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Jul 1, 2024 | 
citizenmatters.in | Bhanu Sridharan |Hepzi Anthony |Satendra Singh
Through the month of June, we had a sort of extended celebration of World Environment Day (June 5th) by highlighting organisations and collectives that are actively trying to make a change. In case you missed their stories on our social media channels, here’s another hat tip to these changemakers, who are fighting to protect natural spaces and ensuring environmental justice in our increasingly chaotic, expanding cities. We start off in Chennai with Nizhal.
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Jun 18, 2024 | 
citizenmatters.in | Shruti Gokarn |Shobana Radhakrishnan |Bhanu Sridharan
April 16, 2024, saw Mumbai reel under a heat wave with a maximum temperature of 39.7 degree celsius at the Santacruz observatory. At 6.3 degrees above normal, this was the highest temperature recorded at Santacruz in ten years. These abnormally hot conditions continued to plague Mumbai with the megapolis experiencing a second heat wave towards the end of April. Neighbouring Thane hit 41.3 degrees during this period.
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Apr 19, 2024 | 
citizenmatters.in | Hepzi Anthony |Sandhya Bhat |Bhanu Sridharan
Arvind Sawant, who has served two terms as the MP from Mumbai South, is raring to go as he prepares to fight for a third term. His opponents are a divided house and the official candidate is yet to be announced here. Leaders such as Rahul Narwekar, Mangal Prabhat Lodha, Yeshwant Jadhav are eyeing this seat. So is Milind Deora, who has already been nominated to the Rajya Sabha now and had previously lost to Sawant in the two Lok Sabha elections in 2014 and 2019.
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Apr 19, 2024 | 
citizenmatters.in | Sandhya Bhat |Bhanu Sridharan |Hepzi Anthony
P. Chikkamuni Mohan or P C Mohan is a three-time Lok Sabha MP representing Bangalore Central constituency. The BJP MP has a long innings in politics. He was the MLA of Chickpet assembly constituency for two terms, from 1999 to 2008. He got elected as MP in the 15th (2009), 16th (2014) and 17th (2019) Lok Sabha elections from Bangalore Central. In 2019, Mohan got 6,02,853 votes (50.35%); while his rival Rizwan Arshad of Indian National Congress (INC) got 5,31,885 votes (44.43%).
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Apr 5, 2024 | 
questionofcities.org | Manshi Asher |PK Das |S Vishwanath |Bhanu Sridharan
As one looks up at Krishna Nagar, among the oldest settlements of Shimla, from the new bypass road near Lalpani, the bare earth lies exposed along its slope. It is eerily silent amidst the cacophony of constructions around it. The silence is brief, broken by shrieks of ‘Nikal Jao, nikal jao (get out, get out), from the viral video[1] of the five-storied Municipal Corporation’s abattoir building turning to rubble in seconds last monsoon, which play on loop in my head.
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Mar 8, 2024 | 
citizenmatters.in | Harshitha Padmavinod |Sahana Charan |Bhanu Sridharan
The delusional bubble of our so-called ‘progressive society’ is broken every year on International Women’s Day. Irrespective of how far we have developed, we still struggle to comprehend and respect simple concepts of freedom and equality, especially concerning women. The identity of a woman is somehow still rigidly bound by her association with a man, be it her father or her husband. A single woman is often judged.
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Mar 7, 2024 | 
citizenmatters.in | Sahana Charan |Bhanu Sridharan
It was a balmy day in a crowded antenatal clinic in the small town of Haliyal in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka. The medical officer indicated to me that he was doing a great service to humanity by killing unborn girls. He would go to villages nearby, on a designated day once a month, to hold mobile clinics and conduct sex determination tests on pregnant women.
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Mar 7, 2024 | 
citizenmatters.in | Navya P K |Bhanu Sridharan
In 2023, Citizen Matters published an in-depth series on the rainfall deficit in the city. Over the last two months this year- due to depleting groundwater levels, weak southwest monsoon rains, and reduced water levels in the Cauvery River basin-the water crisis is at our doorsteps. 223 taluks have been declared drought-hit by the state government. As per , 7,408 villages and 1,115 wards in urban local bodies are at risk of drinking water shortage.
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Feb 19, 2024 | 
citizenmatters.in | Bhanu Sridharan
[Part one and two of this series traced the history of Kannada signage rules in Bengaluru and the history of the Kannada movement, respectively. Part three looks at what the government is doing to promote Kannada] Rupa migrated to Bengaluru from Jharkhand a year ago. She works at a petrol station in North Bengaluru. She doesn’t speak much Kannada, though she can manage a few words. She is trying to learn Kannadaby talking to locals around her, but it is not easy.
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Feb 6, 2024 | 
citizenmatters.in | Bhanu Sridharan
[Part one of this series explained the history of the Kannada signage issue]The protests by Kannada groups, led by the Kannada Rakshana Vedike last month, demanding that Kannada signage rules be implemented has sparked a debate in Bengaluru. Kannada groups point out that as Bengaluru is the capital of Karnataka,important communication in the city, including information on shops and businesses, must be done in Kannada.
