In a Lok Adalat hearing on 19th November at the High Court of Karnataka, Justice K L Manjunath pointedly asked Yellapa Reddy, chairman of the committee overseeing Bengaluru’s roadwidening project to listen to the petitioners complaints on widespread tree cutting. The Adalat took exception to Reddy’s standpoint which appeared to one of merely representing local government officials’ views instead of striking a balance between citizens and officials.

As reported earlier in Citizen Matters, a writ petition was filed by NGOs Environment Support Group, CIVIC and the green network Hasiru Usiru a few months ago, against the tree cutting undertaken by…

I received the monthly update from Max Mueller Bhavan (Goethe Institut) and it was heartwarming to see this announcement:

Inauguration of the new Solar Roof
4.30 p.m. on November 20th

We are proud to announce a unique initiative - the installation of a photo-voltaic system on the roof of the Bhavan - one step forward in the movement towards conservation of scarce resources and utilisation of renewable energy. The implications of this project, executed by IBC Solar under the Solar Roof Project India of dena, the German Energy Agency (Deutsche Energie-Agentur GmbH), are expected to radiate far beyond the walls of the…

In the earlier parts of this series we have seen as to how in a layout context, the Resident Welfare Association (RWA) is the body that is aware of the issues that the residents face, can engage with the residents to identify appropriate solutions, can build consensus on issues/resolutions and enable the implementation of measures to ensure issue resolution. We have also discussed the relevance of Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) in the layout context, and dealt with FAQ’s on the same.

In this article we will see how the RWA can play the role of a 'Resource Manager' for water, assuming…