Why Indias Most Loved City Frustrates Everyone Bangalore Bodh Ep 18

TITLE: eT3B9E2vo40 CHANNEL: Unknown DATE: ---TRANSCRIPT--- The chief minister wants to be the mayor of Bangalore. That’s the problem. Without Bangalore, what can a chief minister do?

If you see the 14 people who were sworn in yesterday, All were 12 or older than the chief minister. [music] D.K. Shivakumar has a much better chance of dealing with the reality of today than Siddaramaiah had. World is being designed in Bangalore, the infrastructure of the world. Why is it they’re not designing Bangalore itself? It’s a tragedy. The minister of our Bangalore those days, he came there and said, The Mangaluru Lit Fest, in my opinion, better than the Bengaluru Lit Fest. It’s It’s got greater value. Bangalore’s greatest asset is not its technology. It is its people. And if you do not allow people to do this and keep on saying deputation, deputation, It’s an Indian aspiration to come to Bangalore. Young people want to come to Bangalore. Naresh, when many people say I want [music] to build this road, I want to free of cost, they don’t give permission. They say, “Neevi yaaru? Nam permission thagoli.” Permission more important than citizen’s welfare for these fellows. What do you do with these fellows? Political corruption, the reality is politics [music] is expensive. Where will they get the money? Because none of you give money. Prakash Belawadi doesn’t give a single penny. Naresh will cannot give money. I give money 15 years. I want Prakash to give 100 rupees. You tell me what is the public impression? Is government corrupt or private corrupt? No, it’s the government Both are corrupt, perhaps, but government is definitely corrupt. [music] And footpath. Footpath, yes. Politician have to see footpaths as development. And every city should be a walking city, especially Bangalore. He walks everywhere. He goes by metro in Bangalore. He comes from far away. From what for second place he stays there. He stays in Jayanagar. He’s talking about [laughter] a much better place than his where he is. [music] I’m hoping would be very informal, casual, and will fire missiles today. We’ve had two of those missiles fired already, so we are at DEFCON 2, and DEFCON 3 will be joining us very soon. So, it’ll be nothing short of a Cuban missile crisis over here. Joining me is Mr. Mohandas Pai and Prakash Belwadi, and Naresh Narasimhan will be joining us very soon. So, let’s thank you so much Thank you. on this day, just one day after we’ve had a new Chief Minister, and you said that you’re very hopeful. Is that because generally any business person with interest will always obviously say that whether somebody is good or somebody is bad, but in this case you say that since he’s a urban guy, there is some hope that maybe like Fadnavis, he will also try to understand what Bangalore needs. You see Siddaramaiah represented the old school. He’s a very good administrator, grassroots politician. He came up the hard way without patronage, but he played his cards based upon caste and communal matters. You know, letting free that PFI people will openly be doing appeasement politics, openly doing caste hatred at this point of time when you’re CM is not a good thing. Because a CM you must carry everybody with you. Mhm. So, you need a leader for a state based on where the state is. Mhm. Now, Karnataka is the richest state in India. We have the highest per capita income. What do we need today? We don’t need caste politics, we need growth, development, and good job for our young people. Mhm. What do youngsters require today? They need good jobs. Correct. You ask any parent, “What do they What do you need for your children?” They tell you, “I want my child to have a good job. I want good education.” Is he giving good education? No. 60% of vacancies in government college universities are filled by guest lecturers. They’re not in filling up. They’re not invested enough in higher education in the public sector, which is required. Private is required, public is required. And they’re not putting money into good school education. The government school system is breaking down. We have the politics cash politics and all that. Then is he putting money on growth and development for jobs? Mhm. Does he Did he have a dialogue with industry to talk to them about how to do things? There is a $1 trillion report which he prepared and gave it to Bombay. It’s available on It was There are strategies for developing in multiple sectors. He must take that because what Karnataka requires is what politics should be, not the politics of the past. Mhm. Now Siddaramaiah Now D.K. Shivakumar is a protege of S.M. Krishna. Mhm. In the last 40 years, S.M. Krishna was the first chief minister who gave a great vision for the future of Karnataka. Yeah. And because of that, Deve Gowda brought this rural-urban divide and created a fight, which is unnecessary. Mhm. Because he must always say, “What does Karnataka, my state, require? My state require growth, development, and jobs.” Mhm. And that’s why people are hopeful because D.K. Shivakumar said yesterday, “I’m not going to cast and communal politics. I’m going to carry everybody with me. And I’m going to focus on jobs and the youth.” And he’s doing that. Mhm. That’s the right thing to do. You don’t talk about caste every time, you know. Caste is a reality. Yeah. Caste is an identity, but caste doesn’t have to be a friction. Mhm. And we have reservations. What else you require? But with the limited time available, what is D.K. Shivakumar going to do? can do a lot of things. Mhm. For example, he can make sure that he brings in some good policies and decide many things. We have given him a list under 100 first 100 days what to do for Karnataka and Bangalore. Okay. And there are a lot of interesting things there. Second, all the pending all the projects underway, he can push them to finish. For example, the business peripheral road in Bangalore. For example, a road from Bangalore to be there the expressway. Connected to Karwar and Mangalore. Completing all the railway projects in North Karnataka. Completing all the road network in North Karnataka. And he can also make sure the ports hopefully some ports are coming up you can do it in the course. And then he can make sure that in Mysore and other places there are ring roads and other places required. Expand the road network. And in Bangalore there are so many projects that have been there to complete next 6-8 months he can complete. For example, in Bangalore we require 500 kilos of metro. No house in Bangalore should be more than 1 to 1.5 km away from a metro station for 80% of the population. That’s how metro should be. And for the balance you just create because you know footpaths and everything else, right? And you should do that. What does the Bangalore require today? Clean up. Clean up Bangalore. There are debris, muck, and you know, debris, muck, and melba all over the thing. When the roads are made, they take the dust put it in the footpath. Why don’t they clean it up? The drains are all choked because the drains have not been silted. Why? Those people who clean the road put all the muck in the drain mouth. It’s a management issue. So, clean up Bangalore for the next 30 days Bangalore look good. People will get hope. They can’t even clean up. The high the the BDA the GBH is saying no commissioner comes and tells them it’ll be done and it doesn’t happen. The Ejipura flyover is not done. Remember, all pending projects try to finish in 3 to 6 months. Change the metro management. The metro management has been a disaster. Metro still 2 years behind schedule. Focus to complete the 200 kilos metro by the end of the another 12 months. They didn’t even order enough trains for metro. Why don’t you run the metro two for every two minutes run a damn train? Two minutes. They’re running five minutes. Why five minutes? You have the track, you have people, you run two trains every two minutes. Which vacant is okay. Supply creates demand. Supply creates demand in a growing economy. You expand the metro and plan and finish sanction for a 500 km of metro. Finish all the good roads around Bangalore. Finish the portfolios given 2,000 crores, which is very good. And then, I just treated and said call uh companies like Quest and TeamLease and BetterPlace to come and talk about how do you connect young people to jobs. Lot of people are jobless. Young people are required. You connect them to jobs, skilled, unskilled, everybody. And make sure you focus on jobs. Have a department of employment. You have a department labor whose job is to harass people. Inspect, take money, and all the extract money. We need a department employment which focuses on jobs. Department of employment and skills. Focus on job creation. In the next 2 years, you can create 10 lakh jobs. Not difficult. You can change Karnataka, give hope to Karnataka, and make [clears throat] sure bureaucratic corruption is removed. See, there are two kinds of corruption, political corruption bureaucratic corruption. Political corruption, the reality is politics is expensive. Politicians have to spend 20, 30 crores in Karnataka for a assembly seat. Where will they get the money? Because none of you give money. Prakash Belawadi doesn’t give a single penny. Naresh will cannot give money. I give money 15 years. I want Prakash to give 100 rupees. Doesn’t matter what you give. You must go tell them here’s my 100 rupees. So, public should give money. So, good money comes. Then, good people will come. If Prakash wants to contest election, and we want him to contest election sometime, he’s a great guy, a great Kannadiga. He needs money. Who else should give him money? You think he’s going to spend his own lifetime savings, you know, destroy his family, and go do that, and serve everybody? He must be mad. It doesn’t happen. So, remove political corruption. Why should there be bureaucratic corruption? In BDA, there are some 10, 14, 15 desks where everyone you have to grease. Everything is fixed there. To get a plan sanction, you have to give money. Why? You you sack all of them. DK knows all of them. Sack them. Sack 500 corrupt officials and say that you have to do your work, you get a salary. Maybe a person like Krishna Byre Gowda being appointed as a Bangalore minister is a good sign of things to I’m not very sure. I won’t endorse anybody because it requires political will and strength Yeah. to do it. Whereas the e-khata is a good thing. There have been many There’s a lot of corruption about the e-khata, too. My friend for his property had to pay 20,000 rupees for three houses for e-khata. He came and met me. I said, “Why are you paying?” No, no, “That’s the only way to get it. They’re harassing me.” They harass you. 80-90% [snorts] is done. Right. 10% harass you. When you go for property registration, are there many people who have not paid any money, tell me. Yeah. Correct? Birth certificate, death certificate, why should there be bureaucratic corruption? And the only way it will work to a large extent is you know who are the corrupt people, sack them. Mhm. Because government servants work at the pleasure of the governor. Sack them. Mhm. Throw everybody. I will not tolerate this corruption. Mhm. And then if anybody gives a complaint about anybody, Mhm. you just you know, suspend them. Let’s see what happened. They’ll go to court. Let them go to court. No, we were talking about this, that there should be a level of acceptable corruption, affordable corruption you see, corruption at the political level is different. We can debate that separately. Bureaucratic corruption, why should there be? Yeah. No, my political friends tell me, “Sir, I make money and everything. 50-60% I have to give away to people. They come for jobs. I have to give them everything. They need help.” But bureaucrats are making a lot of money and they buy Not all bureaucrats. Not all bureaucrats. There are some bureaucrats. They’re making money. They got more money than anybody. I know so many bureaucrats in Karnataka who are filthy rich. Why should they make money? Mhm. You understand? [screaming] If they want to make money, they can become contractors or they become consultants outside. Mhm. Why stay in government? They’re using government power, our money, to do corruption. They should stop. That’s the first step to stop. So, I think he has to take a hard decision because he knows in 2 years we’re going to have the state election. Mhm. People across the state are very unhappy. Mhm. Am I right, Prakash? They’re very unhappy and angry. Mhm. Will they vote for the Congress? I don’t know. Mhm. And will Bangaloreans vote for Congress? I don’t know. Last point before we go to the great Prakash. Mhm. We are going to have census now and delimitation. Yeah. Delimitation means Bangalore will get 20% seats in the legislature. Right. And the whole urban area of Karnataka will get 50-60% seats. Right. That’s point number one. So, urban people’s aspirations have to be done because the rural area has been one deep pit. Mhm. Government of India state government spent 10 lakh crore of subsidies. Mhm. They’re not spending 50,000 crore on innovation. Yeah. How much is government spending on innovation? 50 crore, 100 crore, 150 crore. They’re not able to spend. He must spend 1,000-2,000 crore on innovation, technology for the greatest technology center in the world, which is Bangalore. You understand? They’re not doing that. Just basket. I don’t think they’ve even been to ORR. One other thing is is DK Shivakumar should go to the ORR, Mhm. call all the CEOs and tell them 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, what is going to do. The ORR has, Prakash, 93 million square feet of space. 