Week 8: Reimagining Bengaluru’s Infrastructure as Resilient to Climate-Change

Date: 3rd May 2021, Monday, 6:00 PM India on Zoom

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Overview

A city with inequitable urbanization and unplanned infrastructure development aggravates vulnerabilities and increases the cost of living, especially of the urban poor. This is evident in the expensive Bengaluru Metro, travel in which is unaffordable to a majority of the population. Global experiences indicate cities cannot build their way out of congestion. Yet, we witness increasing promotion of highly carbon-intensive and extractive models of transport corridors as solutions: flyovers, elevated corridors, peripheral roads, and expressways. The ‘smart city’ projects have skewed relationships between intent and impact, with massive investments being made in gentrified neighborhoods to the neglect of most other areas of the metropolis. Meanwhile, investments in essential social, education and health infrastructure remain stagnant and are even declining. Would turning planning and development into deeply democratic and decentralized processes and promoting self-sufficient neighborhoods be the answer to reducing the carbon footprint of the metropolis and adapting Bengaluru to climate change impacts?  

Speakers

Mr. Vijay Sambasivam Narnapatti
Mr. Vijay is an urbanist and designer based in Bangalore. He is a Professor of Architecture at Christ University and participates in teaching and reviewing architectural works at various architectural colleges. Vijay has a Bachelor’s degree in Architecture from School of Planning and Architecture New Delhi and a Masters degree in History and Theory of architecture from the University of Cincinnati in USA. Vijay and his partner Dimple Mittal have led an architecture and urban design practice called mayaPRAXIS in Bangalore which has won several awards and recognitions. As an architect Vijay brings to his work concerns of sustainability, building process and theoretical understanding of architecture, both in practice and education. He has also been instrumental in organising, moderating and speaking at several events. 

Mr. B. Suresha

Mr. B. Suresha is a popular actor, director and producer. He is the President of Suchitra Film Society since 2018 and a trustee of Rangashankara, Bangalore and Natana, Mysore. He made his debut as a child actor with the film “Ghatashraddha” in 1977 before working with Shankar Nag as an assistant director on several ventures like Malgudi Days in 1986. He worked as a script writer to many films and collaborated with Mr. Ravichandran as writer and assistant director. He also worked as a television serial director and made his directorial debut with “Artha” in 2002 and went on to direct several more films including “Puttakkana Highway” which documented the displacement of farmers due to construction of roads that are often considered an epitome of development. As an actor, he has worked on K.G.F: Chapter 1 in 2018 and many more films. Mr. B.Suresha has also written 21 plays, two of which have been awarded by Karnataka Sahitya Academy. 

Tara Krishnaswamy

Tara Krishnaswamy has a background of a techie but is prominently a citizen activist. She is the Co-founder of Citizens For Bengaluru, a grassroots people’s movement with landmark campaigns like #SteelFlyoverBeda, campaigns for mass public transit like the #ChukBukuBeku & #BusBhagyaBeku for suburban gains and public buses, and the #BekuBedaSanthe for the citizens manifesto in Bengaluru. She is also the co-founder of Shakti, a non-partisan women’s collective, passionate about female leaders in politics whose long-term objective is to enable more women to be elected and to support women who are interested in political leadership. On the policy front, she has worked on Lokpal amendments and the Justice Verma Committee for rape Law amendments. She also lead ground campaigns for Karnataka Police Stations to maintain list of convicted sex offenders & secured a Government Order for the same. She had also been the Co-Convenor of the Nirbhaya Fund Round Table, Hyderabad for administration of then 3000 cr Nirbhaya Fund. She is a TEDx Speaker, on the advisory board of the Indian School of Democracy and loves to pen her thoughts on issues like federalism, citizenship, gender and caste issues.

Dr. Jyotsna Jha
Dr. Jyotsna Jha has been heading the Centre for Budget and Policy Studies – CBPS, Bangalore for more than a decade. She has led a number of research initiatives and has co-authored books, several chapters and papers to her credit. She has written mainly on the issue of equity in education, and in particular on gender and education, and women’s empowerment. In recent years, she has undertaken several studies on early childhood education. In addition, she has also been engaged with the issues of public policies and finance in general, and gender budgeting and public spending on children in particular. Trained as an economist, Jyotsna has significant experience of working on development related issues. Prior to joining CBPS she worked as an adviser to the Social Transformation Programmes Division at Commonwealth Secretariat in London, from where she undertook research and policy advocacy in a large number of countries. She has served as a member of the Global Advisory Committee for UN Girls Education Initiative – UNGEI for four years. She has also been a member of several committees and Task Forces in India.