Environment

It is an 11.2 acre plush green landscape. A few huts have sprouted here and there. Encroachments. Pigs and cows graze along quietly. Apart from the piles of garbage strewn in certain portions, the Meistripalya kere (also known as Jakkasandra Lake) is a vital open space for residents of Koramangala. Meistripalya kere is a vital open space for residents of Koramangala. Pic: Vaishnavi Vittal. It is to protect this very lung space that the residents of Koramangala fought for years. Their efforts finally bore fruit in February 2010 after the Supreme Court ruled in their favour to protect this land…

Disclaimer: this information is provided by Prithvi K, an expert on snakes, it is for your information only. Please do not attempt to catch snake(s) based on the information provided here. Prithvi K, a trained snake catcher and resident of Sarjapur Road started rescuing snakes from January 2008. According to Prithvi, out of almost 270 varieties of snakes found in our country, only four are venomous. By learning to identify these four, we can allow non-venomous snakes to live in our surroundings, and maintain the balance in our ecosystem. Prithvi says, "If you are interested in pursuing herpetology as a…

Hariprakash Agarwal, President, Suncity Apartment Owners Association (SAOA) and Director, Community Services at Rotary Club Bangalore Lakeside, shares this update  on the tree planting done at Bellandur Lake.How it all started About 6 months back, some senior citizens in Suncity led by Ashok Dube wrote to BBMP Commissioner that they would like to do something for the city and environment. Their email was forwarded to Satish BV, Chief Engineer, BBMP and he got in touch with the SunCity group. He said BBMP was planning to rejuvenate the lake and a proposal worth more than Rs 350 Crores was under discussion.…

Adarsh S Vansay, 38, a resident of JP Nagar has been saving more than 50% of the his monthly BESCOM bills from the past two years. He had installed solar cell plates and a windmill at his house in JP Nagar, 7th Phase. The windmill installed in his house can produce one unit of power and the solar cells can produce around two units of power in a day. 1 unit can light a bulb of 100 watts for 10 hours. He invested around Rs 3.5 lakhs and saves around Rs 600 every month on electricity bills. "Even though it…

Rainbow Drive Layout, Bhoomi Network for Sustainable Living and Biome Environmental Solutions had together organised a talk by Dr Chandrashekar from Vision Earthcare on May 30th 2010 at the Rainbow Drive Club House on Sarjapur Road. Dr Chandrashekar articulated the limitations of existing STPs and how an ecological method which is Soil Biotechnology (SBT) based STPs, researched for over two decades at IIT-Bombay, provides clean river quality water at a lower cost. Vision Earthcare, incubated in IIT Bombay, has licensed this method for deployment globally. Attendees of the talk included ex-panchayat leaders, active citizens from several layouts, chemical and environment…

The Karnataka High Court dismissed the petition against the proposed national military memorial to be constructed at the Indira Gandhi musical fountain park. The verdict, pronounced by a division bench comprising of Justices Manjula Chellur and Mohan Shantagoudar, on June 4th, said that the proposed war memorial is in the interest of the public and a matter of pride for the citizens of Bengaluru. The bench also said that the National Military Memorial Trust, under the chairmanship of the Chief Minister, will take care of the project. Work at the war memorial site was halted in May this year, after…

A park has been earmarked on Harlur Road, right opposite Raindrops apartment, which is stone throwaway distance from Spencer's mall on Sarjapur Road. The Forward150 Federation has been trying to get it moving.One day BBMP men came and installed big yellow concrete board saying "Udyana Vana" and a children's jungle gym. Not inside the park site. Inside a neighbouring site. Then there was confusion, there was talk of a disputed property and which is the actual park area.In a few months, that resolved and the actual park area was fenced. The elections happened and nothing moved for a while. Nayaz,…

In the special BBMP council session on water more than two weeks ago, Chickpet corporator A N Shivkumar (BJP) complained about the number of unauthorised water connections in his ward. He requested Mayor S K Nataraj (BJP) and BWSSB Chairman P B Ramamurthy to look into the matter. Is the Cauvery water you use metered? Pic: Vaishnavi Vittal This complaint comes well in time as just last month on April 16th 2010, the state assembly* passed an amendment to the BWSSB Act, 1964. Section 108 (a) of this Act is with regard to theft of water which is a punishable…

Hariprakash Agarwal, President, Suncity Apartment Owners Association (SAOA) and Director, Community Services at Rotary Club Bangalore Lakeside, shares this news for residents of Sarjapur Road, Outer Ring Road area.The Rotary Club Bangalore Lakeside, Suncity apartments, Sobha Group of apartments with the help of BBMP have taken up a tree plantation project. We had been planning to plant trees from long time adjacent to Belandur lake and we came to know that 5 June is World Environment Day hence we thought of celebrating it with planting about 500 to 1000 saplings. Most of the planting will happen near Suncity, Euphoria and…

Bangalore Environment Trust has come out with a position paper on the widening of 91 roads in general and six core inner city roads in particular. Bangalore Environment Trust (BET), founded in 1987, works on environment issues concerning the city. Our point is that there is a case for a relook at this 91 roads programme based on various traffic measures being taken by the government like Metro, Monorail, underpasses etc. In any case, we feel that six heritage roads with a large number of old trees must not be widened, but instead various other measures to expedite traffic must…