Column: Radio Active Bangalore

In 2002, Laila Ollapally took up a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) on providing adequate health care to persons with mental illness. Learn more about what made her take it up and her approach in bringing all the stakeholders in understanding the real issues. When individuals who require mental health care do not have the competence to take right decisions, how can we ensure their rights are protected? Lalia Ollapally is a practicing lawyer in the Supreme Court of India and the Coordinator of the Bangalore Mediation Centre (BMC).

'Sakala’ meaning ‘In Time’ is an initiative of the government Karnataka to ensure time bound services to its citizens. There are around 700 public services of the government Karnataka which are covered by this initiative and citizens through this initiative, can demand time bound services from their government. Learn more about how to use Sakala to get birth certificates or to get a Khata extract!

Priya Muthukumar is a professional storyteller, who uses storytelling to make learning more interactive and impactful. Here you can listen to Priya tell a story to the children assembled by the lake side during the Kere Habba. The moral of the story was about not be disturbing nature and to live in harmony with it.  

Asha conducts tailoring classes for women in Prakash Nagar in Srirampura to teach the basics of tailoring and also advanced classes in tailoring. Listen to her speak on how to get started with tailoring and be self reliant, there is always a demand for good tailors! In her words “People will come to your house to get their clothes stitched, if you are good at it”. Her underlining philosophy is that we should not waste our time by doing nothing, the least that we can do, is use our time to be useful to others, conducting these classes brings her…

At a workshop on gender justice in collaboration with Rutgers University-New Jersey, Visthar and Action Aid. Senior Programme Officer Nandhini from Action Aid recounts such cases and explains why gender equality is basic human issue. Kalyani's (name changed) is one such case, from a upper middle class family with degree in Engineering, she got married and moved to Bangalore. Within a month, her husband asked her to quit her job, not talk to her parents, did not allow her to dress the way she wanted. He took away the sim card of her mobile phone and soon this became regular…

Oblesh speaks about how the necessity of sanitation created the task of manual scavenging, and how the affluent class used to define a lower caste to undertake this task of manual scavenging. This necessity perpetrated the exploitation of the castes that has spanned generations. And that this is still practiced today, even though the original necessity of sanitation has been mostly been addressed by modern toilets. He says it is important to have proper sanitation infrastructure in place so that the necessity is meet, this task of manual scavenging will no longer be relevant and die away by itself.  

Listen to Chetan, where he speaks about his understanding of gender and sexuality, on being a heterosexual and living his life in an hetero normative society, transphobia in films, need for queer literature in India, the need to support the rights of the LGBTQIA community... these are his inspiration to be a supporter of the community.    

Maheshwari talks about how she got into collecting waste hair, picking up waste hair from streets and also by going house to house, bartering for waste hair with small household items and also offering money. She and her fellow workers buy hair by weight, collecting small quantities and over time, sell in bulk. Did you know that grey hair have a lesser rate than black hair? Maheshwari also upcycles waste hair by making wigs from this collected hair.

A solidarity meeting was held at the Institute of Agricultural Technologists on Queen’s Road on 13th November 2016 for farmers across Karnataka who are suffering from acute drought in the last two years. This meeting is part of an effort to engage those who influence public opinion, such as writers, academics, journalists and any other professional in towns/cities to the farmers’ struggle as part of the ‘Bengaluru stands with the farmers in distress’ campaign. Chukki Nanjunda Swamy, Dr Vasu, Geethamma, K T Gangadhar, Prakash Kalmadi and other eminent people spoke about the problems the farmers are facing and how to overcome the drought…

Did you ever own small, bright coloured wooden toys?  Every child in Karnataka might have owned the toy once in their life, be it a wooden horse or little wooden figurines. Ever wondered what they are called? These dolls are called Channapatna toys that are manufactured in the town of Channapatna in the Bangalore Rural district of Karnataka state. These toys are made from organic colours. Listen to Narayanappa, who was branch manager of Cauvery emporium in MG Road, a local artisan, who talks about the making of the toys. The tree known as Hale mara (tinctoris tree) is used for…