Governance

For over ten days now, Citizen Matters has followed the hectic election campaigns of candidates around the city. A mixed reality has already come out from our talking to candidates, their campaigners and voters. Some, for e.g. in Koramangala ward, have told us this: historically middle and high income groups (‘English-educated avaru’) won’t come out and vote on election day, so we cannot count on them for actually winning the race. We’ll stick to the ‘slums’.Others have done the opposite. Depending on the ward itself, many mainline party candidates have taken out door-to-door campaigns canvassing in higher income neighbourhoods and…

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For over ten days now, Citizen Matters has followed the hectic election campaigns of candidates around the city. A mixed reality has already come out from our talking to candidates, their campaigners and voters. Some, for e.g. in Koramangala ward, have told us this: historically middle and high income groups (‘English-educated avaru’) won’t come out and vote on election day, so we cannot count on them for actually winning the race. We’ll stick to the ‘slums’.Others have done the opposite. Depending on the ward itself, many mainline party candidates have taken out door-to-door campaigns canvassing in higher income neighbourhoods and…

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I spent sometime during the past week reading about a number of candidates in various election wards of BBMP. I have got email from some of them, and sms-es from some others. I've watched them walk by on the streets in my neighbourhood and in other areas. I've been reading the daily news reports about the elections that every paper is now carrying. I've seen the profiles posted on websites, including the one I moderate. And occasionally, I've watched a few minutes of campaign coverage and talk shows on TV.I encourage you to do all this too, because there's something…

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I spent sometime during the past week reading about a number of candidates in various election wards of BBMP. I have got email from some of them, and sms-es from some others. I've watched them walk by on the streets in my neighbourhood and in other areas. I've been reading the daily news reports about the elections that every paper is now carrying. I've seen the profiles posted on websites, including the one I moderate. And occasionally, I've watched a few minutes of campaign coverage and talk shows on TV.I encourage you to do all this too, because there's something…

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Citizen Matters is organising two election debates/meet-the-candidates interactions in your area - one for BTM Ward (176) and one for JP Nagar ward (177). Both events will happen on the weekend of March 20-21. March 28, will be a historic day for both Bengaluru and the High Court of Karnataka. For 3 1/2 years, the city did not have its own government and that will soon change. If the High Court had not put its foot down repeatedly, we may have seen even more postponements. For a number of reasons this election may turn out to be a watershed in…

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Citizen Matters is organising two election debates/meet-the-candidates interactions in your area - one for BTM Ward (176) and one for JP Nagar ward (177). Both events will happen on the weekend of March 20-21. March 28, will be a historic day for both Bengaluru and the High Court of Karnataka. For 3 1/2 years, the city did not have its own government and that will soon change. If the High Court had not put its foot down repeatedly, we may have seen even more postponements. For a number of reasons this election may turn out to be a watershed in…

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 After mindlessly surfing the networking world, I finally thought I'll write something. What then shall I write about? The current hot topics are Women's Reservation Bill & IPL.Forget IPL, everyone wants to write about it - whether it concerns cricket or not. The women's reservation bill - well, I don't like reservation of any kind. But that's another story altogether.So what do I want to write about? Well, there's the BBMP election. An election that has been postponed so much that I'm not too sure it'll happen until the D-day. The ward I live in has a SC, W category.…

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 After mindlessly surfing the networking world, I finally thought I'll write something. What then shall I write about? The current hot topics are Women's Reservation Bill & IPL.Forget IPL, everyone wants to write about it - whether it concerns cricket or not. The women's reservation bill - well, I don't like reservation of any kind. But that's another story altogether.So what do I want to write about? Well, there's the BBMP election. An election that has been postponed so much that I'm not too sure it'll happen until the D-day. The ward I live in has a SC, W category.…

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