A safety tag on trial

HL: A safety tag on trial

Strap (Page 1): Named India’s safest city for women, Bangalore earns trust, but street-level safety remains uneven across neighbourhoods

Strap (Page 8&9): Crowned India’s safest, Bangalore faces uncomfortable questions as women weigh rankings against daily realities on city streets

Blurb:

For many women, Bangalore’s top ranking in 2025 feels less like a surprise and more like quiet validation. Not because the city is flawless, but because it offers something still rare in urban India; the freedom to move, work and return home with a measure of ease.

 

Byline: Bindu Gopal Rao

 

Barely nine days ago, Bangalore basked in the glow of a rare and reassuring crown – India’s “top” city for women’s safety. The tag came from a workplace culture consultancy’s first-of-its-kind report that studied 125 Indian cities on key indices measuring how well they empower women’s careers.

The city scored high on safety, government policies for women’s empowerment, and the presence of women-friendly organisations and industries. For many women, it felt like a promising way to ring in the New Year; a moment of validation for a city that likes to see itself as progressive and inclusive.

But the feel-good narrative unravelled almost immediately.

Just 24 hours later, on January 10, a bike taxi service worker was arrested for allegedly harassing a woman software professional during her daily commute. The 29-year-old, a manager with a software company, had booked the bike taxi to travel from her residence to Manyata Tech Park. According to the complaint, the rider, identified as Vivek, misbehaved during the journey and allegedly touched her inappropriately when she objected to his conduct.

Four days after that, on January 14, another disturbing incident shook Koramangala. An elderly woman was assaulted and robbed at knifepoint inside her own home on 1st Main, Rajendranagar. Police arrested the accused, 22-year-old Vijay, a resident of the same locality, within hours, recovering the stolen cash and jewellery from his possession.

These incidents were not isolated. In roughly the week following the safety ranking announcement, at least three such cases were reported across the city, sharply undercutting the celebratory headlines that had just been written.

For many women in Bangalore, the contrast has been jarring. The ranking offered reassurance on paper, but the ground reality, continues to demand constant vigilance. Against this background, Our Bangalore reached out to city women folk asking about the uncomfortable contradiction – can a city truly be called safe for women if that safety vanishes within days of being declared?

 

‘Bangalore has responsibility to lead’

If Bangalore topped the charts, it is less a victory lap and more a mirror held up to urban India. In a landscape where women’s safety varies wildly from city to city, Bangalore’s edge lies in relative advantages – higher female workforce participation, greater social mobility, and a culture that allows women to be visible in public life, even if it does not always protect them.

That distinction matters. But rankings, as many women here will attest, often flatten lived experience. “Safety is not created by intent alone; it is built into the city itself. Well-lit streets, dependable last-mile transport, active public spaces and predictable policing expand women’s freedom far more than surveys or slogans,” says Prathima Manohar, entrepreneur, urbanist and co-founder of GoodPass & The Urban Vision.

Where these are missing, women adapt, changing routes, timings, jobs and, sometimes, ambitions, to feel secure. “The lesson of this ranking is not that Bangalore has arrived, but that it has the responsibility to lead,” she adds.

Manohar goes on say that Bangalore’s real strength is its civic consciousness. “The city debates gender openly, experiments with reform and hosts some of India’s most active women-led networks,” she justifies. Its weakness is execution. Fragmented governance and uneven investment mean safety remains deeply postcode-specific.

“Cities that work for women tend to work better for everyone. Treating women-friendly urbanism as social infrastructure, not a feel-good metric, is what will make this ranking meaningful rather than symbolic,” she adds.

 

‘Safer, not seamless yet’

If the earlier ranking exposed Bangalore’s contradictions, the broader Top Cities for Women in India 2025 index offers a fuller picture of why the city still stands apart. Its No.1 position reflects steady progress towards inclusion; not just in theory, but in the rhythms of everyday life.

The study’s City Inclusion Score looks beyond crime statistics. It folds in social factors such as safety, access to healthcare, education and mobility, alongside women’s participation and opportunities in the workforce. The result is a more textured assessment of how inclusive a city actually feels, not merely how it performs on paper.

