Bellandur

On Saturday, Aug 19th, 2016, over 45 teams will participate in the second edition of the Soul Kere Science Fair - Vigyana Habba. The participating students are from grades 1 to 12 of various school and communities in the neighborhood of the lake. The event is organized by MAPSAS and supported by Genpact,(Platinum sponsor), Infosys Science Foundation (Gold sponsor), Biocon and United Way Bengaluru. Entry to the event is free and open to all. The teams will demonstrate live experiments that explore the topic ‘Science in everyday life’. The fair is aimed to encourage a scientific spirit among children that…

Vikhyath Mondreti, a class 10 student from Greenwood High International School Bangalore, was part of the winning team in an innovation challenge conducted by the New York Academy of Sciences as part of their Junior Academy program. Through the course of 70 days, students formed virtual teams and worked with STEM (Science-Technology-Engineering-Math) professionals serving as expert mentors. There were 91 teams with participants from 51 countries out of which 3 teams were chosen as winners. These challenges were sponsored by major corporations such as ARM and PepsiCo. Vikhyath’s team won the Biodiversity category in which the participants were required to…

The following post was shared by Praveen Singh, a runner. I decided on a whim one fine April morning in 1989 to visit Bellandur lake and I clicked a full Konica roll worth of pictures. I used to live in Indira Nagar and had visited the lake and surroundings for its beauty and also to watch aircraft land and takeoff from nearby runway. Here are some of the photographs. Last week, I took some time off over the weekend to do a "Then and Now" series of photo captures from almost the same spots I had clicked from over 28 years ago.…

There was once a time when two national highways ran through the heart of Bengaluru city. This is no longer the case since national highways have been renamed and restructured in recent years. Yet, recently, the nightlife hubs MG Road and Brigade Road were ordered to stop serving alcohol based on the Supreme Court order  banning alcohol service in establishments just off national highways across India. The Supreme Court mandated the ban of alcohol service from establishments within 500 meters of state and national highways. The ban was put into action on July 1st , halting alcohol service from over…

Nearly every citizen of Bangalore has heard of the current state of two of Bangalore’s biggest lakes - the Varthur and Bellandur lakes. The main reasons for the pollution of these lakes are the untreated sewage and industrial effluents that are constantly flowing into the lake.  Map source: All you need to know about Bellandur lake and its problems. Though we all know that these lakes are in bad shape, many of us may not be aware of the extent of  pollution. Check these shocking pictures. VARTHUR LAKE   The froth that we usually see at the top surface of…

At a public awareness programme organized by the BWSSB in November 2016, an irate apartment RWA Member asked the BWSSB official present, "What is the point in setting up an STP when we're already connected to the sewerage network? Treated sewage is going to mix with our neighbouring locality's raw sewage in your drains which you will treat in a large STP. What is the point of all of this?” Over the years, Bengaluru city has not only grown horizontally—to areas outside the sewerage network—but also vertically: previously sewered areas are seeing a manifold jump in sewage generated per acre…

This is a story of how a 140-family community became waste-sensitive and is continuing to be so. Sobha Quartz is a residential apartment complex in Bellandur, Bengaluru. I live here. ‘KasaMuktha Bellandur’, a citizen initiative for solid waste management, has made all the changes possible here. Mine is a very responsible community of 140 families, who follow the 2Bin1Bag method of segregation. Door-to-door campaigning have helped us help convince defaulting residents to segregate and monitor the compliance of community members. We send regular emails and updates to keep up their motivation and interest. Our team consists of passionate and like-minded women and men (many include working professionals) who are trying to make…

Since the noon on Friday, Oct 21st, smoke continues to billow from the encroached land next to Bellandur lake, where an unofficial waste-sorting facility has mushroomed, where construction debris is dumped day in day out and where mixed waste from various apartments is dumped in broad daylight. It is clear that this has been created by burning rubber from construction debris, the plastic present in mixed waste and low-value dry waste from the waste sorting facility, in Bellandur ward 150, Kariyama Agara area. What are BBMP officials, the police and fire departments, our elected officials and others doing? Are we…

October 2nd was Gandhi’s birth anniversary and a reminder of his vision of Clean India. Our Prime Minister Modi revived the dream two years back on this day by launching Swacch Bharat Mission. We at Bellandur ward were fortunate to have passionate citizens to form Kasa Muktha Bellandur who introduced the 2bin1bag concept in 2012. Later, with the support of hundreds of volunteers across the city and solid waste managment round table, it became a law in December 2015 by the Karnataka high court. I am a new kid on the block in Waste management and had the privilege of diving deep…

Traffic congestion in ORR is getting worse - the long term solution is moving more and more commuters to mass public transport like the Metro or  BRTS. While the jury is out on which is better and faster to implement, we are losing precious time everyday in our commute. With the intention to reduce the commute time and avoid stress in waiting at traffic signals,  Rao Ganesh Janardhan, HSR Traffic Police Inspector has put together a series of simple changes which can improve the traffic flow from Marathahalli till Central Silk Board. The first of such changes have been implemented around…