“The project, consisting of seven underground stations, will be commissioned by September 2012. On completion, train service will be provided at an interval of four minutes initially, and it will be reduced to three minutes in due course,” BMRCL has committed to get the entire network ready by that month in an affidavit filed in the Karnataka High Court. Hope this deadline does not remain on the affidavit alone…

Lalbagh is protected by a separate, stringent law. In a highly undemocratic move, the Karnataka Government changed the law by moving an ordinance to acquire Lalbagh land for the Metro, rather than prefer a debate over the changed law, in the Assembly. The opposition has also failed to protest this undemocratic move.

Lalbagh and Lakshman Rao Park on R.V.Road, (also called the AC Road, Nanda Road ), both major landmarks and heritage of Bangalore are being destroyed for the Metro. This when the High Court is hearing PIL over alternatives in Metro alignment.

What seems like a minor portion of Lalbagh gone today will surely lead to greater portion of the park being taken away to create parking zones and malls that the Metro plans at its stations.

When they sought clearance, Metro authorities claimed trees on Nanda Road will be pruned, and not felled. Now they want to cut 323 trees on Nanda Road(R.V.Road) alone.

The BBMP Tree Officer has confirmed that the tree felling in Lalbagh was not cleared by him. This makes felling of Lalbagh’s heritage trees, daylight robbery!

Don’t be a mute witness to this wanton destruction and illegal desecration of our parks and open spaces.

Come out and protest. Demand from candidates standing in the Parliamentary Election from Bangalore South to make their stand clear on the issue.

Let us stop the illegal construction of Metro in Lalbagh.

Join the Human Chain to be formed at the illegal demolition site(at R.V.Road, near Lalbagh westgate) on Wednesday, April 15, 6.00 pm.

Be there. 6 pm. …….

Hasiru Usiru

* The Walk is to highlight that there are many progressive and intelligent solutions to the current problems of traffic congestion that do not involve destruction of thousands of trees, businesses and homes.
* The Walk is to emphasise the importance of including public consultations as required by law in road widening and Metro construction proposals. (Currently, both projects are being rushed through in blatant violation of the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act, amongst others.)
* The Walk is to emphasise that the Metro is a solution that can work only if integrated with bus based transport modes. (Building an elevated Metro will certainly ruin the city forever.)
* The Walk is to assert our right to participate in decision making relating to projects of our city.

To mobilise support for this Walk, we have developed a flyer and the same is attached.

Please feel free to print or forward the flyer and kindly use it in mobilizing the wide public to ensure maximum participation in the walk. We also request you to contribute to the expenses involved in this initiative.

Hasiru Usiru members are keen to meet with your community or organisation and explain why this Walk is so necessary now. Please confirm if you would like one of the Hasiru Usiru volunteers to meet with your community and make a presentation.

For details of participation or to make a donation please contact Nandini, Divya or Sharmila at Environment Support Group. Email: bellursharmila@yahoo.com / nandini@esgindia.org / divyarrs@esgindia.org. Call them at Environment Support Group on (080)26531339, (080) 22441977 (b/w 10:30 AM and 5:30 PM) on all working days.

Namma Rasthe.. Namma Uru.. Hasire Usiru!

(Our Roads…. Our City… Greenery is Life’s Breath)

Looking forward to your participation.

Since one entire wall is glass, the afternoon/evening sun pours in through it.

This is all very well for cities in cold countries where sunshine is a rare commodity, and buildings need to be heated. But here, where the mercury yesterday was at 34 degrees Celsius, it meant a huge volume of space where things were very uncomfortable.

Here are the staff, who have to sit facing the hot and intense sunlight throughout the afternoon:

The customers also have to sit in the sun, but at least they have their backs to it..and they are there for far less time.

The Airtel office is air-conditioned; I can also guess at the amount of energy and electricity it must be taking to cool down the space heated by the glass design of the building.

The architect who designed Jal Bhavan (it’s the building in the dead centre of that map, next to that “pleated” building) has said that glass is a bad material for architecture in India; it heats up the inside of the buildings, which then have to be cooled down at enormous cost in terms of electricity/energy.

Having been in the Airtel office, I would tend to agree.

I was walking down the Jayadeva flyover when I noticed these posters:

Here’s the English one:

and the Kannada one:

I had never been aware at all that there was this kind of initiative to give some voice to some of the minority groups in our city. Unfortunately, the posters do not clearly specify where the venue is (I do not know where Bannappa Park is) and so might have lost a lot of their effectiveness in getting a gathering there.

