GENRE: Features

25 students of class VI and VII, Kumaran's School, wrote to the Consumer Services Manager of the snacks company Frito-Lay, telling him what they thought of the packaging that the chips came in. They each posted a Lays chips packet back to the company along with the letter. This was done as a part of their school nature club extracurricular activity. They called this campaign "SEALED: Yours Truthfully" which taught them about the EPR (Extended Producers Responsibility) Law. Post cards by students of Kumarans School (State Board) to Frito-Lay. Pic: Shamala Kittane The recently amended Plastics (Manufacture, Usage and Waste…

The starry showers that light up the night sky during Deepavali or other celebrations are a sight that has brought us joy since time immemorial. Whether in their use as firecrackers, or as missiles during wars, rockets have a history that dates back to the earliest days of human civilization. And even though we have references to similar missiles in India as far back as the age of the epics, scientists and historians trace the origin of rockets to another ancient civilisation, in China. Mysore Rockets used in a battle at Guntur in 1780. Pic: http://grin.hq.nasa.gov In a talk titled…

It all started with a few pair of shoes. Four retired men sitting together saw a group of schoolchildren pass by barefoot and decided to give shoes to them. One thing led to another and soon they were helping out local schools in looking after the health, nutritional and academic needs of children and had formed an NGO called Senior Citizens Bangalore. Launched in 2001 by the late Romesh Khanna, also the founder chairperson of Special Olympics India, the group has today grown from four to almost over 40 members and is located mainly around Indiranagar in Bangalore. Members of…

For Vijay Bhaskar Reddy Dinnepu, the urge to give back to his roots was unrelenting. And that's what led to the founding of his initiative KisanRajaFRESH, that delivers fresh fruit, procured directly from farmers, to homes and offices. This, he feels, will help both the cultivator of the fruit and its end consumer - the consumer will pay less than he presently does and despite this, the farmer will earn more. Fresh fruit, straight from the farmer A chemical engineer with a post graduate degree in computer science from IIT Madras, Dinnepu embarked on this enterprise as a natural extension…

With a large number of international schools thriving on the fringes of the city, Bangalore could well emerge as the school destination not only for those who are looking for a global flavour in schooling but also for many across the globe aspiring for quality education. These schools not only take pride in their world class infrastructure, they actually give competition to legacy schools like Sophia, Baldwin, Bishop Cotton, and Cathedral. International Schools such as The International School Bangalore (TISB), Treamis World School, Ryan International School are usually spread over 2 to 7 acres of land. "Schools are coming up…

"I am so glad I share a blooming passion with Tipu Sultan!" exclaims one of Bangalore's top florists Dr Norma Prabhu, while browsing through the blossoms at the city's Republic Day Flower Show 2013 in Lalbagh. A homeopathic doctor, Norma also devotes a lot of time to her flower retail outlet Simply Elegant and is a well-known name when it comes to marriage hall decorations across Bangalore. Her beautiful arrangements are partly fed with flowers that she farms herself. And just as her regal idol over 200 years earlier, she harbours an overwhelming affinity for flowers and a widespread knowledge…

Cartoon by Rohan Chakravarty. Bird Race time again! Or to be more precise,The HSBC Bangalore Bird Race is what it's known to the wise.As soon as the registration was declared open,Thirty-six teams registered, every person hopingThat he or she would be the one to sight so many birdsThat "You're the best!" would be the judges' appreciative words.The Bird Race team consisted of a lot of names with S's...Srihari, Subbu, Sunjoy, Swarna..to sort out all the messesAnd successfully stage the event.Thanks to their work, it all wentSmoothly, with sponsorship from HSBC...A day of being in the open air, sighting birds happily.One…

Aruna Chandrasekhar's phone hasn't stopped ringing since Tuesday evening. Her desperate call for relief for people at Ejipura had actually reached a significant number of people. This, thanks to involved citizens reaching out through their personal and social networks.Aruna, in her twenties, is a freelance photographer and writer has long been involved in social activism, particularly in environmental and mining-related issues. On the morning of January 18th, her friend and activist Kaveri Indira Rajaraman, a post-doctoral fellow at the Indian Institute of Science, called her. Kaveri has been fighting for the rights of those residing in Ejipura EWS (Economically Weaker…

"If someone's looking for Salman Rushdie's Sea of Stories, sail to White Field," I heard a fellow bookworm tell me. So I wiggled out of a dying week and curiously headed out for a truly enlivening time. Over the past weekend, Bangalore was treated to a journey into the literary mind. Novelists, playwrights, short-story authors, poets, lyricists, journalists and droves of word-junkies converged at White Field's Jagriti theatre for the Lit-Fest Lekhana.  After readings of their Indian-language poetry, Indian Ensemble Theatre's Abhishek Majumdar and Sandeep Shikar, chat with their listeners. Pic: Jatin Prabhu From January 18th through 20th, this popular…

After the disappointing 7 Khoon Maaf, Vishal Bharadwaj makes amends with Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola. With this film, Vishal Bharadwaj lives up to his previous cinematic work that includes Ishqiya, Kaminey, Omkara, Blue Umbrella, Maqbool and Makdee. But the subtle humour that we saw in earlier work like Ishqiya and Kaminey now moves into a fullblown political sattire. It's a new genre for Bharadwaj, and he makes the transition gracefully. When Matru Ki Bijlee Ka Mandola works, it does so because it is a film that runs at many levels. At a most basic analysis, Matru Ki Bijlee Ka…