CITIZEN JOURNALISM

The waves of nostalgia that wash over me when I think about "My Bangalore" can sometimes be overwhelming. There is no other city on the planet that I am as attached to in a deep psychic sense. After all, I spent some of my most formative years there. Those parts of Bangalore I knew well, I knew because I had a bicycle and I cycled all over the city. I think I probably knew about half the city intimately and the other half not at all. Before the bicycle, there were the 131 and 7 doubledeckers, and the occasional 131D and 7A singledeckers. I distinctly remember…

It was my turn recently to drop my children off at the school's appointed bus stop on Hennur Main Road here in Bangalore. I anxiously navigated my way along the road and across it clasping tiny hands, muttering continuous warning to watch out for traffic in the early morning even, and to stop kicking up mud in my face. Having deposited my sons on a mound of concrete, I surveyed the scene. A man was walking a dog. My son pointed to him excitedly and said "There he is again. He's got only one dog today." I shared in their…

EntertainKids is a group working to make entertainment reachable to underprivileged children. If your question is "Why entertainment?", my answer is that food, shelter and education were not my only necessities as a child; I loved watching movies too!EntertainKids tries to bring some fun in the lives of underprivileged children, and also motivate them towards education.We plan to achieve this by:• Getting access to children by connecting with government schools, NGOs, orphanages etc. We are in talks with many organisations including Friendship Foundation, Hope Foundation, Sparsh, Runner's High, Ananya Summer camp and UW Bengaluru.• Getting cinema halls, theatres, circuses etc…

Governments may come and go. Land grabbers may be arrested and jailed. But the daylight robbery of auto drivers will still continue. In Chennai, you may have come across slightly different-coloured autos displaying the words ‘Tourists friendly’ and you may think these autos would charge you as per meter, or if not, reasonably. But these auto drivers are as bad or as good as others of their tribe. Of late I am shuttling between Chennai and Bangalore too often, so much so that I have become a frequent train traveller and can claim rebate in fare if the railway ministry…

Garbage is now a resource for residents of Mayflower block in Brigade Millennium apartment in JP Nagar. With our Zero Waste initiative, we are getting revenue instead of paying for garbage clearance. Zero Waste Management Team: (from left) Sharanappa S, Gayatri Gopalkrishnan, Swarupa Daithankar, Prakash P. Pic: Sanjeev Daithankar The initiative started in 2008, but was not successful because of low response from residents. Earlier we had a common chute facility to push down waste. Today segregated waste is collected door-to-door from all 220 flats, and we have closed the chute. We thank residents for their support in achieving this.…

I had the opportunity to attend a Children's Ward Sabha in Vijnana Nagar on February 23rd. It was organised by CWC (The Concerned for Working Children), an NGO for child rights.A Ward Sabha in urban areas is similar to a Gram Sabha in rural areas, wherein citizens of a village come together to voice their demands from elected representatives; these demands are supposed to be incorporated in the development package for that area. In 2006, based on the experience of other countries which have such children's sabhas, the Karnataka government took the initiative of making children's gram sabhas mandatory in…

The street vendors at Gandhi Bazaar were evicted on January 23rd, and it has been more than a month since then. Many reasons were cited for the eviction. The BBMP authorities said there was a demand from the traffic police and members of the public to clear the footpath and the road to ensure smooth movement of pedestrians and vehicles, according to a newspaper report ((Deccan Chronicle, Jan 25). So, it was traffic congestion and inconvenience to public that seemingly triggered the eviction. When I spoke to some residents of Basavanagudi, they opined that the vendors were quite rude, unlike…

Since 2002, we - owners of L&T South City apartment - have been waging a long battle against our apartment's builder L&T and land owner Dinesh Ranka. (Citizen Matters had reported on this here.) We have been running from pillar to post - going to police stations, holding protest marches, filing cases in City Civil Courts, High Court and Consumer Courts. Now, a complaint filed by our association SUGRUHA (South City Group Housing Apartment Owners' Association) at the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in August has made an impact. CCI is a central government body to ensure fair play by businesses…

  A few days ago, I was having lunch at a restaurant in Jayanagar 4th Block which offered an excellent view of the Cool Joint junction. A surprise checkpost set up by three traffic policeman close to the junction was the highlight of my lunch. During the course of half-an-hour, the police stopped 16-17 vehicles with no apparent discrimination between autos, two wheelers, four wheelers and goods vehicles. The policeman would stand behind a tree and suddenly step in front of the vehicle of his choice to make sure that there was no escaping the long arm of the law.…

"Yeaah!! St Louis, here we come," chorused the NXTremers - a team of 6th and 7th graders - thumping their fists, huge grins on their beaming faces, as they struggled to keep their feet on the ground. They had just been declared the national level champions in the First Lego League (FLL) 2011 competition. Their next step will be the FLL World Festival in St Louis, Missouri, USA on April 25-28, where they will represent India.The young champions are a group of six friends studying in National Public School, Indiranagar - Aditya S M, Anuj Tambwekar, Arnav Mhaske, Chaitanya Sindagi,…