ChangeBhai Among ET’s Top 30 Innovations That Can Change Your Future!

June 9, 2016Newsask me, catapooolt, changemakers, changemakers challenge, economic times, India, startups, the economic times, the times of india, toi, top 30 innovators of indiaChangeAdmin

Heylo Friends,

We are glad to announce that ChangeBhai is among Top 30 Innovations of India that can change your future. Aye no no no…We ain’t sayin that. This is what Economic Times says.

Economic times dated 8th June 2016, Page 11

You can read the complete coverage on this link (also copied below):

http://epaperbeta.timesofindia.com/index.aspx?EID=31818&dt=20160608#

Also, hope you have checked out our revamped website www.ChangeBhai.in. Now, you can not only report issues of your neighborhood but also check the issues around you, evaluate localities as well as compare localities.

Also, minor detail. As part of The Economic Times Presents Catapooolt ChangeMakers Challenge 2016, a crowdfunding campaign is currently up on India’s leading crowdfunding website www.catapooolt.com. We request you to visit the same and support us as you always have.

Selfie, Pouts & Potholes

October 7, 2015Generalbad roads, bangalore, ChangeBhai, India, modi, neil armstrong, PM, pothole, pune, selfie, selfiewithdaughter, selfiewithpotholeCB Team

Hey babes, did ya chck thz meme out?

selfiemoon1

So fny, ain’t it totally rockin’? So ‘Us’ na! Mah bae sent it to moi. Am toh totally rofling ovr it since morn.

Now, tell me you haven’t heard somebody around you do this?! Don’t lie haan dear. 😉

Woh chhodo chalo, look at this:

selfiewithdeal selfiewithmodi selfiewithtruck

Ok..fine…ye thoda zyada ho gaya…a little ‘too wack’. Chalo, we don’t do these kinds, but we can’t deny that we do click a ridiculous number of selfies each day. Sitting-idle-at-home selfie, Driving selfie, Hanging-out-in-a-mall selfie, chilling-with-ma-bestie selfie etc etc….

We wonder, if we can take selfies at an avg rate of 20 selfies per minute (ok..fine …that’s made up), why can’t we click a single picture per day of an issue around us. These issues are practically everywhere around us. No need to scout for them.

Imagine each one of us clicking a picture each day and uploading it on www.ChangeBhai.in or atleast tagging ChangeBhai on social media, how much difference would that make collectively. Accha, selfie hi leni hai? Thik hai bhai, selfie le lo issue ke saath. Pothole selfie, overflowing garbage dump selfie, bad traffic signal selfie. In fact, somebody had launched this initiative in Bangalore, #selifi withpothole after PM Modi launched #selfiewithdaughter. The citizens were told to take a selfie with a pothole and mark the BBMP on social media.

Of course, nothing happened because who will take the issue up? But, in this case, there is ChangeBhai to take up your case!

Socho. Kaam toh aayengi tumhari selfiyan.

So here’s a call to all the baes and boos, babes and loves, darlings and dudes, Pls click atleast one picture of an issue around you each day and report it on www.ChangeBhai.in. Ye hoga sahi ka ‘cool stuff ’, kya bolte?!

Thank you, BITS Pilani!

August 27, 2015NewsBITS Pilani, BPlan Competiton, ChangeBhai, Coalescence, contest, Goa, Novatia 2015, Pilani, Start upCB Team

ChangeBhai is proud to be a finalist of the elite Business Plan competition, Novatia 2015 at BITS, Pilani.

Meanwhile, keep reporting issues of your city on www.ChangeBhai.in.

Our National Flag – Our Pride, Our Identity

August 15, 2015General15th august, happy independence day, India, indian, national flag, pingali, quotes, tricolour, venkayyaCB Team

Pingali!

Wondering what is this?!

Well, before we answer this question, let us first correct the question itself.

The right question is ‘Who is this?’

So, here’s the answer,

Pingali Venkayya is the person who designed our National Flag. For those who had not heard about him, he was an agriculturist and a freedom fighter from Andhra, who presented a version of our present day flag to Gandhiji.

We strongly believe that our flag is more than just cloth and ink. It is the history of our nation, and is marked by the blood of those who died trying to create a free India. Don’t you agree!?

This independence day, we speak about our beloved tricolour, our pride, our identity.

It is so really incredible to see the various changes that our National Flag has gone through since the beginning.

