Environment

Come Saturday 8th August 2015, treat yourself to a sumptuous Buffet Continental Breakfast at Le Pont Cafe and Patisserie.   Adding to the many flavours and ambience is the fact that you will be eating out for a cause.    PNLIT is coming together with our Puttenahalli Lake neighbourhood Le Pont Cafe and Patisserie to organise the first of its kind Fundraising Breakfast.   Team PNLIT invites each of one of you with family, including children, to come and enjoy your Saturday with us.   Date: 8th August 2015 (Saturday) Time: 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Venue: Le Pont, 24th Main, JP Nagar 7th Phase (Opposite Brigade Palm Springs)   Cost: INR 500 for adults, INR 250 for…

Sunday, 2nd August 2015 6:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Yelahanka Lake   This Cycle Day event is dedicated to the memory of Dr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. A poster exhibition is being organized at the venue. Cyclists will wear black armbands and observe two minutes silence in memory of the late President of India at the start of the cycle rally.   The cycle rally will be held around the 350-acre Yelahanka lake (around 6.5 km), followed by cultural events and traditional games on the street. Free cycle rentals with surrender of id card is being arranged. Light breakfast will be available…

Massive SEZ coming up on the catchment area between Agara and Bellandur lake. File pic. With the deadline only a week away for an eight-member Expert Committee to study Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project on Agara-Bellandur lake catchment area, the Committee has decided to submit an interim report on the project for the time being. The Expert Committee was formed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) as part of the litigation proceedings on the SEZ project by Mantri Tech Zone Pvt Ltd and another project by Core Mind Software and Services Ltd, on May 7th, 2015. ‘Yet to get details…

Who wants to get up early on a Sunday morning and that too, to do work in a public space? Sunday, 26th July 2015 saw more than 150 students of Seshadripuram PU College, Yelahanka at Allalasandra Lake doing just this. Led by the NSS co-ordinators of the college, Dr Subhash, Mr Shantaveerappa and Dr Mune Gowda, the students spent over fours hours (8 a.m. to 12 noon) working along the walking track, pulling out overgrown weeds and collecting garbage.  The 44 acre Allalasandra Lake in Yelahanka New Town is on its way to revival having been watchfully nurtured over the last…

Ganesha Chaturthi is still several weeks away (in mid-September), but sales of Ganesha idols have already begun. If you are accustomed to one of those colourful idols of the lord that more often than not end up polluting our lakes and waterbodies, this year you can do it differently. Look out for an ecofriendly Ganesha - one that will dissolve easily in water, and without toxic paints and non-recyclable paraphernalia.   There are many places in Bangalore from where eco-Ganeshas can be ordered and bought. You can look up old collated lists on these links - 2013, 2014.  Ashwini Prasad,…

Illustration: Suneeva Saldanha  A recent development in the Horticulture department managing Cubbon Park provoked me to write this article. The Horticulture Department has been approached by BSNL to make Cubbon Park and Lalbagh Wi-Fi enabled (Source: TOI). As part of the Central Government’s ‘Digital India’ initiative, funds will be supplied from the Centre to setup Wi-Fi hot-spots in cities with a population of over a million. "These two sylvan spaces, bang in the middle of an intensely busy city, are best protected from the trappings of modernity. Urban Parks world over, be they in Kyoto, Bonn, New York or Vancouver,…

Do you enjoy making motion pictures? Here is a chance to get rewarded for it too. The International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance (IRHA) is happy to launch its annual competition The Raindrops Geneva Award 2015. The Raindrops Geneva Award is a worldwide art competition by IRHA since 2007, to increase global awareness of rainwater harvesting. Held every other year, the competition chooses a different art form each time, such as posters, photos, videos. This year IRHA invites artists for submissions for “The Best Video on the Advantages of Rainwater Harvesting: Raindrops Geneva Award 2015”. Entries should be based on one of three different themes and the best artistic works,…

Message from MAPSAS trustee, Priya Ramasubban Kaikondarahalli Lake stands today as a shining example of lake restoration in Bangalore. It started back in 2008 with local citizens and the custodian government body, BBMP, working closely to rejuvenate the lake in an environmentally sustainable and socially inclusive way. Once restored, the BBMP encouraged active citizens to take up day-to-day maintenance, which resulted in the formation of Mahadevpura Parisara Samrakshane Mattu Abhivrudhi Samiti(MAPSAS), a non-profit trust which started off with maintaining 2 lakes, KK Halli and Lower Ambalipura (which was also restored around the same time). Today, MAPSAS has been entrusted by…

PNLIT volunteers and ceremony attendees pose for a group photo. Usha Rajagopalan (in pink) holds the award. Pic: Holly Thorpe Around 30 volunteers with the Puttenahalli Neighbourhood Lake Improvement Trust (PNLIT) spent the morning of March 28th hauling bags of trash out of Puttenahalli Lake. On April 22nd, Earth Day, they were announced as one of six winners for improving their neighbourhood. The competition, called शहर GREEN करो - It’s Our Turn to Lead, was hosted by Earth Day Network-India (EDN-India). The EDN Country Director for India, Karuna Singh, was present to hand out the award. She praised the initiative…

Residents in the Puttenahalli Lake vicinity beware!  One of the residents of the neighbourhood had a horrifying experience, as explained in this email message, received from a credible source. "One of our residents, on her way back after dropping off her children's lunch boxes at the Brigade School at around 12 noon, was offered some puliyogare as "prasad" by a decently dressed woman. She immediately ate it and walked back towards her flat at Brigade Millennium. When she got close to the Woodrose Club, she started feeling woozy, as if she had no control over her limbs, etc. She happened…