City: Bengaluru

The big media arrived. Some stood around in groups, near their motorcycles and cars, exchanging pleasantries with fellow media-personnel. Some did not even bother to get out of their cars till the sole object of their interest came by the EWS Ejipura site. A few decided to talk to some of the evicted residents. But everybody clearly was conscious of why they were there in the first place, and had one question – “When will Medha Patkar come?” She came. And then she was mobbed. By at least 15-20 journalists, some with their pens and papers and some with their…

The recent report by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has exposed that Manyata Tech Park in Hebbal had illegally grabbed majority of its land. The tech park is a mixed development project spread across about 300 acres. Of this, over 160 acres was public land which Manyata Developers got from different government agencies, though there was no provision for this.  Manyata Developers is a real estate company based in Bangalore, headed by Reddy Veeranna. Manyata tech park has commercial spaces including a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) and mixed residential development. Manyata tech park is spread across 300 acres in…

Gnanabharati Layout was formed by BDA many years ago to the north of the Bangalore-Mysore rail tracks, adjacent to the Bangalore University Campus. Yet, to this day, the Layout lacks proper vehicular access. Residents have to use the existing Level Crossing No 10 on the road to Dubhashipalya from Mysore Road - at Km 14 on State Highway 17.Residents of the Layout have been fighting a long and hard battle with the BDA and BBMP to obtain even basic amenities such as metalled roads, street lights, facilities for water and sewage over the past  twelve years. Parts of the Layout…

Valentine’s Day, for all practical purposes, is a commercial creation. The day itself does not bear any deep significance to those who may celebrate it, though the love they celebrate might bear some value. Politically and socially, it is a fluffy construct, and should not require too much inspection. But V-Day is D-day now, as far as women’s rights movements are concerned. The day has grown to be important because it appears that there is now a fight on for the ability to love and express it. Illustration: Shilo Shiv Suleman - this is part of the set created by…

On Saturday, February 9th, as a group of people from vastly different sections of society came together to lead a march from Austin Town to the Ejipura EWS demolition site, with an intent to express solidarity with the displaced, they came up against the indifference of the state and the brutality of the police.It has been close to a month now since the day that 5000 people from over 1200 dwellings lost their shelters, livelihoods and any semblance of stability in their lives that they might have had. 9th of February, protestors were stopped before they reached Ejipura, which led…

The entire city coming together on the issue of garbage... unimaginable till even a few months ago... But there has been a visible change of climate over the last 6 months; and the last week in particular has been noteworthy. Wake Up Clean Up Bangalore - a 7 day expo at Freedom Park on managing waste - that brought together a variety of stakeholders on a single platform, recently concluded amidst significant media coverage and public promises. On each of the seven days, members of the industry, Corporate leaders, elected representatives, several city schools, hospitals, hotel association and various other…

What was pathetic about the state budget presented last week, was not so much the populism it was based on - that was expected - as was the reactions to it from various sections, including politicians of parties other than the BJP.The budget is meant as an exercise to allocate public money for the betterment of the people - with the emphasis categorically on "betterment of the people". It is NOT money available to the ruling party, for announcing measures that would enhance its prospects in the next elections. That perspective has, alas, been completely lost sight of, by every…

In July 2008, my parents and I boarded a flight from San Francisco International Airport, and arrived twenty-four hours later in Bangalore. Unlike our usual journeys, this one was not a round trip. We were leaving the United States and moving to India for good.We soon settled down in a comfortable, modern apartment somewhere on the outskirts of Bangalore - in an erstwhile village called Bellandur, now part of Greater Bangalore. I had a new house, a new school, and new friends... but most importantly, a new town to explore. Investigate! Explore! Dig! To me, these words conjure up magic.…

Health is not mere absence of disease. It would be better if we have an understanding of health risks, how do we monitor them, and take actions to prevent them from manifesting as a disease condition.You may ask, “Is it possible?”, and I say, the answer is yes. To begin with, take a look at what you have inherited from your parents and family. Typically, if one or both of your parents have heart disease, diabetes, hypertension, cancers, asthma etc, there is a possibility that  you may also get it some time or other. Map out your family history, and…

Arun Raghavan, an open source software enthusiast, and four friends worked all night on January 19th on a very unique problem. They were scraping electoral data from ceokarnataka's website. They wanted to create a user-friendly frontend for citizens to search their names and polling booth information. They did this as part of a hacknight to commemorate the life and works of Aaron Swartz, on January 19th and 20th organised by HasGeek, an event organiser for geeks. Aaron Swartz was a hacktivist, who died in early January. He had helped create RSS 1.0; contributed to Creative Commons; was an early builder of Reddit, where…