GENRE: Voices

Urban Development Department has published the draft rules for the Constitution of the Metropolitan Planning Committee for the Bangalore Metropolitan Region inviting objections or suggestions. Please find below my submissions after a detailed study: The draft Rules have not been given adequate publicity in the Press and Media. Even till date the notification does not appear in your department’s website. I therefore request you to give wide publicity in the media including publishing on your department’s website and extend the date for receiving suggestions by 30 days. Sec 4(1) c of RTI Act requires you to publish all relevant facts…

Who hasn't heard of Arnold Schwarzenegger -Hollywood star - California Governor andbody builder - he had won the Mr. Universe  World Amateur Body Builders Championship (WABBA) (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c7Iaz_r2t-g).  And now the next Mr. Universe Body Builder champion is a young man from our very own Whitefield. G Balakrishna, a 22-year-old youth from Ramagondanhalli village has won the Junior Under 24 title of Mr. Universum in Germany on Nov 16th. As a 19 year old in 2010 he stood 6th in the WABBA Mr. Universe Competition. (http://wabbaworld.com/w-a-b-b-a/history.html) . Pls see this video  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5CPAIVHH0Q. He is number 85 (third from the right). Whitefield is thrilled and extremely proud…

After going through the news item published in the front page of The Hindu dated 20th November 2013, on the brutal attack on a woman inside the closed ATM in the heart of Bengaluru city, I would like to explain a possible cost-effective remedial measures to avert such criminal incidents in ATM kiosks. Normally we observe that on very next day of a holiday or in other occasions, rolling shutters of many ATMs partially closed or fully closed due to non availability of cash or for any fault in the system and no notice board is placed on rolling shutter…

For many years now, civil society has waged a long fight to get a proper Planning body instituted for Bangalore and other large cities. This is not only essential in order to coordinate different development activities in all sectors, but also required by the Constitution. Now, in responding to a PIL by C N Kumar, the government has put out the draft notification to create this body. Purely institutionally, it is a victory for all of us. JNNURM was supposed to get this done, but that was dodged by packing the Mission with pliable appointments and state governments that cooperated…

My post for this month is late. As expected, it was bound to happen sooner or later. I have been hit by writers block. But that’s not the only thing that was bound to happen sooner or later. I also got bit by a dog! A little introspection revealed to me that the bite was the reason for the block. I consider the season between Diwali and New Years to be one big party season. Time for merriment and in my mind, there is no merriment without food. So I wanted to write about food. But the dog bite did…

Duets – the very word evokes images of love ballads from Hindi movies. The successful pairing of Lata Mangeshkar with Mohammed Rafi or P. Susheela and T.M. Soundararajan left an indelible mark on Indian movie music. Here is a song by Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar from the classic Hindi movie Aandhi.  Duets are not uncommon in classical music. In Carnatic music, the last fifty years have seen numerous successful pairing of singers. Radha-Jayalakshmi were one of the pioneering duos from the 1950s. They were followed by others such as Soolamangalam Sisters and Bombay Sisters all the way to present-day…

Just a few months ago – on 23 February 2013– a fancy, “sky kissing” (ambara chumbana) clock tower, the tallest in the state, was installed with much fanfare at a cost of over Rs 90 lakhs (by a cash-strapped city administration). The fancy clock not only showed the time, it was supposed to change colour for each day of the week - orange for Tuesdays, blue, green etc. Go take a look now – the ‘colour changing’ bit has not lasted even a few months. It remains orange forever. Spend money on a 'colour-changing’ fancy contraption, pay the contractor, and…

Chief Election Officer of Karnataka published a new version of Electoral Rolls on 3 November 2013, on his website. My observations here are limited to the electoral rolls of 28 constituencies of Bengaluru. Data quality of the rolls has improved compared with the version published in May 2013. 240 of the 370 voters below age 18 were infants at age 0 and age 1. They have all grown up and become 18 to 98 year old in the new list. Interestingly 57% of them are 23 year old now, ready to register in matrimonial sites. Did the AEROs check the…

The Mayor feels IT industry has not done enough for Bengaluru. Sir, here are four things that IT can do for the city quickly. (a) Digitise the property records in the city, and host them online, so that everyone can see who is paying taxes, who is not, and how much. Likewise, digitise the records of government properties, spatially, and put them up online. (b) Digitise the records of all public works, including the history of works on each road, and put them up. (c) Digitise file movement in the BBMP, so that the routine work of the agency becomes…

Sadananda Maiya. Pic courtesy: http://basavanagudinationaldegreecollege.blogspot.in It's known that Bangalore is Karnataka’s capital, Garden city, Silicon Valley, IT-BT hub of India, historically. Culturally, religiously, traditionally rich, educational hub tourists’ delight, cosmopolitan city ever growing in leaps and bounds in every aspect beyond one’s imagination, contributed to a galaxy of scientists, sports persons, actors, doctors, musicians and much more distinguished professionals. People from all over India and world jump at the first opportunity to come to Bangalore for whatever reasons and enjoy the social life it offers all irrespective of their vernacular background, culture, taste and lifestyle. Bangalore has great weather all…