9 lakh people are working. It’s the greatest street in the world with the largest number of jobs in the world for any city in the world. Mhm. You will look at all the logos there. Any chief minister, any mayor, any prime minister of any country will be so proud of them. None of the people politicians Vidhan Soudha are, you know, proud or talking about it. They don’t understand. What do you do with such people? DK I should understand because he understands real estate. Mhm. He’s got great interest in real estate. He understands that. Yeah. And he knows that if the people stop coming, the real estate business will tank. Mhm. We got the second largest real estate industry in India after the uh after Mumbai in value. And the Bangalore occupy Bangalore takes 15-17 million square feet of grade A office space, the largest in the world. Mhm. Double, triple of Bombay. Double, triple of Delhi every year for the last 10 years. It’s all because techies, the technology people are coming. If they stop coming, that don’t they it’s become less. Then what happens to the industry? That’s the big the second big industry, right? So you understand it. He must do that. So the key is very simple. Focus on the future. And when elections come, one more thing. Who is going to be the majority of voters in the election? The majority of voters in the election are going to be people born after 1990. Yeah. They are going to be 55, 60% election. The earlier generation my previous generation who grew up on Gandhi ji, Nehru and all that thing, they’re all gone. Not going. My generation which had new Indira Gandhi, Rajiv Gandhi, they’re also gone. They’re going out, right? And we are disillusioned with all of this family and all that, right? And the next generation come after 90. 90 means you become 20 in 2010. What is your world view? I want jobs. I want to buy a car. I want to go overseas. I want this, right? Are you bothered about caste, this and that part of thing? No. Even the kids of politicians from North Karnataka, they were all my batchmates in Christ and they all want to come to Bangalore. So Bangalore is the hub where people want to be. Karnataka develop everything. Naresh is here. Uh so actually we were talking with Mohan and I were discussing that you compare the swearing in of both the chief ministers. When Suvendu Adhikari came into power, there were a bunch of things that he announced, right? Like it looks like an actionable man has come into office. Similar thing happened when Narendra Modi became the prime minister. Even Kejriwal’s ideas for instance, as soon as he was elected as the chief minister, you know, 47 promises for 40 Please join us. We can just begin. Uh in that sense where where you did what did you observe from the body language of DK? Like was it like it seemed like they’re all still old guard, you know, replacing the same same old team. You know, with DK, my my my first instinct is that he has I will say two divergent paths he can pursue. Yeah. I I don’t want to talk about, you know, corruption and what he’s done in the past because it’s of no use to talk about it now. But he has 2 years. And if he can do some even marginally significant good things, okay, it’s a good investment in the future because I can’t see any great emerging BJP leader in Karnataka. And even if the people are totally fed up with the Congress and they change and the BJP able is able to cobble up some kind of a government, you know, which can run for 3 or 5 years. You know, and he has to he has to be in the opposition. What he does now for the next for these 2 years will stand him in good stead. Otherwise, he can continue in into in the in the old way that he was a what he won’t redeem his reputation. Then, you know, he’ll be in the you know, he’ll lose this opportunity. And then he’ll be in the waste bin of history. Yeah, he’s a man with a future. Siddaramaiah has no future in politics, right? Absolutely. And the See, the thing Political age, yeah. Decade still to come. the question to Mo- you know, to Mohan by saying, you know, I mean, as a business leader you said to him, you know, to Mohan. Yeah. See, I want to say this, the government is receding from generating jobs. During COVID, you know, with big capex, it generated jobs at you know, at at the infrastructure level, low you know, lower skill jobs, temporary jobs, they have generated a lot. But structural, you know, good care long career jobs, tenured jobs, the government is receding from that. It will not provide jobs in the future. There’ll be less and less government even with even with this inefficiency, there’ll be less and less government as we go on. Jobs will be generated only with by business people, entrepreneurs, by big business. They will generate jobs. We should stop demonizing big business. We should stop demonizing corporate people. You’re okay to share your data with Meta and Google and Instagram and whatever, but you’re not okay to share your data with, you know, the government of India. Just see how ridiculous it is, okay? So, basically, I think you should support government. In that regard, I think D.K. Shivakumar has a much better chance of dealing with the reality of today than Siddaramaiah had. Because I think Siddaramaiah had perhaps, Mohan is right, a blinkered vision. He was a person of the past. All the finance budgets he made have did not prepare him for the future that has come upon us now, you know. And so, even he was given the $1 trillion budget that that Mohan is talking about. Actually, I personally handed it over to him. Do you know that? I went from Mohan’s office and gave it to him. But he always had a disregard for Bangalore. I mean, No, he received with a smile. He said, “Oh, $1 trillion.” His eyes lit up. It’s not that I don’t think he [snorts] he had a coterie of social advisors. I don’t think he had a influential coterie of economic advisors. Or even if they went to him, I don’t think he listened to him as much as he listened to all the advisors and cast what they call, you know, He felt really comfortable with caste and communal politics. the progressive I tell you, you know what I’m talking about. He was very comfortable with them, and it was very sad. The other thing I want to say is that willingly, people will keep moving to village from villages to the urban areas. See, yesterday I met somebody from, you know, Idagunji. They said, you know, Correct. There is no investment in villages, you know? There is nothing to live there for, you know? What will you do in a village? It is like it’s it’s a meaningless thing. You have to develop cities, and delimitation will bring very big challenges. I really feel the the opposition should have grabbed the opportunity that came to them with whatever jugad you know the Modi government offered with the delimitation and the you know and the women’s reservation bill. But they didn’t do and you know the Modi government can tell them I told you so because it will have to happen. You can’t avoid it. It’s by law you have to do now. So when you finish the census the next year it will happen and Karnataka will get rapidly urbanized around between Bangalore, Mysore, Bangalore, Tumkur and Bangalore, Kolar. I have no doubt about that. And this is you know DK’s great opportunity. And you know if you go with some of the recommendations some people have made that you may have to break up Karnataka to three or four you know states, Kannada speaking states. And if that happens, even that will lead to increased decentralized urbanization because every one of those states must have urban economic drivers. So I’m saying if if DK DK Shivakumar can see this as a great opportunity for him to build the future for himself, I think people will forgive everything and they’ll back him. I personally would would be very happy if he actually changed his ways and he and he stopped thinking about politics as business, you know, and he made politics everybody’s business, you know. It would be very good I think for him. Instead of politics is my business. Politics is everybody’s business. Yes. Beautiful. That’s that’s my take on it. On Suvendu See you know Sharan you were there you know You have you have something personally invested in this, right? So that I wanted to tell you this. See you know in five years ago when I came out of hospital from COVID, I had not read the paper for a week and the Bengal elections had happened. And I saw that the government either was uh passive supporter or an active supporter of the of the pogroms that were being carried carried out against BJP families and BJP workers and so on. And I put out a post in Facebook at that time. I had a large following at that time. Saying that, you know, this is dangerous and we should remember what happened with Godhra because this is not good. You know, when um when you know, when a government remains passive, at that time it was the Union government uh remains passive about uh about because, you know, when the Union government didn’t send the army, did not send didn’t do anything about it. So, it was okay for Vajpayee to say there was no Raj Dharma was not followed, but Raj Dharma was not followed by the Union government as well. Let us remember that. So, whether Modi is guilty or not, the system has decided and we’ll leave it at that. But at that time, you see you saw what happened. But there was a I said there was a 8% Muslim population, so the the reaction retaliation was very violent at that time. I said we should be worried because it’s a there’s a sickening possibility. The way he used the word sickening, that this will happen in in in Bengal, but it will not happen as quickly as it because Bengal has a nearly 1/3 Muslim population. It will not happen as quickly, but it will happen when it when it can and it’s not a good thing. That’s what I said. But you know, I was gaslit as though I was I was asking for violence, you know. But you see, when when this you know, in in certain ways it has begun to happen. Correct? Yeah. There is a there it was a dormant festering anger in the population which they have hid from the media, which they have hid from you know, surveys. There was some indication that, you know, the BJP might do better, but we knew that even from the other elections. of the streets you cannot orchestrate them. You know this this violent explosion of celebration, you know, where people were so happy that this happened. And I’m saying in Bengal I think the change is very big and I don’t think we can compare that change with what has happened in Karnataka. We are a more sober state. We’ll deal with it. Remember the state has an opportunity. It’s just 2 years. If he doesn’t do well, well, he will go. So but if he if he does well, even if he goes, very good chance that he’ll come back. Or even I mean he may even win with you know what combinations can happen now, you know. Yeah. I can’t see that Mr. Siddaramaiah will remain quiet. Now we have to worry about a triple engine sarkar now because you need the union government to be one, state government to be one, and you have five corporations. In that what if three of them are controlled by BJP and then two of them Congress and maybe one of them JDS even. What do we do in that case, Naresh? It is if you ask me, Bangalore is not a It has two distinct visions, right? One is seen from the rest of the planet Yeah. as a world-class city etc. etc. And it’s lead seen as one of the world’s leading innovation ecosystems. Mhm. That is what the rest of the world sees, but really the problem in Bangalore is fragmented governance institutions. Mhm. And the lack of a city politics. The state being sitting in the city is not allowing local politics to local leaders to rise. Many times I think even Pawan has mentioned and others have mentioned that Bangalore needs a CEO-like person to lead the city Yeah. because what is happening is there are parastatals, there are MPs, there are MLAs, there are agencies, there are institutions, and more are being created. Every time there’s a problem rather than using an existing institution to solve the problem, the government’s response is to create one more problem. Now we have a GBA, now we have a B S Mile. And the whole point of creating the GBA, actually the GBA is the second point in the Congress manifesto. People don’t realize it. People write manifestos and don’t read them. And it says in the second point of the Congress manifesto which I actually pointed out to Mr. Shivakumar in the first meeting he had as Bangalore development minister, is to create a chief commissioner to which all parastatals will report. The intent is clear now. It has been done. Whether these five corporations are going to stay or going There’s already a rumor that it’s going to become only two corporations. I don’t know whether you have heard it. Because simply the Bangalore does not have the resources to support five commissioners. There are not enough enough resources. Yeah, that’s a joke. Yeah. People will be talking. People will talk. No, no, it’s not money resources, people resources. There are enough people also. They should get the people. That’s what they’re saying, but the point is not that. The point is that is he going to do all this? And there is a GBA in place now. Why is it that the system is still broken? Yesterday we pointed out to the think it’s a It’s a To me this I answer seems to be that whatever institutions you you create the chief minister’s office will not give up their stranglehold on this city. The chief minister wants to be the mayor of Bangalore. That’s the problem because the richest part Without Bangalore, what can a chief minister