“For women like me, living and working in Bangalore does offer greater freedom to pursue independent careers and lifestyles,” says Uma Pendyala, Business Operations Head at SecurEyes. She points to the visible presence of women across professional roles, particularly in knowledge-driven sectors, and a growing emphasis on inclusive workplace practices. Access to education and employment continues to draw women to the city, reinforcing its reputation as a magnet for opportunity.

Yet, she cautions, inclusion is uneven. “Safety often depends on location, time of day, and the quality of public infrastructure,” Pendyala says, noting that while daytime mobility feels relatively comfortable for many women, late-evening travel and gaps in public services still shape daily choices.

That reality is echoed from the healthcare frontline. Dr Mangala Devi, Director of Smile Baby IVF & K C Raju Multi Speciality Hospital and President of the Bangalore Society of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, says the city feels comparatively safer than many metros.

“As a woman doctor, I have worked long and unpredictable hours, including late nights and emergencies, and have generally felt supported by colleagues, hospital systems, and the city’s infrastructure,” she says.

But even here, the caveat is clear. In her practice, Dr Devi regularly sees the toll harassment, stress and fear take on women’s health; especially those travelling late, living alone or working in peripheral areas. “While Bangalore deserves recognition, true safety will come only when every woman, regardless of profession or locality, feels secure, respected and heard at all times,” she adds.

 

‘Trust built on experience’

For many women, Bangalore’s top ranking in 2025 feels less like a surprise and more like quiet validation. Not because the city is flawless, but because it offers something still rare in urban India; the freedom to move, work and return home with a measure of ease.

“When I read that Bangalore had been ranked the best Indian city for women, it felt reassuring rather than surprising,” says Usha Iyer, Director of The Green School Bangalore and The Bangalore School. Speaking as a mother, that reassurance carries weight. Her daughter frequently travels late from the city to the outskirts, and Iyer says she is comfortable trusting Bangalore’s public transport to get her home safely. That confidence, she stresses, comes from lived experience.

Over the years, Iyer has found the city largely functional and respectful of women who work late or travel independently. But the balance, she adds, is delicate. “Safety is never something we can take for granted. Even in Bangalore, women need to stay alert, avoid isolated spots and trust their instincts. Safety works best when the system and the individual work together,” she says.

That blend of infrastructure and attitude is what many women credit for Bangalore’s edge. Meenakshi D’Souza, Professor and Head of the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at IIIT-Bangalore, points to the city’s ability to balance tradition with its cosmopolitan IT-driven identity.

Affordable metro connectivity, free public transport for women to IT hubs, and forward-looking empowerment schemes, she says, have made daily life easier. “This city helped me transition from a newly married corporate professional to raising my children and growing into an academic career. I will be a faithful Bangalorean for life,” she avers.

For Ishani Chakraborty of BCIC, the city’s ethos matters as much as its systems. Bengaluru’s culture of “swalpa adjust madi”, she says, fosters acceptance. “The unspoken message from auto drivers has always been ‘Let this lady reach home safely,’ rather than questioning why women travel alone at night,” she says.

In a country where such trust is still the exception, Bangalore’s strength lies in making it feel normal, even as the work remains unfinished.

 

BOX

 

Quick Stats — Top Cities for Women (TCWI 2025)

• Bengaluru: City Inclusion Score 53.29; top spot for women’s inclusion nationwide.
• Chennai: Close second with strong social inclusion factors like safety, public services and mobility.
• Pune: High marks on workforce inclusion and quality of life.
• Hyderabad: Strong industrial and career enabling environment.
• Mumbai: Rounds out the top 5 with robust opportunities and infrastructure.

What the TCWI Index Measures

The Top Cities for Women in India index evaluates:

• Social Inclusion: Safety, liveability, access to health, education and mobility.
• Industrial Inclusion: Workforce participation, career enablement and women-friendly organisations.
• City Inclusion Score: Combined score showing how well cities enable women to live, work and grow.

Bangalore’s Edge — Why It Leads

• Sustained strength in both social and industrial inclusion.
• Growing corporate presence with inclusive workplace practices.
• Better public infrastructure and mobility options.

Other Cities to Watch

• Gurugram: Notable rise in inclusion scores, especially industrial.
• Tier-2 Cities: Emerging performers, signalling decentralised inclusion gains.