City: Bengaluru

It's been an interesting beginning to the New Year for cinema buffs in Bangalore. January began with the screening of the Travelling Film South Asia (TFSA) at the Bangalore International Centre. This mobile campaign is part of an initiative to promote and popularise the best of South Asian documentaries at more than 50 international venues between the regular Film South Asia Festivals that are held in Kathmandu once in two years. Outstanding festivals screened at this festival are then chosen to travel across the subcontinent.  In this spirit, the festival reflected the contradictions and the cinema of South Asia, with…

On Republic day, the bright skies of Bangalore were adorned with creative and colourful kites. The 2nd annual Bangalore kites festival was held at the palace grounds. Over ten thousand kite fliers and enthusiasts attended the festival organised by Junior Chamber International (JCI). Preparing the kite for a flight. Pic: Deepti Sarma Over 15 participants from places like Holland, France, Gujarat, Maharastra and Karnataka brought their favourite kites. The skies around palace grounds saw inflated teddy bear, alligator, giant frog, paul -the octopus, tigers and many such creations of these clubs. There were trains of simple symmetric kites too. For…

Residents of Dollar Scheme layout in BTM 1st stage in south Bengaluru, one of whom is a BBMP employee, have won a major case against parking nusiance in the area. BBMP's garbage contractors were parking vehicles along the roads in their layout. Eleven residents of 32nd and 33rd main in the layout had filed a PIL (Public Interest Litigation) in the High Court in June 2010, asking BBMP and the police department to prevent trucks from being parked in the area. In early January, the court ordered the BBMP to take action within two months to solve the issue. A…

READERS PLEASE NOTE: Deadline extended till February 19th Feb 5th, 2011: Citizen Matters has published a simple guide to upload your compliance information directly at the Food and Civil Supplies Department website: Start here and proceed. A notice issued by Karnataka's Department of Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs on has confused citizens, media and LPG gas agencies. Karnataka's Department of Food, Civil Supplies, and Consumer Affairs issued a notice on January 18, saying that Above Poverty Line (APL) ration card holders should submit a photocopy of their card, with the electricity meter number written on it, along with a…

Nishanth Repello, 15- years-old, idolises Nadal and pursues tennis full time at the Bangalore Tennis Academy (BTA) in JP Nagar. He is currently ranked 28 in the under-16 at the national level. Playing tennis since he was nine, Nishanth is being schooled through National Institute of Open Schooling. He says it gives him the flexibility to travel widely for tournaments and still not miss out on education. "I will be travelling to Mysore and Chandigarh to play in National Level tennis tournaments soon but my studies won't be affected", says Nishanth. Nishanth Repello, 15, aims to follow in the footsteps…

Dalai Lama, the Noble peace prize laureate is scheduled to visit St. Joseph college of Arts and Science, Bangalore this coming Sunday. Source: Wikimedia Commons. (Jamling_with_HH_Dalai_Lama.jpg) "H.H. the Dalai Lama has been invited to attend S Nijalingappa memorial function at Chitradurga, 500 km from Bangalore on coming Saturday", said Tashi Phuntsok, the chief representative of Central Tibetan Administration in South India (CTA). Nijalingappa was the first Karnataka chief minister, and the one who initially welcomed the Tibetan refugees into Karnataka state. The address at the college will be followed by a public talk on “Finding Happiness in Troubled Times,” organized…

In the Whitefield campus of technology major iGate, a most unusual tournament was on last week. It appears to many a curious bystander that all these people - of various ages and nationalities-were spending Monday morning playing intense games of Scrabble. At a table in the first row sits a man in a New Zealand t-shirt having just finished a game that his opponent is intently analysing. Nigel Richards at the tournament. Pic: Siri Srinivas You and I will not recognise the name but 42-year-old, Nigel Richards is the current world champion of Scrabble and a veritable legend. He had…

The Karnataka bandh on Saturday disrupted normal life in Bengaluru.  On Friday, 21st January, Karnataka Governor H R Bhardwaj's gave his sanction to initate prosecution of Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa of the BJP on allegations of the latter's involvement in several land scam cases. The party announced the bandh in protest. "Sixty six BMTC buses have been damaged across the city including one volvo bus and a Marco polo bus," said K S Vishwanath, Chief Traffic Manager (Operations) at BMTC.  "However there are no casualties reported on staff members", he said. BJP supporters being arrested by Bangalore City Police.…

BDA is considering building a new public road on the periphery of L&T South City apartment complex instead of opening up the road within the complex. Apartment residents are breathing a sigh of relief. Map showing the existing road within the complex and the proposed new road on the periphery The internal 60-feet road was part of the area that the builder (L&T) and the owner of the land had previously relinquished to the BDA. Residents are contesting the relinquishment in the court, saying that it was done without their knowledge. Read our original story on this here.  After continued…

At a time when Bangalore's restaurants are more interested in hanging 30 ft high billboards that says "Buffet at 199", "Combo meal for 99" than serving an authentic meal, I happened to visit Fiorano, a classy Italian restaurant which believes in marketing their restaurant purely by the ‘word-of-palette'. In fact, this restaurant is so understated from the outside that we spent a good ten minutes to locate it despite knowing exactly where to look. This upscale restaurant’s interiors, though simple, are quite elegant. Pic: S K Shivashankar Located on the busy 100 ft road in Koramangala, Fiorano is one of…