City: Bengaluru

"Have you ever tracked down and located your garbage?" questioned Akshay Yadav, coordinator, Green Commandos of Youth For Seva Organisation(YFS) to a group of residents. The question left the residents wondering.An Awareness presentation for Waste Management was held by YFS, at Raja Helix Apartments, Bilekahalli on Saturday, 14 January. The poster outside the apartment. Pic: Deepthi M S The presentation was on the importance of segregation of waste at source. Yadav explained that more than half of the daily waste was organic waste, which could be treated at home and turned into manure. He also added that by segregation, recycling…

An organic waste converter plant has been set up at Jayanagar 3rd block, next to the Veterinary Hospital. All the wet waste collected from houses, hotels, market and parks in Jayanagar will now be treated at this unit. Jayanagar Waste converter. Pic: Deepthi M S This solid waste management unit built at `40 lakhs, collects organic waste, processes them and converts them into organic manure. Minister R Ashoka, inaugurated the unit on 19th January.BBMP is distributing red and green coloured bins to around 1500 houses in Jayanagar. Residents are asked to put in their dry waste such as paper, glass…

There's more to being a parent than posing prettily with the cherub, wrote a slightly hassled friend on Facebook. The reason? Her son's upcoming birthday or at least the decision making process of it. I could not resist an evil and slightly relieved laugh. So it wasn't just me who dreaded the birthday juggernaut- the planning, the presents, the cake, the theme and of course, the return gift, which is a must give these days unless you have been living under a rock or are very brave and do not care for public opinion, especially from pint sized people.At our…

Citizen Matters is doing a quick dipstick survey to assess trends regarding private school fee changes in Bangalore for 2012-13. We're compiling responses to this survey as part of our inquiry.This survey will take no more than a minute or two. This run of the survey closes Monday Jan 23rd. Please click here to go into the survey.tinyurl.com/7ppucls

"Every morning in Africa, when a Gazelle wakes up, it knows it must run faster than the fastest lion or it will be killed. Every morning a Lion wakes up, it knows it must outrun the slowest Gazelle or it will starve to death. It doesn't matter whether you are a Lion or a Gazelle... when the sun comes up, you'd better be running."We've heard this quoted every time when talk veers about running. For humans though, running is not a means for survival, but it certainly is a means for healthy living.I am a resident of Chaithanya Samarpan, a…

Parks have turned out to be the new ‘play' area for BBMP. Work order was issued in 2008-09 for installing play equipments for twenty lakh rupees at the first block park (earlier known as Wipro park). The equipments were however not installed till December 2011. The palike has spent over one crore rupees (1,30,48,825) on the Koramangala 1st block park between 2007 and 2010. Most of which is for the work that was never done. The play equipments in 1st block Park were not installed for three years. Pic; Padmalatha Ravi In the era multi-crore scams this might seem like…

Meet Rajeshwari aka Raji, age who has been selling vegetables for 30 years now. She has made a thriving family business out of it. Sometimes, one woman's enterprise brings the entire family to progress and some level of prosperity. pic caption pending pic: Deepa Mohan 43-year-old Raji hails from a village near Thiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu. She moved to Bangalore at a young age, after her marriage. She and her husband got into the vegetable vending business. They used to push a wheeled cart of vegetables through the streets of the city.Around 1995, a new apartment building, called Casa Ansal, came…

Residents of J P Nagar have a reason to smile. B S Angadi, 49, the new Inspector of Police is an accomplished officer with major international experience. In this exclusive interview with Citizen Matters, he talks about his experiences and the challenges in his job.  A native of north Karnataka, he joined the police force 1990. He is a BCom and an LLM graduate, with four years experience as an advocate before joining the police force. With experience and skills in sharp shooting, driving and English language, he was chosen by the UN peacekeeping mission in May 2002 to serve…

A week long musical treat is in store at Shree Ramana Maharishi Academy, 3rd cross, 3rd phase, JP Nagar, from January 23rd. The event, ‘Aradhana Sapthaha' will witness about 60 musicians delivering vocals, whistling and instrumental music, over 6 days, under the guidance and expertise of Vidwans and Vidushis in Carnatic classical music. The stage will be on a high octane drive with all the musicians delivering Purandaradasa, Thyagaraja, Muthuswamy Dikshithar, Shyamashastry, Jayachamaraja and Kanakadasa's krithis. The concerts are organised by the BTM cultural academy. The vocalists and instrumentalists are disciples of very well known names in carnatic classical music.…

During the last decade the incidence of suicides in India has increased from 108,593 in 2000 to 134,599 in 2010 (23.8% change). Pic: wikimedia/commons Suicides and attempted suicides are far more common amongst males, those with depression, failed relationships, excessive alcohol abuse, loss of rational thinking, financial loss and/or inability to manage finances, lack of social support, not coming up to expectations of those who matter and more.Suicides have a social, cultural, and economic background. Thus, while farmer suicides may be a phenomenon in some states, children dying by suicides especially following declaration of examination results is an expression of…