Death with its mouth finally closed!

In my previous post, I had mentioned how there was an open manhole near the Mahadevapura Junction and my plan of writing to the authorities and the media.

Well, I did write to the authorities but as expected, I didn't get any reply from them. I then wrote to Times of India and as expected, they published my report in their 'My Times, My Voice' section on Friday, April 20. Here's the news clip they published:

On the same Friday evening, on my way back home, this is what I found:




Here's a closer view:




Is this awesome or what??? The manhole was closed the very day the article was published on Times of India!

Makes you wonder if the authorities only work if they're humiliated. If that's what they want, that's what they'll get!

Death with its mouth wide open

Manhole deaths are common in India. Every now and then you can see newspaper reports, usually about children who had fallen to their deaths in a open manholes left uncovered by the municipal corporation.

Sadly, none of these reports are a deterrent to the civic authorities have absolutely no respect for their work.

Here's a picture of an open manhole near the Mahadevapura junction, Bangalore. I've seen this manhole in this state for months now and I'm glad I made a decision to click this image.



How many kids should fall into this one for the authorities to take notice?

I will be writing about this to the Bangalore civic authorities and also to all major newspapers.

Will keep everyone updated about the progress, if any.

I've been Metblogged!

I've started blogging at Bangalore Metblogs. Yey!!

This is a great place to view your thought and views on Bangalore. You can read my posts at Metblogs by clicking here.

But keep coming back to this site too cuz I haven't abandoned blogging here. :-)

The Crib - Great Blog

Check out Ushasi's The Crib, for some very insightful/powerful thoughts from a very intelligent woman.

Great read!

You can run but never jump the signal!

Today, I saw something very commendable of a private traffic policeman.

Scene:

Traffic signal near the Intel office on the outer ring road.

Act:

There was a lone traffic policeman, probably hired from a private agency, manning the traffic at the above mentioned signal. We were stopped at the signal to let the vehicles from the other direction to pass. But there was this "wise" biker, who thought he had better things to do than wait for a couple of minutes.

As soon as the traffic was stopped at our end, this biker guy sped up but unfortunately, he got stuck among the oncoming traffic. The alert policeman manning the traffic, noticed this and quickly ran over to him and snatched the bike keys from the ignition. He then casually returned to his traffic duty.

I was having a ball of a time watching this drama and laughing at the biker. The man looked visibly embarrassed. Soon, the signal was free for us to pass. As I passed by the offending biker, I had a big grin on my face which said "Loser!!!".

Maybe that biker thought a private traffic guy isn't powerful enough to do anything to him, maybe he jumps signals all the time, but whatever the reason, I hope he learned his lesson and I hope he was fined a hefty sum for jumping the signal.

Kudos to the dutiful traffic policeman!

Road median? What's that? - Update 5

One of my blog readers, Chrisvasa, suggested I write to DCP-Traffic about this situation. I was skeptical that anything good would happen by writing to the DCP but I wrote anyway.

Then the unbelievable happened!

On Sunday afternoon, I got a call from the DCP office, thanking me for my mail and also for the pictures I had sent them. The man was very polite and sounded very concerned about the road situation. He also said that under the new B-Trac program, the road median will be raised and this situation will be resolved. This, according to him, will happen ''very soon''.

I found it hard to believe that someone actually called me from the DCP office. I thought my mail would be treated as another ''one of those mails'' and wouldn't even be given a second thought.

I don't know how seriously they've considered the situation I had mentioned in my mail, but I was happy they actually made an effort to call me and update me on the situation. Hopefully, the B-Trac program will be implemented very soon and the road median will be raised high enough to separate the oncoming traffic. But, only time will tell how soon is ''very soon''.

Victory? Getting there.