GENRE: Features

Three months have passed since the Goods and Services Tax (GST) was applied to housing societies/apartment associations, yet protests and confusion prevail. Resident Welfare Associations (RWAs) collect monthly charges from residents, to provide goods/services for their common use. Now RWAs have to register under GST and pay tax on the monthly charges they collect; this tax burden is passed on to residents. So, instead of being the end consumer, the association is seen as a service provider to the residents. Association has to pay taxes to the vendor while buying the product, and then collect taxes from residents on maintenance…

Residents of Ennore along with environmentalists organized a human chain formation at Elliot’s beach on Saturday evening even as actor and probable new politician in the fray Kamal Haasan visited the Ennore creek, to know more about the ground reality of its ash pollution and encroachment. In contrast to the usual weekend scenes, Elliot’s beach at Besant Nagar was filled with more than 250 like-minded individuals – from kids to senior citizens – who were holding placards that explain the sorry state of Ennore Creek. Industrial effluents from the thermal power stations here and domestic sewage from North Chennai have…

Traffic congestion, waste management, economic inequality -- issues such as these have been bogging down Indian cities. But attempting piecemeal, inefficient solutions means that problems have only worsened. The ‘Smart Cities Mission’ (SCM) launched by Narendra Modi's government in 2015 aimed at tackling urban issues. The concept was to make cities smart - to do more with less, to use existing resources efficiently and to build on them. As per the SCM, cities should provide citizens essential infrastructure, decent quality of life, sustainable environment, and also apply smart solutions. Given the lofty objective, it is interesting to observe how the…

It was a teary-eyed reunion for 50-year-old Mahfoosa Khatoon who had gone missing from her home in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal a decade ago. The Tamil Nadu State Crime Records Bureau (SCRB)’s initiative reuniting missing people ensured that she would be going home with her husband and brother for the first time since 2007. Mahfoosa, who also showed signs of Psychosis, was rescued from Muthukadu in Chennai by The Banyan, a not-for-profit organization, about a year ago. Recollecting the episode, Ratheesh K.Ram, a social worker from The Banyan said that she had been found in a semi-nude state at…

Art projects, Kannada and English letters, bookshelves and colour-coded graphs cover the walls of a ground floor classroom. A rainbow of paper lanterns hangs from the ceiling. And there are so many children who sit in groups on the floor reading, writing, drawing or just quietly conversing, even as two women hover around supervising, periodically hunching down to work with them. This is a scene from a classroom of Makkala Jagriti, a non-government organisation, from a primary government model school in Mathikere, North Bengaluru. Makkala Jagriti is committed to making learning attractive and education possible for children from Bengaluru’s most…

Somewhat surprisingly, Bengaluru’s Intelligent Transport System (ITS) for buses — the first of its kind in India — has been shortlisted with four other cities worldwide in the sustainable transportation category by the C40 Cities Bloomberg Philanthropies Awards in New York for climate-related initiatives. The city has been proverbially bogged down by traffic snarls and lack of public transport, including taxis and auto rickshaws, and there have been few visible signs of an improvement in the situation. Nagendra, chief systems manager in the Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), said work on the project had started in 2015 and was officially launched in May 2016.…

It has been two decades, and yet the struggle does not seem to end. Parvathy, a resident of Saidapet, is 70 years old and is seen actively moving around her small shop. “Our joint family became a nuclear family after my two sons got married. It was tough, and then my husband passed away too. Life was even more difficult now and then with my savings, I started this small shop adjacent to my house to keep myself engaged. I long to see my sons but they are busy with their family,” says Parvathy while handing over toffees to two…

"So have you heard this one?" said my brother. "The Stephanians put a board outside the college, saying 'Dogs and Hinduites not allowed.'" "And you know how the Hinduites responded?" he asked with a mischievous smile. "Dogs are allowed, but not Stephenians!" Back when we were students, stories like these went far and wide, carried by nothing more than word of mouth—we didn't need Facebook or Google to know about the rather ridiculous rivalry between St. Stephen's College and Hindu College. For the uninitiated, Hindu College and St. Stephen's College are a part of Delhi University's North Campus, and stand…

The Diwali sugar overload and dark warnings have swung back again for your annual consumption. Various government, parastatal and private organisations have already created lists of what you can do, what you can’t, and what you shouldn't. And these are relevant to every reveller in every city and town, as the nation gets ready to celebrate the annual festival of lights. Let’s look at the yearly log book of safety rules, along with other tips that have been handed down over the years like grandma’s homilies. DO Keep a blanket and a bucket of water or sand nearby as a…

Here is a drainage map of the city of Bengaluru sourced from the Central Ground Water Board website. No city sitting on a ridge line should actually get flooded but we have achieved the impossible — of course in parts. A dotted ridge line divides the city between the Vrishabhavathy-Arkavathy-Cauvery basin and the Dakshina Pinakini, from the North to the South. There is a huge difference between these two in the slope, the hydro-geology, the soil, the rainfall, the built up area etc. The drainage patterns - the rajkaluves - are interesting too. They are more dendritic in the Vrishabhavathy-Arkavathy-Cauvery basin…