City: Bengaluru

It is not easy to realise this - but this little fun thing called cycling can reduce congestion on city roads by as much as 15-20%. This reduction is possible without any large scale infrastructure investments. All we need is a little behaviour change all around the city. The reduction in congestion can come in these three significant ways: Increased reach of public transportation through First and Last Mile adoption Increasing usage of cycling for short distance commutes Cycling for local shopping and errand runs First and Last Mile adoption Improving adoption of cycling will have huge benefits for public…

On a sunny Sunday, members of the Bruhat Whitefield Residential Community Association stepped out on to the busy State Highway (SH) 35. Instead of watching a movie and spending time with their family, here they were, rolling their sleeves up and monitoring a road work. Road work? Yes. Anyone who travels on the SH 35, that goes from Kadugodi to Hosakote would know the status of the road. The heavy rains during the last week of September unleashed havoc on this already spoilt road. Volunteers of BWRCA monitoring the road work. Pic: Anantharaman Ramasamy SH 35 is one of the…

In a significant ruling, Justice A S Pachhapure of the High Court of Karnataka dismissed on October 11, 2013 the petitions that sought quashing of criminal prosecution of senior representatives of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwar (UAS), M/s Mahyco/Monsanto and M/s Sathguru, who have been accused by the National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) and Karnataka State Biodiversity Board (KBB) of committing serious criminal acts of biopiracy in promoting BT Brinjal, India's first food GMO. The petitions dismissed by the Court are those filed by University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad,  R R Hanchinal, Vice Chancellor and H S Vijaykumar, Registrar of…

  While there are many technologies that provide us with energy, there are also technologies that help us with saving energy. The latter is gaining ground as more and more people are becoming aware of the conscious use of energy. ApnaComplex along with The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE)- CleanTech Special Interest Group and Indian Institute of Human Settlements, had organised an event on ‘Sustainable Apartments - Learn how to reduce energy bills of your association’ on September 21st, 2013. The event hosted people from different backgrounds - IT, the new section of people who have ‘quit IT’ to follow their passion,…

A unique effort dedicated towards social initiatives as part of the Raj Bhowmik Back-To-Society DREAM, Soulbath Peace Foundation organises an Annual Crafts Bazaar, a fundraiser event every year, to support a social initiative. This year the fundraiser supports the project promoting Education for Sustainable Development for Children in Rural India for Leadership, Citizenship and Empowerment. A unique exhibition and an opportunity for artistic, cultural and creative pursuit, it tells stories from the heart of rural India through its textiles, pottery and jewelry.  ‘Soulbath Peace Foundation Crafts Bazaar’ running successfully in its third year is being organized in Bangalore this year…

Goddess of the occasion - Durga - a synthetic marble dollDolls of Sharada, Durga and Lakshmi made of Clay and PoPThere are too many dolls to choose from , mostly all traditional.Park items - trees and shrubs - made up of clay and PoPHanumantha meeting Rama with a message from SitaA part of Ramayana setRavana's courtDolls of Thirupathi god and goddessKrishna stealing clothes of Gopikas - a scene from Bhaagawatha - clay and PoP dollsCute students studying ABCD in school - dolls are not meant to be only traditional.‹ › $(document).ready(function(){ $('.carousel .carousel-inner .item').first().attr('class', 'active item');}); Click to view the…

Unsegregated waste is something which cannot be processed 100% which would be a deadly cocktail that will act as slow poison for environment. File pic. A few days ago, I came back from the morning run to my newspaper and breakfast. What I read on the first page made me spill my bowl of sambhar all over the supplement. Our elected representatives – MPs, MLAs and corporators were back from a junket to Salem where they saw a plant that can process mixed waste. I personally like folks in position of power traveling as it opens the mind, so have…

Residents and representatives of many apartment communities understood the technicalities and exchanged ideas at the workshop. Pic: Krishanu Mukherjee A workshop on 'Managing Public Money' was conducted for Treasurers of Apartment and Villa Complexes in Bangalore on October 5, Saturday. The Workshop conducted by ApartmentADDA - the Online Software for Society Accounting, attracted participation from over 40 Apartment & Villa Complexes, who utilised this platform to share challenges and best practices used by treasurers who manage funds to the tune of multiple crores in modern apartment complexes. The workshop keynote was an inspiring speech from R K Misra, a successful…

Neutralizers like baking soda are added to milk to make it last longer, which might turn harmful in the long run. Pic: Shree D N Do you ever bother about the quality of milk you consume every day in various forms? If not, be careful. Six out of eight major brands among the milk sold in Bengaluru have been proved to be of substandard quality. During a BBMP council meeting held on September 30, 2013, Corporator S Harish submitted an astounding report on the eight milk brands distributed in the city. However buyers of Nandini (a product of Karnataka Milk…

Saplings lined up for planting by BWRCA volunteers. Pic: Suryaprasad Following the footsteps of The Ugly Indian, on October 2, the Bruhat Whitefield Residential Community Association (BWRCA) volunteer team took an initiative to plant saplings in order to help beautify the city. This took place in Whitefield near Chaithanya Samarpan and Chaithanya Smaran. The team started off with an initial plan to plant around 150 trees for every kilometre and had a target of covering a stretch of 3.5 kilometres. In the days leading up to event, various factions of the community lent a hand in the preparation. The Seegehalli…