Society

It's been a little over a year now that the nation rode the ‘Nirbhaya’ wave. However, this is not to say that there have been crimes any lesser before that or even after. Innocent women getting raped when they go about their ‘normal’ day is horrendous enough; but what would you make of something like this? In a city like Bangalore? Where population is exploding and there are no clear ‘peak’ times - which means Bangalore is almost always busy. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6… all the way up to 65+ are the ages of girls and women getting raped…

Something that happens once may be brushed aside as an aberration. What if it occurs twice? I am a regular commuter on the garden city Bengaluru's buses. Needless to say, I spend a substantial amount of time both at bus stops and on the bus. One resource that is aplenty on buses and at bus stops is people. Where there are people, there is scope for interaction. Interactions are not a norm at bus stops or buses. Each person prefers their own space in this situation. That is why even a rare exchange could prove interesting, unlike one may have…

Till last year, I didn’t know who Paul Fernandes was, though I had seen his artwork all over Bangalore, occasionally colourfully covering up a bland restaurant wall or even an old space. I loved his work, without realising it was his work. Then, on a day walking during lunchtime, I stepped into his shop at Richard’s Park and connected all the humourous comic chronicles of 70s Bangalore I had seen strewn around in Bangalore. (And fell in love with a bag, but that’s another story). I stayed, my eyes crinkling with laughter at each of the framed posters.  As I left, I…

It is a known fact that areas like Malleswaram and Basavanagudi play a significant role in shaping the city's love for classical music. Other than Indian Heritage Academy in Koramangala and BTM Cultural Academy, there are very few places easily accessible to classical music fans living in South-East Bangalore. Ranjani Fine Arts (RFA), a non-profit charitable trust, has stepped in to bridge this gap. ‘Enable, Educate, Access,' are quite possibly the words that define Ranjani Fine Arts’ raison d'etre. Ranjani Fine Arts (RFA) has for the past two years, been nurturing and developing the cultural landscape in the Sarjapur Road - Outer Ring…

Image Courtesy: https://www.facebook.com/TRRAIN The next time you walk into a cafeteria or a pizza store, watch out for something a little more noteworthy than your steaming pizza. A differently abled person could be working in the back area, and quite possibly with more élan than your usual order taker! Several food retail outlets in the city including Café Coffee Day, Dominos, Subway and McDonald’s, are increasingly hiring people with disability, particularly folks who are speech and hearing impaired, to build an inclusive environment at the workplace. Interestingly, fellow employees are more than welcoming to this trend. 'I don’t feel different…

The finals of the Bala Janaagraha civic festival is going to be conducted at Devraj Urs Auditorium, Millers Tank Bund Road, Vasanth Nagar, Bengaluru, on Saturday, January 18, 2014. A press note from Bala Janaagraha team gives more details: Bala Janaagraha is a uniquely designed, carefully thought out civic education program conducted for Grade VIII students of government, aided and private schools in Bangalore. Our vision is to transform today’s children into active citizens of tomorrow. The curriculum is different from the standard civic lessons taught in schools. In the curriculum designed by Bala Janaagraha the student becomes the primary…

Though the recent release of her latest novel, Ghost Hunters of Kurseong, a children’s book, has kept Shweta Taneja  busy, she was kind enough to take time off her busy schedule to spend some time answering a few questions and discussing her inspirations, writing and her new book.Growing up in Delhi, surrounded by a large and loving family, she had a penchant for narrating scary stories to her cousins on nights, especially on those nights ravaged by storms, when the electricity flickered out. Excerpts from the interview: Q. How did you get into writing? Is this something you’ve always known…

Bengaluru is home to Sandalwood, the Kannada film Industry. The industry produces 120-130 movies an year and has about 10% success rate like other major film industries of India. Unfortunately, unlike other film industries, Sandalwood is known for banning dubbing of content to Kannada. This unofficial ban on dubbing content effectively isolates Kannadigas who know only Kannada (approximately there are 2.5 to 3 crore Kannadigas who know only Kannada and no other language) from the sea of knowledge and entertainment that exists in other languages. A poster of Titanic, dubbed into Telugu. Pic courtesy: harithehero.blogspot.com We must note that the…

Around 9am on Sunday morning as I walked to my nearby slum where I teach yoga to superbly enthusiastic kids every week, I saw a poster hanging at its entrance. Rajnikanth’s smiling face jumped out of the poster. Alongside were two words in English: Happy Birthday. It  was a small poster, about A3 size, strung up casually, hanging in the air, tilted. The poster had more love than execution (Wish I had taken a picture, but I usually don’t take my phone to the class). Representative purpose only Before the class began, I asked the kids who put it there and…

December 22 is National Mathematics Day in India, in honour of the great Mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan who was born in Erode on 22 December 1887. In his short lifespan of 32 years, Ramanujan discovered and rediscovered (things unknown in India at that time, but known in other countries) about 3900 theorems and equations that have mostly been proven correct, and have been the basis for new research around the world. One of his more known magical revelations was that the number 1729 is the smallest number that can be expressed as the cube of two numbers in two different ways.…