bangalore journal

Everyday, commuters get stuck on either side of the railway gate on Sarjapur Road at Mullur, thanks to around 30 trains that pass through. Commuters taking this route curse their predicament as they have no other option. Vehicles caught in a traffic jam at Sarjapur road railway crossing. Pic: Sankar C G During peak hours, the vehicle pile up extends almost a kilometre on either side of the gate. Office commuters, school vans, BMTC buses - everyone has to queue up. Most often, it is the school buses that get stuck at peak hour. “Everyday, we get late by 30…

Have you ever told the driver using a hose to clean the neighbour’s car that he is wasting fresh water, and his response is “Borewell Madam!” with the emphasis on the word borewell? And in a tone suggesting you are so dumb it’s a free and plentiful supply?  That is the crux of the water problem being faced in Bangalore today. That is where education comes in. Where care should be taken by owners of borewells, to be judicious in their use of the water, just like they are with corporation water which they pay for. The Karnataka Ground Water…

Historically, human civilisations growth is punctuated with attention to weight and to diet. Diet fads like low fat diet, low carbohydrate diet, Duke diet, Couch Potato diet, HCG Diet, GM diet, banana breakfast diet, no breakfast diet, fruit diet, salad diet, tomato diet, etc. have evolved over time. In this maze, we have lost sight of what is known as balanced diet.Peer pressure, celebrity endorsement and size-zero concept contributes to diet fads. Some also have the desire to lose a lot of weight, that too very fast!   A balanced diet is a balanced proportion of different components are -…

Four-term veteran Ramachandra Gowda, 74, won the graduates constituency MLC seat for Bangalore by a whisker. At the end of the first preference votes count, he was trailing the JD(S) candidate Deve Gowda. He then managed to edge past him when second preference votes we transferred from other candidates. Ramachandra Gowda (BJP). Pic: Ramachandra Gowda Ramachandra Gowda, the  incumbent, secured 8468 votes to Deve Gowda’s 8224, and Congress’ Ramoji Gowda, 39, was placed third with 5541 votes. Reformist Lok Satta party candidate Ashwin Mahesh, 42, came fourth. However his showing of 4000-plus first preference votes  has been widely seen in…

Citizen Matters, in association with Red Frames is hosting a photography exhibition, on June 16 and 17, at two venues in South Bangalore.The selected images are from ‘Frames of my City’ contest held late last year, that witnessed a spectacular response. The travelling exhibition gathers the collective talents and perspectives of amateur as well as professional photographers across India. Moving from online to print, to a collector book to exhibitions across India, ‘Frames of my City’ has made a tangible, valuable impact in the field of photography. Jayanta Roy posing next to his work titled 'Lost'. Pic: Yogaraj Mudalgi A…

How can I find my name in electoral roll?Here is the final voter roll published in the website of Chief Electoral Officer (CEO), Karnataka: http://164.100.80.163/Teachers_Grd/a1.htmlWhere are the voting booths?The names of all voters and their respective voting booths are available at http://ashwinmahesh.in/mlcvote.htm. (Lok Satta compiled this list with data from CEO office.) In another tool http://mlc2012.herokuapp.com/, on entering your name, you can get the address and map to your booth. What is preferential voting?In the preferential voting system, voters should rank candidates in their order of preference. You have to put ‘1' against the name of the candidate you prefer…

R K Misra is a member of the ABIDe task force for Bengaluru and urban reforms campaigner. He's a card holding member of the BJP. And yet, here he is supporting a Loksatta candidate, Ashwin Mahesh, in the coming Sunday's Graduate constituency election. This support is part of his online campaign Bangalore28 that he has started on Facebook. Bangalore28 is a campaign to field ‘good candidates' for Bangalore's 28 MLC and MLA seats for the 2013 elections. He feels this will in turn impact the 2014 national elections. Citizen Matters asked RK (as he's popularly known) some hard questions on…

There was a citizen’s piece recently on Citizen Matters that talked about what BBMP should look at in the upcoming council budget. I would like to suggest adding bins. In fact, how about a vigorous, mass, ‘Bengaluru-centred ‘bin beku’ movement , along the lines of TeamHazare’s mobilisation  last year ? Lane outside BDA complex Koramangala. Filepic: Anisha Nair We need garbage bins. Urgently. I don’t know whose idea it was, to do away with roadside garbage bins, in the name of  “door-to-door collection” but  the city has now become one huge, continuous pile of rubbish, from one end of each…

It takes you so long to write a 700 word story! Said the horrified editor friend of mine. I counted sheep in my head (helps me stay calm. Another good alternative is the in-your- head-grocery list) and waited for the one question that I hate hearing ever since I gave up working full time to be a stay at home mother: So what do you do all day? The days go by in a blur. Pic: Reshmi Chakraborthy Really, what was it that I did the entire day? And what was it that the other mothers did, staying in this…

Bal Krishna Birla, who hails from Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, came to Bangalore in 1995 after passing out from IIT- Kanpur. He worked in various joined Infosys as a software engineer and worked for around nine years. Later, after couple of other stints he started his first entrepreneurial venture and co-founded Potluck Restaurant in BTM in July 2006.  He was also the co-founder of famous ‘AskLaila’- a local information online service in October 2006. M K Birla. Pic: Abhishek Angad His interest in old hindi songs paved the way for another venture”Bhoole Bisre Geet” where interested community assembles and sings. Continuing…