Feb 04 2026 to Feb 04 2026 6:30 p.m.

Where

Bangalore International Centre

7 4th Main Rd, Stage 2, Domlur 560071

Event Description

Political will to effectively plan and govern the Indian city will manifest only through pressure from the people.  Mobilising effective public opinion is a challenge given the city’s inherent diversity. Public grievance focused on infrastructure or service delivery tends to be class specific and project constrained. We need effective pressure that mobilises elite and non-elite opinion founded on a shared aspirational vision of urban life.

This faces two challenges. First, we do not have an adequate history of empowered local urban governance, and there is consequently low public awareness of what that might be. Second, we have little public imagination in India of the city as a cultural and political entity. We place culture in the village or ancient history, do not draw connections between politics and urban space, and see the city only as a technical entity where the public realm is a politically and culturally passive space for movement, consumption, entertainment and leisure.

The talk will outline a strategy for civic activism that envisions the city as a living system. Citizens must transcend a transactional relationship with the city limited to securing services, conveniences, and property rights to engage with the city in their full-blooded human potential for joy, hope and fulfilment. We must not only ask what kind of a city we want but also delve into what kind of people we want to be, and this requires critically examining the lateral connections between citizens as well as the vertical connections between citizen and state.

Speakers

Prem Chandavarkar
Managing Partner, CnT Architects
Prem Chandavarkar is the Managing Partner of CnT Architects, a legacy practice with a history dating back to being Bengaluru’s first architectural firm.

He is a former Executive Director of Srishti Manipal Institute of Art Design & Technology, is an academic advisor and guest faculty at Indian and international colleges of architecture, and has served on the board of The Architecture, Culture and Spirituality Forum, USA.

He likes to introduce himself as an architect who is easily distracted by other subjects and writes lectures, and blogs on architecture, urbanism, philosophy, education, environment, art, spirituality, and cultural studies.

Meera K
Co-Founder, Citizen Matters
Meera K is the co-founder of Citizen Matters, the award-winning civic media platform. She is passionate about cities, community media, urban issues, local governance, and civic tech.She also helped initiate Open City, an urban data platform. She is an Ashoka Fellow, recognised for her work building open knowledge platforms that allow citizens to collaborate and improve their cities. She is active in community improvement initiatives and volunteers with projects related to transport, lake rejuvenation, organic kitchen gardening and solid waste management. Meera is also the Managing Trustee of Oorvani Foundation.