Tag Archives: civic

Indian Traffic Sense = Non Sense. Proved.

Civic gyaan, , , , , , , , ,

parking1           parking2

Can you think of anyone, like any-freaking-sane-person to whom these parking spaces (pics above) will appeal? No?! Lemme tell you. To these guys here. Grrrr.

ChangeBhai Issue#A0417,#A0485
ChangeBhai Issue#A0417,#A0485

They will love it. #SlurpSlurp #WhaddaChallenge

The civic sense of us Indians is legendary and traffic sense is not to be left behind either. These terms mentioned below, for example, are clearly alien/french/greek to most Indians.

Right of way. Kyun jaane doon main kisi ko. #MardangiPeKalank.

Excessive honking. Hamara horn. Hamaari marji.

Lane Discipline. Kaun banaya ye @#$%&@#* rule.

Speed Restriction. Nayi gaadi li hai bhai ne.

And the worst of all.

Parking Discipline. Chup be! Time nahi hai faltu.

By the way, the image above was uploaded by a Mumbai user, refer ChangeBhai issue#A0417 “Double parking caravans on main rd”. The issue was resolved by the Changebhai team with a lot of help from Mumbai Traffic Police. Do not forget to check out the lengthy resolution comments below the issue description.

The buggers were shooed away from one spot and they changed their location to another spot closeby. Check ChangeBhai issue#A0485 “Double bus parking still happening”. Thanks to the Mumbai traffic police Constable Wakde for helping us resolve this menace. Work in progress. Phew.

So, if any of you see similar traffic offenses on your way to work or in your neighborhood, you know what to do. No, you don’t?!?

All you need to do is take a picture, log on to www.ChangeBhai.in and report the issue. Supra eazy!

Ok. So, I still have some word limit left for this blog. Joke time. Old joke this one:

Santa parked his truck in ‘No Parking’.

When he returned he saw a note on his truck. “Parking Fine”

Santa writes “Thanks for the compliment”.

They are doing their ‘Bin’ …Are you doing yours!

Civic gyaan, , , ,

We have mentioned in our earlier posts how our entire team takes out a couple of days in a month and moves around their city speaking to people on the roads. Psst…The footage will make for some ‘enlightening’ YouTube videos (which we are in the process of making, by the way. Watch this space for that.)

The theme of this piece is inspired from the conversations we have had with people about the issue of ‘Garbage Bins’ in Mumbai; South Mumbai to be precise.

While most of the people said that there are no garbage bins in their city at all, some said they are not enough while a few said there are a lot of bins, newly installed albeit.

After getting varying response from the people of the same city, we decided to chuck everything else and check it ourselves. So, we went about town doing guess what… ‘BIN SPOTTING’ (Besides the point, but when my mother called me to ask where I was and I told her what exactly we were doing, I could hear a disappointing sigh from the other end with a faint ‘Is this why you did Engineering and an MBA’ followed by a click..Hota hai!)

We could see a lot of freshly installed bins which were nowhere close to the tattered bins we are used to seeing.

Cool stuff, municipal people! You did surprise us with these fancy, separate Dry and Wet bins (btw, our counterparts in other smaller cities could spot them as well…they are all over the place…like Hollywood would say… “Run..the bins are taking over” #BadJoke) Would be great if the authorities can run recurring campaigns to raise awareness on what type of kachra to throw in which coloured bin. And the colour coding, we suggest, should be universal across the country.

Trash bins in Mumbai
Newly installed trash bins in South Mumbai.

 So we come to today’s question:

They are doing their ‘Bin’ ..oops bit … but, are you doing yours!

Some key points to remember when you want to throw garbage :

1. 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)

 2. Just like we hunt for the nearest ATMs, STD-PCOs whenever we need one, we can do the same for bins as well. Always, always remember:

The next bin is not too far away

3. And if you think there are not enough bins –

Why not report it at www.ChangeBhai.in!

We will get them installed for you, if there are none close by. What say you? Yes, no, maybe?

Time Travel, Anyone?

General, , , , , , , ,

Ladies and Gentlemen. Boys and Girls. This is what we call ‘going BACK in time’. Literally.  Just look at this picture and tell me if I am wrong.

comparison

Call this a sad case of irony or whatever, but the truth is, that despite the fantastic economic growth, India is doing really bad in urban governance. For more than a decade, India has enjoyed unprecedented growth that in many ways is comparable to that of The United States of America years ago. However, the same cannot be said of our infrastructure.

Come on India, we know you can do better. :) Report some of these issues to the authorities through ChangeBhai and help India move forward.

 

Where there’s a will…there’s a ‘ROAD’ !

Updates, , , ,

Q: When is the right time to do the right thing?
A: Who can say, but it’s usually most wise to start today.”