I wonder who organized this rally and cultural event, and how it went.

Life is tough enough when one belongs to the “normal” category; I can only imagine how it must be if society in general does not accept one, and one faces derision and castigation at every turn….many people handle it by not being open about themselves. Those who are honest enough to declare themselves as being “different” are those who face the maximum difficulties.

I saw the posters too late to attend the event; but they made me think a lot about the human condition, and tolerance, or the lack of it, in our society.

In fact, there are times when I wish that even if lecture-demonstration concerts, there is less of the lecture and more of the singing! But this of course is only my opinion….

But music lovers have many good concerts in store yet, but how people are expected to arrive for a concert at 5 pm on a working day is not something I can understand…nor the different timings on different days. However, there must be some logic to this.

Venue: Government Junior College, Fort High School Grounds.

Monday, April 14:

5pm, Saptha Swara award presentation to the following artistes, Parasala Ponnammal, T K Govinda Rao, Manakkal Rangarajan, Tiruananthapuram R Venkataraman, Mysore Mahadevappa, H G Krishnamurhty.

6.45pm, Kadri Gopalnath on the saxophone, with Kanyakumari on the violin and percussion by Harikumr, N Amruth and B Rajashekar.

Tuesday April 15:

5pm, Manasi Prasad and party.

7.15pm, Pattabhirama Pandit, TKV Ramanujacharyalu, Arjun Kumar and B N Chandramouli

Wednesday, April 16:

5.15pm: Kamakshi and Meenakshi, vocal duet.
6.30pm: R K Padmnabha, Parur M A Krishnaswamy, H S Sudhindra, and Sukanya Ramgopal.

Thursday, April 17:

5.15 pm: C Arvind Athryea and party.
6.30pm: N Vijaya Siva,N Charulatha Ramanujam, Neyveli Narayanan, N Amruth.

Friday, April 18:

5.15pm: Padmashree and Godamani, vocal duet
6.30pm: Malladi Brothers, Sriram and Ravi, TKV Ramanujacharyalu, K V Prasad, and B N Chandramouli.

Saturday, April 19:

5.15pm, Surabhi and party
6.30pm, Mysore Nagaraj and Mysore Manjunath, violin duet, Tiruvarur Bhakhtavatsalam and Vaikom Gopalakrishnan.

Sunday, April 20:

Founder’s Day.

9am: Felicitations to senior musicians and musicologists. Nedunuri Krishanmurthy, Nagai Muralidharan, K V Prasad, N Amruth.

6.30pm:Hyderabad Brothers, Raghavachary and Seshachary), S Varadarajan, Mannargudi Easwaran, B R Ravikumar.

Do enjoy as many of these concerts as you can!

Surely something that the BBMP can remember, in their haste to cut down as many trees as possible in the quickest time…

the election campaign for the Janata Dal is beginning, with this vehicle. Here’s the front view:

The back view:

and the side view:

the name says, “jAthyAtheetha janatha dal” (secular janata dal; literally translated, “beyond caste”).

Then comes the banner that asks if you are on the electoral rolls, and if not, tells you what to do:

The elections, they are a-coming, and we’re getting ready, too……

Do any of these frustrate you on a daily basis?
* Being stuck in a traffic jam for hours on end
* Seeing Bangalore being destroyed day by day
* Lack of respect for pedestrian movement
* High air pollution levels
* Huge, beautiful trees being hacked down

So far we have been waiting for SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE to do SOMETHING about the crisis. Nobody is doing anything about it.

We are trying to form a city-wide group of people with skills, time and passion who are willing to do something about this crisis.
Be the change you want to see. Come and join Hasiru Usiru, and the Environment Support Group, in making Bangalore a better place to live.

Date : Sunday, April 6
Time : 3 pm.

Agenda:
We will have a talk detailing the crisis, and describe possible solutions. We’ll then have a discussion on how we can go about implementing them.

Venue: Environment Support Group
105, East End ‘B’ Main Road
Jayanagar 9th Block East
Bangalore – 560069.

Directions:

Map: http://www.esgindia.org/contact/contact.html
(From East End Circle in Jayanagar, go towards Jayadeva Hospital.
Turn left just before the Reebok showroom. ESG is on the right, behind the Reebok showroom).