Environment

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On Saturday, 16-July-2016, Horamavu Parisara Abhivruddhi Samiti (HPAS) organised an intensive day-long lake cleaning and beautification event at the Horamavu Agara Kere. More than 100 people participated in the event. In addition to local residents, students from Mount Carmel College’s Eco Club enthusiastically joined in picking up litter strewn around the lake, segregating waste, removing weeds from the lake’s fence, levelling the ground where needed, planting tree saplings, and making the place aesthetically pleasing enough to dissuade people from littering and dirtying the place in future. This 50-acre lake in north-east Bengaluru has been a prime location for local residents to toss their…

“We were planning a trap for a tiger, waited for it and later realised that it was sitting atop a tree behind, watching us intently all the while.” You may think this is a wildlife expert recounting his experience in the deep jungles. Not exactly. Dr Sujay, a senior vet at Bannerghata Biological Park, popularly known as the Bannerghata Zoo, has some fascinating stories of the animals in his care. Bannerghatta zoo. Pic: Saravana Bharathi The Bannerghata National Park became an independent establishment in 2002. It includes the Zoo, Animal Safari, Butterfly Park and Rescue Center. The Bannerghata zoo is a popular weekend…

Pic: Shubha Ramachandran Often times we (BIOME) are asked to compare the prices of recharge wells quoted by various well diggers. After speaking with the clients, we realise that they maybe comparing apples to oranges. Apples to oranges – since the well is not a standardised product but requires and includes several components and activities. Each well digger has his own vision of the well and related costs. Hence this blog post will throw some light on the components and activites that go into the making of a recharge well. And here we are not speaking of quality of activities…

For over 10 weeks now, Friday after Friday, volunteers from CTC and other organisations, have been tirelessly cleaning up the Adyar river, inside the Theosophical Society grounds. While it is distressing to see the amount of garbage they have cleared from this verdant expanse, arguably Chennai's lungs, the commitment and enthusiasm of the volunteers is amazing! Here are some images from the clean up over the weeks.  

Every city, even a giant metropolis like Bengaluru, still has a few patches of green, blue or brown that have managed to survive or at least allay the formidable onslaught of concrete and glass. Look carefully in these oases and you’ll be sure to find a sign of life (or five)! Snakes Among the most revered and reviled animals in India, snakes are also very common in our cityscapes. Bengaluru has about 40 species of snakes of which six are venomous. Most snakes, even venomous ones, will flee upon detection. They only stand their ground when provoked or unable to…

A night view of M G Road. Pic: Shree D N After finding out I would be coming to Bengaluru, an Indian city I knew just as the "Silicon Valley of India," having grown up in Seattle, I became fascinated with the idea of comparing my hometown to B'luru. The differences between these two cities, 8,000 miles/13,000 kilometers apart, are stark (food, geography, language, ethnicity, weather, traditions, you name it). Finding the similarities, I thought, would be more of a challenge. The questions I had in mind: do Bengalureans romanticise their pre-tech past as much as Seattleites do? Do they…

"Did you see how she did that?" I was lucky enough to attend numerous concerts, most often at the Bangalore Gayana Samaja, with my late guru Seethalakshmi Venkatesan. In every concert, we had attended together, she unfailingly pointed out nuances brought out by the performer of the day.  i Recently when a friend shared a video of Carnatic vocalist Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer performing at a sabha in Chennai, I was reminded of this when I saw the audience at this concert. A virtual who's who of today's Carnatic music stars were seated in the audience listening to the stalwart sing.…

A Memorable Morning at Neelankarai It was 5.25 a.m on June 19th. We were walking towards the Beach from East Coast Road. I'm part of Just Volunteer, an independent volunteering group and along with 30 volunteers from my team, I was on my way to the 7th Edition of the Chennai Coastal Cleanup organized by the Chennai Trekking Club. This was to be my 3rd Cleanup participation since 2014, when I had joined the 5th edition as an individual volunteer. The excitement was palpable the minute we reached there and we met the zonal leads. The briefing sessions were precise…