Blogs

Every year, the state AG (Accountant General) prepares audit reports on state government and some of its agencies. This year's reports were presented on February 14th in the Karnataka legislative assembly. The same evening, CAG held a press conference to distribute the reports.There are five reports this time. As usual, the reports are full of CAG's exposes, all leading to loss of hundreds of crores of rupees. The reports come in a study bag, overall weighing somewhere around 7-8 kgs. A bagfull of exposes, you might call it. The CAG's bag, full of exposes. Pic: Subramaniam Vincent. Except two smaller…

At Puttenahalli Lake, we know the value of rainwater and its harvesting. After all, the only water that the lake receives is from rain.  Now here's a good opportunity for artists to help in promoting RWH and win some good prize money too!"Raindrops Geneva Award" is a competition organised by the International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance (IRHA) to highlight the importance of this vital resource - rainwater - and its management. Participants from all over the world send in their entries, and after a vote by the jury, three prizes are given. The first competition, organised in 2007, awarded the poster that best…

In a democracy, the minimum that we should be able to expect is HOLDING ELECTIONS ON TIME. But it seems now that even this basic threshold is not guaranteed in Karnataka. Yesterday, the legislature passed a law - with all parties agreeing - that the State Election Commission cannot schedule elections to local bodies (like BBMP and other city governments) without its 'consent'. I.e. if the state government feels the time is not right for holding elections, that's the way it will be. The Election Commission of India controls only Parliament and Assembly elections, and those are constitutionally anchored. Elections…

Dear birding friends,A quick note to ask whether you might be interested in joining us in a funbirding event on 14-18 Feb. On those dates, birders across the world willbe taking part in the Great Backyard Bird Count (www.birdcount.org), run byCornell University's Laboratory of Ornithology.The basic idea is to spend some time (minimum of 15 min) listing all thebirds species you see, together with a rough count of each. Despite thename of the event, one can participate from anywhere -- from a balcony orrooftop or garden, to a market or farm or wetland or forest. And it doesn'tmatter if you…

A group of ecologists and experts including Dr M B Krishna, have come up with a report called"Ruining the ecology of Hesaraghatta Lake - the role of bird photographers. From the report's introduction:"The Hesaraghatta lake bed is facing another assault. Parts of the lake bed have become barren and have been laid waste due to heavy vehicular movement on the lake bed. In this case most of the damage is due to nature photographers chasing migratory birds using cars and SUVs."A rapid assessment of the impacts caused by nature photographers driving on the dry Hesaraghatta lake bed reveals a wide…

Arekere Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust (ANIT) is doing everything it can, to properly save Arekere Lake. The lake is located not far from Puttenahalli Lake, on the other side of Bannerghatta Rd. Please see the map below which shows the location of Arekere Lake.   A human chain has been planned on 16th Feb 2013, Saturday @ 9 a.m. starting at Maruti Magnolia School (red circle on the map). Please do join the effort to create more awareness about lakes in general and Arekere Lake in particular. The programme is below.     ⊕References  

Despite the problems and challenges we have in maintaining our neighbourhood lake, each visit is such a delight and so full of surprises.Today morning even while walking briskly (for a meeting at the Gazebo), a Fig tree growing wild at the edge of the lake caught my eye. There was a white breasted kingfisher sitting on its branch. I went as close to the grill as possible but that little fellow was not bothered in the least. He calmly sat there and let me shoot him (with my camera).Our gardener Sivalingayya came hurriedly holding a white plastic bag carefully with…

It's a very unusual development in the annals of democracy in India - for the first time, a deliberate political action group, with a specific agenda to be pursued through its activities, is being formed — the Bangalore Political Action CommitteePACs are nothing new around the world. In the US alone, there are thousands of PACs, each committed to its agenda. In India so far, we've had industry associations, which are in some ways PACs, but apart from this there aren't very many. The usual organising themes for PACs - labour, environment, health, education, etc. - have not year coalesced…

I went on a 3 hour trip with a few industry leaders as well as BBMP officials yesterday, looking at some of the 'trail' of waste in the city. The idea was to get buy-in from all the chambers of industry to start doing whatever they can within their own campuses and also understand the economics of the waste trail. Three places that we visited all have important learnings to offer.The biogas plant at IIM, Bangalore substitutes for 16 cylinders of LPG each day, out of the wet waste collected on campus itself. It cost about 10 lakhs to set…

On the occasion of Republic Day, flag hoisting was held in the premises at Kuvempu Nagar Residents Welfare Association (KRWA)on the morning of January 26th. The Chief Guest was S Nagaraj, BTM resident and former secretary of KRWA. He retired as Assistant Director, National Aeronautics Laboratory (NAL) after more than 40 years of service. Founder President Satyaraj, current president Padmakshi presided over the function. Sweets were distributed to all present for the occasion.⊕