Identifying Traditional and Responsible ways of Celebrating Ganesh Chaturthi

A One Day Workshop for Children (Ages 9-15)

Ganesh Chaturthi is the birthday of Lord Ganesha, the elephant-headed Hindu God. As we all know, He is a very popular god in India and has become a popular symbol around the world too. Ganesha in different art forms has broken many boundaries of caste, race, religion, and nation and has found a space in many living rooms around the world. He is a favorite among the children too. The story of his birth and the variety of delicacies made on this day are enjoyable for children. Over the last few decades, there has been a considerable shift in our societies across the country from celebrating the festival in a traditional way to a more ostentatious occasion, with little regard to the socio-economic, cultural and environmental impacts.

The workshop is aimed at helping children identify the traditional and historical significance, ways in which it was celebrated in the past, the importance of the traditional foods made on this day and ways in which the festival can be celebrated without causing harm to the environment around us.

The workshop will take children through interesting stories, videos, making clay idols, learning to make traditional decorations such as rangoli, stringing of flowers etc, learning to make traditional foods, learning through some games and more importantly learning to take responsibility towards mother earth in celebrations.

Workshop Date: Sunday, 5th September, 2010

Time: 9.30 am to 4.30 pm

Registration Fee: Rs. 200/-

Venue: ESG Office

Contact Details:

Environment Support Group, 1572, 100 feet Outer Ring Road, Banashankari 2nd Stage, Bangalore-70

Telephone: 91-80-26713559/60/61

Email: bhargavi@esgindia.org /sruthi@esgindia.org

Website: www.esgindia.org

Ganesha Festival: Exhibition cum Sale

Avighna Collections is having an exhibition cum sale of various Ganesha
avatars in fibre, glass and wooden wall hangings too. This exhibition
is held at
Sankhla House, 88, Vyalikaval 3rd main, Bangalore

from

Aug 30th to Sept 10th, 2010.
Please contact 65670035.

An interesting session is being organised for Bangaloreans. This is the message from Civic Dialogue.

Invitation: Change Drivers
Ideas that can make Bangalore more livable.
25th August 2010, 5 pm Onwards
Jaaga Creative Common Ground, Off Richmond Road

As part of the kick off party of our Civic Dialogue Initiative we are organizing a symposium to introduce the Competition and showcase some of the partner NGO’s and activists who a working towards making our city a better place to live! They will tell us their inspiring stories as well as highlight idea for shaping a Bengaluru that we all can be proud of.

Registration is Required

Agenda & Presenters:

4:45- 5:00 pm: Registration

5:00 – 5:15 pm: Introduction: Civic Dialogue Program By Ritu Krutika, Head, Civic Engagement , The Urban Vision

5:15 – 5:30 pm: Managing Waste in Bengaluru: Wilma Rodrigues, Head , Saahas

5:30 – 5:45 pm : Conserving Water for our Future: S. Vishwanath,Founder , Rainwater Club

5:45 – 6:00 pm : Public Space for Collaboration : Freeman Murray,Founder , Jaaga

6:00 – 6:15 pm : Social Media for Social Good : Prathima Manohar , Founder , The Urban Vision

6:15 – 6:30 pm : Clean City – Healthy City , Myriam : Founder , Clean Bengaluru

6:30 – 6:45 pm : Cycling for a Green Bengaluru: Prabhakar Rao ,Founder, Go Green Go Cycling

6:45 – 7:00 pm : Driving Youth to save our Ecology : IYCN Bangalore

7:00 – 7:15 pm : Youth for the garden City : Kapil Sharma , Founder, SayTrees.

Location: This Jaaga site is located on Rhenius Street, Off Richmond Road, Opposite the Hockey Association Stadium main gate, Shanthinagar. More details on the location and how to get there.

About Civic Dialogue:
Civic Dialogue is a public dialogue in which participants (students & young professionals) discuss and report civic issues, policies and decisions of consequence to their lives, communities and society. This program is conceived to encourage a vigorous, well-informed discussion on the city stage about the major issues of the city by engaging the citizens in the city. Write to Ritu@theurbanvision for more info.

iReboot hosts wildlife photography bootcamp for third consecutive year

September will be a pretty busy month at iReboot which is gearing up for the third consecutive year of its most talked about program – the Wildlife Photography Workshop. The entries are pouring in, the program is currently being redesigned and the participants are already rearing to go. In a nutshell, this program combines two most common realms of hobbies- wildlife and photography- which have very good potential of being converted to full-time professions in the long run. iReboot will make the necessary arrangement to have the participants sent off to The Bannerghatta National Park with a qualified, professional wildlife photographer (their previous mentors include celeb names like Kalyan Varma and Amogha Varsha).

butterfly

Students can expect professional guidance from their mentor and learn the basic principles of wildlife photography and most importantly, they can look-forward to a thorough individual evaluation of the pictures taken during Safari’s and various expeditions around the park. The course work of this program has been the main USP of the bootcamp. Participants have shared their appreciation for highly relevant content and have praised it for its detailed structure and synopsis.

Post program perks include a free membership to the Photon Club, where the skill-set of the participants are further nurtured through regular commercial assignments and meet-ups. In addition to this, iReboot ensures that the participants take complete advantage of the resources available for their long-term benefit, such as one-on-one sessions with the mentor, tie-up’s with renowned photography magazines and networking at large.

September 2010 workshop for wildlife photography will be held at the Bannerghatta National Park on the 18th and 19th. Program relevant information can be found on iReboot’s website www.ireboot.com.

