GENRE: Voices

For a mathematician who has been honoured with the Padmabhushan and made a fellow of the Royal Society, Professor Narasimhan made one small wrong calculation on the morning of Monday, December 14th, 2009.Walking down the narrow sidewalk along Sanjaynagar main Road, he tried to get past a large advertisement board balanced on top of a massive slab of concrete placed in the middle of the pavement by a newly opened grocery store. The narrow sidewalk along Sanjaynagar main Road. Pic: Sakuntala Narasimhan. With barely enough space on either side of the concrete slab for walking past, his foot got caught…

Recently, Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa and his band of Ministers, R Ashoka, Katta Subramanya Naidu and S Suresh Kumar, laid the foundation stone for a housing complex in JP Nagar. The housing complex will come up where a low income neighbourhood (slum) now exists with over 1000 houses. For now, around 100 houses have been razed and the families shifted nearby, in tin sheds.Speaking to these residents, they complained about the water problem, lack of toilet facilities, families of five were living in a cramped space, the tin sheds scratched them, they were sleeping on mud floors. Many refused…

The annular solar eclipse on January 15th provided a good opportunity for a live physics lesson. Several children and adults gathered on the terrace of Mayflower block of Brigade Millennium to view the eclipse through solar goggles and simple pin-hole cameras.  Balakrishnan explaining the working of the pin-hole camera. Pic: Arathi Manay Yajaman. Children trying out the pin-hole camera themselves. Pic: Arathi Manay Yajaman. The image of the eclipse captured by the pin-hole camera. Pic: Arathi Manay Yajaman. ⊕

Our BBMP seems to have achieved a unique double by first felling trees on a large scale and then leaving the roads chosen for widening in a pathetic state.   A great example is Seshadri Road on which I drove last night , when returning from the Railway station.  We know that the Rain Trees on this road were felled in December last year and the road widening has been underway for one full year on what is only a 2 km road. On one stretch of this road where new trees have been planted and the road fully laid the situation looks good.   The real…

In 2004-05, four underpasses/ flyovers were thrust upon the citizens of Basavanagudi. V V Road flyover built against intense public opinion, has less than 30 per cent utilisation even today. R K Ashrama Circle flyover was scrapped due to BJP's opposition. R V Road underpass was overtaken by Metro work. An underpass at Gandhi Bazaar Circle was opposed by the traders and a quid-pro-quo was reached with them that the underpass will be shifted to Tagore Circle and the traders will not oppose. This can be verified.In 2006, when the Chief Minister came to start this bypass-work, the local public…

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) or High Capacity Bus System (HCBS) is a high quality, ultra modern, customer oriented transit option that could deliver fast, comfortable and cost-effective urban mobility, quite similar to metro rail. Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) incorporates most of the high-quality aspects of metro systems without high investments. BRT was developed as a viable transit option in Latin America, where urban planners were seeking cost effective solution for the urban transport dilemma. This highly effective and economical mass transit option is now a way of life in many developing as well as developed countries such as China,…

Being a career woman, means a juggling act between home and office. Though we do believe we have super powers to do it all, we need help all the same. Be it a young unmarried girl, newly married or mother of two; we all need help.  In a city like Bangalore where nuclear families are the norm, more often than not it is the domestic workers or maids that come to the rescue of us superwomen. We may not openly accept it or even acknowledge it but talk to a woman whose maid has taken an unannounced vacation and you…

“I’m a defaulter”, he says laughing, for having dodged this interview for several weeks. Dressed casually in a pink striped shirt and black trousers he sits down to talk, in the backdrop of the public consultation of the urban development draft policy in Bengaluru. This policy was drafted in light of the challenges related to urban governance and to chart a new course for urban areas in the state.Former Corporator and now Minister for Law, Parliamentary affairs and Urban Development, S Suresh Kumar appears to have his priorities right. “We have to learn lessons from Bangalore. Bangalore should be repeated…

Open the day’s newspapers , and all you see are scary reports  -- about viral fevers, dengue, people thronging to clinics for medication, waterlogged layouts. A judgment under the Consumer Protection Act, handed out in Chennai  will be of interest to citizens in Bengaluru who would like to do something about the sorry state of civic amenities and cleanliness in the metropolis,  but knew also that the municipality could not be sued under the Act because of a  ruling that citizens were “not consumers” of municipal services under the law. A citizens' group filed a complaint with the Tamilnadu Consumer…

A few of us from the cycling community (specifically, from the Rideacycle Foundation, and from the Bangalore Bikers' Club), were able to meet Dr Venkatraman Ramakrishnan,  who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2009, the apex to a career of achievements and awards, at the campus of the Indian Institute of Science on January 6th. Bangalore cycling enthusiasts with Dr Venkatraman Ramakrishnan. (L to R) Shankar, Mayank Rungta, Mohan, Murali H R, Pradeep B V, Dr. Venki, Arun. Pic: Deepa Mohan. For me, it was a refreshing change to talk to a famous personality not about his work, but…