bengaluru

Onam is the harvest festival of Kerala. And when it comes to harvest, how can we miss out on the delicious goodies made out of these first crops? Rice, pulses, vegetables and sweet. It’s a combination of a lot of delicious delicacies put together on one platter. Rather, a plantain leaf. Ona Sadhya. Pic: Anisha Nair This sadhya or the grand meal, is usually a vegetarian affair. A meal consisting of 11 to 13 essential dishes, is savoured on a fresh banana leaf. Papad, Banana, Sarkara Varatti – banana chip coated with jaggery, Pickle, Inchi curry or inchipuli, Thoran –…

Imli or Tamarind - an important ingredient of gravies that brings a completely different flavour to the dish. Hence the name, Tamarind. The restaurant has branches in Indiranagar and Banaswadi. This restaurant is a part of the same group that owns Enigma, the pub, and a rooftop restaurant interestingly called ‘Over the Top.’ All three are located in the same building. Handi Mushroom - Tamarind. Pic: Anisha Nair    This giant will not satisfy Bakasur, a new restaurant on ORR will definitely draw your attention with the images of a giant with his mouth wide open, displayed along the building.…

Jayanagar based N Mukund, Joint Secretary of Citizens Action Forum, sent us a hard hitting letter on the city’s garbage mess. This year, BBMP has raised the garbage cess it is collecting as part of property tax. It came a day before the latest nightmare at the Mavallipura landfill, which was about to unfold. Mukund is challenging BBMP to explain what it has done with the garbage cess collected with the property tax last year and questions the body’s decision to raise the cess this year.  “As citizens, we wish to know how the steps taken by BBMP for the…

In my unending search for resources that familiarise children with the environment I had chanced upon the 'Garrulous Gastronaut' a few months ago. So it was quite a coincidence that my daughter was invited to a workshop titled, 'Planting an edible garden' recently held at Galleryske, Richmond Town. Pushpi Bagchi's Garrulous Gastronaut. Pic: Pushpi Bagchi Conceived and facilitated by Pushpi Bagchi, a young Illustrator & Visual Communication Designer from Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology, the three hour workshop was a fun mix of story-time, experience-sharing, eating some delicious food prepared from fresh vegetables and finally some hands-on seed…

Independence Day is coming up and it’s a good time to reflect on the word itself. Let's take a look at how the word plays out in public life in our own city and state. Karnataka's Lokayukta position opened up over a year ago and the state government has still not filled the position. Such is the fear of an independent Lokayukta, after Justice Santosh Hegde indicted official after official. Bengaluru Metropolitan Task Force's head IPS officer Rajvir Sharma, responding to citizen complaints on illegal buildings, threatened prosecution against over a 100 BBMP engineers. BMTF's legal mandate allows it this…

Like many others, I watched 'The Lorax' about a month ago. While the movie itself was something I wished we could publicly broadcast at various venues in our city, it was the post-movie conversations among the children in the audience that actually left me thinking. BM English School Green Club green club members 2012-13. Pic: Vinita Young ones compared notes on their preferred character; some older children felt that adults would only continue to chop down trees and we would really need electric trees on our streets! Some even shared facts about global warming and climate change. And yet when…

The High Court has ruled in favour of the citizens in the Agara-sirisi corridor project. The order essentially says ‘hear them out,' to the State and BDA. For the moment, the order comes as relief to thousands of Koramangala residents who have fought a prolonged battle for almost a year and a little too late for the numerous trees that were surreptitiously cut, even before the project formally took off.The Rs 119 crores project at four junctions - Jakkasandra (flyover), Koramangala 80 feet road (underpass), Krupanidhi College (underpass) and St John's hospital-Koramangala 100 feet road junction (flyover and underpass), kicked…

So this time, it’s Karnataka cuisine. While interviewing Sakuntala Narasimhan, a senior journalist, she said there is dearth of restaurants that serve authentic Karnataka food in the city. So Citizen Matters did some digging. Mavalli Tiffin Rooms, popularly known as MTR, is a vegetarian restaurant that came up in Bangalore in 1924. It also claims to have introduced the popular South-Indian breakfast item, Rava idli. The legend goes that during the world war II, there was a grave rice shortage in India, MTR experimented with Semolina (Rava) instead of rice to prepare the idli batter. And as you know, it…

Who doesn’t like being around a friend? Around someone with similar likes perhaps? Or in whose company we bloom to our fullest or even someone who offsets our own quirks? Well, as it turns out this may be a natural instinct for all living things, including plants. Maybe we've learnt this behaviour from plants? Watch them grow in the forest and you find they thrive in the company of some and are unable to in the presence of others. It is interesting to understand how this works and use it to the advantage of all plants in your organic garden.…

On June 28th, the city council met for its monthly session to approve the budget. Turns out the proceedings had nothing to show the city was getting financially healthy again. Read our detailed report here.Last year, BBMP had projected over Rs 9000 crores of expenditure largely predicated on state government grants, it never eventually received. It ended up collecting a mere Rs 3934 crores. This year again the council has projected nearly Rs 9500 crores with the same gaping hole in projecting receipts. It is pretty clear to anyone closely observing the local government process in Bangalore that both the…