Idling under the Neem Tree

  Designated areas for cultural centres, recreation areas, convention halls and mass gatherings should be planned, honey Once infrastructure is planned, Human development falls in place. By Malini Shankar Digital Discourse Foundation Land use planning is critical to Smart City Governance or for any civic administration. Land has to be used for living quarters, economic sustenance, transport infrastructure health services, agriculture, vet care, disaster preparedness, civic administration, green quotient, (parks, urban wildlife, lung spaces etc) scientific and research establishments, industrial estates, traffic corridors, highways, water supply infrastructure and so on. These areas for primary usage cannot be mixed with bandstands, clubs, cultural centres, theatres, auditoriums, restaurants, indoor games stadia, entertainment of any sort etc. Areas for such human usage have to be earmarked under the recreation areas zonation. Such structures should under no circumstance be ...

  Bio indicators of the Environment By Malini Shankar Digital Discourse Foundation A pea hen found its way up an avenue tree on Police Statoion Road, Basavanagudi in Bangalore at 933 a.m. today. © R.P. Nagaraj (special arrangement)  I am unleashing my heartfelt excitement today, shooting straight from the heart!... I saw with my own eyes a pea hen – a female peacock in common man’s parlance hop onto a tree branch on the thick foliaged tree on the opposite pavement in front of my house bang in the middle of Bangalore urban district. Over populated, congested Basavanagudi is a greener suburb ok… but in all the five decades I have lived in Basavanagudi, I had never seen a pea hen. During the COVID-19 Lockdown citizens in nearby Banashankari and in far off BEL Layout had recorded the presence of peacocks, pea-hens, leopards… the COVID 19 lockdown had sent us birders and wildlifers into a tizzy indeed! I have seen many big birds in the wooded area where I live – including b...

  Critical significance of storm water drains. They are the catchment area for lakes and water bodies. Healthy water bodies like lakes are catchment areas for rivers which supply drinking water to us.  © Malini Shankar By Malini Shankar Digital Discourse Foundation this blog could not be published yesterday 10th June because the internet connectivity in my place was dead and disintegrated! Clogging of storm water drains (SWDs) is causing a very serious problem. It is clogged with dry waste and litter which ought to be stashed away in litter bins. So cleaning the SWDs amidst collected rain water is so much more expensive as resources and man power have to be deployed all over again. Secondly the toxins in the dry waste is polluting the rain water collected. The rain water collected in the SWDs are the feeders to the lakes. The lakes discharge to the nearest river. The rivers feed into bigger rivers from where our drinking water is sourced. By polluting SWDs one is unwitting...

                                                    SDGs in governance Part 2 By Malini Shankar Digital Discourse Foundation This article – the 2 nd part on SDGs in Governance was meant to be published on 27 th May, last Wednesday but I was so upset with the death of my pet kitten previous night thanks to the negligence of the attending veterinarian that I went off topic. SDGs are critical even if they sound like a movement in progress. The challenge is to achieve these goals in governance by 2030. SDG 8 – “Decent Work and economic growth” puts livelihood security at the front and centre of economic progress. Except that the political class is bereft of simple comprehension!  Livelihood security options must be more than menial or daily wages, after all right to livelihood is a fundamental right. It provides food shelter...