City: Bengaluru

  Ladies circle A fun filled day for about 50 children at Kidwai Cancer hospital was organised on 4 November, by Ladies Circle India Area 6 Chapter. Deepa and Arvind Aathreya, of "School of Success" fame, Chennai conducted an interactive & creative session for the children. There was also a puppet show in which the kids participated eagerly. Ladies Circle Area 6 donated fruits and hospital fees for children below poverty line. Ladies Circle India (LC India) is a non political and non sectarian organisation of young women, usually the wives of members of Round Table, aged between 18-40. It…

Sharmila,16, and her five younger sisters were brought to Child Fund Association (CFA), an orphanage home in Puttenahalli, after their mother passed away. Their father, visually challenged, could not take care of them. Sharmila, who is from Kollegal, has been living there for 6 years. "I am lucky to have found a place like this to live," she says. Children playing at the centre. Pic: Yogaraj Mudalgi. Eighty-five children, mostly girls, have found a home in CFA and since its beginning in 1982, close to 750 children have grown up in the home. Most children in the orphanage have a…

Citizens enrolling for Aadhaar (UID) card might be unwittingly sharing personal information with third party organisations in the near future. A key step of the enrollment process, is for data operators to ask for consent of the enrollees on whether they would like their personal information to be shared. However, operators are not always asking citizens for this consent. Citizen Matters observed this at the enrollment centre in Jakkasandra Government School, Koramangala. Srinivas Reddy and Anjali Devi, just after their enrolment. Pic: Yogaraj S Mudalgi Apoorva L J, Audit Manager for Wipro which is the enrollment agency, says that the…

As a visitor to Bangalore, I do not usually get hit by any disturbing event.  In fact, my past visits have been pleasant.  The purpose of my visits has been merely to visit family and friends. This time, however the black cloud (yeah, the one that randomly victimises you or someone you know) found me within minutes of ending a very comfortable train ride -- executive class on the Shatabdi from Chennai, November 23rd.  Illustration: Comaravalli Sridhar Radhakrishnan. On exiting the Cantonment station about 10:15p.m. I rang my cousin who was to pick me up, then my mobile went in…

On November 1st, KSPCB released a guide on Sewage Treatment Plants (STPs). In this exclusive interview with Citizen Matters, KSPCB Chairman A S Sadashivaiah talks about how the guide will help, and clears the air on many issues that resident associations have been raising on STP maintenance. Most apartment complexes today have their own Sewage Treatment Plant(STP). According to KSPCB rules, any large apartment (more than 5,000 sq m in the outskirts or more than 20000 sq m in core areas) need to have STPs. The new guide has illustrated explanation about the working and engineering features of STP, and…

When Shashikala (name changed on request) moved to Bank of Baroda (BOB) Colony in 7th Phase JP Nagar, she didn't expect that she would have to spend so many sleepless nights. Loud noise from three granite cutting and polishing units nearby, working round the clock, has kept her awakeand other residents of the neighbourhood. Add to this, the dust from these units has forced the resident to keep their doors and windows shut. "Because of the noise and the dust, we have to keep the doors and windows closed," said another resident on the condition of anonymity. The residents added…

The crowd erupted with joy as Rajib Deb, forward for the army Service Corps (ASC) Boys Bangalore under-16 football team, slipped the ball past the goalkeeper to score a goal for his team. That it happened in the first few minutes of the match, added to the crowd's resounding cheer. Deb made the most of the penalty kick as he scored the solitary goal of the match, leading his team to a 1-0 victory over Farook Higher Secondary School (FHSS), Kerala. ASC celebrating the goal by Deb Pic: Yogaraj S Mudalgi ASC were playing FHSS at the final match of…

After moving to Mahalakshmi Layout with her family, a few months ago, Lakshmi Teeka, 32, found that there weren't too many grocery stores in her neighbourhood. At supermarkets, she had to wait in line to pay the bill and checkout. Her friends introduced her to Town Essentials (towness.com), an online grocery shopping website that takes orders online and delivers groceries home. "I could do shopping at 12 am in the night and didn't have to wait in line anymore. The prices too are on par with wholesale prices so I began to order all my groceries including vegetables and fruits…

A week after Bengaluru's police department said that the Police Complaints Authority (PCA) for Karnataka did not exist, the Home Department says that the authority does exist. It turns out that in December last year, the state government quietly setup the body through a government order. The PCA is meant to be a state-level independent authority to inquire into public complaints against police officers. On November 11, civil society group IAC (India Against Corruption), Bengaluru, had submitted a petition to the city Police Commissioner's office, demanding setting up of a PCA. Additional Commissioner of Police Suneel Kumar, who had accepted…

"I am 80 years old. I have spent 76 years in theatre", when I heard the senior citizen on the stage say this, I thought he must have got mixed up. But I was wrong. He joined the Chamundeshwari Karnataka Nataka Sabha, which was then run by Nandi Basappa for the Mysore Palace authorities, at the age of four because of abject poverty. "My father was an archaka (priest) in a small temple. His income was not sufficient to feed our family of seven", says R Paramasivan. He can can sing 1260 Ranga Geethegalu (songs from the plays) from his…