bangalore journal

Rajvir Pratap Sharma, head of BMTF (Bangalore Metropolitan Task Force), has been in the news recently for taking on the state government. While Sharma acted in accordance to BMTF's powers, against BBMP officers who permitted unauthorised constructions, the state government had tried to transfer him. Government first tried to bring BMTF under BBMP, then there were the BBMP officers who went on strike asking for Sharma's removal. Finally, Sharma was accused of constructing an illegal building, and government ordered his transfer based on this, in August. Sharma challenged the order in CAT (Central Administrative Tribunal), and won. CAT rapped the…

Assembly elections are going to be held in May 2013. Parties are beginning to announce their candidates for various constituencies. Each constituency’s report card will start showing up, with ‘progress’ of various kinds highlighted. Bangalore has 28 assembly constituencies, each MLA will flaunt his or her scorecard.But what is topmost on Bangalorean voters’ mind? Garbage is raising stink for last three months, Cauvery is the bone of contention again, even as phase II, stage IV, shows signs of  materialising and traffic woes still top all discussions about the city.  What are our ministers in-charge saying and doing about these issues?…

Lok Satta party announced two of its candidates for the upcoming assembly elections in a press conference on October 4th. Shanthala Damle and Dr Meenakshi Bharath are the two candidates, who will contest from Basavanagudi and Malleswaram constituencies respectively. The party also invited members from the general public who are interested in contesting elections under Lok Satta ticket.Dr Meenakshi has contested as Lok Satta candidate in the 2010 BBMP ward elections. She is currently the Bangalore district President of the party. A practising gynaecologist, she is also active in the civic initiatives Solid Waste Management Round Table (SWMRT) and Citizens…

Over 125 robotic surgeries have been performed in Manipal Hospital in the last one year with an average of 15 surgeries per month. Dr Somashekhar SP, HOD of Surgical Oncology and Robotic Surgery dept, Manipal hospital, says, "The robotic surgery is very popular now because there is rarely any chance of a scar after the surgery. Also there is minimal blood loss. This kind of surgery is very useful in cases of intestinal and thyroid cancer."He also adds that the patients are not restricted to India. "We have patients from various countries like Malaysia, UAE, Dubai, Thailand and many more.…

BBMP has created an Action Plan on waste management for the next 1.5 years. It will submit the plan in High Court in a hearing on November 6th. HC has been hearing two PILs that are asking for BBMP to dispose of solid waste properly. Two parties - an Indiranagar resident named Kavitha Shankar, and an advocate G R Mohan - had filed separate cases in HC. The two cases have clubbed together by the Court. In these cases, last month the court had directed BBMP to collect segregated waste, to put realistic penalties on citizens who do not segregate…

Filmmaking is a hard profession to break into. But after more than a decade of documentary filmmaking the transition is rather smooth, especially when the subject is as exciting as a little girl in ladakh and her efforts to go to school. Priya Ramasubban, who calls herself a storyteller has made films for National Geographic, Discovery, History Channel and other major international broadcasters. She is now raising funds to make her first ever feature film ‘Chuskit' based on the children's book ‘Chuskit goes to school,' published by Pratham Books. The book is authored by Sujatha Padmanabhan and is inspired on…

Thanks to some archaic thing called the Communicable Diseases Act, the government has monopoly control of a lot of public health information. I.e. if three people die of plague in your school or neighbourhood, the hospital or clinic that tried to treat and cure them is not allowed to tell anyone that they are handling dengue cases. Instead, they have to report it to BBMP as a 'suspected dengue' case, which will be verified by another fossil called the National Institute of Virology in Hyderabad, after which dengue will be confirmed. If any hospital violates this protocol, it will get…

23-year-old Basketball player, Kruthika Lakshman, bagged the Eklavya Awards for the year 2011-12. She is originally from Mysore but has been in Bangalore for the last 10 years. She was admitted to Sports School, Vidya Nagar,Yelahanka in 2003 and that's where her career started. Interestingly, she chose volleyball game at the sports school, but was pulled into basketball team because of her height. Since then there has been no looking back. In the six months, after she joined the Sports school, she started playing at the state level and finally in December 2006 she represented India.She says it was her…

Jay Zende, a 41 year old Maharashtrian from Mumbai, made Bangalore his home, eight years ago and started a new venture ‘BooksTALK'. He along with the co-founder Jayashree Mantri Easwaran, both hailing from different backgrounds, came up with the concept of making books talk, early last year. These books are read by actors and sometimes even the authors, instead of voice-over artistes, to make the listening experience better.  Zende talks to Citizen Matters about his venture, city, and how he has been ‘Koramangala'ed since the time he settled here. Jay Zende - Co-founder of BooksTALK. Pic: Anisha Nair How did…

We often tend to think of flowers as a thing of beauty, only to be admired. They look very pretty, whether cultivated carefully in the garden, or flowering in the wilderness...and often, they cast a beautiful scent around them, too. Right now, we have the Akasha Mallige trees in full bloom, a heady fragrance wafts through the air when we pass by them.But there are flowers which are good to eat, too! One such flower is the bloom of the banana (plantain) tree. Banana Flower. Pic: Deepa Mohan The banana plant produces a single inflorescence, also known as the banana…