The first version in red, yellow and green was hoisted on 7^th August 1906, in the Green Park , Calcutta.

The second version hoisted by Madame Cama and her team of exiled revolutionaries in 1907 was almost similar to its earlier version, but seven stars denoting the Saptarishi were added.

The third version with the Union Jack (!!! Seriously, kaun dala ye) was hoisted by the renowned freedom fighter Lokmanya Tilak and Dr. Annie Besant.

The fourth version in red and green came about in 1921. The red and green was said to symbolise the two major communities of India, Hindus and Muslims. Gandhiji recommended adding a third colour white, that was to symbolise the remaining communities and the spinning wheel to symbolise the progress of the Nation. Hmmm.

10 years later, in 1931, a resolution was passed to adopt tricolour flag as our national flag. It was declared that the colors bore no communal significance at all. Ah! That’s a relief indeed!

Later on, in 1947, the Ashoka Chakra replaced the spinning wheel, and thus our present day National Flag came into existence.

Isn’t it amazing how the evolution of our national flag reflected the political developments in the nation in those times!

Team ChangeBhai is proud to be Indian and wishes a very Happy Independence Day to all fellow Indians! May we value our freedom!

Vande Mataram.

Source of Facts : www.knowindia.gov.in

Vote for us – Smart City Idea

August 6, 2015Newschange, ChangeBhai, cities, India, pmc, pune, pune municipal corporation, smart city, vote for usCB Team

Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC) had recently launched a contest called ‘Maza Swapna, Smart Pune’, which when translated to English means ‘My dream, a smart Pune’. Under this contest, the citizens were asked to submit one idea that they think will be a step forward towards making Pune a smart city, in the real sense.

Needless to say, being active citizens, we, at ChangeBhai participated in the contest as well. Our idea (snapshot below) has been selected among the top-30 ideas out of 6000 ideas. In the second round, a voting process will decide which ideas inch forward towards implementation.

Our idea!

Vote for us on www.punesmartcity.in. Our idea is called ‘PMC money’. You will have to browse and locate it.

The idea behind this ‘idea’: We believe that for any PMC initiative or scheme to work, the most crucial bit is ‘citizen engagement’. Citizens should adopt that initiative. There is no point emulating smart city concepts of cities in developed countries, as our cities are very different from theirs. Installing sensors, kiosks and adopting digital technology is not going to work in our cities, where even the streetlights and traffic poles get stolen! The need of the hour is to incentivise citizens to participate in the existing and future PMC schemes and initiatives, which is what our idea is all about.

So, do vote, if you feel our idea will make a difference in the way our cities work. The voting closes at midnight of 9^th August 2015. Do not forget to click on Submit button at the bottom after clicking on Vote. And, yes, you can vote for multiple ideas. So if you like any other idea other than ours, do vote for it as well.

Happy change making!

Potholes in the sky?! Yes. Yes. Yes. Possible. Eee dekho tanik.

August 2, 2015Generalandheri, bad roads, change, ChangeBhai, India, issues, mumbai, Potholes, skywalk, station, twitterCB Team

Holy moly guacamole!! If you thought the title of this post was misleading, then you my friend, are so wrong. Mumbai has never and will never cease to surprise us. Check this snapshot from a CB user on twitter below:

What the eff is happening, eh, The B the M the C?! Roads ka chalo jabardasti samjhe hum ki tum bole traffic bahut hai n all that. But son! potholes on the skywalk!

If you remember our blog about the ChangeBhai issue# A0431 ‘Lights not functional on Skywalk ‘ from Mumbai, you would remember this location. *drum rolls* The great (greater than Akbar, the great) Andheri Skywalk. The phatichar-est skywalk to have ever graced this city.

Pehle iska light nahi jal raha tha because the meter approval was pending. That we got fixed.

Phir paani was tapkoo-ing from its roof. That somehow got fixed temporarily with some jugaad.

Phir vaapis lights stopped working. Ye chal kya raha hai bhai?

Then these potholes plus hawker menace & a leaking roof again.

(BHAGOOOOO …….BHOOOOOOTTTT! Kidding….but ho sakta hai. We have shakk.)

Accha, doosri baat..Google Andheri Skywalk and you will see such fancy pictures of it, you will be amazed. Aisa to yeh, suna hai, launch pe bhi nahi dikh raha tha . Check out these amazeballs pictures:

Source: photobucket — Image Courtesy: photobucket

If you want more fun in your life (duh!), then keep watching this space. We are thinking of making a mainstream movie on this issue. Andheri Skywalk ki Madhur Kahaniyan.

