Articles by Deepa Mohan

 My friend Amitabha Saha Roy writes:We had a pleasant expereince at the sub-registrar office when we went to register a trust that we are forming for restoring Arekere lake. Spending a Saturday in the Govt sub-registrar office is not exactly how anyone would look forward to spending a weekend. When we think of a government office, the most common things that come to our mind are corruption, inefficiency and bureaucracy. But, our experience at the Begur Sub-registrar office proved to be exactly the opposite and made it a weekend to remember. We are a team of volunteers working on an…

We all know the delight of having good food to eat when we are hungry; it must be the same for the other creatures who share our living spaces.Nature provides such a variety in the food for her various children. The food chain generally ensures that each type of creature makes another its food, and in its turn, becomes food, too. Bees on a flower. Pic: Deepa Mohan You can see, in this photo, the bees buzzing around the stamens of the flower. At the base of the stamen is the nectar that is their food, and while they get…

 If you have rescued an animal or bird and do not know what to do with it: There is a wild life rehabilitation centre close to Bannerghata Nationalpark.Bannerghatta Rehabilitation CentreSurvey No. 129, Jigni Hobli, Anekal Taluk, BannerghattaBangalore, Karnataka 560083ph: 91 80 22947307alt: 91 80 22947300You can get in touch with them and hopefully they should be able to guide you appropriately. Sorry, I still don't seem to have any mobile nos. for them.  ⊕

I got introduced to Rohan Chakravarty some time ago, when he moved from Nagpur to Bangalore. He was also with us in this year's Bangalore Bird Race (an involved debate about some waterfowl made their tally about 50 species less than ours, though we were mostly going around together!)I don't know him very well yet. We've met for a couple of cartoon exhibitions, and I asked him to contribute a cartoon for the write-up I did for the Bird Race website In person, he comes across as rather quiet, and I suspect this is because I do not know him…

We have a lot of birds around us in the city. Some eat seeds, some fruits and some eat live prey. We’ve all seen sparrows pecking at the grain in the market areas, or seen parakeets pecking at ripe fruit...but some birds are predators.Even in the city, we have several predators; the most common, of course, is the crow, which will often raid the nests of other birds to eat up their eggs. But there are two common birds that actually help human beings in our city....and at least one does not deserve the bad reputation it has. Barn Owl.…

Dr. S. Subrahmanya ("Subbu"), one of the very experienced naturalists/ornithologists of Bangalore, writes:Over the recent years, I have been campaigning for planting bird-friendly plants in gardens. In the process, based on my own observations, I have developed the concept of a 'Sunbird Corner' that can be adopted in sizable home gardens and public parks.This Sunbird Corner is developed on the concept that nectar available to sunbirds is in short supply and that habitually, individual sunbirds or pairs defend known sources of nectar yielding plants. Towards this, sunbirds tend to become territorial and ward-off any unwelcome `thieves'. Thus you can spend…

Most pedestrians and cyclists in the city can attest to the fact that Bangalore is as unfriendly as it can be, to them. In the wake of the recent fuel hike, I was looking at my photographs when I saw this one, that I took last November...That's the helipad at U B City, on Grant, sorry, Vittal Mallya Road. And I was wondering....how often is that helipad going to be used, given the present (and future) price of hi-octane aircraft fuel? (Helicopters cannot run on kerosene....)Oh, we have the eye-catchers, but do we have anything below that to support it at…

We are delighted to tell you that PNLIT has been shortlisted for the People's Green Award instituted as part of the TCS World 10K. Public voting and Jury assessment will together decide the final three winners. PNLIT is a local people's initiative to tackle the problem of dying lakes and water shortage through public participation. We were instrumental in getting the Puttenahalli Lake restored and are the first citizens' group in Bangalore to officially maintain a lake. We work within a very tight budget from donations made mostly by individual well wishers. The People's Green Award will help us get…

Women Safety Awareness on Modern Crime, Psychological Preparation against Fear& Israeli Krav Maga Self Defense Tactics Sessions against Molestation, Eve-Teasing & Rape. Why do you need this?In the past few years, Bangalore ranks 2nd in overall crime rate reported in India beating Mumbai, Hyderabad, Chennai & Kolkata. Rape on Indian women has increased 763% from 1972. Kidnapping has increased 543% since 1953. Our India stands at the top three countries with the highest sexualy abused children in the world. Blaming the polities, police or our legal system is not enough. Women have to stand up and get educated & prepared…

 Prashanth Nuggehalli Srinivas writes on Facebook:   "Bangalorean friends - For sometime, I have been following MD Bescom. You will be amazed at how Manivannan, the present MD has used facebook to provide an open platform to directly address queries to him. Indeed, the same person who put up a live video feed of his office to make an example of transparency in public service and the also the same officer who in his earlier assignment used to personally supervise medical audits of infant and maternal deaths.Just reading the exchanges on his wall is so informative. An amazing initiative by a…