GENRE: In Focus

Sixty-one-year-old Jagadhamba is almost in tears. Property that her late husband Vishwanath built in 1994 is now being razed down, all for the sake of road widening by BBMP. Jagadhamba lives on Karkere Main Road in Jayanthi Nagar (North Bengaluru) with her family of two sons and two daughters. “What justice is this? This is our property. We don’t know what to do”, says Jagadhamba, as her voice drowns in the noise of the bull dozer at work. Sixty-one-year-old Jagadhamba. 195 feet x 17 feet of her property, built in 1994, is being taken away for road widening. BBMP will…

If you overhear a group of middle class parents talking, you are likely to hear the topic of schools – especially so around the time of admissions. The emotions vary from excitement to speculation to worry to concern to resignation. Many parents consider choosing a school among well established private schools as one of the big decisions they will be taking for their child. Parents talk about the criteria for selecting schools and discuss schools' approach to teaching, wondering if a certain methodology will work best for their child. Parents queueing up at at National Public School, Koramangala for admission…

The long-delayed bridge over the railway line at the Whitefield Railway Station in Kadugodi, northeastern Bengaluru, has received a ‘second-life’ of sorts, with the Hyderabad based-contractor Soham Engineering Constructions, restarting work last week. Soham had stopped work on the project for almost four  weeks, citing reasons of acute cash shortage. Steel girder sections lie covered in tarapaulin sheets, awaiting long overdue welding approval. Pic: Subramaniam Vincent. In a second and related development that could give a further fillip to the project, citizens living on the northern side of the tracks have offered to mobilise funds for Soham to help them…

The Technical Advisory Committee (TAC) of the BBMP will soon begin to decide and approve all major road projects in Bengaluru’s limits. This is confirmed by the Technical Advisor to the BBMP Commissioner and Member of TAC, H Raja Simha. So far, the TAC was approving grade separator and road widening works for the BBMP along the 12-arterial corridors (major roads going out of the city) only. For grade separator projects outside the corridors, TAC was not involved. But now, Simha says a decision has been taken for all such projects to be sent to TAC for approval. Additional Commissioner…

Following a long wait, Bengaluru inaugurated its very own National Gallery of Modern Art earlier this year. Functioning under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India, National Gallery has its head quarters in New Delhi, and another centre in Mumbai. Originally established in 1954, NGMA developed as a premiere institute for the housing and display of modern and contemporary art objects, of which they currently have more than 17,000. Over 500 items from this collection – paintings, sculptures, prints - were selected to be part of the inaugural exhibition at the Bengaluru centre with the title of ‘Signposts of the…

Her eyes well-up as she speaks about the notice she received from the Karnataka Forest Department dated September 1st 2009, informing her that her house is illegal as it is on forest land. She was to appear in court on September 14th with all her property documents, as per the notice. Forty-year-old Baby Saroja is a resident of the Rajiv Gandhi Nagar Slum in Devasandra, Krishnarajapuram Hobli, of East Bengaluru. This area falls under Ward No. 55 - Devasandra*. The slum is crammed with tiny houses – mould, thatched and tiled roofs can be found, and water flows through the…

“I won’t vote this time. What’s the point?”, asks a flustered Siddalakshmi, 55-year-old Bengaluru's slum-dweller in Koramangala’s Rajendranagar, referring to the now over-due BBMP council elections. Siddalakshmi’s anguish is shared by her neighbours, as she urges them not to vote as well. “Even if we are not voting, we should all decide to not vote. Not just one or two people”, quips Sujatha S, 33, another resident of the area. 55-year-old Siddalakshmi. Pic: Vaishnavi Vittal. Siddalakshmi, Sujatha and the others explain the various problems in their area, which remain unheard till today. “The toilet chamber overflows and everything comes into…

As part of the controversial project to lay a 9.2 kms road through the Gandhi Krishi Vignana Kendra (GKVK) of the University of Agricultural Sciences’ forestland, BBMP has cut down 680 trees, some of which were part of the university’s germplasm collections according to a survey undertaken by the Conservator of Forests, Bangalore Urban Circle. Germplasm collections are wild varieties of various crops that are collected and planted in different parts of the GKVK campus. The wild varieties are then crossed with conventional ones to create a hybrid. Sources within the university as well as the Forest Department have confirmed…

With Diwali just round the corner, cracker vendors in Bangalore have set up shop at 35 open grounds across the city. These are temporary stalls set up on the allotment of the Bangalore city police commissioner’s office and are allowed to sell firecrackers till October 21st using their temporary license. List of grounds designated for sale of crackers – Diwali 2009(Numbers in brackets are number of shops/licenses awarded for that ground) 1. Deepak playground (15)2. JP Nagar playground (17)3. Udayabhanu playground (10)4. HMT playground (9)5. Jayanagar Telephone Exchange (18)6. Rajarajeshwari Nagar, Shankarnag playground (18)7. Rama mandira playground (28)8. Malleshwaram playground…

Be it Sachin Tendulkar fainting in his hotel room after dinner or Harbhajan Singh slapping his team mate, a huge furrow over cheer leaders or TV channels discussing T20 over one day matches, cricket finds its way to the top stories of the day anyhow. The second in league should be Tennis with talks about Sania Mirza's engagement party or rift between two senior players. But rarely do we hear about certain karate championship or find these champions during the prestigious Rajeev Gandhi Khel Ratna Awards. “We mostly stay in places (government schools, temple compounds, etc) where there are no…