bangalore journal

A day after the fire mishap in a marriage hall in Sumanahalli, a Reliance Footprint outlet in Koramangala caught fire on September 22nd. The footwear outlet is located along the 80 feet road in VII Block that connects Forum Mall with National Games Village. Firemen at work as smoke billows out. Pic: Navya P K. The first floor of the building caught fire by 1.15 pm on Thursday, but no one was injured. "People evacuated themselves on seeing the fire, so no one was hurt. The extent of damage to property has not been ascertained yet. Electric short circuit is…

The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahnagara Palike (BBMP) may have passed some major decisions in the last few years - including increase in taxes, and road widening and infrastructure projects worth hundreds of crores of rupees. But none of these decisions were ever passed by a vote in the city council. And this, in a city of over eight million people with massive problems ranging from inadequate affordable housing to dying lakes and property tax holes to roadwidening resentment. The Karnataka Municipal Corporation Rules (Rule 65 in Conduct of Business Rules), says a vote should be held if councillors press for it.…

My fondest childhood memories of a ‘santhe' have comprised my annual visits to the Dasara exhibition in Mysore during the festival season. Over time, the duration for which the entire fete lasted continued to increase, as did the kind of displays, shops and rides that turned it into a curious blend of a shopping festival with theme park style rides and lots of food. Cut to the present when, as a resident of Bangalore, I was excited about the prospect of visiting the recently held Sunday Soul Santhe at the Palace Grounds on Sunday, September 11th. It seemed like an…

Deepa Peck, long time resident and head of the Whitefield Residents Association. Pic: Jaaga. Deepa Peck has been a resident of Whitefield since 1991 and has been visiting it since 1972. In all those years she has seen many of the areas, charming colonial buildings disappear one after the other. In May last year Deepa and her fellow residents were shaken out of their complacency when a Transfer of Development Rights (TDR) notice was served to the 1882-built Whitefield Memorial Church and all residences/commercial establishments along the Whitefield-Varthur main road. BBMP was planning to widen the road which would have…

Eugene Ionesco, a Romanian/French playwright, was one of the pioneers of the Theatre of the Absurd, along with such playwrights as Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet and Harold Pinter. Since he uses gibberish and parody and, sometimes, non sequitors (Latin for "it does not follow." It is most often used as a noun to describe illogical statements) as the basis of his plays, it was a fairly difficult task for the group to stage the play. In "The Bald Soprano", too, one has to use the words "allegedly" and "apparently" very often. The excellent brochure that  Little Jasmine, the theatre group…

It is always pleasant to go to a play which is for children, and even more so when it is being staged to celebrate something good. In this case, it was the play, "Robi's Garden", which was an original play by Bangalore Little Theatre (BLT), to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the Association for the Mentally Challenged (AMC).BLT was founded in 1960, and is the city's oldest theatre society. In 2006, BLT set up a separate Academy of Theatre Arts. BLT has a strong programme for children's theatre, and usually stages a major production every year in the August/September period.…

Kannada Actor Darshan's act of domestic violence has been in the news for the past few days. Yes it has not been proven, yes his wife has taken back the case. But the fact is his wife is in a bad shape and is attending court cases with her hand in a cast. The case is pending before the Magistrate. Initial Police inquiry suggests that he attacked her in a moving car. The driver said he didn't see or hear anything because the partition is sound proof. What would you have done had you witnessed this happening while you drove…

In 1892, Whitefield was the only settlement in India that European and Eurasians could call their own. Old chronicles narrate that David Emmanuel Starkenburgh White decided to set up setttlement on a donation of land from the Maharajah of Mysore as a ‘self sufficient Anglo-Indian village’, where everyone worked for ‘the common good’. More than a century later, across a landscape where flashy malls and exclusive gated communities abound, Whitefield is home to the offices of multinational corporations like IBM, Hewlett Packard, SAP Labs, Dell, Cap Gemini, Oracle, GE Medical Systems, ABB and Unilever. Whitefield Diaries is screening again on September 24th at…

Stonehill International School in Jalahobli, Bangalore North, has been ranked the best international school in Bangalore with a score of 4.30 out of 5, in a survey conducted by ThinkVidya.com, an online community of parents, students and schools. The International School Bangalore (4.09), Sarjapur Road was ranked second, Trio World School (4.07), Sahakarnagar and Jain International Residential School, off Kanakapura Road, were jointly ranked third. Twenty-six International schools were shortlisted for ‘International Schools in Bangalore’, the first time such an independent survey was being conducted in the city. Nearly 200 individuals filed responses to the survey.  The report noted that…

Litter bins, which almost disappeared from Bangalore's landscape some time back, may make a comeback this year. BBMP's Solid Waste Management (SWM) department has plans to re-introduce litter bins as part of its new policy.Solid waste tenders, compost/dry waste centres, decentralised biogas centres are all part of the new policy. In draft stage now, the policy has to be approved first by the Standing Committee for Health and then by the BBMP Council. "The policy will probably go for Council's approval next month. Currently we have no integrated policy; the new policy will be a guideline for all officials," says…