do? So if you can do that, if that is the reality and we have to accept it, rather than each agency waking up every morning with their vision of Bangalore and none of them talking to each other, let Mr. Shivakumar show the way and formally say all decisions will be taken by one person. The rest of the institutions in the city have to follow that vision and not come up with every Actually, just before you came, Mohan listed out the number of things he should do. Basically, he let him not announce any new project. Let him just complete what needs to be completed. He will win, I’m telling you. That’s all. Clean up the city, he’ll win. Yeah, he’s already announced that. Go clean up the entire city. City is so beautiful. See, come to Malleshwaram, Naresh. You have a shop. It’s so clean, neat, footpaths are walkable. Dr. Ashwath Narayan has done a fantastic job. Why can’t every MLA do the same in his constituency? You come to my place, Ali Asker Road. You know, debris is the the heart of Bangalore. Broken footpath, debris that they dug up the road for laying the BWSSB pipe. The road has caved in. Corruption there. What do you do, ya? And there’s a government building which has put up pillars on the curve at the edge of the footpath and put a roof. I’ve been complaining to BBMP secretary for, you know, about 10 times. Nothing has happened. What do you do, Naresh? I don’t know. It’s strange. It’s strange that in the city itself we see this much. Last week I was in Mangaluru. I went up to Karkala. I went to Moodbidri. I went and saw the Silicon Beach Very clean. Fantastic. Incredibly clean. I mean, it’s like there’s not a Is it a Bangalore problem that we don’t know how to deal with garbage? No, no, it’s a Karnataka problem problem imposed on Bangalore. I’m sorry. I’m saying Why is the Why is that part People who get elected from elsewhere in Karnataka, they come to Bangalore. They don’t love the city. They don’t love their own places also. They don’t improve that place and they don’t care about this place. We are really cursed with this idea. I feel delimitation should deal different four or five Karnatakas and they should be stakeholders in their places. They’ll have a symbiotic, you know, relationship with their with their constituencies and, you know, they may care for their places more than they care for Bangalore. This is very bad, you know. Karnataka should give up its stranglehold on Bangalore. I I agree with Mohan. Bangalore already has a Bangalore Metropolitan Yeah. Region Development Authority. Activate that. No, govern Bangalore as one metropolitan region with one 80 million leader Yeah. and one vision. Yeah. One Bangalore, one vision. Otherwise, this is too many people Mayor of London by other people. ONE PLAN. THE OPERATIONS can be executed. One plan. Second, Correct. With the changing with the changing climate scenario, build climate resilience as the core of every project that you build. Every road, every drain, every transport project, and every neighborhood. If you do not build climate resilience, we’re going to get this flooding, we’re going to get this nuisance. We’re not going to be able and we’re going to Three, put citizens at the center. Yes, citizen center. Center, make it transparent decision making. Let empower have that GBA election as soon as possible. The reason why I feel garbage is there everywhere is because there’s no cooperator. There’s nobody to can cast the neck of Right now, everybody wants the money and power. Nobody takes the blame. That’s No, but you know what he said, I think it It should register. I don’t want it to be lost in the He’s saying you have one person who who actually owns the agenda for Bangalore. One plan. And then you have you have these five or six or 10 or two, you know, who will actually do the administration? Who will execute Yeah. See, Naresh, think of this. We have five corporations, one GBA. Had the administration structure change? There’s no management of Naresh. There’s no logic. See, for each corporation, they must have a cater. Yeah. There’s no cater. Half the people come on deputation outside. When people come on deputation, what do they want to do? They want to make money and go. They don’t care a damn for the place. Yeah. They come on deputation, make money. He knows it. So, what you should do now, after the GBAs have come, we must have a management structure for each of these corporations and for the GBA, which is focused on the activity they’re supposed to do. And have people responsible and make them accountable. And if somebody doesn’t do the job they’re supposed to do, sack them. I told the Maheshwar Rao, the chief commissioner, that look, in a corporation ask the commissioner to give responsibility for the entire area to various officers for each ward. Let them go inspect every day for all the garbage and everything else. And you go inspect once in 10 days and go and see. If the guy is not clean, give a warning. Next time, sack him. Unless you do this activity, nobody cares. Today in Karnataka, lower level officers don’t listen. So, make them a And for the management review, I said you call Janagraha. They know how to do it or call IIM. 3 months give a report and have a cadre. Without a cadre, nothing will happen. Same people are doing the same cheat and come here. They’re not going to improve. There are not enough people. No, even even more from what Mohan is saying, all engineers are under deputation from BBMP. All the planners, the downtown planning officials, are under deputation from planning department. The BBMP wants nothing. to Bangalore. Where is the loyalty to BBMP? To BBMP. There’s nobody there. So, We need our own cadre. Bangalore’s greatest asset is not its technology. It is its people. And if you do not allow people to do this and keep on saying deputation, deputation. Now, right now, take a simple example, right? Our Mr. D.K. Shivakumar has announced a lot of relaxation in terms of how to build, etc. Now, they allow the more FSI, allow I mean to say in somewhat some people are calling it Akrama Sakrama by backdoor, but I think the reality is that it’s already done. And there’s no point wishing it away. At least do it. Okay? For the want of paying of a bill in the low lakhs, okay? The entire sanction process of Bangalore has to go through an electronic system. Which is You cannot submit a physical document to get a plan sanction. The plan sanction software guy is outsourced to some low paid guy from Pune who’s not been paid 10 lakhs. And you know what happens? Naresh tell me what happens. It tells you the system spits it out. You take the new laws which the system has allowed and put it into the system. It just spits it back saying not allowed. And the software doesn’t What is the point of Naresh they call you on a Saturday and say you’ll money and money will they’ll override and they’ll do it and take a bribe. Why should why should it be? Why should it be? What for a want like the old saying no for want of a needle the battle is lost. [clears throat] It’s just a minor thing. I mean even builders are saying we’ll pay the software guy because everybody’s plan is getting jammed in the system and spitting it out. So what one is saying is that Prakash is also saying is that unless we have a cadre based dedicated officials in the each corporation and in the GPA okay and stop doing this deputation. I think BWSSB has enough work in the rest of Karnataka. Town planning has enough work in the rest of Karnataka. Enough ways to make money in their whatever they do. [laughter] They come here to make money. Let’s be clear. But then please let us have a dedicated system cadre in the system. Whose future is linked to the city. And with this new election I think one of the clear manifestos which I want to see from every political party is that this must be done. Otherwise we won’t vote for you. That’s all. So I think it’s In the past you know to be fair to this argument you both are presenting in the past say in BWSSB or in KEAB as it used to be there were people who were there for so many years and they were experts and I’ve been when I’ve gone to interview people like Ramakrishna Hegde I’ve seen these people sitting there and you know they’re giving advice there because they come in that line in in that vertical they know a lot. They have good great traction and experience. Nothing of that exists anymore. That’s the tragedy, you know. And the one more issue is happening is that though there are multiple parastatals, right? There are multiple agencies. But the city unfortunately does not know that. The city behaves like one system. Ah, city is one unit. does not know anything. So, you take the example a simple thing like Dairy Circle to IIM. It’s a small stretch of Bannerghatta Road is not even 5 km. Mhm. Yeah. Okay. The metro has gone and put a metro in the middle. Yeah. Right? Now, there somebody else has gone and put a They’re supposed to fix They broke the road. They’re supposed to fix the road. It’s gone. Now, there is a Bangalore South Corporation has come in the way of that whole thing. Now, there is a GBA overriding the whole thing. Look at the mess they have created. To create this very clear. They must lay down the organization chart and responsibility in that 5 km even at 15-20 crore a kilometer spend the money doesn’t finish it. He’s 75-80 crore of rupees. Mhm. The GBA BMRCL gives 10-2 crores to BMP. BBMP gives 2 crores to somebody else. The GBA says, “I’ll give you 5 crores to be smart.” No, what will See, see, you know, about See, I just to change the tone of this, I’ll tell you. You know, when Narasimha Rao when he came into in 1991, he told when Chidambaram and Manmohan Singh met him, they were, you know, very gloomy about our balance of payments and you know, so much so little money was there. He said, “You can actually see this as a great crisis or you can see it as a great opportunity.” Yeah. Bangalore is Karnataka is So, we have a great opportunity. great is in is in a mess. Yeah. And people will welcome any positive change change and action, you know. And respect the leader. And yes, Correct. DK Shivakumar should seize this as new idea. It’s great opportunity to do something big and a big change. But you know the funny thing is nationally valorized [laughter] this Stop doing this left pocket, right pocket, inter-government money transfer as a blockage for In in Karnataka, data is not just technology, right? Data, according to them, it’s not an app. Everything you say one app might be tiny. So, it is one yellow to one yellow to what to do after that? And data is not a dashboard. And they’ll put a dashboard and they’ll put one digital display. How do you interpret without interpret? Nobody knows how to interpret. See, you have to ask the real questions, right? Where do people live? The how are people commuting? How are they leading their daily life? Why are flood risks more in some area? Why is the mitigation Yeah, look at it. Non-functional metro. The biggest thing for a city is mobility. You’ve been talking, he’s been talking, I’ve been talking. Look at the metro. connectedness of it is not there. The metro, 20 CEOs in 24, 25 years, 5 years behind schedule, cost escalated thousands of crores. Who is responsible? You there no one single MD. When IAS officer come 2 years, they transfer him. They must any they want to send an IAS officer, he must stay for 5 years. There is nothing, no care, nobody’s nobody’s baby. And we are suffering. And now, after the line is but no trains. Look at the yellow line, yellow yellow line, how many trains? I’m monitoring the trains and writing to them, please put the train, please put the train. Every train 7 minutes, 10 minutes. Can you have a track and spend thousands of crores and save 10 minutes? there should be skills deployment and personnel personnel planning for the project, you know, lifetime. And tenure Otherwise tenure, otherwise it makes no sense, you know. Till the project finishes, somebody should be there. You can’t bring somebody new, you know, and he’ll he’ll find some new way Yeah. No, [laughter] the argument is not about density. You need planned density. It’s otherwise you’ll get unplanned sprawl, which is what is happening. very amazing thing once one told me to you. to that? No, Sharan, Sharan, no. density near the station, near TOD. We have every policy, man. 80% of population should live within 1 to 1.5 km of a station. One Bangalore, one leader. See, see, there’s one more thing I want to tell you. Mohan once, you know, during an argument, I was there in that seminar, he said we must understand when we are talking that Bangalore is a very successful city. We somehow we seem to think that, you know, you said in the beginning, you know, that people keep coming to Bangalore. They keep coming here because it’s successful. They think they can make better lives here. And we need to actually respond to that. Richest city in India. With the worst infrastructure. And we’ll have large in my other 2-3 years, largest number of billionaires in this country, in this country. And Bangalore is a city which enables people to grow, to realize their dream. The best minds from the India to come here. Sadly, we we are not able to promote our own people, and they skill them for the jobs. There’s an extraordinary, there’s no city like India, I mean, in Bangalore in India. And Bangalore is the future of new India. If you want to see what India can be in 20 years, it is happening here. You have to become that, I think. No, no, we are in people we have become, not in infrastructure, not in anything. In Naresh, where do they get this kind of talent? You talk about the talent in Bangalore for many