Articles by Usha Srinath

I was a student at Manipal thirty five years ago. The college library used to be open till 1 am. Taking a break from studies, we would step down to the road to eat boiled eggs and rubbery toast, and drink some hot syrupy tea. After the library closed for the day, we would walk back to our hostels. When we worked nights at the hospital, we visited these food carts at all times of the night whenever our youthful stomachs groaned with hunger. When disturbing incidents like the rape and abduction of an unsuspecting young woman in Manipal is…

In the last one week, I have had the opportunity to observe the use of information technology in governance.  Does information technology  make life simpler or more complicated for the common or garden variety user?  I share two disparate stories here.Let me talk about the pleasanter experience first.   I applied for a tatkal renewal of my passport online sitting at home.  Uploading the application was easy. Using this registration number, with some difficulty (more on this later),  I got an online appointment for a visit to the passport office at  Devarachikkanahalli.  After my interview on the appointed date,  I was…

This is my response to Citizen Matters' article on 'Junctions where grade separators are to come up'. The thought of having the prolonged construction of yet another set of grade separators foisted on us is really scary. As everyone knows, the underpass on 24th Main, 15th Cross, J P Nagar is way behind schedule as was the case with Jayadeva circle flyover. When the Jayadeva flyover construction was going on between the years 2003-06, traffic was diverted through Bilekahalli Dollar Layout adjacent to Bannerghatta Road, where I live, for years on end.The decision to divert traffic through our layout, was…

My grandparents first came to Bangalore sometime in the early nineteen hundreds from their home village in Tumkur district. Chamarajapete was among the earliest planned extensions of Bangalore city located close to the old inner city areas like Dodda Pete, Chikka Pete, Arale Pete (Cotton Pete) and Bale Pete. It was a popular residential area for many of the upwardly mobile new settlers of Bangalore city.Grandmother, a strong, intelligent, home educated woman, settled into one of the old houses there and began her new life in the city. Bangalore was still a small town and soon she had many friends…

Bangalore in the fifties was a relaxed, laid back town with little aspiration to cosmopolitanism. There was a rarely articulated divide, between the westernized cantonment area and the city areas with their predominantly old Mysorean culture. Double road (K H Road) was the dividing line as is still suggested by the crematorium on its eastern side. The cultural divide was quite stark, Veena and Carnatic music, long skirts and long hair, kho kho and tenniquoit in the schools on the south side and piano and western classical music, basket ball and hockey, knee length skirts and god forbid, shorts! on…

Yes, I voted couple of days back, as on many other occasions. And I am proud to be one of the only 44% Bangaloreans who voted. Now, why did I vote? I voted because I strongly believe that I have no right to complain about the system if I do not participate in the process of voting. While this sounds cliched, an important incentive for me is that I also believe that unless enough consumer resistance comes up, the system is not going to improve. So I believe in voting, and complaining and in being happy occasionally when I see…