City: Bengaluru

This is a son’s tribute to a great lady who would have been 100 years old this year- a well known social worker of Bangalore in the last century. Jayalakshamma was born in Hassan 100 years ago, the youngest in a family of four. She was pretty, dark and short. At the age of 12, she was married off to an idealistic youth, P R Ramiaya who had run away from Mysore to Benares when he was in school. He was about to complete his Master’s in Chemistry when the pied piper from Porbandar called upon the youth of the…

Believe it or not, Bangalore does have a traffic control room. It is called the Traffic Management Centre and is situated on the first floor of Ashok Nagar Police Station. As you enter the air-conditioned room, you will see five LCD screens mounted on the wall. All of them are connected to computers. The screens show a grid of nine small screens with traffic movements captured through cameras. Any one of the junctions from the screen can be enlarged and seen in particular. LCD screens with a grid of traffic various junctions (Pic: Supriya Khandekar)The system uses two types of…

Urban Changes photo exhibition, 19th August 2008. Pic: Deepa Mohan.If any city can claim to have changed drastically in the past few years, it will surely be Bangalore. The city’s constantly changing skyline speaks volumes for the social and economic changes that have seen Bangalore morph from a pensioner’s paradise to India’s IT capital. It was thus fascinating to see the photographs at the ‘Urban Changes’ exhibition which captured the spirit of a redefined city, among others. Organised by Max Mueller Bhavan at IndiraNagar, at the culmination of the Bangalore Walks programmes of Bangalore City Project, the exhibition highlighted the…

It is 10.28 on Thursday 14 August morning when Praveen Sood, Additional Commissioner of Police, Traffic and Security arrives at his office in a white Ambassador. The office is located in the most airy place of Shivajinagar, the second floor of the BMTC building in the bus stand. As citizens, we have numerous queries when it comes to traffic in the city. Most of us simply blame the traffic police for the mess. Our questions – the ones we discuss every evening before leaving our offices or when we come late the next day – are the same, but the…

Being involved in a community project in colleges through which we try to empower students to make an informed decision of whether to start their own company after they pass out of college, a thought struck my mind a couple of months ago. Students can do this only if they know the ground realities of being an entrepreneur - which is best achieved by talking to one. Part 1 of "Startup Savvy" People say a picture is worth thousand words, I thought, so why not make a documentary film on the life of entrepreneurs? A movie that will not only…

Jayanagar 5th Block is one of the oldest and planned locality in Jayanagar. The birth place of Infosys was at 5th Block. Many eminent personalities who lived/living include- Sri Narayana Murthy, Sri Sri Ravishankarji, noted poets Pu thi Narasimachar, Gopalakrishna Adiga, Shashi Deshpande, noted film personality Vishnuvardhan and noted physicist Padmasri Dr Ramanath Cowsik.The Resident Welfare Association is a 27 year old registered association and has been carrying out many developmental activites.As a part of the citizen charter (see Candidates converse with voters, the association had organised an interaction meeting with Jayanagar MLA, B N Vijay Kumar and officials of…

The traffic situation at the KR Puram Flyover Bridge makes for a miserable and highly frustrating experience. Nowadays, most Bangaloreans have to travel miles to reach their office or work place. In the midst of the journey, ordinary traffic state or jams are bearable but the situation of waiting at the same point for close to an hour is frustrating. The different issues I have noticed and faced at this junction are: • Cross roads access to and from the junction.• Roads narrows down terribly at the Railway bridge junction ... leading to huge congestion. The roads' width is just…

There was a very disturbing news in the Times of India last week. It is about the cabinet decision to amend the Prevention of Corruption Act to give immunity to retired bureaucrats who are caught accepting bribe or have Disproportionate Assets just like serving bureaucrats. This immunity is about getting prior sanction from the government for prosecution even if the official has been caught red-handed. This is supposedly to prevent harassment to the officials from baseless charges. It is in fact a ploy to shield the corrupt who might have shared their ill gotten wealth with the mighty and powerful…

Called Kalpavriksha (‘the wish-fulfilling tree’) in Sanskrit (and also Ashwattha Vriksha), the Banyan tree is given a holy status in our culture, with Lord Krishna himself declaring “Among trees, I am the Ashwattha” in the Bhagavad Gita. In India, it is revered as a holy tree that enhances fertility. The Banyan symbolises eternal life due to its ability to support the extending canopy by its prop roots. Big Banyan Tree (Pic: Poornima Dasharathi)The word ‘Banyan’ is said to be derived from the word ‘Bania’, referring to the Indian traders who used to conduct their everyday business under the shade of…

The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL)’s plan for shopping space inside the to-be-built metro stations is likely to leave many displaced traders stranded. Except two stations, one on M G Road and the other at Byapanahalli, and possibly a third -- the Trinity Circle station, all other stations will not have shops inside, according to K Nagendra, Public Relations Officer at BMRCL. Nagendra says that Metro stations which will have provisions for parking lots and integrated transport facilities will be the ones earmarked for inclusion of shops. The other stations are going to be basic. The crane moves at…