GENRE: Voices

When I was driving home one night recently with my family in Bangalore, I met with a minor accident. It was raining heavily, street lights were off, roads deserted and I could not see the road ahead. Before I knew what was happening, my car came to an abrupt halt with a couple of thundering noises. Did I hit somebody, I wondered with a thudding heart. I got down and realised that the car had climbed up a road divider. Luckily, everyone was safe. Later, when the Maruti Service Centre people came and got the car down, I was told…

Bangalore is riding on the IT wave. What about the day when the situation becomes counter-productive to IT business in Bangalore? Pic: Shree D N Is Bangalore on the way to becoming a Detroit? There are too many similarities that cannot be ignored, between the two. Detroit - an American Dream Detroit, which once upon a time was the silicon valley of American industrialisation, stands today just as another rubble of urban waste. The city was heralded as the American dream. The third biggest city in America during 1920s and 1960s, today Detroit is bankrupt, with just a few hundred…

One of the banes of electoral rolls in the country is the rampant duplicate entries. Voter records are duplicated (a) within the same voter list, (b) in some other voter list within the constituency, (c) in other constituencies of the state or (d) in other states. For the past four years CEO-Karnataka has been telling that they have great software using fuzzy logic, capable of identifying all kinds of duplicates. CEO also told in February 2013 that his organisation deleted about 65,000 duplicate records identified by software and considered that there are no more duplicate entries. However, in the electoral…

October 2 brings the annual ritual obeisance to the Father of the Nation, but in the last six decades we have not had a repetition of the kind of protests against injustice on the scale that Gandhiji undertook during his salt march or Quit India movement. However, this time around, there is talk of a satyagraha, no less, by citizens of Bengaluru, because judging from the meetings I have been witness to over the last three months, patience is running thin. It is, many residents are now saying, time to undertake collective action, to make our voices heard. Not against…

I went to the Passport Seva Kendra at Outer Ring Road in Bengaluru to submit the application for the reissue of my minor daughter’s passport on tatkal. The lady at the front desk, G (name withheld) told me, “A single parent cannot apply for the reissue of her daughter’s passport on tatkal.”  I was asked to get my daughter’s father and the reason for the separation, all this in full public view. Being informed, I told her candidly that was not a reason for rejecting my daughter’s application for reissue of her passport on tatkal, and that she was not eligible to ask personal questions that violate decency…

With the increasing time you spend at traffic signals in Bengaluru, you only think about one government department — Traffic Department. You may hail them or curse them, but they are on their toes to help the city de-congest. Though the department is approached for approval of all infrastructure projects, there is no authority to it. Limited roads, which are always in a bad state are the biggest hurdle the department faces while struggling to keep the city traffic smooth. Bangalore's Additional Commissioner of Traffic Police, IPS offcer, B Dayananda Pic: Nikita Malusare Additional Commissioner of Traffic Police B Dayananda,…

Carry a charged cell phone always, as a dead mobile is of no use. File pic. Our country is witnessing the worst times for women. That is how we are feeling now. But the truth is women have been continually harassed, teased, attacked, ill-treated for centuries. We are coming to know of all the atrocities as women victims come forward and report the incidents to the law. As a result people have started talking about safety of women, laws protecting women and educating women to protect themselves against the evils prevailing around them. This is a definitely good progress. People…

Last May, the common Bangalorean voted for a change in the hope that this would be a change for the better. Basic needs such as commutable roads and better civic amenities are turning into luxuries for people living in Bangalore. Even after four months, the new administration is unable to make any real progress. Nothing has changed. While we painfully negotiate and move from gutter to gutter, all the while suffering bumpy rides, life-size posters of political leaders smile at us, ridiculing our plight. Previously, the poster boys were all from the rank and file of the BJP. Now it’s…

Are women really safe in the world today? Are there enough women officers who are sympathetic to the problems of women? Is there sufficient staff who is empathetic the problems of other women, even if the problem is not voiced out aloud? Is the future generation of women safe, in the wake of the rising crimes against them? I think not. Or rather I would diplomatically say I do not know. Balancing career and personal life is a real tightrope walk for women on top. File pic. This thought really scares me. More than that it shocks me. In a…

In the past, the making of urban form in an Indian city like Bangalore was an outcome of the spontaneous growth of a settlement. The city had winding streets that were primarily for people and not for the automobile. There has been a tremendous change in the economic life of the city and in the present times the experience of the city lies in its high-rise buildings, its flyovers and its high speed traffic. Every piece of architecture in the city strives for its own individuality and its own identity. Today, a street is defined by high compound walls that…