PEOPLE

When it appears that everybody has lost hopes with the Indian National Congress, Bengaluru’s own billionaire Nandan Nilekani decided to partner with the party. With the aim of becoming the champion for Bengaluru, the man behind the multi-crore Aadhaar project, gave an exclusive interview to Citizen Matters at his campaign office in Jayanagar on March 20th 2013. This was just a day before he declared his family assets — Rs 7,700 crore.   Nilekani shared his thoughts on governance, why he chose to join Congress, and what he can do as an MP for Bengaluru, which is run by MLAs…

The ever-smiling staunch BJPian Devaragunda Venkappa Sadananda Gowda, popularly known as DVS, has been in politics since 1983. Born in 1953, he graduated in science, and had a brief stint as an advocate, before plunging headlong into politics through Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and Jan Sangh. Hailing from Puttur of coastal Karnataka, with a strong RSS background, he became an MLA from Bharatiya Janata Party in 1994. He then contested Lok Sabha elections in 2004. He entered Lok Sabha by defeating the now-central Minister Veerappa Moily. He headed Karnataka BJP in 2006 as its state president, and was perceived…

I met a lot of interesting people today. My friend Jayashree Govindarajan put me in touch with Nidhi Manoj and Reshmi Chakraborti, who have been, for the past two years, running an e-magazine called Silver Talkies , for those above 55 years of age, Today (7th March, 2014) Silver Talkies, along with Suchetadhama (run by Shanthini Dawson) and artist Paul Fernandes’ gallery of Curious Memories, held their maiden event, “Art, Coffee and Conversation”, at the gallery, with high tea at The French Loaf, situated in a heritage house across the road. The idea was to share thoughts and discussions, and…

Pic: Huda Jaffer Drum beats and illuminating LED bulbs powered by the sun... do they have anything in common? Naah, nothing! Ponder over it for a minute. How are drums made? The typical response would be that the workers gather raw materials, add their labour and voila, the drums are ready.  Here we have workers who actually make drums under light bulbs powered by solar panels. Isn’t that exciting? Eco-friendly drums! A 500 year old craft In Thannisandra, a locality of Bengaluru, there is a small community of Mirasis living under the roof of tarpaulin tents. The Mirasis are a…

There comes a time in your life when it doesn’t matter what comfort zone you are in, you just want to move on and do something in life — something for the society; something to better the lives of others; something that everyone cannot do. This doesn’t happen to all, but Kalpana Kar saw it happen to her. Once she left her corporate comforts behind, incorporating professionalism in local governance became her new passion in life. Kalpana began her corporate career in TATA administrative services. She worked in Tata Unisys and Titan Industries. She also helped her husband in the…

Dad-at-work: Murugan with daughter Sanjana There's a fruitseller who sets up his cart on the road in front of my apartment building. Murugan, for that is his name, is always busy. If he is not working, he is a hands-on dad to his two children--Santosh and Sanjana. Murugan, you see, does with ease, something that most of us struggle to do--manage work and his children. And he performs his childcare duties, alongside work. When his wife Lakshmi goes for her 10 am to 2 pm shift as a domestic help at a nearby house, she leaves their little girl with…

Image Courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/TRRAIN The next time you walk into a cafeteria or a pizza store, watch out for something a little more noteworthy than your steaming pizza. A differently abled person could be working in the back area, and quite possibly with more élan than your usual order taker! Several food retail outlets in the city including Café Coffee Day, Dominos, Subway and McDonald’s, are increasingly hiring people with disability, particularly folks who are speech and hearing impaired, to build an inclusive environment at the workplace. Interestingly, fellow employees are more than welcoming to this trend. 'I don’t feel different…

Around 9am on Sunday morning as I walked to my nearby slum where I teach yoga to superbly enthusiastic kids every week, I saw a poster hanging at its entrance. Rajnikanth’s smiling face jumped out of the poster. Alongside were two words in English: Happy Birthday. It  was a small poster, about A3 size, strung up casually, hanging in the air, tilted. The poster had more love than execution (Wish I had taken a picture, but I usually don’t take my phone to the class). Representative purpose only Before the class began, I asked the kids who put it there and…

In an effort to study Photography, I recently learnt that if you are putting a story together about a Public Space, you would need to observe it over a long period of time, understand what happens there at different times of the day, what individuals or groups come there, for how long and so on. When you have a substantial understanding of the subject that you intend to photograph and have a story to tell, it is only then that you would be able to “represent” what you know through a series of photographs. In architecture, to design any built…

How about starting 2014 with a walk for gender minorities? Praja Rajakiya Vedike along with other organizations is conducting "Freedom Walk – ​​E​​nd Violence on Sexual Minorities" tomorrow (Wednesday, Jan-1-2014). This is an effort to facilitate interaction between sexual minorities and the society at large, in the context of the December 2013 Supreme Court judgment on IPC Section 377. ​The Freedom Walks are an initiative to make the public understand the issues of disadvantaged sections of our society.​ Participants will gather at 5:00 PM near the Radhakrishna Theatre (in Matadahalli) and start walking at 5:30 PM. They will pass through…