Here’s an interesting case study from ChangeBhai’s stable which saw a very active citizen upload a long pending issue of her neighbourhood, minutes after we launched the ChangeBhai portal officially. She thought it was most wise to start immediately. Here’s the story:

It so happened that minutes after we launched ChangeBhai, one of our early users uploaded this particular issue (Issue No. A0003) titled ‘Bad Road in Rohini’.  The issue was put into process by the ChangeBhai team within a few days. It seemed that this road in question was a major source of grief for the residents of this area. Even the most active ones had given up when it came to taking it up with the authorities. It has been like this since the last 3 years now. You can say that that delay had indeed turned out to be the worst form of denial here.

A short note on why getting this road fixed was critical:

rohini sector 9

20130928_150356

This road connects around 30 housing societies of Sector 9, Rohini to a busy commercial area housing, amongst other things, three shopping malls: City Centre, Metro walk & Shopper’s Stop. The condition of the road was beyond pathetic and yet, the citizens were widely using it, as it was the quickest way to reach the commercial area.

While most of the other issues we were receiving were getting resolved with minor delays (if any), this one stuck out like a sore thumb! After a lot of follow-ups (read escalations, verbal threats, giving up, getting-a-grip-again, sticking-daily-motivational-quotes-post-its etc.), we managed to get the authorities to approve the construction of this road early this year! A lot of follow ups later, the work finally started in February. Uff.

One of our newly hired management trainees has depicted the history of this case graphically as below:

delhi issue timeline

Have a look at the images below and we are sure, you will be motivated to report a similar long pending issue of your area:

20140220_130447 delhi-4

 

Baccha Party Zindabad!

General, , , , ,

Team ChangeBhai embarked on a nation wide  ‘Ground Engagement Campaign’ for schools and colleges last month.  We are covering hundreds of such institutions, small, big, government, private and so on. Have a look at the pictures below from one such campaign.

IMG-20131213-WA0004-120131213_092746

These are students of Laxmibai Nandgude International School, Pimpri Chinchwad.

We were to take a session on ‘How to use ChangeBhai to report issues” in this school. A peep into the window of the makeshift tin room where the students were seated and my colleague whispered to me “Dude, I bet none of these kids would have access to internet. We need to drop the original plan of educating the kids about ChangeBhai..let’s not throw that whole ‘tagging the issue on a map’ gyan here..no point..why to bug the poor kids…nahi samjhega inko”

I agreed. “Ya..ya..of course..lets chuck it..Plan B is cool here..let’s just speak about some popular social issues…garbage..potholes..and leave”

There were around 60-70 kids from 8th, 9th & 10th standards, girls seated on one side and boys on the other. Around 10-15 teachers were sitting on either side of the small jam-packed room.

I began the session with the general gyan on social issues that we face on day to day basis. As I was about to introduce the portal to the students, I thought of asking the students some questions to gauge their ‘internet awareness level’ so that I can tweak my pitch accordingly.

“So, how many of you use internet regularly?” , I ask, expecting 4-5 kids to raise their hands.

Barring 2-3 girls, all of them raise their hands. Yes. All!

“Ahem..mmm..ok. ..g..gr..great..Ok..so how many of you are on facebook?”

70% hands went up again.

“What about mobile?..How many of you have it?”

50% hands up again.

“Do you use any apps on your phone?”

“Whatsapp”

“Angry Birds”

My colleague looks at me.  We know what to do next. We go back to Plan A which was a ‘Spot The Issue’ activity.  The activity was super successful. 11 students tied up for the 1st place!! A 1 min on-the-spot extempore competition was conducted to pick two winners.

The students were to speak about the issues featured on ChangeBhai which were close to their hearts.

Reik Khan, 14 said “I want to do something about Child Labour in India. No parent should send their kids to work when it is time for them to study..So, Yes.. I want to use Changebhai to report all such child labour issues that I see on a daily basis in my city”

Pratik Sonawane, 15, Reik’s senior in school, said “We, the citizens are as much to blame for bad civic situation in our country as are the authorities. Educating the citizens to report the issues around them is the need of the hour”

Winner!
Winner!
Our Spot-Report-Change Message
Our Spot-Report-Change Message

The more we interact with young guns like you, the more we feel confident about the success that awaits ChangeBhai!

An Ideal Garbage Bin!

General, , , , ,

At Changebhai, one of the most common targets of the citizens filing issues under the ‘Civic’ category is the ‘Garbage Bin’. Overflowing garbage bins. Dirty area around the garbage bin. Garbage not picked up for days at a stretch. And so on..
I, for example never took this issue seriously ever. I once remember passing by an overflowing and stinking garbage bin and telling my mother in my usual what’s-the-big-deal tone ‘It is impossible to keep these bins clean in India. Have you see the variety of garbage thrown here? And the number of people who stay in this locality. Don’t think that can ever happen.’

Never say never, folks. I was passing by an army area in Pune yesterday and look what I saw.

army-garbage-bin

It is Ganpati time in Maharashtra and this bin was kept in a fairly crowded area open to civilians and right next to a water body where the idol immersions were happening. And boy, look at it. Neat. Painted. Organized. A good example for our municipal corporations to follow. What say?