GENRE: Voices

In April 2014, a young boy from Noble Saint English School, Kadugondana Halli in Bengaluru, appeared for his SSLC exam. This was his third attempt at the clearing his 10th standard exams. When the results were announced two months later, he had cleared all papers but one - Mathematics. Young Fayaz at his home, with his Mathematics text book. Pic: Ganga Madappa The young boy is Fayaz and he is a quadriparetic. Quadriparesis, the condition that Fayaz is inflicted with, refers to muscle weakness affecting all four limbs. Due to his condition, Fayaz cannot lift his hands or walk. The…

There are no gates and watchmen in most of the government schools in the city. Pic: Nikita Malusare What is the difference between Vibgyor High school and any government school? Aren't the officials supposed to check and ensure safety in government schools? Not long ago, in February 2014, a man attempted to rape an 11-year-old schoolgirl from a government primary school somewhere in Bengaluru. The girl had gone to attend nature's call at 12.30 pm in the open when the man pulled her aside. The girl shouted for help and the assailant escaped from the spot. The girl was luckier…

For reasons beyond my conviction, I have stopped traveling by train and interstate bus. Maybe these experiences could be a few of the reasons. One morning my aunt was travelling to Chennai by the Shatabdi and the expected time of departure (ETD) of the train was 6 am from the Bangalore City station. It was drizzling a bit, so I cautioned that we leave the house at 5 am, though we were just about 8 kms from the train station. I know the roads and traffic with small rains have perfectly predictable outcomes – road blocks and traffic jams, even…

This write up was originally posted by Nitya Ramakrishnan on Whitefield Rising website, and has been re-posted here with permission. This article in  Times of India outlines what happenned. 16 individuals/groups are involved. And most of us are in this list! Interestingly, the choice each one makes determines the outcome of this case and potentially affects the next rape about to happen. So are we inadvertently supporting rape? The teacher that locked the little 6-year-old in a room, in the school (per the article in TOI) The Rapists The teacher that seems to have found out and brought the doctor The…

Facts as outlined by Police on Vibgyor High school case: "Alleged act on July 2nd. Complaint received on 14th. Full co-operation by School during investigation. Two people in custody as of 16th. Investigation at 80% completion and they are likely to conclude by 18th." It implied they were very close to conclusion. July 17th: On request from Vibgyor parents and in a gesture of solidarity for the victim, Whitefield Rising requested all on the group to support a protest meeting organised by the parents. Their objective was to get Mr Rustam to answer the many questions they had. They had…

There has been renewed hope among some circles in Bengaluru after the Union Railway Minister Mr. Sadananda Gowda made a mention in the Rail Budget about the much delayed Suburban Rail System. The project also found a mention in Siddaramaiah state budget last year. A Special Purpose Vehicle was formed as well by the State Government. This was without the involvement of Railway Board. Praja RAAG, an online forum, has been pushing for implementation of CRS for the last few years. Unfortunately, they have found little support from political circles or from citizens for this project. This is not surprising…

July 15 was the deadline for the public to send in comments and suggestions  to the government’s ministry of labour and employment, about the proposed amendment to the law on child labour (prohibition). An NGO, Walkfree, working on child labour abolition had put out alerts, urging the public to sign the petition to the government, but at last count just before the deadline, there were only around 2,300 signatures. In a country of 1.2 billion people, this hardly qualifies as “popular involvement.” I haven't seen any involvement on this in Bangalore. We need deeper thinking, especially among the citizenry (rather…

I was recently required to set up a new bank account. The entire process took all of one week and I really didn’t have much to complain about. During that week however, one employee decided to become my self-appointed relationship manager — getting my number off company records and whatsapping me repeatedly after 8 pm at night, with delightful ‘Hi’ texts. Nothing irks me more than a genius who thinks a text that starts and ends with ‘Hi’, makes for a good start to anything. Maybe it was the fact that we were both Malayali and he thought we had…

In my last article, I responded to the indignation against an elitist school refusing an underprivileged kid admission on grounds of social disparity. My response was focused on considering the impact on that kid if he were to get admitted into such a school. Many people who responded to this article were concerned about my choice of focus, and made suggestions towards a solution. While some people stated that they wanted a solution, and we should not let such social discrimination remain in schools, others went on to suggest means to remove such discrimination. They claimed that by measures such…

Every day there are illegal constructions coming up in various places in Bengaluru. Are the authorities blind? Can't they see these as they drive past them? Why is this going on even when laws strictly prohibit them? While illegal constructions should in most cases be demolished, there would be important considerations. These are spelt out in a Supreme Court judgement on the Delhi demolitions. This has been mentioned and explained in the CAF PIL against Akrama - Sakrama, which was signed by me on behalf of CAF, when I was its secretary. The substance of the PIL was that in…