Anyway, bahut ho gaya rona. We will get this resolved, that’s for sure. And if you spot a similar issue around you, do report it on www.ChangeBhai.in.

Tata. Byebye.

Ek Chidiya Ne Band Karwaya Gutter Ka Dhakkan! Kya!?!

July 12, 2015Updatesandheri, change, ChangeBhai, Drain, drainage, India, mumbai, Open drain, rains, social media, twitter, unsafe roadsCB Team

Arre bhai… Sansani Vansani kuch nai. We, the poor ordinary mortals are getting deeply inspired by the Indian news channel hosts, who spew out criminally pretentious yet catchy dialogues, nineteen to the dozen to grab people’s attention.

The ‘Chidiya’ in question is the twitter logo. CHIDIYA = TWITTER. Matbal, an ‘open drain’ issue was resolved through twitter. Samjhe kya..Samjhe kya..

Raise a toast to the Ghatiya Logic pls. Karna padta hai yaar, interesting banane ke liye.

Anyways, toh short mein, kahaani kuch iss prakar hai….

A couple of days ago, there was this good Twitter Samaritan, who had been going all out trying to get a drain covered during the crazy Mumbai rains. He happened to tag ChangeBhai, after repeated attempts to get the incorrigible authorities’ attention went down the drain (pun intended). Refer to ChangeBhai Issue A0572, “Manhole Repair”

Our social media team sprung into action, got in touch with the operations team and had the issue taken up within minutes. A snapshot of a part of the twitter conversation as well as the issue image below, to inspire the rest of us to do the same:

Issue Image uploaded by the Twitter user

Toh, bacchon…batao…. ‘Chalaak Chidiya’ kahaani ka moral-of-the-story kya hai.

Teacher…teacher….One should use social media for fun and keeping-in-touch, but kabhi kabaar aise acche kaam bhi kar lene chahiye.

(That chamcha kid in the school, though.)

Do tag us on social media if you feel any similar issue around you needs attention.

www.twitter.com/ChangeBhai

www.facebook.com/ChangeBhai

‘Ek Tha Lallan’ : Ek Fire hydrant ki Aatmakatha

June 19, 2015Generalbelapur, ChangeBhai, fire hydrant, India, mumbai, navi mumbai, NMMC, roadsCB Team

“Dear Municipal Commissioner Sahib,

Namaste.

My name is Lallan. I am a fire hydrant. I stay in Belapur area of Navi Mumbai. My life is over. How, you ask? Well, My parents have reported me as ‘MISSING’ at the local police station. Please tell them that am not ‘MISSING’. I am still alive, but moving towards a slow death, being buried in my own grave.

When I was born, I was told that I am a hero, a hero who was born to save human lives in fire emergencies. I still remember the day I was placed here at my current location.

I was red in colour. Super shiny. Ready to take on the world. Fully alert to be in use, in case any emergency was to occur. *beams with pride*

Life was good. Of course, a minor glitch here and there but all good. A glitch like how, you wonder? Well, occasionally the neighborhood Tommy would come and take a leak on me. *facepalms* Children coming back from school would play around me. The local flower vendor Lata tai would hang her wares on me every weekend. But, that’s ok I guess. Part and parcel of being in an Indian public place.

But, one fine day the local administration decided to lay the long-tattered road in front of my pavement. I was jubilant. Thrilled that my surroundings were being beautified. But man, was I wrong!

The sleepy eyed road engineer messed up while taking the road measurements. He failed to even notice me. The contractor’s men came and poured tar on me a la Anarkali. And I thought I was a Hero. *sighs* Nobody loves me.

I wish I could have shouted for help. They should have put an alarm or some kind of a siren on me.

So anyway, here I am. Most of my body is underground. I am now all black and totally useless. Useless even to Tommy who thinks am now too low for him.

Pls help me. If not for me, then at least for the sake of humans who reside nearby. They need me. *sobs uncontrollably*

Yours half-buriedly**,
Lallan Underground^
Near St. Josephs Church
CBD Belapur, Sector 8, Navi Mumbai

P.S. : Attaching pictures of my cousins from across the globe, courtesy their Facebook and Instagram accounts. *day dreams* ”

If you manage to spot a ‘still living and healthy’ fire hydrant in your neighborhood, do upload a picture of it and tag us on facebook or twitter. If the fire hydrant is in a bad shape and is about to go ‘MISSING’ like me, do upload an issue on www.ChangeBhai.in under Civic category.