things, Naresh. You tell you tell you tell your listeners. Cities Cities need leadership, man. See, not just management and one more parastatal every time there is a problem. Bangalore, the conversation is only about unicorns. It’s never about normal people who live They should talk about the kind of talent that they plan to study. You know, the real estate people have You know, the funniest statistic about Bangalore is that out of the all the workers here, you know, close to 50,000 people in this city, technical professionals, the world’s five biggest infrastructure design companies are based in Bangalore, employing 50,000 people. Like companies like Arcadis, companies like WS Atkins, companies like Mott MacDonald, companies like CH2M Hill, Jacobs. I mapped all of them. And they’re sitting and designing the whole world. It’s in Bangalore. I was in the national jury once. All the government has to do, I’ve been asked speaking to these people. He’s saying all the if the Chief Minister of the city calls a meeting, I will bring all five there. And they’re saying we will contribute pro bono. We will do whatever it takes. In Bangalore, we want to give tender and give the tender to the lowest common denominator. an outsider outside Karnataka? You know why? Because they want to manipulate that fellow. We want to We want to change that system now with corporate help at least to the highest common factor. We must get the best talent in the world to design the city. And the best talent in the world is sitting right here. know the funny thing is when I Yes. All that we have to do is press the trigger. If our new Chief Minister, our Mr. Shivakumar has the vision to do this, we must call You know, the world’s world is being designed in Bangalore, the infrastructure of the world. Why is it they’re not designing Bangalore itself? It’s a tragedy. No, I wanted to tell you them when I was in the national jury, 50 films had come for the final I know national awards. And it’s a really funny thing. I counted in 11 films this dialogue comes. Either the young hero or the young heroes, you know, girlfriend will say that some crisis has happened and they will say this line, “We will move to Bangalore.” In 11 films. Yeah? Yeah? In 11 films. You can recall the films if you want. These are global films. No, no, Indian films. It’s an Indian aspiration to come to Bangalore. Young people want to come to Bangalore. There are other such cities also, but Bangalore I think is Most of my friends in college wanted to come because there’s an aspirational factor. You know, are jobs and And you can shift jobs every 3 years and get paid 30% more. In which city can you get it done? The depth of the middle class in Bangalore is extraordinary, right? We got more depth of well-earning middle class in this city than any city in India. Yeah. You walk around Bangalore, young people spending money, well-dressed. Yeah. You go to Mumbai, yeah, it is there, but you know, smaller number. You go to Chennai, it is not there. Chennai is a real poor city. Yeah. Then you go to Calcutta, it’s not there. You go to Delhi, in some pockets it’s there, but it’s not there to the same level. Am I right, Naresh? Gurgaon has, but Gurgaon has. But Gurgaon [clears throat] is smaller. Yeah. That’s also a floating population. I I think the greatest realization, I hope with the new leadership, is that is that the city we have to realize the city behaves like one system. Yes. The government behaves like it’s a bunch of silos. Beautiful, yes. So, if you can if you the our leader new leader can understand this one single One one good thing is he’s got big stakes in the city. [laughter] Which I His economic future is linked to the city. His family is linked to the city. No, no, most important future is linked to the city. Most important with Mr. D.K. Shivakumar, for the first time, we have a leader who’s educated in Bangalore and Who educated in Bangalore, grew up in Bangalore. and grew up here. Even S.M. Krishna? Which one? S.M. Krishna also did not study He studied He did not study in Bangalore. He studied there, he went studied in America and came back here. This is the first time we have always politicians who have ruled this city have come from somewhere else in the state and have seen Bangalore as a site of exploitation. Has never seen site of inhabitation. See, Because he’s a good guy. is also involved with real estate in Bangalore. He sees this as his own. No, even parts of rural Maharashtra, Vidarbha, today has very good infrastructure because an urban chief minister, that too who grew up in a close city like Nagpur, is in power. Bangalore needs a chief minister who was born in this state. It’s a period of urbanization. Yeah. In the next census we’ll have 40% of population from urban areas. Part number one. So, India will have to change. Second, in the next census, the people who are going to be voters are the post-90 generation who don’t bother about caste, religion, all that nice stuff. But, they’ve been doing villages, villages, this romance about villages. Yeah. Who wants to live in villages? 70% of farmer children don’t want to live because there’s no future. We are not invested in villages. Yeah. And this romantic notion, farmers are another data. Yeah, but we got 43% of working population in villages. They don’t They’re not earning money. I’ll give you some data. You look at the national income and segregated between agriculture, industry, and services. Agriculture is 90,000 rupees. Mhm. Per capita. Industry is 250,000. Services 350,000. Yeah. Jobs have to be in services for them to earn money. Yeah. In agriculture, 63% of the workforce is women. Men are running away. Men are going because they can’t earn money. Women are there because of animal husbandry, dairy, and all this thing, which is good. They’re not taking children for construction. Mhm. So, India has changed. Now, do we have the governance mechanism for the India that is there today? No. Mhm. Do you have an urban management structure and governance structure for what is required today and what is required for the future? No. That is the shortfall that has to be done. Do you folks agree? Yeah, absolutely. Naresh says that I agree. I was listening to Shekhar Gupta this morning and the kind of things about DKS he was telling, I thought it would be a very political, you know, like a monologue. But, actually he said that Bangalore is one of the most forward cities and Karnataka is a major economy. It’s in the top five economies in, you know, in the states in India. Plus, it has the second biggest amount of arid land. So, it is important that we actually allocate resources. Plus, we were able to survive COVID because of the services sector, because we were able to work from home. So, we have what If Karnataka fails, it’ll be a big disaster for is our politicians what Bangalore is. Yeah. You know, Naresh, we went to government and told them, “Come and see outer ring road.” The minister for Bangalore those days, I don’t want to say who is, which push him to come. You must take all the latest station outer ring road. And they must go inside a tech park like Manyata. Manyata has got 1 lakh 90,000 people working. Go see all the buildings, all the greenery, go see and come out say see the filthy dirty road and say aren’t you ashamed ashamed you’re doing this? It’s the biggest street in the world. 9 lakh people working. Each one paid 15-20 lakhs. Which street in the world has this? Which street in India has this? I mean they don’t even know the thing. You know, they don’t even want to go there. If you just allow them to look after it themselves, they’ll do a very good job in one month. Yeah. This is the problem. the structures I have seen in this city. in the way of development. That is the problem. Recently on the outer ring road, the same place you’re talking about, opposite whatever you said just now. There too, there was a link problem between the main road and the tech park made by a big developer. So, they were not Whatever you do, it took 3 years to say it they won’t do it. They’re not doing it. They’re not doing it. The developer said, “I will pay.” Okay. A 1.3 km flyover. Oh, he built it himself. 8 months. I mean, I was the architect. Oh, you’re the architect. 8 months. 8 We finished the flyover and opened it the day before yesterday in 8 months. Oh my god. From zero design to execute to finish. And like you were saying, you let them do it. They will they do it themselves. The amount of systems coming in the way of not doing it. Naresh, when many people say I want to build this road, I want to be free of cost, they don’t give permission. Permission more important than citizen’s welfare for these fellows. What do you do with these fellows? Yeah. Same thing. What do you do with these fellows? Actually, Naresh is [laughter] on the receiving end because Naresh is on the receiving end because when he beautified the Church Street, now people are saying, “Why is only church street like that? Why isn’t No, we have given a proposal 10 more streets in Bangalore. I’ve given the list saying, “Do it.” No, it’s not true. They did two more. Mhm. Which one they spoiled, which I had to recover, which is Commercial Street. Which now works perfectly. And we did one more in Food Street in Basavanagudi, which is also working well. Right. But I’ve given seven more on the list out there. Mhm. Let me do it. No, you know, Sharath, You know the formula. He’s an architect born here, Mhm. very successful architect. He’s spending his time, his money for Bangalore. Why don’t you call him and say, “Naresh, tell us how to improve Bangalore?” Mhm. GBI commissioner should call him, make him an advisor. And they must call them and tell them, “Do some things.” He will give his time and he’ll do it. You’ll get the best global advice free of cost. Yeah. And you sit down with your people, debate it and finish it and do it. Yeah. And here is a man who is epitome of culture, Kannadiga culture. Mhm. Whose heart beats for Kannada. You can’t find a bigger Kannada Kannadiga than him. Call him and tell him, “In the whole of Karnataka, how do you improve the arts? How do you improve our language? How do you improve the cultural artifacts from Karnataka?” He will tell you what is wrong. Will you get this kind of people willing to spend their time and energy in any city in the world? Mhm. I mean, any city in India. You don’t. Correct. I’ve been to so many cities. Yeah. People just come, sit there, do some la-la-la la-la and go away. Yeah. There’s no concrete suggestion, no detail. We set up that $1 trillion committee. We set it up. We did everything, ran it. Ullas Kamath did it. Published a report. Mhm. Look at it, man. You’re not thought of it. I met a development commissioner in a event where Quest was having a uh you know, starting some public policy thing. Development commissioner. They’re talking about oh, in rural areas, we have to give cows, we have to do dairy giri. Then I said, “Madam, Karnataka’s per capita GDP is $5,000. In 5-6 years, it’ll be $10,000. Have you thought about what is required to go there and provide jobs?” No, I’ve not thought of beyond my pay grade. What are these people thinking? What What these people thinking and doing? They’re not thinking what is required for the future of Karnataka. They think we must buy more cows, give the cows to women, they must milk. I mean, that is not what Karnataka is. Yeah, that’s important. Important, but that’s not what the future is. You’re not investing enough in the future. And look at this, they Kannada should have primacy. You ask him of the pathetic state of culture spending in Karnataka. How much do you spend on Kannada? How much do you spend on thing, arts and culture in Karnataka? How do we encourage Kannada? No, really. You have this classical language for Kannada. Are there people who know classical language? You can do research, you can write and all that. Prakash, tell us. They don’t even lionize them. You don’t even if you have to list the names, you know, top 10 names, very few people will know them. Know anybody. Nobody knows what the money that the government spends on Kannada is contributing to Kannada, you know? They have built auditoria everywhere, for instance. We don’t know how they’re managed. Who runs them. We don’t know because it is maintained by in in Bangalore itself, I’ve said this many times. I’ll give you a simple example in 1 minute. Town Hall is owned by, you know, Bangalore, yeah, BBMP. Ravindra Kalashetra Kannada and Culture. Kannada Bhavan by Kannada and Culture Department. Then, you know, Yavnika and Guru Nanak Bhavan is owned by Youth Services, Youth Services. Balbhavan is owned by Child Development. Child Development. And you know, there is that Gubbi Veeranna Theatre is owned by corporation. Corporation. So, like there is there is no Ranga Shankara, one small private thing. Correct. It has changed in Naresh once used a very good way. He said, you know, it shifted the center center of gravity for theatre in Bangalore. Yeah. There are places in in Karnataka. See, in Mangalore, the TMA You know. It [clears throat] has just changed the game there. Change the game there, you know, the the Mangalore Lit Fest. I mean, I don’t want to upset anybody. The Mangalore Lit Fest is is in my opinion better than the Bangalore Lit Fest. [laughter] It’s it’s got greater value, you know. Very good people come. Very good curation. More open. People of different views come. I was against that. Very good Even leftists come there, yeah. Bangalore has been captured by two or three people who only talk I spoke to Ravi Chandra and told him open up everybody. I wanted Anand Ranganathan