CITIZEN JOURNALISM

"Help us to help you" - Impassioned pleas from C R Geetha, Station–in-Charge of the Fraser Town (Pulakesinagar) Police Station! And rightly so, according to this writer, since the general trend is for the public to disbelieve or mistrust the Police. Geetha has been in charge of Traffic for East Division for more than four years and finds that except for a very small percentage of the general public within the limits of her jurisdiction, the majority do not wish to either come into the station or call the police at any given point of time. Geetha (third from left)…

As I stood in a queue in the town centre in Swansea, Wales (UK) waiting for my bus to arrive, I over heard two women in front of me grumbling angrily about having to speak to some person in Bangalore who actually knew nothing about her TV  complaint and she was not sure if anything would finally get done over the weekend. Ooh, typical white metality I thought till I got slammed by the same problem by Airtel.Well I have been ‘Bangalored’ by the Airtel  Broadband service in the so called silicon valley of India. I suddenly woke up yesterday…

The garden city now has the dubious distinction of being the worst when it comes to caring for the elderly. Helpage India conducted a survey in major cities and found that 44% of the senior citizens feel neglected or abused. They are also soft targets for crime in the city. Then there are places like the Aashraya Trust-run old age home. That good soul who takes care of these elderly women is K T Rani. She runs the home in a rented three storied building . Mrs. Rani who started the Aashraya Seva Trust makes sure the elderly lead a…

God's own country, from where I hail from had glorified the three wheeler and the men at its helm in a blockbuster movie by the title "Aye Auto". Not that the auto-wallahs out there went out of the way to hail the glorified status adorned to them. But they were far more endearing than the auto-drivers who rule the Bangalore roads.My angst against the steerers of the three wheel wonder was lying like a dormant volcano ready to errupt at the slightest disturbance. The volcano had a verbal breakout last weekend during my weekend trip to the Total Mall adjoining…

It was World Environment Day last week and India had the honour of hosting the International World Environment Day 2011 for the very first time. Jairam Ramesh, our erudite and enthusiastic environment minister called trees ‘water pumps’ and paradoxically the event was devoted to ‘Forests: Nature at your service’. As a media fellow of UNEP, I was proud to sit in the audience and listen to the minister tell the world that India was among the developing nations working towards addressing the pressures of ecological change. He told us about India’s Rural Employment Act and the country’s encouragement of renewable…

It was a regular working day and I was on my way home on my scooter from college after a session of corrections of end of term answer scripts. The traffic lights were red at the Lifestyle junction and I waited till they turned green before I rode onto Richmond Road. As I took the turn I noticed a large pile up of traffic before me stretching backwards to the Sapphire Toy Shop. So riding up fairly slowly I came to a halt behind a large black car. Barely had I put my feet down and left my grip on…

This is one question that arises in the mind of commuters travelling from BTM Layout via Maruti Nagar to Koramangala. For the last six months, BWSSB had made a mess of Thaverekere 1st Main Road. Now the vehicles coming from Forum to BTM Udupi garden are diverted via Maruti nagar. Due to this, traffic have increased during peak hours. Now commuters have to choose an alternate road to save time and avoid traffic in Maruti Nagar road.Recently Maruti Nagar Road had a traffic jam; adding more trouble to commuters were some private property owners who have left construction materials such…

Amidst the flurry of charitable trusts and non-governmental organizations - there is a rather strange breed of social initiatives thriving these days. These are not run by full time activists or social workers but by ordinary citizens like you and me- doing full time jobs and shouldering other family responsibilities. The couple behind the study centre: Jayaseelan and Lalitha. One such couple in Bangalore - Lalitha and Jayaseelan are running a students' study center in Cox Town in Bangalore for the wards of the slum dwellers nearby. They are normal people, with abnormal will. The journey began 25 years ago…

Once upon a time, not so long ago, our city with its salubrious climate, smooth roads and countless trees made it a pensioners’ paradise. Indeed, Bengaluru had at least two other names as well – The Garden City and the City of Lakes. All this changed within the last three decades or so. The tree cover has been blown and the lakes are vanishing. If in the 1830s there were an incredible 19,800 lakes and tanks, by the 1960s the number dwindled to 280 and reduced further by 1990 to less than 80. They vanished as quickly as the population…

I don't know if it were the Gods of Serendipity who conspired to do this but one day, the 26th of April, 2009, my phone started ringing at 6 am in the morning. Now, wondering who would be calling at this ungodly hour, I got up from bed to answer the phone. It was my friend Vinny who was going out for his daily run around the Jayamahal park and wanted to know if I'd want to tag along. I don't know what had gotten into me or if I was just dreaming, half-asleep, but I said, Yes, got up…