———————————-

**that’s not a real word btw.

^ Actual name changed to protect identity. Also, all characters in the story above are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person (under or above the ground) is purely coincidental.

Image courtesy: architectureandbranding.wordpress.com,chicagoclout.com, agencythirtysixty.com in that order

“Where is Teja?” & “When Will He Fix Our Roads?”

May 14, 2015GeneralAamir khan, andaz apna apna, bollywood, change, ChangeBhai, delhi, film, India, mcd, ndmc, new delhi, salman khan, teja main hoonCB Team

Three kids are arguing as to whose father is the fastest.

One says,
“My father is the fastest, he can overtake the arrow that he shoots with his bow.”

The second one,
“My father is even faster – when he hunts, he can shoot an animal with his gun and run up to the animal before it falls down.”

The third,

“You actually don’t understand what speed is. My father works in municipality. He finishes work at 4:30 pm, but he’s back home by 3:45 pm already.”

Jokes aside, let me begin the article with all due respect to the municipal authorities who have been going all out to resolve citizen complaints. Most of them do. And then there are the others. There is this super annoying thing which is incredibly common in the case of certain municipal corporations.

Frequent Employee Transfers.

Last time when we were so confused about ‘transfers’, we were watching Mr.Bajaj and Teja getting transferred in Andaz Apna Apna.

For the uninitiated, ChangeBhai maintains an extensive employee database of all parties it works with. Needless to say, the database is updated frequently (weekly). Mostly, the moment a citizen issue comes in, we first forward it to the right ground level employee (junior-most) and then work our way up, if not resolved. But, one could have never speculated about the frequency with which the junior most employees are being transferred for certain cities. It is like the guy sitting on top is getting sadistic pleasure in doing so. No kidding. This does happen in India. Read about this case where MD of J&K’s Road Transport Corporation was frequently transferring class iv employees ‘just for a li’l fun’.

Refer to issue #A0561 “Road hasn’t been made for decades”. After visiting the issue site and being assured of resolving the issue by a certain Mr.Safif, nothing happens! Why? Because the gentleman got transferred without any hint or information about his replacement. Seriously, eh?

Now, one has to just wait to hear from the replacement while the road lies in tattered condition. Sheesh. We so wish the new guy comes in and identifies himself like Teja as soon as the confusion begins.

*drumbeats*

TEJA MAIN HOON. MARK IDHAR HAI.

Dustbins walking up to you?!! We knew this day would come.

April 7, 2015Generalbmc, ChangeBhai, dadar, dustbin, dustbin robot, dustbot, future, garbage bin, MCGM, mumbai, robotCB Team

We remember writing a sarcastic piece last year on our collective inability to walk up to a dustbin and throw garbage in it. An excerpt from the article below:

Bins are not capable of walking up to you
(we are hopeful that with growing technological advancements such a day would come as well #IndiansNeedWalkingBins)

But boy!, little did we know that the Mumbai city administration was dead serious about the prospect of having dustbins walk up to you. This is why we say that contrary to popular perception, our administration is not that averse to all these fancy ideas.

Don’t believe it? Then read this..

BMC is planning to introduce Dustbin Robots all over the city. They have already installed one for a pilot study in Dadar.

The dustbin can travel 350 meters after being charged for four hours. It boasts of nine sensors and will be able to sense human presence . It can collect 80 kgs of trash in a single run.

Some people (like me ;)) would smirk at the idea and say “uth jaayegi ye ek raat mein hi“. The dustbin apparently has a three tier security system. f the dustbin is moved of the assigned area, it will shut down and an alarm will intimate authorities about its removal from the said zone. It doesn’t end there though as once the dustbin shuts down, text messages will be sent automatically to three emergency cellphones, informing them of its location. Whoaa!!

Now, of course, it doesn’t look as fancy as this Italian one called Dustbot below, but for Indian conditions it’s definitely a great start! What say you?

DustCart Robot in Italy, photo courtesy: alternativeconsumer.com

Till the time this robot comes to your city, do report all garbage related issues on www.ChangeBhai.in!

@BMC, tab tak puraani dustbins hi khaali kardo bhai. Check hundreds of issues similar to this latest one we received on ChangeBhai, Issue#A0563, “Garbage bin outside society gate”.