to come. They won’t invite him. I want Vikram Sampath to come who’s one of the greatest writers. They will not, you know, Vikram Sampath was, you know, driven out from the out, yeah. From Bangalore. He’s one of our greatest jewels. Yeah. I mean, okay. He was the founder of the Lit Fest and he was cancelled. You know, No, even translation projects. Okay, there are great Kannada if you go to any government office, you know, they put those those Jnanpith Award winners. The Jnanpith is not even a Government of India Award. It is not Karnataka’s. It is given by the Times of India Families Foundation. Okay, the Jnanpith Award. That’s what they put. They should have put their own the awards they give to their own people, they should have put, okay, but they don’t even they don’t even do that recognition. It’s done by somebody else. The infrastructure to recognize culture, to reward culture, to inculcate culture is not there in Karnataka. One thing I will tell you, what does art do for you? Art does this Humanizes. This this extraordinary thing. We cannot control what happens to our personal destinies or to destinies of our peoples, who, you know, because, you know, we are always coping with reality that keeps intervening. But in art you can actually create endings that you want. You can make act your characters do what you want. Whether it’s a painting or whatever, you can you can do something with that you imagine and you project. And from that you can learn, which is which is why theater is a great thing. You can learn from the consequence there. The Mahabharat will continue to to teach you great lessons, which is why which makes people proud, you know, being being who you are. You you feel proud if if Kannada wins an award, correct? So, out there was a time when Kannada cinema led was one of the leaders of India before Malayalam actually took over. You know, it was Navya In the ’60s and ’70s, it was very big. The Kannada cinema it was you know, we were we were very big with theater. So, all of our stalwarts were in Delhi, you know, at that time. Yeah. It was big in the arts and culture in Karnataka, very big. Government came in in a big way, gave big money to arts and culture, and completely made put caste and communal ideas into it and destroyed it, you know. Right. Kannada schools have been destroyed in Karnataka. Why does government declare that we will open a Kumaraswamy I mean, well-meaning, but you know, he said we will open Kannada medium 1,000 Kannada medium schools when he was the chief minister. Actually, don’t open Kannada medium schools. I’ll close with this. Lankesh once said something very great, you know, to He said, “You you make Kannada medium compulsory, but teach English very very well as a language. Or you make English medium compulsory. You make English medium available, but teach Kannada compulsively as a good language.” This is what he said. You don’t have an See, if you have your own intent, you’ll do it well. You like the confusion because, you know, No, no, Prakash. Prakash, tell me, do the politicians send their children to English medium school? Can’t you name any one? No, they send them abroad. Sir, your driver or the maid in your house will not send them. Prakash, [laughter] Prakash, forget politicians. Our former our chief former chief minister was so proud. My grandson went to Canadian International School, and he was tweeting. I was so I was shocked. I said, “Man, you you you send wherever Why are you tweeting and you are saying Canada should go to Canada medium government school. Now a bit about the English show and you’re sitting your grandson then you say I can’t decide for him my son decides. But what about your son? You want your son to go abroad do well. Why don’t you wish for everybody in the state give them good education. The Karnataka knowledge commission you know, I mean he knows about this he’s very good with stats you know, 43% of higher education is spent on arts. Why is the government running arts colleges? Who is asking for it? Right. What can you do with an arts graduate you tell me? Yeah. Now now tell me Naresh, if you were appointed minister for Bangalore, what would you do? What are the big things that you’ll do? The first thing is I’ll reframe the word development. Because in Karnataka development Bangalore particularly, the word development means flyover or a tunnel is a flyover by another name. Lower. All the focus is on making cars move faster, okay? And I would say development should include like you’re pointing out culture. I would primacy I think without culture there’s no point doing infrastructure. If you ask me you need infra culture you even more than infrastructure. Right [laughter] without a culture there’s no point. Two I would collapse the all the parastatals into one and we already have an existing institution called the BMRDA. It is time to look at the Bangalore metropolitan region. This BBMP boundary, GBA boundary, BDA boundary all that put together is 1,300 square kilometers. The Bangalore metropolitan region which is not my idea. Mr. Ramakrishna Hegde told me that in the late 80s saying that Bangalore does like that there. Like NCR Not today. In or something he told me that 1987 some ridiculously long ago. No, even Mumbai is going up to Kalyan, no? Look at the vision. Like NCR. Yeah, so what I’m saying is people are not voting coming to Bangalore because of good weather. They’re definitely not coming here because of traffic. Right? They’re only coming here by economic opportunity. And a guy coming from Noida or Western UP or something like that into Bangalore, he doesn’t mind. The young guy wants an aspirational lifestyle. If I put him in Tumkur, if I put him in Hoskote with an economic opportunity and social opportunity. It cannot be only economic. No, his children have to go to a good school. He has to go to a good place for schooling. He has to have access to culture. If if you do not desensitize this and much more beyond Bangalore. As I told you I was there in Mangalore, the Silicon Beach project. You were there I believe also. I met Rohit Bhat and all the work is there. I think it’s a great idea. I mean and it’s an You must work with them. It’s an Yeah, I am working with them. It’s an environmentally sensitive strip. I really think technology and IT particularly needs to move out of Bangalore into the rest of Karnataka and the level of Bangalore’s economic output should come down to 50-60% of the state’s output. Right now it’s gone to 80% of the state output, I think. Correct me if I’m wrong. bit less, but you’re right. Somewhere I think we should come down to less at least not more than Naresh, please understand one thing. You can’t force people to go. You have to create Create the opportunity. I’m using the word create. I will have Tumkur, but Ramesh, I’ll tell you one thing. So, if you have the Bangalore metropolitan region as a as a governance structure. It’ll work. NCR. Yeah, we will I had Do you remember long ago we said if NCR is there, why can’t we have an SCR? A state capital region. Correct. Why not? Why why not? Why only NCR? I’m sure he’ll do it. Because for him Yeah. When you say SCR Everything Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, right now. Yeah. You should tell him. Since he talks to you, you should tell him. He won’t talk to me. He talks to everyone. Don’t worry. Public transport is essential for a city, any city. What is public transport? Bus transport Metro. Yeah. And rail. Can I add one more And and the And footpaths. Footpaths, yes. Politicians have to see footpaths as development. And every city should be a walking city, especially Bangalore. Yeah. Now, we need 500 km of metro, so no house is more than 1 to 1 and 1/2 km from metro station. You must have a footpath there, so people can walk. I walk to office every day, 2 and 1/2 km one way. Mhm. I’m sure he walks. He walks He walks everywhere. He goes by metro in Bangalore. He comes from far away, some godforsaken place he stays there. Okay? road, Raj Bhavan road. He’s He’s from Srirampuram. That is why there’s problem. Seshadripuram, Nehru Nagar. Nehru Nagar. Between Malleshwaram and Basavanagudi. Used to call it Swastik Theater. Yeah. You live in part of Malleshwaram, not Basavanagudi. Swastik Theater. And Swastik Theater. And you live in Malleshwaram, right? We need 15,000 buses for Bangalore. Yeah. And we should have EV buses by 2030. What does Ramalinga Reddy say? Should we have smaller buses because the larger What does Ramalinga say? Only BMTC should run. Now I want speak private private thieves private charge market either market is giving subsidy and losing 1000 crores a year. Yeah. Why don’t you allow tell me what is the public impression? Is is government corrupt or private corrupt? No, it’s both the corrupt perhaps but government is definitely corrupt. And you know these people don’t trust their own citizens who pay taxes and their taxes is run by them. Ramalinga Reddy doesn’t understand the buses are run by your taxes. His job is not to run a bus service. He’s not a businessman. His job is to provide mobility and regulate the service. Whoever provides mobility allow them to come. How can you shut down the bus service at 11:00? People are working after that. How can you shut it down? See this I mean this mentality sir government market now I am market. Whose money is it? They don’t understand that they are there to help citizen improve their life. They are representative not the maliks. They think they are the kings we are subjects. Yeah. So we vote them then we are subjects. Why doesn’t he allow private sector to run let me out the city of startups allow startups run 500 buses then you run 500 buses. I think you are you are asking for a generational change. You see the 14 people who were sworn in yesterday. All older. 12 are older than the chief minister. Only two are gay Priyank and that other gentleman one are younger than him. Shivakumar used this term that he will bulldoze his way through last time when he got you know when he become deputy chief minister. He can bulldoze over them and actually do I hope that the next level of cabinet do there are no women. No no he told me. no women. No no Naresh he told me. Support in a mail in the yellow agree market yellow approval market. He told me now not chief minister I mean nobody in market. Now he’s chief minister like he said he must bulldoze thing do things that are right for city and say change because his future is linked to that. Absolutely. Get younger people Get younger No women involved. Not even one woman is brought in. one woman. What is this? You know, and get people who are younger than 50 years old. And people who are from outside of politics also you bring, you know. Yeah. Why not bring a Jaishankar here, you know? Why don’t you tell me? Or get Ashwini Vaishnaw. Why is this antipathy towards women in Karnataka politics? Why don’t women get the rightful place You know that there will be a We know that there will be 50% of population. Why is it? I I can’t understand this easily because I feel in in in our literature or in our in our at least in a higher higher register interaction communication women are women are held in a high much higher regard. Somehow in politics, Karnataka politicians are really conservative. They do not want women. And they are conservative, are patriarchal and biased. Patriarchal patriarchal definitely. And biased. Biased or more than biased, I think they’re afraid of being dominated by women. Let me put it that way. See for instance, you know, let me dare and use the name. All the men in BJP were so scared of that Shobha Karandlaje because I thought her thought of her as more efficient than most of these ministers, you know. Yeah. But they really have to fight, you know, to to stay you know, relevant in politics. In Karnataka male politicians make it extremely difficult for women to shine. Yeah. Yeah, I that is true. But why didn’t Siddaramaiah as a master of Ahinda politics promote women? It would have been good for him. I feel I think his affection for, you know, Ahinda you know, is is less impor- less important than his cultural moorings which make him patriarchal perhaps. Yeah. Yeah, if I would say that you rate DK? I you DK will get more women into politics? More women missing? You think so? Actually younger people More younger people. I think I’ve been making many quips, but I should not do it. But he’s definitely urban, and I think he’ll be more, you know, open to women’s participation. So we need more women participation in politics. We need more women ministers. We need more women ward councilors. Women should come more, get their rightful share, at least 30 40% in the next 4 or 5 years. No, no, no. Not just get women and put them in charge of child and family. No, no, no. Child and family welfare. Our Tamil [laughter] Nadu next door I know. If you get a minority person, they put him in charge of minority affair. I mean, whatever his capacity is. You see next door to us in Tamil Nadu, the chief minister is 45 years old or 46 years old. Can you guess who is the industries minister? That is S. Keerthana. She’s

