A few suggestions on Opendata

shekhar_mittal - 29-JUN-2010

I had a few ideas and wanted to run it through you guys.

I think we should lay greater stress on partnerships. We will be able to make a greater impact and work on our strengths if we do that. When I say our strength what I essentially mean is our community and our analytical skills. While I realise what I am proposing is not really "OpenData" but it will be a very good start.

Some organisations I suggest we reach out to are -

1. Accountability Initiative - (check them out here: http://www.accountabilityindia.org/)
I had reached out to the lady who runs it, Yamini Aiyer, for some other reasons. If you look at their home page they have a lot of mention of opendata. During our conversation she told me that they already have MIS data of 12 government ministries ( I dont ask the exact details) but they have not made them available yet. Maybe we can get our hands on that data and then start discussions on them and make that data available on our site.

Give prosecution & suo motu powers to Lokayukta - Petition

indian - 25-JUN-2010

This petition’s been created to request those concerned to

01) Appoint the Upa Lokayukta at the earliest.

02) Give prosecution and suo motu powers to the Lokayukta.

(If the Lokayukta has suo motu powers, it can speedily take up investigations on its own without waiting for someone to file a complaint.)

03) Dismiss the corrupt government officials from service.

04) Retain Justice Mr. Santosh Hegde after accepting his demands/requests.

Justice Santosh Hedge's requests to the government as soon as he'd taken over as the Lokayukta chief

01) Give power of suspending and revoking suspension of corrupt officials.

02) Amend Section 36 of CrPC to confer police power on the Lokayukta.

03) Give suo motu powers to investigate Class I officials as well as politicians, who come under the Lokayukta purview.

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/give-anti-corruption-prosecution-powers-to-kla

False Infrastructural Hype of Times of India

Vasanth - 26-DEC-2007

TOI Bangalore Edition is every friday covering infrastructural project reports - But, most of them are not at all true and just it creates hype.

A praja face to face meet at Vittal Mallya Road June 12, 2010

psaram42 - 12-JUN-2010

I, Mr. KV Pathy and Mr. Janardanam arrived at the Vittal Mallya road at about 8:30 AM to day as scheduled. We were later joined by Dr. Srinath Heragu. We started our tour of the road from the kasturba road end of the Vittal Mallya Road.

Green Bangalore: Some Reflections

murali772 - 9-JUN-2010

Literary, Arts and Heritage Forum, NIAS, is pleased to announce a Lecture on "Green Bangalore: Some Reflections” by Prof Vijay Tiruvady (vrt@bgl.vsnl.net.in)
On Monday, 14 June 2010 at 5.00 PM in JRD Tata Auditorium, NIAS

Highlights of the talk:
The Greening began with the development of Devarakadus & Gundutopus around Bangalore;
The next greening took place around settlements adjacent to lakes, a network of which was established by Kempe Gowda to harvest Monsoon rain water;
The first area within Bangalore to be greened was the 40 acre Rose & Cypress Garden of Haider Ali.
With the growth of the British  Empire plant collecting expeditions resulted in exotic species coming into Lalbagh.
With these developments Bangalore has had a mix of indigenous and exotic plants like no other city in India.  
Through the 19th Century all the early institutions in Bangalore were planted with this mix of indigenous and exotics.

Monthly Face to Face meeting, june 2010

psaram42 - 5-JUN-2010

Venue : Remodeled Vittal Mallya Road

Start: 8:00 AM

End:   9:00 AM

The great Indian passport farce

idontspam - 2-JUN-2010

 My sister visited Passport Service Kendra in Devarabeesanahalli on the 25th for the reissue of passport of her minor child. Needed to travel for a family emergency so she checked the option for tatkal.

First WTF moment. The officer checking the application scratches out her tatkal mark and ticks normal, reason given, another inspecting officer will make the determination after hearing your case and not you.  

Second WTF moment. She waits patiently for the interview where the officer says oh you marked normal on your application so you wont get tatkal. He didnt accept the argument that his own officer, who was nowhere to be seen at that time, had changed it. As a solace she is told the passport will arrive in 3 days flat.

So all arrangements to handle the family emergency and postponement of  tickets on penalty is arranged. Now comes the whammy its 2nd june and no trace of the passport. Status as of 2nd June is

"Passport will be dispatched within 3 working days excluding the date of submission."

A web query to check the status met with the following response

Are trees needed in this city?

srinidhi - 27-MAY-2010

 Very unfortunate but many in this city seems to hate trees now, trees get bad press when they fall during rains and storms. We like the shade they give, especially during hot summers, but also curse them for the jams created after a storm..fallen branches etc..

BBMP has gone to the extent that they have planted signs below the trees on Chord Road: “Warning! There is a chance of trees and branches falling during the rain. So drive cautiously.”

We, without understanding these trees are out to blame them for the damage they cause. So why do branches fall off trees? There are a few reasons as below:

1. A Weak Branch Union occurs when a branch and stem (or two or more co-dominant stems) grow so closely together that bark grows between them, inside the tree. The term for bark growing inside the tree is “included bark.” As more and more bark is included inside the tree, the weak union is formed that is more likely to fail.

Investigate & publicize Mangalore air crash - petitions

indian - 24-MAY-2010

Short, narrow and faulty table-top runway. No flat terrain. Pilot/Pilots' fatigue. Quick turn-around (QTA) flights at night raises pilots' stress and fatigue levels. Compromising safety vs commercial interests. No rest between outbound and inbound journeys for the pilots and the cabin crew.

The Karnataka state government wants to establish an airport in every tier-II city across the state. Also a new concept called helitourism is also being introduced even in Madikeri, Kodagu (Western Ghats).

The presence of the Chamundi Hills has rendered the present Mysore airport potentially unsafe especially under foggy / rainy conditions for the flights that are likely to go/depart and come/arrive from Bangalore, Chennai etc.

There seems to be a veil / cloak of secrecy regarding/surrounding the exact cause of YSR's chopper / helicopter accident.

The Airbus 320s or A-320s were grounded for 07 months immediately after the 1990 air crash at the HAL Airport Bangalore by blaming the aircraft and the fly-by-wire technology for the crash. We learnt only after the Mangalore Air crash that it was a pilot error in the case of A-320 crash.

Are Bangaloreans losing their good nature and civic sense?

IanRes - 13-MAY-2010

 This is about an incident that i witnessed in Bangalore few weeks ago.

I had been to a single screen theatre few weeks back to watch a Kannada movie. The theatre was crowded since it was a Sunday. The problem arised when the movie started. The "fans" of the movie hero, started chanting his name and shouting slogans of praise for him when the movie name was displayed. This never stopped till the end of the movie, not even for a minute! They might have watched the movie before, but how is it right to spoil the movie for the others?? They were so loud that we could not hear the dialogues properly, none of us could tell them anything lest they charge at us for being so un-fanly.. I am a fan of the star too, but shouting the slogans inside the movie hall and disturbing everyone really upset most of the other audience.

The other thing I generally notice is the habit of many people in Bangalore these days to spit on roads for no reason at all! They dont chew tobacco/pan, still they spit on roads, on pavements, from bus windows etc. There should be some strict legislation to curb such bad habits so that Bangalore stays a clean city.