City: Bengaluru

Does it sound strange, travelling to work by train every day from Bangalore to Mysore and vice versa? Well some of us do.  Those who do, live in a different world and also in a different time scale. Regular commuters may not remember the time when Kaveri Express was introduced. Pic: Pushpa Achanta Kaveri Express was introduced in September 1980, around 30 years ago. On the occasion of Kaveri Express' anniversary on 11th September, below is an excerpt from Specular. Specular was a weekly general interest magazine focusing on news and information about Karnataka, which was started by K N…

Sharad and Sheetal Agarwal, a young couple living in South Bengaluru spend Rs. 500 and above on drinking water every month. They bought a water purifier from a reputed company three years ago but felt it wasn’t safe after frequent gastro problems. "Our building receives water from tankers mainly and we aren’t really sure of the source and how effective our purifier is, so we felt buying 20 litre Bisleri bottles was a safer option," Sheetal says. The couple plan to acquire a new water purifier but are not sure which system would give them foolproof protection against contamination and…

A few days ago, I visited the 158-acre Beggars' Rehabilitation Colony off Magadi Road, at the intersection of Ring Road, along with officials of the Social Welfare Department (SWD) (which owns the facility) and BDA (to whom the land is now being transferred, at the direction of the Chief Minister). BDA is keen to develop the area, quite nicely located at the junction of the Outer Ring Road and Magadi Road, into a township, and also to ensure some public good outcomes using a portion of the land (perhaps, for a hospital, a man-made lake, a bus terminal for BMTC,…

Sankalp India Foundation® in association with Comprehensive Trauma Consortium  (CTC) proudly and happily announces "CTC Disha: The State Wide Helpline for Blood" from August  15th 2009. This Centralised Blood Stock Information Network (CBSIN) promises to bring an end to the painful process of hunting for blood at the time of emergency. CTC Disha (080-1062) was inaugurated by the Hon. Governor of the State T N Chaturvedi on September 13th 2006 for Bangalore. The helpline has networked the most prominent blood banks in Bangalore over last three years and has saved countless lives. The helpline has been receiving an average of…

Green Commandos, in collaboration with Green Connect, kick-started its ‘Say no to Plastic’ campaign at MC Hall, Building 1, Infosys Campus, Electronic City, Hosur Road. The campaign would cover around 700 areas in Bangalore. Justice Venkatachaliah, chief guest of the event inaugurated the campaign.Green Commandos is a ‘Bottom Up’ program of change where people need to get involved to change the system. In all 700 locations where they propose to launch this initiative, Green Commandos will engage local people in their respective areas to make their neighborhood plastic-free. Each area will range approximately 2 km with 1,000-1,200 people being pulled…

BBMP wants to take land from the owners along the 100 feet ring road (BTM Layout and JP Nagar) for road widening. They say they are doing this "for the benefit of the larger population". Now compare this with Bangalore Metro train project. The government setup a committee  called "Thomas Committee" which analysed the socio-economic impact and set the guidelines for deciding the compensation package for each of the affected land owners and business establishments. The report can be seen at the following link here. Now the Metro is also being built in the same place and the irony is…

The construction of a residential house in 121, 3rd cross, Dollars Layout, JP Nagar 4th phase has been going on for more than past four years. This design-as-you-go house is less than 50 per cent complete at this time. The construction is done with steel and concrete. This type of construction requires very good planning as there is very little room for error. Once the concrete is poured the structure is fixed and can’t be altered. This building is anything but planned. One day they build a section of the building and following week they realise they made a mistake.…

  A veteran journalist for nearly 40 years, having worked for Samyuktha Karnataka, a regional daily and covering political news for nearly two decades, Gunda Bhat is a well-known name in the field of journalism in Karnataka. Bhat received a BDA plot in 2002 from the state government, under G-category as a mark of respect for his contribution to journalism. He built a single-storey house on the allotted site at Dollar’s colony near JP Nagar. Under the G-category, the chief minister allots BDA sites to eminent personalities. People who are awarded the land are essentially moved up in line and…

This audio programme traces Cubbon Park’s history, walks you through some famous and not-so-famous monuments and buildings in the park, and doles out general trivia that will make your next walk in the park more than just a walk in the park! Citizen Matters Podcasts Download Podcast What are Podcasts?Podcasts are audio files you can listen to whenever you want. You can subscribe to our podcast feed using a jukebox tool (like Apple's iTunes) so that your computer automatically downloads it when we release a new programme which you can then listen to on your computer or mp3 players.What is…

B L Rice, who was the director of Archeology in the Mysore state from 1884, described Vasantapura village in the 1887 Mysore Gazette as, “a village 5 miles south of Bangalore. Population 112. It is in no way remarkable but for an old temple of Vallabharaya Swami which is a favourite resort for native wedding parties from Bangalore”, and thus dismissed it.However, I decided it would be interesting to see how the place fared today given Bangalore’s exponential growth in all directions and so set out one day heading south on Kanakapura road past the Banashankari temple. I took the…