Right. Oh. She’s a political consultant minister. Gita Gopinath is from My- is from Mysore. Yes. She’s the head She’s the leading IMF. Mysore or above? She’s Gopalan’s daughter, no? That’s S.R. Gopalan. She’s originally Originally from She’s originally Malayali. But from Mysore. Mysore, yeah. Karnataka. From Mysore. Are they S.R. Gopalan’s daughter? The Tamil leader? No? No, no. But I’m saying that if you if the state of the most second most industrialized state of India is Tamil Nadu, right? Yeah. After Maharashtra, the second most indus- They can trust the future of that state with a 28-year-old woman. Right? And who is the minister of industry? You think we don’t have enough toughies here in Karnataka? Come on. I mean, I I at least know at least 10 15 women here who’ll be happy to step up given a chance. Even in the Even in the There are people from National Law School who are MLAs in this city. Mhm. Mhm. There are people from There are MLAs who have studied in in the National Law School. don’t even give them tickets to contest. You know, it’s very It’s very strongly controlled. But in the 33% reservation is essential It’s a It’s a very good thing. Let’s not be just be lip service. We should do it. And I think really one of the great things I think with the Mr. Shivakumar makes up his mind is to bring in this 30 33% before waiting for anybody else to do it. And don’t give some side ministry, put them in the Give home. Give a home to Very good. You finance actually. According to them. Yeah, give some Law and order will improve. Protection for women and children will improve. Everything will be improved. And public transport will improve. Public transport will improve. Give it to women. Yeah, I really think of important ministries at least three or four of them should go to So, Sharath, if you’re based on discussion, what do we need for GBA? One, we need a massive restructuring of the GBA corporation structure to have their own cater. We need a strong cater. Work allocation, areas of responsibility. Single agenda for Bangalore. We need a single agenda for Bangalore and that has to be driven by the Chief Minister himself as Minister for Bangalore Yeah. through the Metropolitan Development Agency so that it will be there and all the parastatal developing here. Third, we need a state capital region of all the areas around. So, all political leaders who got land in the Tumkur they all feel happy, their land price will go, they’ll make money and they’ll support development. And the next, we need multiple transport system. We need a public transport system of 50,000 EV buses run on by anybody in Bangalore. We need 500 km metro for Bangalore. We need fast trains all over. We need multiple ring roads connecting the entire entire area of the national state capital region so that we have a very good mobility system. And then, we need the outskirts of Bangalore to be developed as 15-minute cities which Naresh can say where there is social infrastructure, business infrastructure, cultural infrastructure, everything there so people don’t have to travel anywhere. And they should be linked by high-speed rail and metro to various areas and public transport so people are well connected. And then, we need a cultural vision for Bangalore and for Karnataka so that, you know, our language Kannada is really invested in. We have people like him come everywhere. And next, we need a group of experts who know urban governance, urban infrastructure like Naresh and others. Get the best talent in the world which happens to be in Bangalore to work with the Chief Minister and do everything else. And we need all these reforms in the next 100 days and drive it in the next 365 days so people at the end of 300 days see some results. And for that, we need a one-time clean up of Bangalore. 30 days clean up. Everybody should go sweep and clean it up. Second, in 6 months, fill up all the potholes and do it. Third, run the ORR road. Clean up the ORR road for which Naresh has worked a plan. He’s got a plan ready. He’s given it. Clean it up and do it. And go meet everybody and do it. And look at all the 12 high-speed corridors. Traffic got to clean them up. The mouth of the corridor should be very wide. And then, drive the metro. Clean up the metro management. Get a dynamic officer there. So, metro end of the year will be 200 km. And give hope and communicate to people. Am I right? And involve experts like Naresh, Prakash in as advisers to the CM so that, you know, they get good advice because where will you get a guy like him? Where will you get a guy like him? He’s willing to work, spend his time. The guy can earn billions. And this guy can, you know, change the world. He goes to Australia and he’s a shooting there, making there some silly films. Why can’t you give his advice to Karnataka? And bring women and bring women with the heart into politics. to the government. Because women are going to be the biggest voters next year. All across India in the last 5 years, percent women voting has gone up and women are the determinants of politics and power. And that’s what Modi has realized. And Modi is focusing on that. And if you want to create your own space in politics, you have to give the primary primacy to women in politics, to women as voters, and to young people because the voters in 2028-29 are going to be largely those born after

90. They don’t care about Indira Gandhi, Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru, Rajiv Gandhi. They care about growth, development, jobs. I want my car, I want a big house, I want to go holiday here, here. That’s what they want. Am I right, Prakash?

One more thing I’ll add. With the probably political boy. In the pattern that we’re observing now, wherever there is dynastic succession, okay, the government is gone. Gone. Wherever there is a dynastic I mean in West Bengal, Abhishek has been promoted. TMC broke yesterday on the back of not Mamata. On the back of Abhishek. Yesterday, the all the MLAs yesterday said 58 of them said, “We still We still think Mamata is our leader, but we cannot deal with this fellow. We are separated.” See the statement today. What happened in Tamil Nadu? Same thing. The sun also rises. The sun rises. And it set. The party falls. Party set. Party set. In Kerala, his son-in-law is promoted. Party gone. Party gone. Everywhere, this pattern I think Indian politicians have to understand these two things. One is whoever is the majority population, please don’t insult us. Don’t insult the majority population. Don’t Do not decry our practices. Do not We are not saying anything about anybody else’s practices. You are welcome to do your thing. You are welcome to do your thing, but you cannot say Sanatana Dharma is bad. You cannot decry any Hindu practices archaic or out of That is our problem. We will We We stopped Sati sometime ago. We will stop other unequal behavior And you stop in your own religion. You stop You stop that in your own You don’t tell us what to do. No, no. Our I think the biggest enemy of Hindus are Hindus themselves. And And two It’s a good thing to have inside your critics. And two It’s a good thing, but not like this. And two abusive. Please stop all politicians. Please note the pattern. If you promote a dynast, you will lose sooner or later. And this is pattern is happening now. Karnataka should learn from that and really Why is that? People are fed up? People don’t want People see it as unnecessary privilege and too young Somebody needs time to become mature as a politician. You want to prove yourself. Yeah, and you have to also show that you can do it, right? And it pains, you know, if I were to are If you are given a you’re a 30-year-old guy just because you’re born to the Chief Minister and you become the powerful I did not know it is tiring, you know, but it is See, think about it. It annoys me. Basavaraj Bommai, you know, was a boring choice. You know, Yatindra is a boring choice. There is There’s Vijayendra is a boring choice. He doesn’t inspire any What is that? confidence in us, you know. No, in my own college in Christ We want fresh people, you know, who think who’ve self-made, you know. I want to ask another question to both of you. Yeah, tell me. No, I’m not saying all children of politicians are bad. In my own college, like if I were to give an example, one of the youngest MPs in Karnataka, I don’t want to take the name, he’s a nice kid, but he does not represent anything new. He was our batchmate. He’s of the same age. He’s around 25, 26, I think, when he was elected. And there is nothing new that he represents. He’s not a bad man, but you know that constituency that he represents requires somebody extremely innovative. So, why put such people and when everybody are at the helm of Even the spokespersons that you see, the younger faces in whether it’s in Congress, JD(S), BJP, they’re all dynasts. No, but I want to ask you another question. If they’re competent and they prove themselves Then it’s not a problem. Please do it. But Naresh, I want to ask you, Prakash and Sharad, one one important thing. Why do good people like you, Prakash, Sharad, not enter politics to become leaders? What is holding back good people? For example, if you look at America, many young people like Vivek Ramaswamy finish their business, they I want to to get into politics. I want to change that lead look at public service. They participate. They participate in the local politics, go to the state politics, then go to the country politics. We will try for presidency. Why don’t good people one line Now, you’ve been here long enough. You’ve been here long. But, why don’t people in the 25, 30s, 40s get into politics and drive and why don’t people like you, our generation, support them with money and other things? We started this country saying cast your vote. But, unfortunately, today it’s vote your cast. Okay? What has happened to our country? It’s not changing. What is happening is every If you look at the swearing in yesterday, nobody’s qualifications are discussed. Three from OBC, three from majority community, three from minority, three from Kuruba community. No, Naresh, tell me. In the voters who are below 40, is cast very important? Is religion very important? There’s There’s There’s No, in the urban in the urbanized in the urbanized areas, it’s not much. But, you’re right. In the future, with newer political parties emerging, cast will begin to decline. And I can see you you can perhaps in the future begin to see from from a college level itself where there be young people who would want to go into politics. It will happen. [clears throat] It’s going to remain nice. You look at uh If T.V.K. Vijay is today confident that he wants to enter the GBA elections and contest in Bangalore, he knows that there is a certain cast base. He knows that there is a certain language base, right? Like, cast may not be the most dominant factor in south Well, just outside this place and I’m turning the corner. In Kannada, there is a board saying Tamilaga Vetri Vetri Kalagam. You’re right here. I take you to the bus stop. to take a photograph but I was getting late. I didn’t stop. It is in Kannada. No, we don’t want Tamil politics to come here. I am not saying but they will. There are a lot of people here. Dravidian hate politics. We want Kannada politics. That hate politics we don’t definitely don’t want here. That everybody is some So, but the issue is that you will also see there is a is very clear. Our our state anthem says Jaya Bharata Jananiya Tanujaate. Bharata Madhulu Bharata Jananiya Tanujaate. Tanujaate. We are born to mother Bharata. Ah. It’s very clear. Jaya He Karnataka Maate. Karnataka mother Karnataka is born to mother Then I want to ask you one thing since you brought it up. Repeat the two lines again. Jaya Bharata Jananiya Tanujaate. Jaya He Karnataka Maate. Karnataka Maate, Bharata Janani Tanujaate. Tanujaate. Mhm. It is Mother Earth, Mother Bharat. Then why are people protesting against Vande Bharat? I mean, Vande Mataram. Because Vande Mataram talks about No, that is that is clearly because of what the Congress party did. I am sorry. Karnataka we sing the state song and this you know communal parties and communal people they don’t protest against the state song. It talks about the same concept as Vande Mataram. It is a legacy problem. No, no, no. Mohan, because Pandit Nehru protested against you know some verses in my Vande Mataram. So, like you know that it is it carries on. See, Anandamath was a very specific project. The idea of Mother India in modern India came from Bankim. Actually, Bankim is the Anandamath is the is the architect of the of the imagination of modern India. He’s a He’s idea of Mother India is the one that prevails all over India. And united us. We do not recognize Bankim as much as we should do and I put the blame on the Jyoti Basu years in in in West Bengal. Bankim was a was a great he was a great thinker. Even the word Navodaya literature in Karnataka came because of Bankim Bankim’s Navodaya But but tell me what is Kuvempu’s vision of Karnataka Kannada society? How did he want the society to grow because I’m sure you have read and the state anthem is so beautiful. Beautiful it is. So he unifies everybody. He unifies He uses names from all over India. And unifies he he he mentions the deities of India. He mentions the all the cultures of India, all the great communities, religious communities of India and he says it in the in in the Kannada language. Kuvempu’s idea of of of of Kannada was that Kannada Kannada was the lens or the Kannada was the eyes through which you had your awareness of the world. You the entire existence of You know you you see the world of the Kannada. From from from Kannada eyes. From Kannada and rooted in your culture. said Vishwamanava He never saw Kannada as you know some landlocked thing. He says you imagine the entire universe as if from a Kannada from a Kannada uh imagination as a as with the Kannada as the instrument to enable the vision, you know. He was a I mean there were great people. me tell me Prakash how do we create a Kannada identity? We are proud Kannada. I’m a Konkani but I’m a proud Kannada, proud Konkani, proud Indian, proud Bangalorean. How do