants, malls and others places be allowed to be open at night. “No other city has such ridiculous bans, it’s only Bangalore,” he said.

Citizens may join the initiative by writing to janswara@gmail.com