GENRE: LN

Team ‘Learning to Fly’ won the Ultimate Frisbee National Club tournament Final at Kanteerava Stadium in Bangalore on July 8th, 2012, organised by Karnataka Ultimate Players Association. Of the 24 teams participating from all over the country ‘Falcons’ and ‘Learning to Fly’ reached the final. In a mind boggling one hour, both teams fought tooth and nail for a win. It looked like it will be a tie with the 7-7. But ‘Learning to Fly’ snatched the winning score at the final moment.  Both teams were from namma Bengaluru. Ultimate Frisbee National Club tournament Final at Kanteerava Stadium in Bangalore…

Bangles made out of leftover woollen threads and plastic flowers. Earrings made from old silk sarees and paper chips. Cute Indian breed puppies for adoption. Stalls full of second-hand clothes, bags and shoes for reusing. The West calls it the yard sale, we call it - ‘Reuse and Recycle mela’!After a successful fourth edition of the flea market, the fifth edition turned out to be even better. AICOBOO Grounds in BTM 1st Stage saw large participation from the buyers as well as the sellers. Around 50 sellers participated while the mela saw over 700 visitors during the day.  Upcycled wine…

Two years ago, a direct selling company, RMP Infotech got its website redesigned adding new marketing initiatives, that subsequently increased company’s visibility to new customers. Likewise there are businesses, mostly Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) with minimal online presence or totally offline and there is a dire need to bring them online for their growth, says Sangeeta Dilip who was instrumental in redesigning the website.  Sangeeta Dilip. Pic courtesy: Sangeeta Dilip Bitten by the entrepreneurial bug, Bangalore based Sangeeta, 27,  saw opportunity in this segment and found startupfreak.com to help offline SMEs go online. She left Wipro Technologies in 2009…

Adjectives like stinky, smelly, dirty, unhygienic and unbearable suit the status of Bangalore’s public toilets the most. And that is not all. Woes of city’s public toiletsSavithamma, a domestic worker working in the residential areas of BTM layout and Jayanagar, says, “I travel from Gangenahalli (north Bangalore) everyday and come here to work. It takes more than two hours everyday and sometimes during rains, I feel the need to relieve myself but there is no place to go.” Locked doors, severe stench and sometimes, even men, welcome women in public toilets. Pic: Ankita Mehta She adds that she holds her…

Shridevi Mahadevan quit her well paying software professional job and started a performing and fine arts enterprise-‘Navarasa’ in Koramangala in 2009. 34-year-old Shridevi, dancing since her childhood; she learned Bharatnatyam, and later Kathak. She also had passion for theatre and worked with Bangalore based Script Peoples Theatre for several years. Shridevi Mahadevan. Pic courtesy: Shridevi Mahadevan It was in  the year 2009 when she was doing one-year Executive Management course at IIM, that she decided to channel her love for performing arts into an entrepreneurial venture Predominantly focused on dance, Navarasa also imparts developmental theatre training, experimental workshops in pottery,…

Citizen Matters in association with ‘Second to none’ (220) is organising a ‘Reuse and Recycle mela’ this weekend at BTM Layout. 220 is an online community focused on the concept of Reduce-Recycle-Reduce waste. Flea market, last year. File pic The flea market on Sunday, July 15th, will provide a platform to buy second hand and upcycled articles. Upcycling refers to converting useless or waste into valuable products. There will be a bit of everything from used books, electronic items, clothes and home decor knick knacks. ‘Don't discard, reuse, don’t throw, recycle’ will be the buzz phrase this weekend. 11 am…

Bangalore will be the first city to pilot a project to allow Driving License applicants to consent to pledging their organs, at the time of license application. An initiative of Gift Your Organ Foundation (GYOF), the pilot will start on July 24th, at Electronic City RTO and will expand to other RTOs across the city and state in due course. GYOF, setup with a vision of ensuring there are no deaths in India due to shortage of organ donors, has been working with the Department of Health and Family Welfare and the Department of Transport, Government of Karnataka for the past few months.…

Karnataka’s newest Chief Minister is Jagadish Shivappa Shettar. Shettar is 56 and the state’s MLA from Hubli. Jagadish Shettar. Pic: bjpkarnataka.org Shettar earned a B Com in 1977 from Jagadguru Gangadhara Commerce College, Hubli and LLB from JSS Sakri Law College in 1980. His wife is Shilpa Shettar and they have two sons, Prashanth and Sankalp. In his 2008 filings before the election commission, Shettar and Shilpa disclosed their assets as follows. Assets Jagadish Shettar Shilpa Shettar Cash Rs 2,12,000 Rs 55,000 Bank balance Rs 2,70,321 Rs 2,34,458 Shares Rs 1,69,720 Rs 5,000 NSC/LIC Rs 1,85,000 Rs 4,25,000 Vehicle(Tata Indigo)…

The monsoon rains are delayed this year. But by sheer coincidence, BBMP’s rainwater harvesting plans of last year remain unimplemented, almost as if the monsoons were granting their own extension to BBMP, ominously. What’s worse, a Citizen Matters inquiry revealed that the city’s accounts department declined to release funds due to the engineers’ lack of interest. Bengaluru faces a shortage of 410 MLD (megalitre water per day) of water. The average rainfall here is 923 mms within a geographical area of 800 sq kms.  It is in this context by seeing the potential of RWH, BBMP made implementation of rainwater…

With the city’s growing water woes, rainwater harvesting has come into focus time and again. It was also made compulsory in Bangalore by law. The BWSSB (Amendment) Act passed in August 2009, states that every owner or occupier of a building having a sital area of 2,400 sqft and above, or every owner who proposes to construct a building on a sital area of 1,200 sqft and above, should install rainwater harvesting structures. Following the law and various awareness exercises conducted in the city, it appears that RWH installation pace has picked up much more compared to earlier years. The…