Environment

Mestripalya lake, waiting to be filled with water. Pic: Holly Thorpe After decades of delays and legal complications, the finish line for Mestripalya Lake is in sight—but just out of reach. The lake, located in Koramangala 3rd Block in East Bengaluru, is ready to receive water, but until the project is transferred from the BDA to the BBMP, it cannot be filled. The BDA has done all of the structural work visible today, including fencing the lake. Before development, the area was overgrown with weeds, and a receptacle for waste. Now, the lake has been dug out to receive water,…

Tasked with creating an app that addresses a ‘community problem or issue’, five Bengaluru girls won $10,000 (approximately Rs 6.4 lakh) at Technovation, an international technology entrepreneurship competition, to further develop their app designed to keep waste off the streets of Bengaluru. Team Pentechan. From left to right: Mahima, Sanjana, Swasthi, Anupama, Navyasree. Pic: Holly Thorpe Anupama N, Sanjana Vasanth, Mahima Mehendale, Navyasree B and Swasthi P Rao, all of 14 years and in Class 9 at New Horizon Public School, won the prize money when they took first place in the competition in San Francisco. They competed in the…

Last weekend's Bangalore Cycle Day was held at the historical 350-acre Yelahanka Lake, in Yelahanka (near  Kogilu Cross international airport road). Yelahanka Lake  Organized by Yelahanka United Environment Association (YUVA) in partnership with Directorate of Urban Land Transport,  Government of Karnataka & BCOS on 5th July 2015, this Sunday morning event was supported by The Times of India, BBMP and Bangalore Police.     Around 3000 cyclists, including school and college students participated in the event. Yelahanka MLA Mr SR Vishwanath joined the cyclists to complete the entire stretch of 6.5 km. Free cycle rentals were organised.   Mr Venkate Gowda, a…

PNLIT will be receiving the  शहर GREEN करो - It's Our Turn to Lead Award at a special function at the Puttenahalli Lake premises on 16th July 2015, 11 a.m. onwards. The Chief Guest is Mrs. Karuna Singh, Country Director of Earth Day Network India, the organizers of the contest.  The contest was held in 45 Indian cities to commemorate the 45th anniversary of Earth Day and six winners were announced in May. The Jury found merit in our entry on the pre-monsoon cleaning of the lake bed by volunteers on 28th March 2015, most of whom live in the neighbourhood. Sincere thanks to each one of them…

Last week, Madhurima, who regularly tracks the birds at Puttenahalli Lake had lots of "good news" for us. "We had a babies' day out at the lake. First the Coots brought one of their babies out. A Brahminy Kite spotted it and dived towards it, but unsuccessfully. So no casualties. Later the Coots brought out both their babies. Then the White-throated Kingfishers brought out two juveniles and the Wagtails also presented,  what looked like a juvenile.  And then, an Ashy Prinia brought out a tiny little Ashy Prinia! It was so tiny that we could not see it with our…

The fourth hearing of the complaint on debris and garbage under the Namma Metro lines, filed by Bangalore Political Action Committee (B.PAC) came up for hearing in front of Upa Lokayukta Subash B Adi on July 3rd. During the hearing, B.PAC submitted over 100 photographs showing the debris, construction waste and garbage still lying in the median of Namma Metro, despite the Upa Lokayukta’s previous order to the BBMP to clean up the mess. B.CLIP participants and other B.PAC volunteers conducted a daylong exercise on July 2nd, visiting the Metro line to check the status of the same. At South…

A few weeks back, while writing about Vibhutipura lake, I spoke with Shubha Priya of VIKAS, a citizens' group associated with the Vibhutipura lake. She pointed out a few interesting facts about the lake, which I missed out on during my previous visits. The idea for composing this essay originated from my interaction with her. As I had observed in my previous essay, Vibhutipura Lake is a fascinating case-study. On various tracts of the land around the lake, one can find people residing in high-rise apartments. A section of society that is not socio-economically fortunate, lives on some other parts…

As kids, we used to chant a popular ditty: Ganesha banda kaayi-kadubu tindaChik-kereyl bidda dodd-kereyl edda (Ganesha came, ate coconut modakaFell in the small lake, emerged from the big lake) Don’t ask.  But I’ll come to the point. And I do have one, believe it or not. In the 1960s, when we first moved to Jayanagara 6th block, there were two kereys (tanks). The small tank was to the west of Kanakapura Road and the large tank to the east. Unlike now, the tank bund part of Kanakapura Road was very narrow. If two lorries—usually rickety old Fords—had to pass…

A summary of some key "Bangalore lake" news Encroachments – eviction and regularisation Encroachments on government land, including lakes, shot into front page news with the demolition drive at Sarakki Lake in JP Nagar 7th Phase, in April 2015. Eviction drives and attempted drives have been happening in Bangalore on and off. For example, in September 2014, Venkatarayana Lake was cleared of some illegal structures, and in January 2015 HRBR Layout residents received eviction notices as their homes were on lake beds. In both these cases, the Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) was a common factor, being the reason for the…

This write up has been compiled from emails received from Shubha Ramachandran of BIOME Over the past one year, ACWADAM, BIOME, WIPRO and MAPUNITY have been working on a project to map the AQUIFERS in the area around Sarjapura Road (8 MicroWatersheds spread across 33 sqkm in South East Bangalore which is completely dependent on ground water). They have also worked to see if they can revive and protect the 15 lakes in the watershed. People from the area have shared stories and data of their wells, borewells and STPs.  The approach to gather, share and interpret data has been participatory, involving varied stakeholders like borewell diggers, tanker operators, Citizen Groups, Government Agencies etc.…