City: Bengaluru

Here’s a quiz : What does a lamppost remind you of ? Light ? Nah, try again.... Got it – a dog raising its leg against the base? Yup, that’s it. But what has Bengaluru to do with lampposts? Look for yourself – along many roads, at the base of each lamppost, lies a heap of rubble or trash, shored up in a cone shape. I counted seven along just one  stretch of some 200 metres (down 27th Cross, leading from the Jayanagar shopping complex towards Kanakapura Road). Bricks, chunks of concrete, mud scraped up from the roadside, assorted rubbish…

In 1978, as the city of Seoul in South Korea 'developed', a 6 km. long river called the Cheonggyecheon was covered up. An 8-lane street was built over it, and an elevated expressway built over the street. The road was called Cheonggye Road, in memory of the late river.In 2005 the elevated expressway and the road were broken up and the river restored. It took two  years and the equivalent of Rs. 4000 crore for the restoration. 2002 : Seoul's Cheonggyecheon river in its avatar as a road. Pic source: G V Dasarathi. 2005 : Seoul's Cheonggyecheon river after its…

On Monday, 14th September, chief minister B S Yeddyurappa unveiled a mural depicting Karnataka’s celebrated past, multifaceted present and promising future, presented through a collage of diverse images creating an ascending visual narrative, at Vikas Soudha, annexe of the state secretariat. Shivakumar's murals. Pic: M S Gopal. The mural’s artist Shivakumar is a painter by training and honed his skills at the Karnataka Chitrakala Parishat where he passed out in the year 2000. However, like many artists, he loves to experiment and loves to look beyond just painting to express his ideas. That’s probably why his design which uses metals,…

During commute time in Bangalore when people are traveling to their offices, how many people do you see:1.    In a car?2.    On a motor bike?3.    In a bus?Answer : 1 in a car, 1 on a bike, 75 in a bus.Here’s a small transportation engineering exercise.If you count the number of vehicles on the flyover in the picture below, you’ll find that they add up to 150. Assuming the people in these vehicles are all going to or from work, each of the vehicles is carrying 1 person.That means there are 150 people between the two red lines. Pic source:…

Packing lunchboxes, running the kitchen, checking homework, these are but a few tasks for a homemaker. But what if you add to all this, a thriving home business? For creative women like Debika Chowdhury and Meenal Jindal, whose earlier professional avatars were completely different from what they do now, running their businesses from home is also an outlet for their love for art and craft. It also ensures that they have enough time for the family on their hands and are able to give their best in terms of energy and time to both home and work.Meet the women L&T…

Arjun Tallam, in his forties, managing partner at Rasilaas Fine Dine restaurant in JP Nagar VII phase, Kotnoor Dinne main road says that three years ago when he opened the restaurant there wasn’t a proper road. Residents and traders of the area approached MLA Vijaykumar (Jayanagar, JP Nagar constituency) and got a road laid in 2007. Excited, he describes how the footfalls and profits grew once the road was done. Arjun Tallam, of Rasilaas Fine Dine restaurant in JP Nagar VII phase. Pic: Supriya Khandekar But his excitement dies down soon when he talks about the underpass construction that started…

It was 7:30 AM on June 1st, when Anush Shetty spotted a Pied Cuckoo at the Valley School campus on Kanakapura road, just perched by the trail. The Pied Cuckoo is associated with monsoon in India, flying from Africa across the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean every year around June. Shetty has also spotted other migratory birds such as Ashy Drongo and Verditer Flycatcher at Lalbagh and Valley school campuses in the last few months. Shetty, an engineer working at a startup firm near South End circle (Jayanagar), is part of a volunteer team or citizen scientists, taking part…

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,…