Civic

When you live in an apartment block with over 1000 flats, managing maintenance costs, corresponding with neighbours and making decisions for the entire complex, may prove strenuous, especially if you are on the management committee (MC). This was what drove S Parthasarathy to start Onesolution, an apartment management software tool. Parthasarathy founded OneSolution to ease the process of managing apartment complexes. Pic courtesy: OneSolution. S Parthasarathy, a resident of Brigade Gardenia in JP Nagar 7th phase, discovered the difficulty first-hand in his voluntary stint as the founder-treasurer of his complex. "Six months down the line there were several issues. The…

In the last few years, Bangalore has seen the emergence of apartment management software tools. Sangeeta Banerjee of Apartment Adda attributes it to multiple reasons. "Bangalore has a higher Internet penetration and is a highly cosmopolitan city. It also has a higher population of younger people in apartment association committees. The average age in most associations we have interacted with is between 35-40." Most software developers think that people would prefer a software that provides value in terms of saving time, effort and providing transparency. Parthasarathy of OneSolution thinks softwares such as these work better in larger complexes and Bangalore…

I went for a short walk just now...and here are the things I did....I went across to the "Samatha" cobbler's booth across the road, and found that after 6 days, the cobbler was still absent, and the booth closed. After the closure of the booth where my "regular" lady cobbler used to repair my footwear and handbags...this man was my "regular" guy. Strangely, no other vendor in the area knows where he has gone, or what has happened to him...he's a hard-working guy (though sometimes the smell of liquor wafts across!) and does good work, so I  hope he's just…

The BBMP is building a multi-storey building to house various government departments and an e-library, under one roof, at 39th cross, 11 main, Jayanagar V block. Bhumi Puja. Pic: Chetan Boray. B N Vijaya Kumar, Jayanagar MLA performed Guddali Pooja on July 29th at the site. He says, "the first preference is for a e-Library (to be housed up in the building), where students can come and prepare for their competitive and other exams". The list of government offices which will be housed there is not yet decided, he adds. B Somashekar, Corporator of Shakambari ward-179 also attended the function.…

Every child's first teachers are their parents. And if they work as teachers in real life, that can be an advantage. Jeevitha Lakshmi (15), is a daughter of such parents. Her parents  Vijaya Kumar, 48 and Uma Devi, 42  are both teachers. Kumar is working in R S High School near Madiwala and Uma is working in Eshwari school, Wilson Garden, both private high schools. The family stays in Madivala. Jeevitha has scored high marks in her SSLC Exam. After revaluation she scored 98% in Science, Social Science and English.  When results were first announced, Jeevitha found she had scored…

I posted once about the Monkey Puzzle Tree with its beautiful leaves (go see the huge trees near the Glass House  in Lalbagh, if you can!)and later, I got theMonkey Puzzle Butterfly amongst other things, on a nature trail:A few days ago, it was very nice to see that someone still cares about our Bangalore heritage, and has re-created the Monkey Puzzle architectural detail for their home:Possibly this feature was so called because monkeys used to sit on it...it's also called "Monkey Top".

“Where were you all, madam, at that time?” asked a BBMP official dealing with the city’s infrastructure development, last week. This was not  some rhetorical cross-examination of an accused during a crime investigation (though, as you will presently see, there is an element of crime involved) but something more basic that many of us can be asked or should ask ourselves more often.Residents of a Scientists’ Colony is south Bengaluru  suddenly woke up one recent morning to find that some of their houses, inside the colony had been marked for “road widening”. The road running through the colony was perfectly…

Like minded citizens of Shakambarinagar ward have come together to form a citizens’ forum to address the civic issues of the ward and closely work with the elected representatives as well as civic authorities. The organisation meets every fortnight (Monday) at their office in JP Nagar. Shakambari Nagar Citizen Forum members meeting MLA B N Vijayakumar and Corporator Somashekar at their office. Pic: Raghavendra. Below are some issues pertaining to Shakambari Nagar Ward:-    Installation of ward name boards at all the four boundaries of Shakambari Nagar.-    Installing of street/ Road boards which are broken or defaced.-    Identifying and desilting of…

When is a footpath not a footpath?When it's a death-trap....There is simply no reason why we should have such awful pavements; it's just sheer negligence and an attitude of "don't care".This was taken in J P Nagar 3rd Phase, close to the Ramana Maharishi Academy for the Blind. If we have such difficulty negotiating our roads and pavements....imagine what it must be like for those without vision.⊕

Assessing fire safety is crucial to any building - residential or commercial. What's important is to be prepared to tackle the fire. Here's a checklist of what you can do in case of a fire emergency and how you can be equipped to fight a fire in your building.What to do in a fire emergencyIn case of a fire, call 101 immediately. Never assume someone else has already done soIn a fire, activate the fire alarm in your building and shout FIRE at the top of your voice to alert others - yelling anything else can mean that others take…