you create a Kannada identity that unifies all of us in Karnataka? Yeah. So that this can unify all of us and how should it guide our Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar in ruling the state in the future? How should it guide political parties in the future so that they can have their own lobbies but culturally we get unified. So you know how what is your advice to him to look at Kuvempu as the source of our unification culture? I will there is this painful otherization also which happens these days which was not there in Bangalore. At least that culture of integration was largely there. Today if Mohan says something on the internet, they call him, “Oh, you’re a Tuluva, you’re a Konkani.” Things like that. there there was two there have been two experiments tried on this and we should mention them. When we got when Ekikarana happened, you know, in unified Karnataka happened. See, you know, there was a there was this idea of what Kannada should be the official Kannada of Karnataka because 30 regions came together to do it. So, these great writers, Kuvempu and all that, they wrote all these Kannada Karnataka songs you know, in a certain kind of language. And you know, they they borrowed this language from the Vachana, you know, Sahitya of 12th century and later the the, you know, the Dasa Bhakti Sahitya of the of the 16th to 18th centuries, they took from Sarvajna, from the Dasapadaga, you know, all that. And they found a Kannada that would that was artificial and acceptable across Karnataka. So, the news is read in that Kannada and lyrics for cinema and the dialogue for cinema was written in that Kannada so that people feel unified by a single language. I want Prakash to tell us since he’s a intellectual, whatever it means, he’s a Kannadiga, man of culture, passion, Bangalorean, been here long time, seen everything. What is your vision? What should be our vision of Karnataka? Based upon getting people together and what should be the driving forces to unify all of us despite our differences and other we should have difference. The first I will say is the Sing that song that you told us. I was telling him that I I told you You uh Ananthamurthy once uh Naresh knows me very well and I sing this song many times, but this is these are the lyrics. You know, then he says Okay? I said this and Ananthamurthy said, “You know, it’s beautiful. Who is the poet?” I said, “Sir, it’s a film song.” “Who?” I told him. Because in 1972, Kanna Mysore was named Karnataka. And there was some objection. So, you know, the film film community Who stepped up? lyricists stepped up, great lyricists stepped up, directors stepped up, Sahitis like Kuvempu and all these people have been had been doing this work already when unification happened in 1956. They they all came together to be to be writing songs saying, you know, Kannada is one idea that can unite us because there was so many Kannadas. So, they all manufactured in a sense, synthesized a language that everybody could use for news, for official information, print to print textbooks and all that. That was not a Kannada spoken particularly in any place. It was borrowed from all kinds of legacy Kannada from 12th century Rachanas and all that. And that is how it happened. I say this because Explain this what this lyric is. That this lyric is saying, you know, in because the Vokkaligas, for instance, did not want unification. Okay, for some time. Because they said they would be a burden on the state. They were the dominant community of Mysore and they did not want unification, for instance. So, then Did the Lingayats want unification? The Lingayats came from, you know, really occupied areas. They were not treated by their kings as well as Mysore was treated. Correct. Okay. So, the fractured histories were there. And the coast? And, you know, the coast was quite See, the It was called Malabar district. Bombay. Bombay It was It was called Kannada district because it was ruled by, you know, Madras Presidency. Madras or Bombay? Or the Bombay Udupi Udupi and Mangalore was Madras Presidency. And, you know, Dharwad and all that was used Bombay. Canara was used by was Mumbai Bombay Presidency. So, to for they were happy to not be in the margins, to be included. But, they had that used They grew with common cultures and many Marathi words had crept crept into, you know, the Dharwadi Kannada. And, actually, the purest Kannada, even now, I will say in coastal Karnataka, you know, the Udupi Mangalore. The Kannada they speak is so beautiful because that is why in Kannada cinema is lifted because the the Mangalore boys are coming here and making Kannada films. And their Kannada is so well spoken, you know. So, in this in this he’s saying teach us to be together. Prema Karuneya Kalisi, she, you know, Shanti, teaches peace, love, and all that. And mutual respect. Vondada Deshadalli, although they we have come together as Ekikarana, united Kannada Pranthya province, we have become Karnataka. Vondada Deshadalli Deshadalli Hondi Balada Suthara, we don’t know how to be live together. Sutha are children, you know. When Suthara Hosa Besugeli, asking the Kannada mother, Kannada Thai, to bring us together. Then he says this thing about outsiders we say I I told Ananthamurthy another thing in a seminar actually when Mohandas Pai was present. He yelled at me in that seminar. Ananth Ananthamurthy was also in that panel. Shobha De also was there. So I I told Ananthamurthy, I said, “Sir, you also come from somewhere to Bangalore.” He said, “You know, what does that mean?” I said, “Sir, all of us who come to a city by displacing people who are there. It’s the nature of cities that people come from any everywhere. They disrupt the old agriculture or whatever practice was there and they create a big city and it’s a different opportunity. So from time to time new influx of people will keep That’s how That’s the nature of a city. And you know, G.V. Iyer who wrote the lyrics says, you know, Yav Enne Adaru, whatever the fuel is and whatever the labor is or skill deployed, Yav Enne Adaru Belaguvude Guri Emba, that it will give you light. Please infuse this philosophy in the population. And then when they’re all together working and they prosper together, Yedayantara Ladin, from their heart will spurt, you know, this emerge this fountain which sings Kannada Kannada, he says, you know. He says you It is not by imposing Kannada first that you teach them a love and affection for Kannada. You give them an opportunity to benefit from being Kannada that they will become Kannada. That also explains the love And my last line on this I’ll tell you which irritates, you know, Kannada activists, I’ll tell you. I am more interested in Kannadigas than in Kannada. If Kannadigas cannot prosper, what is the point of Kannada prospering, you know? Kannadigas should prosper. They should get better jobs, better education. You should give them education that is accessible in English. Can you give them science, international law, politics, taught law, you know, economics in Kannada? Do you have teachers? Even if it’s translated by Google or AI today, do you have teachers to teach? What what are you doing, you know? How can these societies, you know, impose these conditions to ignorant chief ministers and you know, education ministers in Karnataka? Educated education minister in Karnataka is completely uneducated person, you know? How can we How can we have How can you do this damage to your future generation? They should have equal access to equal education. See, when when one of my liberal friends, who is a well-known person, so I don’t want to tell his name, he says, “Minority institutions can have their rights because they should have equal access to education.” I said, “They should have equal access to equal education.” You cannot say minority institutions will impart religious education, you know? You’re cheating the child of what it deserves. You’re cheating the cheating the child from the benefits of being a citizen of India. This is what I’m saying. Kannada also should grow like that. And the government should step out of areas where it is not competent, you know, to you know, to prosecute Vishwamana Vishwamana Parikalpane. This is This is, you know, Kuvempu’s You see, to summarize, see, when a Kannada child is born, you know, its its entire awareness of of existence, its consciousness, its perception of comes from it being Kannada. It has no other way of learning anything. All the vegetables, all the food it eats, all the things around it, everything it knows in Kannada. It is knowing the universe. You’re not validating that language. You know, a farmer may may better than a botany professor, you know, in what happens in his area with its soil, okay? But because it does not use the language that you recognize, you’re saying he is ignorant. Actually, you don’t know anything about it. The problem is if you can get this language to work for them, and you treat you treat their knowledge as knowledge that you can use in your agricultural university, you know, there is there is worth in it for them to be those things. Now, you’re trying to say you cannot be a knowledgeable person if you know only your language. You should know English. But I will not teach you English in government-run schools. What kind of justice is that? So, when he says Vishwamānava, he says you should always be Kannada because that’s your fundamental equipment to learn. You’ll never learn as well as you’ve learned from that, you know. But everything else from the world you should get from Kannada. Even English you should get Everything your Kannada should be able to get you everything from the world. And when you recognize yourself as a Kannadiga it is not that you’re a Kannadiga of Karnataka. You’re not Kannadiga of India. You’re a Kannadiga of the universe, you know. I’m a Vishwamānava. I can be a Kannadiga. There is no contradiction, he says. This is the idea of, you know, concentric expansions of identity human identity. Community community love love concentric circles. This this what the Parikalpane this imagination is. We don’t even have that, you know. There is no government that understands anything. They just valorize them as names because they recognize Kuvempu as, you know, a Vokkaliga you know, poet maybe. I’ve heard such talk, okay, from politicians. But Kuvempu is a great poet. That’s all that matters. This is how it is. They own the like Dalits own, you know, Ambedkar. That is a great Indian economist. And then a great economist, you know. He’s not some cast Cast leader. Cast leader he’s not, yeah. This is the problem. So, Vishwamana Sandesha is that, you know, who Last bit about the ecology of the city. Now, obviously infrastructure is extremely important, but at the same time we are losing a lot of you know, green spaces within the city. So, how do we balance but I want to start with Mohan actually. Sharad, you see, is easy to balance. You have to plan the city. Like Naresh keeps educating us. We need a 15-minute city where too many people don’t have to go all over the place. So, a city is a concentration of human activity. Concentrate human activity creates specialization. Specialization improves productivity. Improved productivity leads to higher income. Mhm. So, you want to concentrate human activity. So, economic activities, social activities, and cultural activities have to be Done. So, what does it mean? It means you must plan the city such that you can live in a particular area. Within 15 minutes you get, you know, space to work, you get space for education, you get space for everything, and you have green areas. All together. The city has to be vertical. Urban sprawl destroys a city because you waste 2 hours, 3 hours, 4 hours a day on commuting. It’s a waste of life. Look, your life is finite. The day you are born there’s a end date. You don’t know when the date is. And in the day if you’re going to spend 4 hours commuting wasting your life, man. So, you live in a 15-minute city where you’re more productive, you enjoy the whole of life. So, we need to do that. And in between you need to have all these green thing. You know, a soak soaking city, a green city, and climate and everything. We are truly blessed. For example, look at this place. We wanted a green space. In the middle of a green place is so beautiful. It’s so cool. In Malleshwaram. And this is Malleshwaram. Why can’t you have that? But you can’t have small small sites. They’re doing some Kempegowda layout far away. You can’t go there, you can’t come. And small small 30 30 by 60, 30 by 40. You can’t have roads, you can’t give sewage, you can’t give water. So, you got to plan the city in a concentrated way, and then the ecological problem can be solved. For example, ecology depends on what? Less carbonization. And if you have electric thing, electric mobility, you don’t compute too much, you do that. It depends on buildings which are built to suit the environment. So, the per capita emissions are also coming down. emissions comes down. Right. It depends upon not wasting food and not wasting everything. And the center of it is mobility. You understand? And that is not a alien concept. Naresh can sit down and write it down on a piece of paper, and he can tell you what to do. I mean, any common thinking person can sit and do it. Yeah. But, it’s important to know from what he’s saying, the word economic and ecology starts with the same three letters. Eco, which is the Greek root for home. Yeah. The word oikos, where the word economics comes from, or ecology. So, if you You cannot think of it as two separate things, right? What Bangalore needs in addition to building bylaws, which says setback and FSI, it also needs a temporal bylaw. If I leave my house, in 10 minutes I must touch a green space, which a neighborhood park. In 20 minutes I must hit a large park. And within half an hour I must be in Cubbon Park. No, if if the whole city is designed as a bunch of residential It’s not doable. Too difficult. Yeah, you learn from the past. It was quite doable. You got to go vertical. You got to go vertical. It can’t be horizontal. Singapore is a classic example, right? All Bangalore politicians keep saying Singapore No, you are Naresh, the same set of political class have built it very well. Singapore, when it was taken over in 1966, I have There is a photograph in BBMP 1976. They have come to Bangalore Singapore delegation to learn how to study how to make Singapore like Bangalore. There is a photograph in BBMP, all guys standing there. And you know, today with the population there, okay, it is the densest country in the world. 