City: Bengaluru

Oasis is the name of the new swanky and slick shopping mega mall that's sprung up on the corner of Koramangala 80 feet road and Inner Ring Road intersection. It's quite strategically located, on one of the busiest crossroads of Bangalore, also a prime residential area. Drain view apartments: Multi-storey buildings along the storm water drain (pic: Samuel Jacob) Just behind the mall on a gentle gradient is the Shinivagulu Tank Bed (S T Bed) residential layout. Not so long ago when humans were kind, it used to be a tank bed. In 1989, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA), converted…

The advance of the Internet, and the technological advances in digital photography have come together to impact our lives in many ways; but few would have thought, a few years ago, that it would result in a major innovation in a field - wildlife -- where until now, enthusiasts were never near a net connection. Yet a team of four people, all from Bangalore, have, in a short time, managed to build up a strong association and bond between diverse people, by starting India Nature Watch (www.indianaturewatch.net), an online resource for Indian wildlife and photography lovers. Seven Spot Burnet Moth…

Suresh lives in the Victorian Avenue apartment block in Indira Nagar. After a day's work in the office, he comes home and cooks his food. Till recently he was using the water from a tap provided in the flat's kitchen for cooking. In February this year he noticed that the rice he cooked used to turn dull yellow in colour. First he thought it was the rice, but changing the rice did not change the colour.I used to boil the water for drinking and there would be a thin white film of something on the surface. When I asked my…

If you were going to buy a residential apartment from a building named 'Radiant Manor' you would quite naturally except to get a perfect home to live in. This is what Venkatesh Narayan Baichwal of Jayanagar had hoped for when he entered into a construction agreement in March 2005 with Radiant Homes (Proprietor, Manohar Karkal). This firm had agreed to construct a residential apartment for him measuring 975 square feet on the second floor of a building named Radiant Manor. The agreement was that the seller would pay Rs.11,97,500 for construction of the apartment inclusive of Rs. One lakh towards…

Shail Pandey (59), a resident of HSR Layout is a dedicated artist. She uses various mediums like charcoal, acrylic, water colour, beads, etc to create paintings, sketches, collages, and even cushion covers and throws. New to Bangalore (she moved here last year after having spent 35 years in Mumbai), she finds the city laid back, and the people friendly and easy going. The only thing that puts her off are the auto rickshaws , who she finds rude and uninterested in work. One of Shail Pandey's creations (pic: Meera) Diagnosed with Parkinson's disease a decade back, she finds a creative…

Which one of us has not seen the abandoned hack-horse, the milch-cow left on the streets, the pet dog bought on a whim and ignored or starved once the novelty wears off? Which one of us has not seen a sloth bear being made to dance by the "madari", been concerned about the parakeets that fortune-tellers put in tiny cages, or seen the plight of circus animals? Add to these the animals that are routinely injured or tortured in the name of festivals or religion, and you begin to see a sad picture of survival against the odds. Brahminy Kite…

Preparations for the Dassera festival start at least 3 months in advance at ‘Mani’, Banashankari II Stage, Bangalore. It would perhaps be more appropriate to say that preparations for the next year’s Dassera festival start even as the current year’s concludes. As Usha Madhuranathan, now 71, the prime mover behind Dassera arrangements at ‘Mani’, says, “It is as if our lives follow a calendar that starts with Dassera each year, not Ugadi or New Year.”   Churning of the ocean: Tableau for Dussehra (pic: Meera) Passionate about arranging dolls, Usha has, in the past few years, taken on a personal…

For many of the urban poor, education is a luxury. Even as many private schools become unaffordable in Bangalore, quality of government schools are not very impressive. Children from the lower economic background, who attend schools (mostly government schools) are unable to learn much due to poor infrastructure and teaching methodologies. Many of them are scared of subjects like English, Science and Mathematics. One initiative which hopes to tackle this problem is the ‘Evening School Centre’ run by the volunteer group, AID (Association for India's Development, Bangalore Chapter). These are centres found in slums and neighbourhoods populated by the lower…

On 20 September, the III Additional Bangalore Urban District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum ordered a Bangalore based dentist to pay up Rs.One lakh as compensation to a young student who suffered due to deficient service from the dentist's clinic. M A Shilpa aged twenty, doing her post graduation course in economics and business, in an evening college in Bangalore, went to the Tarana Dental Clinic in Padmanabhanagar, Bangalore, during the first week of June 2006, complaining of pain in her lower right jaw. Dr Archana Hegde, (B.D.S. Esth. Dent.USA) examined her, filled a cavity in her tooth, and prescribed some…

With hardware prices falling, more and more people are buying computers. However proprietary software can be expensive, so many people opt to install pirated or illegal copies of such software. The Free Software movement addresses this issue. For example, GNU software is a complete set of free software packages to have your PC/Laptop fully operational. ‘Free’ here doesn't just refer to the cost, which is usually zero or negligible. It is free as in FREEDOM. That is, FSF talks about the freedom to use the software, to understand it, to distribute it and modify it. Some of the important free…