City: Bengaluru

Early in the morning one may notice people sweeping their front yard, and then accumulating the leaves and other waste on the pavement. Yes the houses are clean, but the roads are a mess because of us. In a society that has high regard for cleanliness, we have yet to understand that cleanliness is not just inside our homes, but on the road as well. Drive down any city road and every corner is littered with massive amounts of garbage. Unsegregated waste just put into plastic bags and chucked on the road. Garbage being piled up. Pic: Mark Rasquinha The…

The Joint Committee of the union supporting the strike, called it off yesterday late night after R Ashoka, along with other officials, announced to come to an amicable settlement. They included 86% dearness allowance in the salary. Also the trainees’ salaries were raised from Rs 7000 to Rs 8000 per month. BMTC, KSRTC call off strike. Pic: Anisha Nair The drivers were also unhappy about the training period. They believed that a period of four to four and a half years was too long for training purpose. They had demanded that the training period be only for six months. The…

Meet H Veeranna (30), who has now been working at “Park View”, a Darshini at J P Nagar III Phase (Mini Forest) for eight years out of the thirteen that this eatery has been in existence. He is certainly one of the reasons why this bustling eatery is thriving; he, and his colleagues, always deliver service with a smile, no matter how rushed it is. H Veeranna, who works in Park View Darshini, J P Nagar III Phase. Pic: Deepa Mohan Veeranna belongs to Kundapur, and came to Bangalore to make a living. “I am lucky and happy to be…

Recently BBMP, decided that it would put up an “adventure sports hub” on the hillocks of Turahalli forest on Kanakapura road. Nature lovers who regularly trek to the  forest decided it was time to protest.Old-timers of Bangalore will recollect Turahalli as a lovely forest, set with hillocks, where everyone could go, and did.Over a period of years, the pressure of population in Bangalore has meant that the once pristine forest has been “developed” into various layouts. All that remains is just a couple of hillocks. These are beloved to nature lovers, cyclists who organise downhill runs here, rock-climbers for whom…

After a long tussle with the state government, Rajvir P Sharma of BMTF (Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force) won, when his transfer order was revoked last week. State government had ordered his transfer on August 14th, after he chargesheeted many BBMP officers. Rajvir P Sharma won the case in CAT on September 7th. Pic Sankar C G Sharma had filed a case asking for his transfer to be revoked, at the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT), a court that looks into service disputes of government officials. On September 7th, CAT ordered in favour of Sharma, saying that he could complete his tenure…

In 2011, I moved back to Bangalore from Seattle. I was conscious that I was not moving back to the city that I knew.For starters, I was moving to a part of the city that I needed getting used to. I had spent all my earlier Bangalore life around Chamarajpet and Srinagar, bang in the middle of the city. But now I had to negotiate Mallathahalli (which gets increasingly confused with the more famous Marathahalli), near Nagarabhavi. And it lay on the wrong side of Mysore Road and far off from anything and everything that mattered.Around 2005-2007 there was a…

With BMTC and KSRTC buses off the road, city commuters had a tough time today. Though BMTC said there will be adequate bus services, the scene on the ground was quite different. Nagaraj C, Chief Traffic Manager (Operations) BMTC, said, "The drivers are protesting to get their list of around 40 demands fulfilled including a hike in salary. The strike will be on for the whole day. But there are a few other drivers who are loyal and carrying on with their routine services so a few buses are functioning." Autos dominate the roads in absence of BMTC. Pic: Anisha…

Justice Santosh Hegde, former Lokayukta and retired Supreme Court Judge, talked about the book - ‘Living in Bengaluru’ at the book release function. He said that though he has never endorsed any product so far, he will go ahead and recommend this book to every Bangalorean as it is a holistic book and every Bangalorean must have it. He was at the book release at Whitefield Club on 12th September, 2012. Living in Bengaluru book launch from left - Justice Santosh Hegde, Subbu Vincent and Sanjay Vijayaraghavan. Pic: Anisha Nair Sanjay Vijayaraghavan, a resident of Doddenakundi, has also written a…

The recent exodus of northeast citizens from Bangalore still remains fresh in the minds of Bangaloreans even as scores of those who left have started coming back. Everyone acknowledges that SMS messages with murder threats triggered the panic. Going deeper, several analyses have appeared in the media about underlying reasons for a distinctive minority community such as the NE citizens to flee. From a media standpoint, the exodus has resulted in a closer look at the power of people-to-people communications technologies like SMS, as well as social media such as Facebook. The nature of people-people communication with SMS and social…

I have been following rafiki, a theatre group, from the time when they used to stage the plays of Athol Fugard, South African playwright and novelist.They stage plays with ideological contexts and started working with children in the field of theatre, too. I have seen their struggles and their hard times, and so it was with even more satisfaction than usual that I noted that they collaborating with “Toto Funds the Arts” (TFA) to stage an adaptation of Anton Chekhov’s work at Ranga Shankara, on September 6th and 7th, 2012. A scene from Rafiki's play. Pic: Nitye Sood At first,…