7,000 people per square kilometer. Compared to that, Bangladesh is 900 people per square kilometer. Wow. It is It is a country and a city, so it’s not really The comparative is not maybe correct, but But what is more important is 49% of Singapore is reserved forest, not green. Reserved forest. And out of the balance 51%, 25% is guaranteed open space. Guaranteed open space. 25% That is why And Singapore today, because of that years ago, we reduced, you know, parks and green land spaces by 5% in the Singapore today has more biodiversity than the United States. You know, the United States is the second most biodiverse country in the world. The most biodiverse country in the world is Singapore. And what is stopping Bangalore? We have great soil, fantastic weather, great availability of water. What And instead of this endless 5% 10% business, Yeah. I would really call upon the Chief Minister of I tell you. We don’t have natural boundaries. Yeah, because So, you can actually even now go back to an idea of creating a green belt which Ramakrishna Hegde had thought of. Even now you can do. You can put a green belt between Bangalore and Mysore somewhere. You can have a green belt, but you need transportation, mobility, mobility. areas is all about mobility. You have to move a lot of people for mobility, mobility, mobility. He is the one who called rights here and did a three-day conference on mobility. He is the one who called the, you know, the Hindu just to do, you know, and you know, underground railway. He tried everything, you know, but the politics of the day defeated him. So, we need to do that. I think it can be done. I think the current dispensation with under Mr. Shivakumar has a great opportunity. I really wish it is not so bad. bad it’s an opportunity. Yeah, it is like a great opportunity. All you have to do is bring in the But Sharad, I want to ask Prakash, we spoke about the city planning, hard stuff and all that. What about the soft stuff? Mhm. How do you create a more compassionate human society Liveability. where you know, culture, the arts flourish, where the respect for artists and cultural achievers and citizens go up? What What do we need to do more? It should not be a place only for living, running around, doing anything. Money is important. We have to earn money, good money. But how do you create a place which which appeals to the higher senses in human beings? What do you need to do in the city? The amount of real estate development coming up in Bangalore today, do you know how much it is? The current area under building is 20 crore square feet. 20 crore square feet. 20 crore. Crore under construction now. 20 crore square feet is maybe 10 years of what India has built. a yeah, crazy. And in the in the you know, Banga India will build nine more Bangalores in the next 5 years. Mhm. Within 2030 we will build nine more Bangalores. Naresh. Impossible, right? The amount of stuff and look at it this way, 5% Actually, if you ask me it should be more than that. Of every site in Bangalore more than an acre has to be reserved for civic amenities. It is being cornered by various forces which have nothing to do with civic or amenity. So, I said the current government should say you have to establish a cultural center Mhm. in every property which is sanctioned and that property must become like a trust. It has to be a trust of the people. No, no, for instance, Prestige, which is one of the biggest is the biggest developer of Bangalore, has taken the civic amenity site in Yeah. on Kanakapura Road which Prakash uses quite a lot and created the Prestige Center for the Performing Arts. Yeah. It’s a auditorium and a space as big as Chowdiah hall 1,000 Frankly young people today are traveling distances just to live in high rises. Actually you know I had Yeah you have done it yeah you had a big role all What is the vision for the city in this area? So see I’m I’m quite sentimental about this. I’ll I’ll I’ll say it as quickly as possible. We should stop looking at government as the one that needs to do it. Citizens must participate because government City belongs to the citizens. up the the waste Stop generating waste. This you should not generate so much waste. Stop doing traffic offenses. You know stop driving cars if you can use the metro. You know there should be a citizen side contribution and that is what culture can do. You can infuse these values in I want to I’m initiating a project. Day before yesterday we announced it when Naresh was there. I’m I believe in Sanatana Dharma you know because in Sanatana Dharma you’re allowed to criticize and change what is there in Sanatana Dharma. Okay. Sankranti when the sun returns from the Tropic of Capricorn it returns. Okay. All around the world in the northern hemisphere Christmas included that is the festival. Okay. The sun is returning. You can do harvest. You can do warmth is comes back and all that. I want to because that is a really secular festival. If there is a visible God to us it is the sun. It is the greatest the only sole provider for the planet. So I’m I’m asking Rotary Clubs of Bangalore. I’ve gone and talked to I went to you know Art of Art of Living. I’m not a religious person but I went there because I think we should get everybody in it. And I have got this thing sanctioned at least from the Rotary districts you know. And we will see how many people we can involve. And Art of Living has said they’ll help also. I want to ask many people. On Sankranti day what is the thing you do at home? All of us have Sankranti Habba, you call it Pongal or Hugi or whatever you call it, you know. You Lori, whatever you call it. What do you do? You know, I’m saying we will clean the city. Who? I said on January 15th this time in 100 wards of Bangalore, in 100 spots of Bangalore, we’ll just do simple spot cleaning. Okay? If possible in 243 wards, okay, if possible. We will do. And you know, it may become dirty again, but if you do it over three or four years it can become a habit and the city will become clean. You know, this is the idea. I want to I want to use the idea that we should have artistic programs songs, everything all over these in all the 243 wards on Sankranti day. Yeah. You know, where we will sing and celebrate nature because it is there in the culture. Yeah. You don’t I don’t have to invent this, it is there. But we should integrate all that onto that one day and just like we clean our homes and their surroundings during Sankranti Habba It should be like a whole Habba I’m saying we should the culture guys should stop going, you know, where we used to sit with their bags to third floor of Vidhan Sabha looking for grants. We should learn to give back to society ourselves. And one of the things we should do is that we should look after the uh looks like look at the city as a community Mhm. and get the city to participate Look at the city as a mother. as a mother Yeah. You know? Nurturing mother. And as a in a village everybody participate, you know, in a village everything will be there. Jatra will be there, Nataka will be there, dance, music will be there, you know? Mhm. Uh there will be commerce, there is ecology and economy both will be happening there, right? Mhm. So, we should do it for Bangalore city itself as a whole. Prakash, there are not enough people like you asking citizens I want you to do this. I want to help and doing it. We don’t have cultural leaders. We should get people together to do it, you know. we need cultural leaders. Can we do it by myself as one small cultural leader? do an exercise? We’ll take the new GBA map. How many of the wards are there? We’ll take one ambassador for each. You say you represent the JP Nagar ward. We will build the movement around these 400 people so that there is mobilization. And we’ll do some activities. Weekly practice. Yeah. B pack has got trained people everywhere. Yeah. They want to be water RWS RWS are there. We’ll go together also. the weekly people. They will act and work with you. Talk to Ragu. Yeah. He’ll get you the rhythm together. Because Start early. Now we’ll get everybody as many people involved as possible. Yeah, we should do this in July. I want to do I want to have streams of people coming from It’s a It’s like a marathon. From every ward they’ll emerge. Yeah. We’ll have a mainstream map where they congregate in one place. And we’ll close that. For that, can I say something? Pick up some 10 12 roads like MG Road. Shut it down for the for the for the day. And give it back to the city. Give it back to the citizens. And that day It’s a hub. Yeah. That day open the open Vidhana Soudha to the people. Why are you shutting Vidhana Soudha to the people? Everywhere in the world you can go. Everywhere in the world you can go. Saturday Sunday open it up for the people so people can go play in the ground and open. Why are you putting those gates? Even the Rashtrapati Soudha Why are you shutting out people? It belongs to the people. The High Court open it up. To White House, you can go to Capitol Hill. Why are you not allowing inside? In Australia you can Canberra you can go and visit Parliament. You visit Parliament. You put so much of security so for what? Yeah. You know I’ll tell you one thing before you go. I don’t think everybody wants to harm the Karnataka Parliament. I go in a old car. I got a small car. I’m not a big fellow. I wear chappals. I wear slippers. I wear a kurta and go. The guard says “Yaru? May to me, one dog is going inside. Happily. I’m not alone. And inside the quadrangle, there’s some 20 dogs. Remember? And then, next to me, one Benz comes. With a suited booted fellow. You know, some cricket fellow. He gets up and says, “Namaskar, sir.” What about me, yeah? Why are you treating me like this? Wear a white shirt and gold chain. Then you get inside. I’m telling you, no. Because this is a kind of culture that is there. That is called the funeral culture. So, I think we should do this. We’ll do the the decorum that the city had has has to be spread once again. You should feel it’s my city. See, you know, I have this definition, you know, I want you I want to say it all the time and every one of you knows who is a Bangalorean. Anyone who says I’m a Bangalorean is a Bangalorean. And anyone who says, “I’m not from Bangalore.” is an outsider. No, we have to become self-appointed custodian. Yes. This Nobody will tell us to do it. Nobody can tell us you’re not a Bangalorean. We are I’m a Bangalorean. We are Bangaloreans. And we love our city and we’ll work for the city. Thank you so much. I know we’re getting late, so we’ll wrap it up at this, but we will try and do this. We’re 400 watts of the city. We will Every year on Sankranti day, we’ll do it. Okay. So, I’ll just start it. I don’t know how many years anybody has got and I have got, but I’m going to do this, okay? And I I’m I’m telling you now, this will succeed. I’ll make it work. Yeah. It’s my life’s mission. I will do this. It’s done. We are here on June 27th. No, I’ll be in Australia. June 27th is Kempegowda’s birthday. We should do it on that day. Why is it it’s not even celebrated in the city? I don’t know. The founder of the city has a birthday. No, there are too many claimants to that. [laughter] So, now we have the official birthday. If you if I want to do a play on Kempegowda, they will say, “Neevu yaav jaati neevu?” [laughter] That is how it is. I am a member of the development authority. It’s not completely I I really think it’s important to celebrate the founder of our city. But I must say Dalits are more progressive than most castes in India, okay? If I speak about Ambedkar, which I do a lot now, they invite me to that to that forum to speak. They they don’t do any boycotts, you know? But all these middle castes But only if they only if you speak about Ambedkar, otherwise no. No, no. They’re interested in Ambedkar. They’re not interested in other things. Correct, you’re right. But they’re willing to listen to Everybody listen now. Don’t treat him as a caste leader, I say, but they’re happy to Yeah, yeah, he’s a national leader, not a caste. See, if the more you appropriate Ambedkar as the caste leader, more you bring him down. He’s a national leader. Actually, his ideas on delimitation his idea on making linguistic states, I wish, you know, the powers of of the day had listened to him. He was wiser than he was he was a better higher intellectual than all of them. He was a bigger scholar than and pragmatic and pragmatic and futuristic and very rational Very rational, very futuristic. No hang-ups. Thank you so much everybody. We have a small hamper. Can we give the hampers? It’s like all locally made products. We put this together. Our team has worked really hard. [music] [music]