To see what our other participants have done during their stint, please go through these Flickr images.

Invitation: 10,000 Women 2010

Greetings from NEN!

We’re writing to inform you of an exciting entrepreneurship education program that might be of interest to you or to someone you know.

Launched by Goldman Sachs, the 10,000 Women program is a global initiative to increase the number of under-served women receiving business and management education. The initiative rests on the belief that partnerships between education, development and business experts can help bring about significant change through improved business education for women. The Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, is the academic partner for the 10,000 Women program in India.

Through this programme, Goldman Sachs and the ISB are offering an intensive course to provide world-class education to help women entrepreneurs to think big, and to grow their businesses.
This year, courses will be taught in several cities. Currently, applications are being accepted for Hyderabad and Bangalore. Deadline for application for Bangalore is 23rd August and for Hyderabad is 24th August. Courses start in October, and scholarships are available.

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Onam Sadya is a tradition at the Ranga Shankara cafe. Anju Sudarshan, the lady who runs the cafe, puts her heart and soul to whip up a buffet that brings the flavours, tastes and colours Kerala to Ranga Shankara. This year, the Onam Sadya lunch is set for 1 PM t0 3 PM, Sun, Aug 22. Prior reservation necessary — please call 9900064931.

Onam- the harvest festival of Kerala is celebrated during the Malayali month of Chingam (Aug- Sep). This festival lasts for ten days and marks the homecoming of the legendary king Mahabali. These ten days bring out the best of Kerala culture and tradition. Intricately decorated Pookalam, ambrosial Onasadya, breathtaking Snake Boat Race and exotic Kaikottikali dance are some of the most remarkable features of Onam.

—
Ranga Shankara
36/2, 8th Cross
J P Nagar, II Phase
Bangalore – 560 078
P: 080-26493982 / 26592777
E: rstheatre@gmail.com

Dramanon presents “Elling” at Ranga Shankara

on Aug 6th Fri (7:30 PM) & Aug 7th Sat (3:30 PM & 7:30 PM)

About the Play : Mommy’s boy Elling and his roommate, the uncouth Kjell Bjarne, are the Odd Couple of Oslo; a pair of confused souls taking their first steps in the outside world after years of isolated, institutional life. Given a flat in the city by the social services department, they must re-assimilate themselves into society or face a return to the asylum. So its simply a question of convincing their social worker that they are really normal – even if it does feel safer sleeping in the wardrobe. Based on the cult Norwegian novel by Ingvar Ambjørnsen and Oscar nominated film, Elling is a delightful heart-warming comedy.

More info on – www.dramanon.webs.com

For tickets call 9900088432 or log on to www.indianstage.in or www.bookmyshow.com

Tickets also available at Ranga Shankara. Rs.150/-

Amoghavarsha, an experienced wildlife photographer, is conducting another monsoon wildlife/photography expedition.

The next monsoon expedition to Agumbe is scheduled for 28th and 29th of August. This will be the last expedition in the peak monsoons, after this the monsoons will subside and so will photography opportunities.

The last expedition was exciting and very fruitful with sightings of 2 wild King Cobras at close quarters and of course many more snakes, frogs and nocturnal animals.

Do take a look at

http://amoghavarsha.com/workshops/agumbe/

for more information, testimonials and photographs.

If any of you are interested, contact Amogh at +91 99010 44344.

For a long time, I’ve heard references by foodies to J P Nagar being “Cheapie Nagar” as there were only eateries, no “restaurants” in the area. Well, this seemed to suit most people fine, as they would drop in at a Darshini, or an IT-service eatery, to have a quick bite, and “dining out” meant dressing up and going to the centre of the town.

As traffic increased, so did the reluctance of the people of south Bangalore to brave logjams to go out for dinner…and perhaps Ankur Nagpal and his wife Shilpi saw this gap and decided to fill it.

“Aroy” (“delicious” in Thai) opened a few months ago, and when I returned after a long absence, my walk along the Mini-Forest made me realize that a bookstore and a restaurant had both opened within a stone’s throw (not that I throw stones, but….)

The decor and ambience of the restaurant was very impressive indeed. The open terrace is beautifully decorated, and looks out on the dense Eucalyptus foliage of the Mini-Forest. The decor is undertated, but very streamlined and contemporary.

So on Saturday, I decided to go to Aroy around 7pm and make a booking for later in the evening…and was told by the hostess, Jenny, that it was booked full! However, she did take my booking, and when we went there by about 8.30pm, we were told that we could not have a table on the terrace (which we wanted) so we sat inside.

Our drinks (Long Island Iced Tea, and Mojito) were outstanding, and there is no doubt that the barman knows his stuff. But contrary to what the menu card said (only 30ml of alchohol in every drink) the Long Island Iced Tea contained 75 ml. However, this wasn’t a minus, and we sipped contentedly.

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In the month of July, Vikap Bengaluru brings you two films:

1. July 16th
Mean Sea Level
by Pradip Saha

Time: 6.30 pm
Venue: Alliance Francaise, 108 Thimmaiah Road, Opp.UNI Building Vasanthnagar, Bangalore
Phone: 4080 8181 / 4123 1340

2. July 17th
THE SPEAKING HAND – Zakir Hussain and the art of the Indian drum
by Sumantra Ghosal

Time: 6 pm sharp
Venue: Centre for Film and Drama, 5th floor, Sona Towers, 71 Millers Road, Bangalore
Phone: 22356263

Both the screenings are free and open to all.

Filmmakers of both the documentaries will be present for their screenings.

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