Z-Blogs

With the drainage lines from Ambalipura clogged, sewage has backed up near the Ambalipura Lake. Residents and members of Forward150 federation are trying to get the authorities to act, but no response till date.  Sewage overflows, adjacent to the lake. Here is the text of the letter we are sending to the Commisioner, BBMP ~~~ To, The Commissioner, BBMP, Bangalore. From, Residents living around Lower Ambalipura lake, and Federation of Resident welfare Associations of Ward 15, Sarjapur Road, Bangalore. Sub: Sewerage contamination of recently restored Lower Ambalipura Lake We, the concerned residents living around the Lower Ambalipura Lake, near Iblur…

Our Forward150 federation is working on getting khatas for our properties. Each apartment or layout group, which have either the Panchayat Khata or Occupancy Certificate from BBMP/BDA, has formed a team and are applying for the khata together. They have been assured support by their MLA Arvind Limbavali (Mahadevapura constituency) in their drive to get the papers without any bribes. They start with one member visiting the Registrar office and applying for No encumberance certificate for all owners of their community apartment/layout. Another member visits the lawyer to get the documents notarised. Till date many groups have submitted the documents in batches. Here is the story shared…

Every year, Mothers Day comes and goes on May 7th just as Womens Day on Mar 8th. But the unwritten and unaccounted subsidy that capable, productive, educated, women provide to public life is usually forgotten.Most often, our elders get care at home from homemakers. Second, domestic help and cooks and their unpredictable schedules are 'managed' at the cost of our homemakers' time. Third, everything from receiving LPG cylinders, couriers, mail, to daycare and pre-school centre timings are run today around the premise of homemakers' availability.These assumptions about life itself will breakdown locally if more women pursued full-time work by their…

  Our pavements (or footpaths or sidewalks) are very interesting places. No bland stretch of tiles or cement for us; we have a rich variety of life teeming on our footpaths (indeed, I often think they are called footpaths because the local Government makes them a foot higher than the road...so they are not meant for the easy use of pedestrians, but for people to earn their livelihoods on space-without-rent!)I walked to Jayangar 9th Block a few days ago, and got...The "alteration" tailors.They set up shop with their treadle (note, no electricity..very green!)machines, and for a pittance, will mend tears and…

Here's a nice image of the past and the present, juxtaposed...This was right next to Ranga Shankara, where I had gone to watch the end-of-workshop presentation that the children were doing for their parents and others. The mural is of a Yakshagana artiste, with his colourful headgear.... a popular art form in the past. The present is the increased pace of life, represented by the automobile. This car is the Maruti 800, which truly brought car ownership to the masses in India.And what happens when the past, and the present, inevitably, melt into the future? Here's what will take one…

 Here's the account of one young man, amongst the many students who take the various entrance examinations for professional colleges.N Arun Kumar took his Common Entrance Test (CET) on the 27th and 28th of March. The registration for this examination was done in a systematic way through his college (Christ Junior College). The application was done about a month prior to the exam, and the hall tickets were received a few days ahead of the exam. Arun's venue was the Oxford Pre university college in J P Nagar."Many of my college mates had to travel far to their venue," he…

  Though the bird count at the Bannerghatta Zoo area was on the low side today (this seemed to be more of an "audio" than a "visual" day, with many more birds being heard than seen!)...we did see a lot of interesting stuff as usual. Here's one: Isn't that really beautiful...and doesn't it look like the prismatic effect of an oil slick on the puddle? Well...it does, and though it IS an oil slick in a way, it's far more complex than that.Diatoms( here is the Wiki link about them)are a type of phytoplankton, which originated during the Jurassic period. Now, they…

  Having had to postpone our trip to Nandi Hills due to torrential rains on Saturday, we decided to make the trip on Sunday morning, and Anand, Kannan, Priyanka, Sushil, Vaibhav, and I left at 4.30am on Sunday morning.I rarely post black-and-white photos, but this view of the ramparts of the Nandi Hills wall, the trees and the clouds...and that monkey sitting there...needs bnw! Here's one of the things that's special about Nandi Hills: Here we are, having stopped on the road up, to see what we could sight:I used the little Fuji camera to capture the beautiful view of the hills…

  WRRC presents "Whispering Wilderness" - a unique education workshop to introduce the concept of bio-diversity and its conservation.The nine-weekend program starts on April 30th in Bangalore and features expert talks, team building activities, mind control, nature camps, photography and more!We request you to go through the attached poster and if it interests you, please hurry to register.About the Program (see attached image Whispering Wilderness 1280x800.jpg)The program will run for 9 weeks on the weekends. The schedule will be as follows:Weekend 1: Expert-Talks (2 hours each on Sat and Sun)Weekend 2: Nature-Camp (full 2 days on Sat and Sun)Weekend 3: Expert-Talks…

  One of the pleasures of the summer is certainly....mangoes! From the most unripe to the most ripe, we can enjoy mangoes in a variety of ways...and with unripe mangoes, we can make a variety of pickles.It suddenly occurred to me that right now, I've got three different mango pickles in my kitchen...all home-made!When the mangoes are tiny, they are called (in Tamizh)...mA vadu. This particular pickle is made by a process where the juices of the tiny mangoes flow out with the salt in which they are soaked. With proper preparation and storage (and frequent "shaking up"), this pickle can…