Articles by Lavanya Keshavamurthy

Parvathamma Aiyappa runs a small tea shop in a village near Kengeri. This is where she lives. She also works occasionally as a domestic helper. With some savings, she managed to get her two  sons – Shivaraj, 12, and Amar, 13, to a not-so-nearby school run by a welfare society, where she has to pay a nominal fee for books, admissions and uniforms. Her husband is a labourer. Parvathamma Aiyappa with her children. Pic: Lavanya Keshavamurthy. Being the self respecting mother that she is, she refuses to accept any donations for their education from the well-off families where she works.…

Close to 500 employees from companies within the Salarpuria Softzone campus including National Instruments, Airvana Akamai, SonicWall and so on were treated to a collection of bikes from Track & Trail and SportsXS on January 22nd.It was the first of the cycling workshops conducted by Bangalore Bikers Club (BBC) in 2010. The workshop also provided a platform for existing bikers within the campus to know each other and may be start group commutes and ask for cyclist friendly facilities within the campus. Pic credit: Krish. Personal cycles from members of BBC were displayed for participants to check out. It was…

It was a pleasant Sunday morning and it was unbelievable that garbage issue brought more than 200 Bangaloreans together at a day-long Zero Waste Management workshop in Malleswaram on December 6th. It was held at Rotary West Hall of Government Girl's High School.The workshop was workshop was organised by ECO Manage Group. MLA of Malleswaram, Dr Ashwath Narayan who co-sponsored the programme was also present. A skit by a group of enthusiastic employees from BOSCH explained with humour the apathy of the citizens towards garbage. Pic: Lavanya Keshavamurthy. The meeting commenced with Dr Meenakshi Bharath, who plans to run for…

Saturday, November 14th 2009 saw a different kind of Children's day event in Jayanagar. Kids were not dressed as Nehru or Indira Gandhi and were not singing or dancing. Instead, they all came out on their cycles and demanded safer roads for cycling to school.About 200 students from various schools in Jayanagar, including MES school, Good Shepherd school, JSS school, Vijaya school were joined by Transport Minister R Ashoka, Jayanagar, MLA B N Vijayakumar and film actor Pooja Gandhi in a cycle rally. Justice Saldanha also spoke on  rights of children in roads and urban spaces. On Children's day around…

Most festivals irrespective of religion are these days scrutinised for the impact they have on environment. Ganesh Chaturthi is one such festival. Environmentalists say that the plaster of paris and toxic paints used in making Ganesha idols, when immersed in lakes and pond harm the environment. Cycle Race at National College Grounds. Pic: Deepak. But this unique celebration at National College grounds in Jayanagar was not merely environment friendly but also encouraged the use of cycles which is one of the most humble and powerful solutions to the grave environmental problems we face today.RideACycle Foundation (RAC-F), organised a cycle race…