Blogs

Namma Bengaluru Foundation in association with Arakere Neighbourhood Improvement Trust (ANIT), invites one and all to Arakere Habba 2017. 19th February 2017 (Sunday), 7:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. at Government Higher Primary School Ground, Arakere Lake (JP Nagar area, South Bangalore) Get to know about the lake and how it can change our future. Enjoy some bird watching, a street play and cultural activities. Children can participate in painting and poster making. Rejuvenation of the lake is in process, but incomplete. The habba aims to create more awareness about the lake's situation and push for completing the pending work from various authorities. 

After living in one of the most livable cities in the world - Melbourne - I became passionate about the cities’ phenomena. I have strived to discover more active ways to live in a the city, an appetite that has led me to intern with Oorvani Foundation. I chose to study urban governance - a domain echoing its object complexity - at SciencesPo Paris. I find great joy in contemplating the city and hope to use this blog as a place to convey my thoughts over the next six months. Bangalore, or Bengaluru, has doubled in size in about a…

PNLIT Fundraiser concert 'Padma Bhushan Sudha Ragunathan sings for Puttenahalli Lake' is here! 'Without music, life would be a mistake,' said Neitzsche. 'Without water, there would be no life,' they say. Sudha Ragunathan, Sangita Kalanidhi, and one of India's leading Carnatic vocalists will be performing LIVE, exclusively for Puttenahalli Lake. She will be accompanied by R. Raman, Neyveli Skanda Subramanian and B.V. Raghavendra Rao Through this concert, PNLIT wants to promote environment awareness and the need for individuals/groups to save water and water bodies. Join PNLIT in this campaign for water for all, forever. Buy a ticket, become one with the melody, help PNLIT maintain…

On 4th February 2017, an evening nature walk was held at Puttenahalli Lake, JP Nagar 7th Phase, coordinated by PNLIT volunteer Sapana Rawat. Sapana had the following to report about the event. "The actual flower of the Bougainvillea plant is the small white one and not the colorful pink, red, orange color leaves that surround it. The colorful leaves will slowly turn into green once they mature," said avid naturalist Deepa Mohan much to the delight and surprise of a group of adults and children.   This mixed group of more than 20 adults, children and 2 infants in strollers(!)…

Citizens for Bengaluru (CfB) members Prakash Belawadi, Naresh Narasimhan, Srinivas Alavilli, Tara Krishnaswamy, Priya Chetty Rajagopal, Deepti Sudhindra along with Leo Saldanha (ESG) addressed the media on recent developments with respect to the steel flyover and master plan for Bengaluru. They put on record the following: 1. We are appalled by the recent statements by Hon'ble Minister K J George that 'people who own private jets oppose the steel flyover'. The statement reflects disdain for the concern of citizens who love Bengaluru, more than 2.5 lakhs of whom have emphatically rejected the steel flyover plan - via the human chain…

Wherever BDA shows its Master Plan, there are strong objections to it. People point out that it ... (a) .. is autocratic, having been developed with no input from the people of the city. It is almost as if it is being shown to us after everything is done and dusted, and only to comply with the legal requirement for 'consultations'. (b) ... is ill-conceived. The idea that the existing BDA region can / should support twice the population we now have is foolhardy, besides being environmentally tenuous. (c) ... is unconstitutional, having followed none of the statutory processes for…

Bengaluru is in the process of preparing yet another master plan. What does the process involve and what does it aim to achieve? To understand this, let us go back to the time when Kempegowda first founded our great city, Bengaluru.   Challenge: Bangalore was on a high plateau and had no water resources.   Only way it could host a city: Rain water harvesting, and lots of it. Best option to do it was through lakes, using them as water sinks. First thing on his agenda: Build many lakes, more than the population the city then had would require.…

Having watched an excellent play staged by Tadpole Repertory earlier (you can see the review here if you wish to) I was eager to watch the production of  “This Will Only Take Several Minutes”, which this group was staging as a joint effort with Hanchu-Yuei, a Tokyo-based theatre collective. The introduction on the Ranga Shankara website was very intriguing. A play in Hindi, Japanese and English! Off I went, with three friends.  The play is the result of a joint effort between two playwrights, and deals with six characters, who interact with each other (not all at the same time),…

I was walking along in Jayanagar 4th T Block, when I noticed these young men selling "fresh honey from the hive, madam, do you want?" I looked down; the broken pieces of the honeycomb were there and pieces of it had been put into containers for the honey to drip down into them. This was, probably, the freshest honey one could get one's hands on. Alas for me, I still had a lot of walking to do. I noticed a few dead bees on the hive and this saddened me until I realized that this was, indeed, a humane way…

Dignity, and quality of life in one's old age is not something given to all of us; sometimes, for various reasons, people have to take up residence in an old-age home. I recently visited one such home, only for ladies, in J P Nagar.   I found that the number of ladies in residence had dwindled to only eight, but these ladies seemed quite peaceful and content with their lives. Indeed, one of them (name withheld on request) regularly makes rangolis in front of the gate each morning. However, life is not luxurious. There are, indeed, several "senior citizens" residential…