INTERVIEWS

G Padmavathi (56), a 4th time Congress corporator from Prakash Nagar ward, took charge as the 50th Mayor of Bengaluru in September 2016. She is the seventh woman to assume the coveted post. On a Wednesday at around 3 pm, she arrives at her chamber to make herself available for visitors. She is at her office after a long day of field visits and attending events across the city. A group of residents wait in a corner to invite the Mayor for an upcoming event. Meanwhile, a batch of auto drivers arrive at her office to submit a memorandum requesting…

KCDC Chairman A Kenche Gowda. Pic: Akshatha M Karnataka Compost Development Corporation (KCDC)’s waste composting plant at Kudlu near Hosur-Sarjapur Road Layout in Bengaluru has been in news of late for all wrong reasons. The plant receives on an average 350-500 tonnes of waste from four Assembly Constituencies in Bengaluru - Bommanahalli, BTM Layout, Mahadevapura and Bengaluru South, according to officials in the plant. However, the functioning of the plant has not been upto the standards. Residents nearby complain of unbearable stench from the plant, and letting of leachate into the lake nearby. Residents have been demanding for the last…

Sometimes, the departure of one of the circle of friends comes as a shock, and so it was when I got the news of the sudden passing of Ashok Hallur, just short of his fifty-first birthday. Ashok, in his short life, had already made a name for himself as an active wildlife film-maker and avid conservationist. He was born in Bagalkot, Karnataka, on 25 February 1966. He received early schooling at his village, Hanamapura, with a short stint at Kavalur, later moving to Bijapur. One of his teachers noted his artistic ability and advised him to go to art school,…

Listen to Chetan, where he speaks about his understanding of gender and sexuality, on being a heterosexual and living his life in an hetero normative society, transphobia in films, need for queer literature in India, the need to support the rights of the LGBTQIA community... these are his inspiration to be a supporter of the community.    

The ‘Steel flyover’ issue took Bengaluru city by storm. The focus of the activists is now extended to all other elevated projects coming up in the city, announced years ago but mired in secrecy, with little information on public domain. One such major project is a network of five elevated corridors, anounced by the Chief Minister in his speech for Budget 2016-2017. One person who has been pushing for this project is Rajendra Kumar Misra, or RK Misra as he is popularly known in elite circles of Bengaluru. He has been the member of BBMP’s Technical Advisory Committee since 2011.…

Even as society struggles to break gender stereotypes and end physical and mental abuse of women, movies continue to be made with regressive plots involving the male lead winning over the female lead, through various forms of coercion including stalking. Remo, a movie that has hit the screens recently follows the same template where male lead Sivakarthikeyan stalks and wins over the female character played by Keerthi Suresh. The movie was boycotted by many people across the state for glorifying the act of stalking. While the Tamil film industry continues to produce movies such as Polladhavan, Padikkadhavan etc., that redeem…

Starting November 8th midnight, Indian currency notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 ceased to circulate. The Prime Minister in his address said that the decision was taken to root out the black money, fake currency and corruption menace. The sudden-ness and immediacy of this decision has been notable, but a less known fact is that there was a brain from Bengaluru at work, that has been advocating this measure for a long time. In 2012, a professor of finance from the Indian Institute of Management, Bengaluru (IIMB) wrote in an article: “We should abolish Rs 500 and Rs 1,000…

N Manjunath Prasad, Commissioner of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), believes in minimum contact but maximum governance. He is from 1994 IAS cadre. In an interview with Cherry Agarwal, a student of Indian Institute of Journalism and New Media (IIJNM), he talks about a wave of digitisation to put information on public domain, the long term plans of the BBMP, the challenges he faces and more. BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad. Pic courtesy: BBMP Commissioner FB page How has your journey been since 1994 to being the BBMP Commissioner? In 1994 after getting into the IAS I was allotted the West…

Her enthusiasm for meeting people is equalled only by her indignation at the pathetic state of the infrastructure all over the city - the roads that get relaid without being milled, the storm water drains that are overflowing because someone let their sewage water into it, the bio-toilet that everyone pees around, but no one goes inside to their job, the lovely Besant nagar beach where everyone loves to stomp around but no one stops to give a thought to the teeming marine life in the sand... she can go on and on.. But no, she is not a pessimist,…

Xerxes Desai. Pic: Christopher Lopaze On 27th June 2016, Bengaluru lost one of its most eminent citizens when Indiranagar resident Xerxes Sapur Desai breathed his last in the city. He was at the helm of Titan Companies Ltd from the 1980s till his retirement in 2002 and is the man widely acknowledged to be the driving force behind catapulting the brand to international renown. A man of great passion and energy, Desai is known for having transformed Titan into a nimble, agile organization and a very ‘happy’ place to work. He imbibed a culture which encouraged innovation, one of not…